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Fellow student asked question from take-home exam on Stack Exchange
In an advanced university course on computer science and problem solving, one of my fellow students asked for a solution to a home exam on one of the Stack Exchange sites. The question he asked is taken directly from the exam without modification also stating that this is practice question for the upcoming exam. He got the solution. There was more than one question.
The professor always creates questions that are unique. It clearly states that questions on the exam must only be directed to the professor himself.
Now for the moral dilemma. I feel very uneasy about reporting although knowing that it will hurt future students and in the long term the status of the school. Will it affect me? Most likely not.
I would like input on how others would reason about this.

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How do you know it was asked by the cheater and not someone else?

Let's be clear here. From your description, the student clearly cheated by violating the take-home exam's stated policy that (quoting from your comment on @user2768's answer) "it is prohibited to ask anyone for an answer". Thus, your question reduces to the generic question of "should I report a fellow student who cheated?", to which the answer is "yes", as discussed endlessly on many previous questions on this site, e.g.:
Is it okay to report classmates cheating on exams?
Is it reasonable to report another student for cheating when it has no impact on me?
When is it acceptable to report classmates who cheat on an exam?
Should I report cheating to my professor? If so, how?
One can debate (as some here are doing) the viability of take-home exams as an assessment tool, since such exams create relatively easy opportunities for cheating, but that is besides the point. The student cheated, and should be reported. The "moral dilemma" you are referring to is a completely bogus one created by the outdated cultural conditioning that exists in many societies according to which "ratting people out" for bad behavior is morally wrong -- see my analysis of this issue in this answer.
Edit: I noticed that you wrote in a comment that “his account is filled with questions related to assignments in different courses”. Thus, he is not just a cheater, he is a serial cheater, which makes the case for reporting him much stronger. I suggest saving evidence of his cheating (screenshots etc) before reporting to prevent him from hiding his wrongdoing by deleting the questions.

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"I suggest saving evidence of his cheating (screenshots etc) before reporting to prevent him from hiding his wrongdoing by deleting the questions." A third party internet archival service (such as archive.org) would be better and easier. It also makes claiming that they are fake for some reason harder, since internet archival services are known to be rather reliable.

@PyRulez any 10k user can see deleted content on Stack Exchange, so all you really need is to keep links, and if it gets deleted, ask on Meta if screenshots are accurate.  Most likely, moderators would confirm, if someone explains why he is asking.

@PyRulez and Molot good points, but frankly this whole discussion about evidence and how to protect against a “forged screenshots” claim by the student is a little bit ridiculous. Universities are not criminal justice courts, and do not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to punish someone for academic misconduct. As someone who was a member of my campus’s judicial board and participated in hearings for students accused of misconduct, I can assure you that creenshots will be more than enough to establish the student’s guilt at the necessary level of certainty.

@DanRomik What if the user claims its not their account though? That would be rather plausible.

@PyRulez: Yeah it's not foolproof, but chances are it will be hard to claim an account isn't yours when you've used it to cheat in multiple classes, including advanced ones at that. Just depends on how many students have taken those particular sets of classes at those times.

If you are confident that the instructor will be discreet about the identity of the informant (you), then it can't hurt to let the instructor know.
But your concern seems to be more about the exam design and the course grading scheme than about whether your classmate played fair or not.
Therefore I'd suggest that you inform the director of graduate studies in your department instead.  I'd usually feel more confident about someone at that level being discreet, and also that's the person who could provide support to the instructor for improving the exam design and the grading scheme in future semesters.
I'd suggest making an appointment to tell the administrator in person rather than sending an email.  (You can request the appointment either with the secretary or by emailing the administrator.  If anyone asks you what it's about, say it's a confidential matter.)
The meeting can be brief, but do close the door.

I'd say you need some further confidence as well: you need someone who can be trusted to be a good and fair judge. IMHO the case that someone cheated is OKish, but the case that the to-be-accused student cheated is actually rather weak. Now, given we have an instructor who hands out homework with rules that rather invite this kind of trouble - is that instructor likely to be a good judge here?

@cbeleites - My first paragraph means: If you aren't confident the instructor will be discreet, don't inform the instructor. // When I said give the info to the director of graduate studies, I meant, let him/her know the Q was posted at SE.  (Frankly, I think it would be difficult to prove an academic misconduct case against the student whose name was used to post on SE.  The student with that name could say (truthfully or not, who am I to say?) that someone else posted under that name.  I really see nothing unethical about providing the information to the graduate director...

... unless you live in a police state.  In which case OP would not even be asking the question. // Now, if OP is in a country which in recent memory was a police state, chances are they wouldn't ask this question at all.  So I think it is reasonable for me to suppose that OP does not live in a police state, unless the question indicates otherwise.

Even 30 years after the fall of communism we have a very strong memory of people denunciating their peers. Even if we were just small children. Snitches are hugely unpopular. It wasn't just communist, the nazis and even the old Austrian police used snitches a lot (see Brettschneider in Good Soldier Schweik). That's why we have so many names for these people, just take those mention by Karel Kryl in  one single song: chlupatej,  čmuchal, bonzák, tajnej, práskač, fízl, udavač, špehoun, špicl, špeh, donašeč, konfident, informant, slídil. I don't want the students to snitch on their schoolmates.

@VladimirF - If the instructor doesn't want the students to snitch on their schoolmates, but you want a high level of academic integrity, then I guess that puts greater onus on the instructor to cheat-proof the course design, properly support student success (to reduce motivation for cheating), and check (or at least spot-check, but in a thorough way) for cheating.

But ultimately, Vladimir, I think the problem resides more in the what happens after the information is provided than in the snitching itself.  You find snitching repugnant, because of cultural and historical context.  Perhaps it is hard for you to imagine an educational institution where administrators can be trusted to make good decisions with the information they are given about problems that have arisen. See https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/98226/32436. But if you do not believe in the integrity of your department, you have a very big problem.

Directors of graduate studies are not administrators, but faculty with a particular administrative responsibility. (At least, wherever I've been - hardly an exhaustive global survey, I admit.) And they don't usually have secretaries.

@cfr - Not personal secretaries, but a department secretary may function as a go-between.  If not just ask for an appointment directly. // What term do you think I should use in place of administrator (in that sentence of my post)?

I'd just repeat 'director of graduate studies'. I'm assuming we're talking the US here, by the way, else there may well be no such person. You're obviously been at very different institutions from me: where I've been, department secretaries would be confused, at best, if you tried to make an appointment with the directory of graduate studies through them (unless you were a prospective or new student, unaware of who the relevant person was), but more likely positively irritated. I've never been anywhere where their jobs included playing go-between of that kind.

@cfr - Well, if a secretary tells me I'm barking up the wrong tree -- that hardly seems a disaster.  Generally, secretaries, if spoken to in a polite, friendly way, will respond in kind, and orient the asker, and explain the right way to go about things.  Your comments strike me as nitpicky -- or perhaps you've had some bad experiences?

"Unless police state": well, I think it is also to some extent the other way round. Police states are more easily established if there's already a culture of denunciation: all that is then needed is to convince people gradually that more and more things are wrong and need to be reported.

@cbeleites - Sounds like the chicken and the egg.  I still think it all comes down to what you expect to happen if you report a problem.  As a TA in a US university, when I reported a problem, I expected the problem to be dealt with fairly.  And it was.  If I imagine working in a different system where I don't have a reasonable expectation of the problem being dealt with fairly, then I would not report the problem to anyone, and I would crawl back into my hamster hole and perhaps start plotting either escape or revolution.

I would not make a « home exam » worth any grading points : there is no control on who does the work - it could be anybody and their uncle or aunt...
That way, even if they get it solved on stack exchange or the geek down the street they are the ones who suffer as they may not be able to adapt that to a new problem as they did not solve it with their own thought processes.
Edit, as it belongs in here:
You could still have a quiet word with the faculty and say that some students had it solved externally - what they decide to do is up to them...
I do think they will be between a rock and a hard place - some students not happy if they do nothing and some students unhappy if they change the grading at this point in time (that is, if they can / could change at this late stage)...

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A solution to this that is not in the existing answers would be to email the class (and professor) with a brief description and a link to the stack exchange thread. From a burner email if necessary.
This removes the advantage from whichever student posted the question, without needing to accurately identify said student. And from all the others who innocently ran across the discussion.
It also draws some attention to the flaws of this method of assessment.

You should generally report violations of the honor code.  In addition to the very good reasons provided by others here, most universities and colleges include as part of their honor code that all violations are to be reported if discovered - regardless of whether they affect the person reporting or not.
Even simple honor codes require disclosure, “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this examination, nor have I concealed any violations of the Honor Code.”  Simply by knowing about it and choosing not to reveal it puts you at risk of violating the honor code.
If you are still concerned and indecisive, seek assistance from your honor council.  Almost every university has a group that you can consult with for questions like this.  They will very quickly be able to guide you to what your school requires of you in this situation.

There is another question behind: Who is being actually cheated?
The key role of the course is not to get a tick mark but to learn something form the lecturer. If they thinks you learn enough to pass, they give you the mark.
In case you are solving assigned problems by yourself you are practising the problem solving and you are strengthening all the skills needed to solve given problem. You are practising in a safe sandbox on problems designed to teach you with a lecturer to your hand. Once outside you are about to solve problems expected to work, no matter how, and usually with confidential data/details.
In case you are "solving" assigned problems by copy-pasting the question on the internets and copy-pasting results as your work you are not learning anything new. You are not practising anything either. You are cheating on yourself!
Once outside, you are about to solve real problems with real responsibilities. Really not the place to learn!
Now to your moral dillemma:

I feel very uneasy about reporting although knowing that it will hurt future students and in the long term the status of the school.

No, it won't hurt any student present or future. Except the cheating ones. Actually it may help them. Not everyone knows about this site and mentioning it in the course rules may attract new users. Also the lecturer may start using it as a source for inspiration and may refer that some hints may be found here. The lecturer may start their own account here and humiliating the cheater by "This code seems familiar to me and I wonder why. Oh yes, I posted it on StackOverflow yesterday."
To affect a school's status this cheating must be systematical for years to show some connection of underskilled staff and their alma mater. Or they must cause a very serious flaw to be recognised with the school. My alma mater suffers from this, but it was caused by a long term bribery on dean's level at a different faculty.

Will it affect me?

It depends on the lecturer. They may ignore your report and mark you as a stool pigeon or they take it seriously. It also depends on your wording how you present your claims, motives and worries.
There is one advantage for you: A lot of people get annoyed or angry when they realise that the waste time designing a task - it must have a solution - then reading and marking the solution while the other side's work was done in 8 keystrokes.
Maybe you can start with something like

I am actively using StackOverflow to find hints/approaches that helps me with solving problems you have assigned me and/or to find another challenges to solve and I have found some of your questions asked and answered there and I think you should know about it.

I'd like to throw in the opinion that the moral dilemma "accept ongoing cheating without doing anything" vs. "reporting the student" is a false dichotomy as there are other options besides reporting "the" student.
And I'd like to point out that gut feeling that there is some difficulty in answering the question (dilemma) is exactly right: IMHO it is a dilemma, and options and their consequences need to be considered carefully.

Before diving into the case, let me say: @kingledion nicely commented that honesty and trust are important cultural values - with which I totally agree. But I'd like to point out that this works here both ways: reporting other people (justly) undermines trust. The more so, as you may still be reporting the wrong person, see below. So this undermining of trust happens even if you honestly believe to report the right culprit - plus: all others do not have firsthand knowledge of your honesty.
Even worse, a culture that unquestioningly/unconditionally encourages people to report wrongdoers also allows or even encourages dishonest people to report other people just from spite - including people who did not do wrong. (This is a type of abuse of power; keep in mind that innocent people who are denounced do suffer, even if they happen to be able to clear themselves)
So not only not discouraging cheating, but also reporting a particular student comes at a cost for your society.

I put "the" student in quotation marks because from what I've read in this thread so far, you do not know that that particular student has cheated: Keep in mind that it is very easy to open an account on stackexchange and type in someone else's name to be displayed. And even if a student brags about having cheated, you need to weigh the possibility that they just wanted to sound cool without actually having cheated (false claim).
To be clear: yes, it may be more probable that the student you think of did cheat than that they did not cheat. But you do not have sure knowledge of that, just a suspicion. And if you want that there should be official consequences for the student, solid proof is needed (at least, that is as it should be).
So let me suggest two more options besides "doing nothing" and "reporting the student to the authorities" that tackle the two problems we've identified here:

Someone is cheating and this should stop
Homework rules could be improved (reducing not only the probability of cheating, but also that of future students find themselves in the same dilemma you are in, and/or that of a general atmosphere of distrust and denouncements)

About

You could quietly talk to the student you suspect. I think of asking them whether they know that someone opened an SX account with more or less their name displayed where homework-no-asking questions are actually asked - because according to what you explained here that is actually all you know.
This would give them a fair chance of deciding how to appropriately handle the situation (fair particularly as we've realized now there is a non-negligible risk of wrongly accusing here: a student whose name is misused this way surely has a right to know that this is going on)
My very personal opinion (feel free to differ - but please think about it) here is that the more likely your authorities are to jump to the conclusion that the denounced student is guilty, and the more serious the consequences of a false accusation are and the more difficult it is for someone falsely accused to defend themselves (How do you prove that you do not own a particular stackexchange account?), the more important it is to make sure noone is falsely accused in the first place. Also take into account that even if the accused can comparably easily clear themselves of the suspicion, that until this is publicly clear depending on the possible consequences they will suffer (Make the thought experiment: what would you who never even considered cheating do and feel if you were falsely accused).
As a side benefit, this would give you experience in excercising civil courage. And in practical subsidiarity as in: do not escalate/hand over difficulties to "higher authorities" that you can solve yourself.
OTOH, if the atmosphere is already so distrustful that you don't dare to mention the cheating because you fear you'd be denounced in turn: then I'd agree that talking to the suspect is not the way to go. But then neither should (hopefully!) the instructor listen to any reports about cheating students, and a totally different strategy would be needed to change things.
As I said above, I do see a distinct cost to the denouncement in itself. However, assuming you can do your "duty" against cheating e.g. by directly talking to the student in question, you can think whether your duty against problem 2 may be done without undermining trust as well.

let the instructor know in their end-of-course evaluation that you deem the homework situation suboptimal due to possible cheating and denouncements by asking someone else/on the internet: e.g. that you personally would have preferred if marks areearned only on proper exams
if there is no such evaluation, you can talk to the instructor after all marks are given.

If you came to me (faculty) with the "case" as described, I would explain to you that there is no proof against the student (see above), that from your description and a look at stackexchange alone you cannot judge who is dishonest here (the accused student or some [unknown] other student abusing their name) - and much less can I: in addition to the two possibilities you point out, I have to consider the possibility that you are falsely accusing a student you dislike.
I'd then probably ask you what you'd like me to do in this situation.
I'd probably talk to the accused student in private and certainly without letting you know that this is going to happen (see possibility 3) - telling them there's a rumour they cheat and a possibility that someone is abusing their name on the internet (making sure they don't learn your name, neither).
[Side note: in school, a fellow student who was copying from me was once caught. When collecting the exam, the teacher told them (making sure I could hear it): "Next time try yourself, OK?" - which I think was far more efficient wrt. avoiding future cheating than any kind of big fuss and fail mark for both of us.]
I'd think how to discourage this type of cheating in grade-relevant exams.
But then, I grew up in a university culture where grade-relevant marks could not be earned by homework that could be done by someone else (so I'm quite familiar with this type of thought). To the extent that the important exams were oral. Written exams often were "bring all books you like" [if you didn't understand the course contents, you anyways won't be able to extract sufficient amounts of relevant information during the exam].
Homework may earn you a very few points (as an incentive to not completely disregard the homework) but never even half the points to bare passing.

Finally, let me put the "do I have to report some wrongdoing" feeling into some context: over here (Germany), there is no duty to report a crime that has already happened for normal citizens - and there are only rather restricted duties if you learn that a major crime is planned (even in case of a planned murder, you don't have to report that to the police if you report it to the intended victim or [successfully!] prevent it yourself) - though you can report lots of things, and some suspicions you can even report anonymously.
A while ago I read a newspaper article about the local ("county") veterinarian office. They said that probably about 1/3 of the reported cases of cruelty against animals are not concern about animal wellbeing but clear spite against the accused owner. Which causes all kinds of trouble. Not only for the accused and for vet officers who have less time for the real cases, but also because it sows distrust in the neighbourhood. (And another third of the cases was estimated to be honest but unneeded and quite incorrigible concerns [think "those ducklings are in danger of drowning - no you lazy officer, don't try to tell me they are not. I know they are in danger. You need to get going and DO something."])

Er. I agree that the SE post alone isn't proof of anything.  What I would expect you to do, as professor, is compare the SE solution with the exams turned in by the students.  If there are unacceptable similarities, then you have your proof, and I would expect you to proceed with a case against the student.

I would also expect you to ask the student whose name appears on the post whether it was them who posted it. If they say yes, demand an explanation.  If they say no, continue to investigate, and if you find further evidence that it really was them, proceed with a case against them, with an extra "count" of lying to the professor.

@NateEldredge: Oh, sure, even without being professor I've asked quite a number of students how they happened to "forget" citing [website]. That would IMHO be a rather clear and easy-to-deal-with case of misconduct. However, I'd treat this as completely separate from accusations by another student. But the case in terms of asking questions in the internet is IMHO going to stay comparably weak: unless the rule was not only "all questions to me" but also "no literature allowed" (of which OP didn't mention anything), I'd need to proove that the accused student actually asked the question. And..

I agree with your analysis of the problem with reporting a specific student. However, I would solve that dilemma by reporting the SE question to the faculty member. As @NateEldredge says, the answer available there could then be compared to submitted exams, so anyone who was clearly taking advantage of the SE answers could be identified.

There are two separate violations possible here.  Simply asking the question may be a violation in itself, though OP hasn't made that clear, and we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the named student actually asked that question.  But if the named student actually copies the answer from SE onto his exam, then that will be a very clear violation, which is open and shut, and it won't be necessary to prove anything about who posted the question.  ...

We don't yet know if this has actually happened, but it seems very likely that it will.  OP should make sure that the professor is aware of the SE post, so that he can compare it against the exams turned in (otherwise, how will he know to look for it?).  This isn't an accusation at all, merely sharing important information.

@NateEldredge: How would prof. know to look at SX: I regularly used to google parts of written homework/reports/protocols - and google just loves SX...
So assuming OP reports violation of "no questions to anyone else" and I find a copy & paste homework. That would leave me still at the point where I'd explain to OP that there is no proof to their accusation, and to point out the weak points in OPs argument chain. Just as I'd point out logical flaws in homework.

@NateEldredge: no need to shout. We could also just agree to disagree on the question when and what should be reported. But if you like, we can continue talking in the chat - though it's getting late over here and I'd ask you to postpone this task to e.g. Tuesday. I have noted (already on similar earlier questions) a pronounced difference in culture on this should-you-report topic between US-based academia users and e.g. users from Eastern Europe. I think it may have to do with different levels of trust in authorities (memories of authorities not to be trusted to be just are stillquite recent)

I apologize for the previous comment.  Withdrawn.  I'll try and check back in a couple days as you suggest.  I do appreciate your taking the time to explain your thinking.

Despite the fact that failing to report may not be a crime according to the law, it may be a violation of a civil contract.  Employers will require, as part of the employment contract, their staff to report theft of company property, and schools require students to report academic misconduct.  There will be no criminal justice consequences for failing to do so, but the student who conceals knowledge of dishonesty can be punished for misconduct.

This answer is unhelpful. Your objection to reporting suspected cheating would apply to any suspicion (“a feeling or thought that something is possible, likely, or true”) that cannot be substantiated by the suspecter with 100% certainty, so by your logic no one should ever report any suspicion of a crime or misconduct to the authorities. That’s clearly ridiculous. On a related note: @NateEldredge, “beyond a shadow of doubt” isn’t a standard that’s used by any judicial system anywhere. Even criminal courts only require proof beyond a reasonable doubt to send people to prison for many years.

A problem with the suggested steps: If you talk to a student about his cheating and then report that to the professor (because of his reaction), the student definitely knows who is responsible and most likely holds you responsible if he fails the course.

@RazvanP: "Reporting the wrong student is very unlikely to harm an innocent" I think this is the main point where I disagree. I think it quite likely to do harm: once it is reported, the professor has to act and investigatte. As NateEldredge points out, this includes talking to the student - so the student will know that they are under suspicion (and IMHO they have a right to, as well). If that student is innocent, they'll anyways have to to bear the stress of being under suspicion of academic misconduct. Plus, in an academic culture that doesn't even seriously consider the possibility of ...

... a suspected student being innocent, there'll be "no smoke without fire" and possibly even "I rember you were suspected of misconduct already last semester" type of consequences. This is not what I consider "no harm". My research is in the context of medical diagnoses and sometimes screening. I consider false-positive diagnoses to be a somewhat similar situation: for both, I see lots of people not even considering that there could be any harm. For false-positive screening results, there's scientific evidence of the harm, though (e.g. http://www.annfammed.org/content/11/2/106.full).

@Josef: As I said, if there's too much distrust among the students already, neither would I speak to the student. But with ordinary good relationships, I'd say that I talk to them and will not report. Neither would I. We have evaluations after the course is finished and marks are given in order to ensure evaluations are not biased by fear of the instructor (depending on course size, anonymization may not be as good as it should) - that's where I'd say there's too much cheating going on with the homework. I see my moral duty more towards avoiding future cheating than towards punishment.

@NateEldredge: sorry for the delay (was mostly offline) - I created a chatroom https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/72324/reporting-ethics-question now for further explanations as I expect to be mostly online during the next days.

I truly doubt that a student that has no clue would be able to prepare a good solution even with stackoverflow help. There is a lot of bad advice on this site as well it is highly unlikely for a capable person to write a complete solution for somebody.
If your professor has this practice, maybe you can trust a little bit that he knows what he is doing and see the end results.
Maybe your fellow student has created a solution but tries to check for better ideas. This can be good for his development.
Now 50% may sound a lot for an assignment that you can cheat on. But I'd say, if one can craft a perfect solution based on ideas from others, that certainly deserves the minimal passing grade... at least according to my book.
It is a good idea to ask your professor about permitted sources you can use (as suggested in other answers). I think you will be much better though if you focus on your personal development and professionalism. The point is to learn the skills and develop yourself. You will be always good if you do. If you want to rely on your diploma and you are worried that people get higher grades than deserved - good luck helping this.
I'm not saying to never report anything. In this situation though, it appears more likely that the professor takes into account the cheating possibilities.

Context:

An advanced university course on computer science and problem solving is (partly) evaluated on the basis of a home exam that accounts for 50% of the marks.

Issue:

A student used Stack Exchange to answer questions during the home exam.

Moral dilemma:

I feel very uneasy about reporting this issue, because this will hurt future students and the school, but it won't affect me.

First, it is unclear what you have to report. Presumably, you are suggesting that using Stack Exchange during a home exam is not permitted. But, surely students are permitted to use resources available to them during a home exam? Perhaps you should seek guidance from the course leader on what is and what isn't permitted.
Secondly, I don't see how this will hurt future students nor the school. Regarding the latter, perhaps you're concerned that the existence of cheating will harm the school's image? I think this is doubtful, due to the isolated nature of (alleged) misconduct and the existence of such misconduct in many schools. (Incidentally, if it does hurt the school, then it hurts you, since you're affiliated with the school.)

EDIT: This answer seems controversial, in the sense that it was upvoted to ~2, downvoted to -6, and is currently on an upward trend (-3 at the time of editing). Please do share your thoughts in the comments.

I'm not against the fact that the student browse stack exchange. I'm perfectly fine with that part and google or any literature. It is the fact that asking for an answer that is on the exam is for me equivalent to outsourcing the test. Although as stated before the whole premise that you evaluate 50% of a course based on home exam is flawed.

It is a "problem solving" course, Stack Overflow is how you solve problems. Whether the student cheated is open to interpretation. The instructor surely expects students to look-up material (Stack Exchange is a modern way to look-up material), otherwise a home exam is inappropriate. As I suggested, you could perhaps ask the instructor what is and what isn't permitted. If reference material, the Internet, ... is forbidden, then the instructor should perhaps conduct the exam in a controlled environment.

As stated it is prohibited to ask anyone for an answer. If your problem solving is about asking in SO fine.  I do not consider it problem solving presenting someone else work. It solves your problem passing the exam.
But as stated before and as you say. It should be conducted in a controlled environment.

Your question -- as far as I can tell -- does not state "it is prohibited to ask anyone for an answer." In real-life, problem solving is about finding a solution (in a moral, ethical, and legal way), that's not always true for student-life, where you may have to find your own solution. From your comments, it seems that you feel cheated, that's a frequent feeling. I'd suggest you consider another angle: you're not being cheated, the other student is.

There is a big difference between using SE to research a topic and using SE to feed you the answer to a specific academic exam question.

@ThomasCarlisle I think you're making presumptions about the exam question, the guidelines given to students, and what the (alleged) cheating student did. Perhaps the question asked: How do you run programs in Unix? Maybe the student didn't know; maybe they're a Windows user. Discovering the answer to that question on SE most likely taught the student something, the student might-well have tried it out for themselves, and then the student might have answered the question. The OP doesn't provide sufficient evidence to accuse the student of cheating.

By the way, I did not downvote your answer. I agree it is not necessarily cheating, although the OP does clarify in comments that the instructions given were to ask questions only to the instructor. I wouldn't accuse of cheating, but I would bring to attention that the exact question surfaced on SE. Let the instructor and/or the department or their bosses decide.

@ThomasCarlisle I don't mind whether you down-voted, that's what SE is about. Unfortunately, those that have haven't said why, which is a shame, because their valuable perspectives are lost.

@cfr I don't immediately see how that relates to my answer. Perhaps it casts doubt over "surely students are permitted to use resources available to them during a home exam," but that leads to "Perhaps you should seek guidance from the course leader on what is and what isn't permitted." I strongly believe that all evidence should be considered before branding someone a cheat.

Never mind: life's too short ;).

Has SE been used to learn? If your fellow student posted several questions and got good answers which he then used to learn then all is fine. He just used SE as a learning resource. Much as he could have used a book, which I am assuming is fine for a take-home assignment.
If he just copy-pasted the answer without learning then he has not acquired the knowledge which would give him a passing grade.
You can't know if your fellow student copied and pasted or got a good learning experience just from seeing him post a question in SE. Thus you have two options:

Question your fellow student to check if he deserves a passing grade and if that is not the case report him.
Let your teacher do his job. Have a bit of faith in him.

I would advice to go with the second option. 1st option is there just to show how bad an option it is.
This answer is in contradiction to the OP's statement:

It clearly states that questions on the exam must only be directed to the professor himself.

This is so because that requirement is unethical. There is only one criteria which matters when evaluating a student : Has the student acquired the knowledge that is the subject matter of the course?
"Can the student solve this problem without using Stack Exchange?" is not a valid criteria for grading. Usage of such kind of criteria is often the result of lack or competence, student massification and/or lack of resources. A competent teacher with enough resources should be able to evaluate his students without artificial restrictions.
It might be the case that the teacher is doing his best with what little resources he has, maybe he is not the one at fault. But regardless of who are the cause of these artificially restricted exams you are in no moral obligation to follow such artificial restrictions.

Don't make assumptions in direct contradiction to the instructions for the assignment.  OP clearly says that the professor explicitly told the students that he was the only one they were allowed to ask questions about the exam.

@BenVoigt I disagree with artificial restrictions on exams. I consider them not worthy of any respect at all. Just because a teacher states something does not mean you have to agree or follow it blindly.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Is it worth it to master LaTeX or MS Word?
I want to know, if I submit a paper to a journal, will they change the formatting of the paper? For example, will they change the position of the tables or the figures?
If they change these, then I think it is not necessary for me to learn MS Word or LaTeX in depth. As long as I can write the paper in a readable manner, it should be fine because the journal will make the format better if the paper is accepted. But if there is a specific style and format of the papers published in the journal which must be fulfilled by the authors, then it is a different story.
My field is physics and biophysics.

How do you produce your Tikz figures unless you know LaTeX quite in depth? Kidding a bit with that, but it's worth mentioning that LaTeX (and possibly, Word, too) can bring other benefits beside properly formatting your document or positioning of floats.

There's a long range between "mastering" and "being reasonably proficient in". Make sure to learn the things that actually make your work easier - like using proper indenting and paragraphing. Yes, I've seen papers that use spaces for indenting and endlines for paragraphs (it's usually preserved in the PDFs) - the problem isn't that they're rejected, it's that you're wasting tons of your time for no reason. The requirements of the individual journals will tend to vary - you'll want to check their individual guidelines before committing yourself. But removing formatting is usually quite easy :)

"Is it worth it to master Latex or MS Word?" Yes to the first, no to the second.

You certainly do not need to master LaTeX to be able to use the journal templates.  The nice thing about LaTeX is that it tends to produce very good output by default.  If you are content with the template's default, then no need to learn it in depth.  But you should learn enough to at least be able to write proper equations, tables, figure captions, tell the difference between \langle and <, use references and BibTeX ...  You don't need to be able to work with low-level boxes or write LaTeX packages though.

@O.R.Mapper You don't need in depth LaTeX knowledge for TikZ figures - just good planning and analytical thinking - in fact, more so than in depth LaTeX knowledge.

In any case, get a handle on pandoc so that, if you need to switch, you can.

@Pouya Again, your comment is field dependent. In my field, it's very much no to the first, yes to the second.

@Pouya: outside of some specific academia, the word LaTeX is not known, not ot mention that this is software, not to mention that this software does typesetting, not to mention that the word typesetting is also unknown. In contrast to that Microsoft Word usually rings a bell, or is widely used.

So, you don't plan to write handouts for conference presentation, teaching materials or slides? I write a lot of documents and, as a proportion, relatively few of them are papers because that work tends to take longer than, say, writing materials for a class. (I don't churn out several new papers a week, but I may well churn out several handouts/sets of slides etc.) Nobody else will improve the formatting of your conference handout or the paper you are distributing in draft format for a workshop. At least, not in my world.

What does it mean to "Master MS Word"? - It's a fairly basic program you type in and has some formatting settings. Type a few papers in it and I'd consider you a "Master". It's by no means a great way to manage a large piece of work (like a book's source).

I'm surprised noone mentioned LyX. Personally, I do all my work with it, and I only refer to the LaTeX documentation if I need to convert a LaTeX file into a compatible LyX template, or to tweak/fix some edgy cases to fit the journal's format. Never needed to use anything else since, and I never needed to formally learn LaTeX either.

To those voting to close as "primarily opinion-based": I don't think there's anything wrong with the question.  The problem is just that many have chosen to ignore what I see as the actual question ("Do I need to know any document software deeply?") in order to have a Word vs. LaTeX fight.

This depends entirely on the journal policy, which in turn tends to depend strongly on field.  For example:

In computer science and electrical engineering, many ACM and IEEE journals expect papers to be turned in using a format that is very close to publication and then re-format little if at all.  For these journals, good mastery of LaTeX is a must.
Many biology journals, by contrast, will refuse to take nicely formatted submissions and require text to be submitted separately from figures.  For these journals, you mostly just need to know how to use your citation manager.

Beyond looking at individual journals, I would say that a good rule of thumb is to consider how many equations you are likely to publish.  The more mathematical your work, the more likely that your publication venue is to have embraced LaTeX and the more benefit expertise with it is likely to be to you.

This - it will depend strongly on the journal and field. You could have a long, thriving and productive career in my field and never submit a thing in LaTeX.

That being said, LaTeX is a pretty nice skill to have all around

LaTeX is good for more than just equations - it is a very good tool too if you publish exactly zero equations. Ironically, LaTeX's strength is really more its labelling and referencing s well as the abundance of dedicated tools (packages) to do specific jobs. You can produce high quality schematics in LaTeX, no chance in Word, you can draw chemical molecules in LaTeX, no chance in Word, etc. - As a LaTeX user myself, I even pick it for little stuff that has little need for equations - because it is the better tool for writing documents.

@DetlevCM And, you know, high-quality typesetting. Something that Word et al. are notoriously bad at.

What @DetlevCM said. It's the better tool to write documents. As in,  structured documents.

@DetlevCM The answer does not say that LaTeX is good only for equations; it says that a good rule of thumb is that LaTeX is widespread in fields that use lots of equations. Let us please stick to the original question, without turning this thread into another useless LaTeX-vs-Word fight.

tldr; You use what your co-authors use.
Long answer: Academia is the mostly world of networking and collaboration. Efficient work with your colleagues and peers involves joint writing and editing: for academic publication, teaching, and even administration purposes. To work efficiently as a member of the team, you need to master the tools which other colleagues are using. You can figure this out by asking around. However, for some subject areas, the answer can be easily guessed: for example in Mathematics LaTeX is a tool of trade, whereas in Social Sciences or Humanities people can be unaware of its existence. I can not say about your area (biophysics), consider asking your colleagues what they use.

That's a chicken-egg answer. Also, most people start using tools before they have any co-authors. I myself (and some friends) started using LaTeX in our third semester.

@Roland I suppose what I really wanted to say is, "you use at least what your co-authors use". Of you feel you need more, of course, you go forward and learn new things as well. Thank you.

@Raphael True, we usually start trying different things as a part of our education. But I guess the question was about mastering certain tools in some depth.

+1 for collaboration but and (it's a big but), you have to do what's appropriate for the paper as well.  For example a paper that contains more than the usual amount/complexity of equations for your field, written with a co-author who doesn't use LaTeX and relies on word's "track changes" feature.  Or even a paper with a lot of citations and cross-referencing.  In my case the (senior) co-author in questions was amenable and I wrote the text in word with LaTeX citation/cross-referencing commands in it. (and pasted equations in as images; they didn't change).  The final submission was LaTeX.

@ChrisH Thank you for sharing the example, which seems to prove my point --- you used Word because your co-author used Word, although you believed LaTeX was more appropriate.

Yes, in a sense in the interests of collaboration and my own workload I had to use both (i.e. for some tasks word is so bad it's worth doing the easy bits twice - or at least a lot of copy-pasting).

What did you mean by "tldr"? If it's what I know it as (too-long-didn't-read), I'm a bit surprised as the OP consists of two paragraphs, one of which is reasonably short and the other very brief.

@KonradViltersten  "tldr;" section is a one-line answer, written for those who can find my "Long answer" to be tldr;

Somewhat echoing other comments and answers: no, don't think of "mastering" any particular type-setting software, but, on the other hand, yes, it is probably worthwhile to become sufficiently proficient in whatever you choose, so that you do not spend much cognitive energy on typesetting per se, as opposed to content. The particular choice of typesetting system depends on your context, of course, ...
(I myself was coerced to learn some details of (La)TeX in order to satisfy the late-adapter/adopter-incompetence of some publishers in the early 1990s. That is, I "needed" to figure out how to do really-low-level things like move the location of the page-number... This was and is a stupid way to spend time, but maybe unavoidable in some contexts... Similarly, had to have everything sufficiently controlled in pointlessly low-level ways to satisfy the whims of English-major-B.A. editors... so had to retreat from LaTeX to plain TeX to have access to silly things... My advice: do not do any such thing, anymore. Even the heel-draggers have caught up.)
Again, an implicit question somewhat in reaction to "do I have to master...?" is "do I have to have a clue...?", and the answer is "yes". Do not let inability to typeset your work be a noticeable bottleneck.
Another sleeper question: "when you're a novice, should you conform to the formatting and typesetting conventions of the ambient academic culture... or is it ok to get creative...?" :) Well, I tell my own students that conformity is certainly not a high virtue, but it is obviously a convenient virtue, e.g., if one wants to avoid routine dismissal as a crank/crackpot. This is not entirely ridiculous, in fact, I think, since demonstration of awareness of the rituals of a (inevitably, social) group is a positive signal to that group.

If you ever have the formatting issue now, fancyhdr will help.

Word is not a type-setting software.

@Raphael, isn't "Word" just WYSIWYG typesetting software? There are WYSIWYG versions of TeX around, too.

Well, the answer certainly depends on what you mean by "typesetting". Word (and other word processors) sets letters on "paper", yes. Does it handle any of hyphenation, widows and orphans, (pleasing) justification, kerning (using font metrics), ligatures, or others? No, at least not to my knowledge.

@Raphael, I didn't pretend "Word" and such were good typesetting softwares! :)

@Raphael it actually does a number of those (kerning, hyphenation, widows and orphans since at least Word 97, ligatures since 2010).  Does it do them as well as, say, InDesign?  Well, no, especially thanks to its horrendous UI.  But many of those features are there for those who may want them, even if turned off by default and hidden behind ten popup windows.

@guifa That's good to know! (I guess I extrapolated from how most documents look...)

I think it depends on what kind of "depth" you are talking about.
You'll certainly want to learn at least one of those systems, to a level of competence that allows you to produce documents that are of comparable quality to your field's standards, and that meet the specifications that journals in your field require.
This does not necessarily require "mastery", just comfort with basic features.  Indeed, knowing too much about the system and how to tune it to create very specific and/or unusual effects is probably not helpful.  It's much more important to be standard than to be fancy.  When very specific formatting or effects are required, journals will often either provide templates and/or style files, or simply do their own formatting.
Some features of these applications are not so much aimed at producing particular effects, but at making it more convenient for you to use them (e.g. citation managers, packages for formatting particular kinds of diagrams, etc).  These are things you can pick up to the extent you find they are helpful.

You should be aiming to produce a typeset manuscript of the highest possible quality, regardless of whether the formatting is going to be changed by a journal.  Though I can't give a really convincing argument for this, it is something that I passionately believe in, and I hope that the following list of half-reasons might go some way to convincing you.

It will make you feel good about the research you've done.  There are few things more satisfying than putting the final touches to a beautifully typeset piece of work.  You will feel proud of the document you've created - and this pride will carry over to the research that you're writing about.
The formatting and typesetting is an important part of your paper.  Nowhere near as important as the scientific content, of course, but when somebody reads your paper, the way the words sit on the page is an important part of the way the information reaches them off the page.  Since the primary goal of a research paper is dissemination of information, you should not disregard the matter of how easy the paper is to read.  Of course, if the journal messes up the formatting completely then this could become irrelevant, but a good journal typesetting policy should emphasize exactly the same things that are important to you - clarity, elegance and readability - so if you take these things into account, you can be sure that you are producing something as close as possible to what the journal will eventually be printing.  If you leave the whole thing as a 'clean-up' exercise to the journal, then you are giving up all control over an important part of the message of your paper.
As a follow-up to the last point (and others have spoken about this as well), you should remember that the academic journal you are publishing in is just one of the many places that your paper will be read.  Pretty much everywhere else, the typesetting that the readers see will be yours, not the journal's.  when you submit your article to referees, they will be reading your article, and a poorly formatted MS Word document will be less kindly looked upon than a beautifully typeset LaTeX article (perhaps you can see which way I'm going with this...)  If you want to put the preprint of the paper on the ArXiv or on your personal site, then you want it to be as readable as possible - and that means doing the typesetting yourself.
A rigorous approach to typesetting encourages a rigorous scientific approach.  This is mainly relevant if you've got into the (excellent) habit of writing up your research as you go.  Learning the best ways to break documents up into sections and recombine and rework them together (part of the 'mastery' of any typesetting system) is an excellent crucible for organizing your research in a truly rigorous and flexible manner.  One of the best things about a system like LaTeX (and even MS Word) is that it encourages creating a fully granular, extensible document with different sections that can be moved around if they need to be or improved upon at some stage.  This is exactly the attitude that you want to have with your research.  If you neglect to master your typesetting system then you run the risk of typing out one large sequential and inflexible document, and this can prejudice your view of your own research in a bad way.

As I say, these are all fairly 'touchy-feely' arguments, and none is convincing on its own, but I strongly believe that together they give a good reason for taking typesetting as seriously as you would if you were preparing a manuscript for direct inclusion into a journal.
The question remains: what typesetting system should you use.  As you can probably expect, I recommend mastering LaTeX, as it will give you the largest formatting reward for a relatively small effort.  MS Word mastery is not a bad skill to have, but as a scientist I think you will appreciate the direct control over what is happening in LaTeX (and the knowledge of what is going on) over the sometimes cryptic "let's move this diagram over here for no reason" attitude of MS Word.  It's more effort to learn, certainly, but you'll soon realize that it was worth it.  Sooner than you think, you'll reach a point of fluency in LaTeX where the time you spend formatting your article will be, while considerable, only a small fraction of your research time.  That is the ideal situation to be in.

+1, although "let's move this diagram over here for no reason" still happens quite frequently in my LaTeX documents.

@Mangara: LaTeX figure placement is well-documented and customizable to some extent (though the algorithms aren't easy), unlike Word. But it's indeed somewhat advance LaTeX-fu.

In your last bullet, are you claiming that one can't cut-and-paste a section to another position of the document in Word?

@FedericoPoloni No. That bullet is not anti-Word at all.  Rather, it is answering the OP's question: Should one seek to master one's typesetting program (be it Word or LaTeX)?  Word has perfectly good mechanisms for moving text around and structuring documents, as I said in that bullet point.  You might disagree that cutting and pasting in Word counts as 'mastery', but I think more advanced means of document (re)structuring in Word do come under that category.

@Donkey_2009 Then I don't understand what you mean with these more advanced means of restructuring that LaTeX supports and Word doesn't. What do you have in mind?

@FedericoPoloni Did you read my comment?  I said nothing about Word vs. LaTeX.  Indeed, this was one of the positive things I said about Word - it has perfectly good mechanisms for restructuring.

Now I understand what you mean, but I must say that this wasn't clear to me at the first read. The wording "LaTeX (and even MS Word)" seems to put them on uneven ground.

From your question history and history here, it sounds like you're just starting out in research.  Are you planning to write a thesis at some point?
Even for a Masters thesis there are some advantages to using LaTeX, for a science PhD thesis it's indispensible for the following reasons:

Equations (even simple ones will soon become much easier in LaTeX)
Cross-referencing of figures and sections within a document: learn a couple of commands and it just works.
Citations, especially if your field uses a numeric citation style (would you want to renumber 200 citations, some used several times, on the day you send it to the printers?)

There are tools to do most of this in word. Some of them are OK, some are free, but most are rubbish and/or expensive compared to the stuff that's built-in for free in LaTeX.
The relevance of this to paper writing is that learning to use LaTeX specifically for writing a thesis is too hard, too late.  Write a few papers in it, maybe the odd internal report as well, and it will be easy by the time you're writing your thesis.
Finally don't miss the very helpful tex.stackexchange.com, where there are plenty of getting-started questions.

First of all, the publisher will almost certainly change the format of your paper. The extent of the changes, however, vary with publisher. Some publishers prefer LaTeX because the manuscript is close to final form. Other publishers, however, prefer MS Word because their workflow has been built-up around Word documents.
You should become proficient in both MS Word and LaTeX. Here's why.
Reasons to learn LaTeX:

You're a physicist; that should be reason enough.
The preprint of your paper (for your personal website, arXiv, etc.) won't look like a manuscript draft.
You can make great looking CVs, letters, dissertations, grant proposals, etc.
LaTeX defaults are nice, Word defaults are pretty horrible (tables, margins, figure captions, etc.)

Reasons to learn Word:

Many of your colleagues will likely use it, thus you will have to as well.
Some journals may prefer submission in Word.
The better you know Word, the less you'll have to fight with it when it starts auto-formatting everything and moving your figures around.

If you want to keep your manuscript simple while maintaining flexibility in the output, consider writing in Markdown, then converting to whatever format you like using pandoc.

In many physics subfields, colleagues will expect you to put your preprints on the arXiv.  You may also post them on your website or an institutional website.  Those will appear in the way that you format them, without any help from a professional editor.

You're a physicist? Then it's worth it to spend the time to learn LaTeX to a reasonable level. There are a bunch of templates for doing all sorts of neat diagrams about quantum states, those silly operator brackets, and what-have-you. (I'm obviously not a physicist...) None of that in MS-Word - as far as I know.
As for the MS-Word option - these days you have LibreOffice Writer, which is quite powerful, stable, feature-rich and cross-platform. For some cases/issues it has not fully caught up with MS-Word, but it's quite sufficient as your default.
Now, if you're lazy but you want LaTeX-style math at least you could use one of the MS-Word/LibreOffice plugins or extensions or OLE apps which allow this. For MS-Word for example you have Design Science Equation Editor.
Finally, if you're not lazy and actually practice seriously with at least one of these, you'll find it a lot easier to use the other (especially LaTeX -> LibreOffice), because that will get you used to defining themes and styles and sticking to them rather than the "make-this-line-bold, now Enter Enter Enter to get more space" you see people doing.

learn MS Word or LaTeX in depth

Not sure how much understanding is "in depth". If your paper doesn't have any equations, then 1 day is already too much for you to learn Latex from scratch.
Learning Latex is just like learning to type with 10 fingers, or learning to use vim. At first, it seems to take more time, but when you get familiar, you will work in a much more efficient way. For example, maintaining references, links etc in Word is a pain, but in Latex it is just a piece of cake.
However, if you decide to type with 2 fingers in your whole life, you will still be fine. Word is much easier to learn, so it is more popular outside academia and the fields where computer skills are not important, e.g. Humanity and Social Sciences.

I realized positioning figures and tables at the place I want is harder than Word, and when Latex does it automatically, I don;t like the result. So, I don't think learning Latex is like learning to type with 10 fingers.

if you want the figure to stay where it is, simply put \begin{figure}[htp]. That's it.

Didn't work well for me.

Not sure what you want. You can ask a question here: http://tex.stackexchange.com/

then 1 day is already too much for you to learn Latex from scratch — Presumably you mean "then you can learn latex from scratch in considerably less than 1 day".

@JeffE yes, that's what I mean

@yashar If LaTeX doesn't put the figures where you want it is because those figures are not supposed to fit in that space due to margin reasons. That you force that in Word is a very bad practice. If LaTeX doesn't allow you to do something it is most of the times because you must not do that thing anyway.

The claim that one can learn LaTeX minus equations from scratch in less than a day makes me quite uncomfortable. I greatly disbelieve it.

@DmitrySavostyanov: Don't get me wrong. I didn't say one could learn most of stuffs in Latex minus equation in one day. What I mean is one can learn some principles and prepares a document in Latex in one day. And you don't think one can do that?

@qsp One need to define "document" to answer that. You may be right for a plain-text short essay. If the document includes sections, lists, or let alone a table --- I bet the result produced by someone after 1 day of using LaTeX will be much worse than if they used Word.

"Is it worth it to master LaTeX or MS Word?"
Just wanted to echo Dmirty's sentiment, but also mention that LaTeX proficiency is a bit of a niche skill. If you are good at it, it can potentially open other doors for you; I found my current job thanks in part to this. If you like LaTeX and find that you are good at it, it is worth your time to master it since these skills may pay off in other ways. However I cannot really say the same about MS Word, its such a ubiquitous program that you are expected to have some proficiency with it in academia.

Word is definitely not something you're expected to be proficient with. In my experience, it's legacy software used by administrators. Documents produced with it generally don't display correctly for non-administrators. Word itself doesn't run at all on Linux, and the Mac version is extremely slow. I've heard rumors that Windows can be used outside administrator offices and gaming PCs, but it's been a while since I saw any evidence for it.

a bit of a niche skill — Unless you work in a field that uses it for everything, like math or physics or theoretical CS.  I only use Word for administrative tasks.

@JeffE Of course, far more people work in administrative tasks than in math/physics/CS.

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Any good way to tell a faculty candidate "We don't want you"?
I serve on a faculty search committee at a large university here in the US.  The part of the job none of us enjoys is informing a candidate who's visited and given a teaching demonstration that we've decided not to recommend a hire.  We do it in three pretty bare sentences thanking them for coming, telling them that unfortunately, we cannot offer a position (without giving any reasons), and wishing them well.  This is the best we could come up with.
Is there any better/best way to do this?  How do other search committees communicate rejections?  How much, if anything, do they tell the applicant about the reasons for the rejection?  Do they try to do more to soften the bad news?  And would they send the rejection by mail or email (including PDF attachment)?

It is my understanding that there are great differences between what is ethical/reasonable/good and what your legal department wants you to do. Which perspective do you wish to know about?

@Wrzlprmft I welcome hearing how other search committees have satisficed the problem.

It depends on the litigatory backdrop of your country (which is it, BTW?). Your response needs to be absolutely unassailable. Unfortunately, on, say, 50 reasonable candidates, you may stumble over the one that will try to probe every available gap/opportunity to its fullest.

Related: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/11546/71681

This is a nice piece in CoHE from a few years back https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Art-of-the-Rejection/231929

Getting a rejection sucks. There is not much you can do about it. My wife and I have talked about this a lot and as candidates the only thing we wanted to know was how close we were and how we stacked up against the people who beat us. When sitting on search committess we have had various levels of success trying to inform candidates in the rejection letter about how many applicants, how many first round interviews, how many campus visits, how many offers, and was the position filled.
The other thing we do is make sure the letter starts off with we cannot offer you a position and then includes all the other information.

+1 good answer, having levels of rejection is helpful (of course, no recipient of a rejection knows whether there are truly different levels of rejection)

+1 Delivering the message early on. Nothing worse than if you have to read through the letter twice to make sure if you have been selected or rejected.

there is no good reason that the prof or the committee member sending you the rejection letter should give you detail that you were expecting.  the only salient thing to say is that someone else beat you.  and if they rejected you even if they had no other candidate better than you (i.e. they left the position unfilled for a while until someone else shows up), they will not want to tell you that.

@robertbristow-johnson you are correct, it doesn't really benefit the search committee to be nice to the failed applicants. That said, it is not much extra work to draft a slightly more informative rejection letter. While sometimes HR doesn't want to tell people about the status of a search, it is not really confidential. Lots of unsuccessful applicants end up stalking a department web page to figure out who was hired.

i didn't say it doesn't really benefit the search committee to be nice to failed applicants.  i think it does indirectly benefit the search committee.  the failed applicant might succeed somewhere else and may, some day, collaborate with some faculty member in the school the applicant was rejected from.

what doesn't benefit the search committee is to offer information that may or may not be correct or useful to the applicant except if something leaked that the applicant might use or misuse to litigate with.  just say it was a competitive position, we're glad you applied for it, and we thought someone else was better for it.

i mean, what would be really hard for the rejectee to read is that "while we didn't fill the position with an applicant we thought was a better fit, we still don't think you're good enough for the position, so we're leaving it unfilled."

@robertbristow-johnson I disagree with the notion that the only thing a hiring committee (or hiring manager) should worry about is to cover their behind in the process, in order to not get sued afterwards. As an applicant there is nothing as frustrating as being completely out in the cold about the "why?" of the rejection. If you don't show the applicants the due respect and courtesy, it speaks to your character as an individual or an organization. Today you might be in a position to hire others, but some day you will be an applicant as well...

@posdef, i never said that the only thing a hiring committee should worry about is to cover their asses from lawsuit.  sometimes the only answer to the applicant is that he/she isn't good enough or there's someone better.  but that goes without saying.  it may be a decent act to explain to the applicant exactly why he/she isn't good enough, but that is not likely gonna make the failed applicant feel better.  i totally agree with the desirability of humility with the hiring party.  any of them may be looking for a job themselves.

One standard is to sugar-coat the rejection by some formula resembling "Thanks for your interest in our ... but we've had so many highly qualified applicants that we cannot accept/hire them all..."
This is nearly universally true, first. The possible salve-to-ego is that you're telling the person they weren't rejected because of deficiencies (even if that were the case), but that you simply couldn't admit/hire/whatever all the highly qualified people.
It is my impression that this would also satisfy any U.S.-style HR-dept's requirements.

What if no applicants were hired? I've seen it happen.

@Thomas, it doesn't matter, the formula still works.  If anyone asks for an explanation in this case, the true answer is "We hired every single applicant that our process allowed us to hire."

@vadim123 re your comment: I like how that sentence still sounds good while telling exactly zero information and being blatantly obivious.

@Neinstein sentences that sound good but convey zero information are called “BS”. It is my policy never to use such language, and I would advise OP to avoid it as well. Quite simply, no one but the most gullible of people will appreciate being manipulated in such a way.

As @DanRomik notes, in effect there is a fine line between b.s. and tact. In my experience, the genuine issue really is that everyone on a short list is well-qualified, but we can only hire 1. Similarly with grad program admissions, and everything else. Thus, the issue is not "how did I fail?", because there usually is no failure at all. That is information, even if the situation is then frustrating.

@DanRomik Yeah, I know, it's just a particularly good/bad exampe. And I agree, you shouldn't use it if you want your applicant think you take them at least somewhat seriously.

I agree with @DanRomik here, receiving condescinding BS means I wont apply there for future positions.

I understand the desire to add information and soften the blow.  But there's the potential for every word in the letter get pored over and clung to.  If the applicant knows they finishes second, do they feel better or worse?
I think you can be polite and complimentary, while at the same time not sugar-coating the message.  For instance,

Thank you for visiting our department last week.  It was a pleasure to meet you in person, and I very much enjoyed your talk. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a position.
You are a very strong candidate, and I am sure you will find a position that fits you.  Good luck with your search, and in your career.

You can cut out the parts that aren't honest, like it was a pleasure to meet you if they were a jerk, or I enjoyed your talk if it was terrible, or you are a strong candidate if they really flopped.
I would not offer any constructive feedback, or details on what sealed the decision, unless invited after an initial message such as the above.  It might be better to deliver those kinds of remarks over the phone, again, to avoid creating a permanent record of a painful event.

No! Start with unfortunately don't get their hopes up to squash them. It is not until the third sentence that they know they did not get the position.

@StrongBad: I see your point, but my instinct is to start with something nice, just as we do in normal conversation.  Unfortunately is in the second line; I think it's not hidden so far down as to be suspenseful.

+1 for an honest, professional, polite and effective response - the best approach proposed here in my opinion. But @StrongBad does have a point, so +1 to that comment as well. I suggest delivering the news quickly after the minimal amount of relevant context, as in: “I am writing in connection with your visit to our department last week. Unfortunately ...”. The stuff about strong candidate/enjoyed your talk etc will still be helpful but can come later in the email.

i wouldn't worry about getting the "Unfortunately" in the first sentence.  this candidate is not illiterate and will probably read through the first two sentences in a second.

I think it’s really hard to write something that isn’t going to come across as rude or cruel to at least some applicants.  In this case I’d be pretty annoyed at “I’m sure you’ll find a position that fits you” which comes off as pretty naive about the current job market and possibly insulting because it suggests that this job didn’t fit you.  I’m sure you didn’t intend either, but I just think there’s no winning here.

I can share my experience as a candidate who received a kind, but ultimately unclear quasi-rejection after my campus visit.
What had been done well: On my visit, which was about 7 days after a Skype interview, I was told that another candidate was coming on X day and that the faculty would meet to make decisions around Y day and I'd hear from them shortly thereafter.
So sometime around Y day, I get an email from Department Chair.

I told you that I would keep you informed about our process, so I am writing to let you know that our search committee voted yesterday and decided to pursue another candidate, and the rest of the faculty has endorsed that decision.  I know this is not the news you hoped for, and I still greatly appreciate the time and effort you spent as part of this process.
You will not receive any official notification for quite a while because those do not go out until after someone has formally accepted the position.

This note was consistent with the kind and high-integrity people I dealt with there. Indeed there was a lot of effort put into the visit and they knew I had a deep personal connection with the institution.
Knowing how faculty searches work, and given what had been communicated to me previously, this note was consistent with two potential realities:

I was still under consideration but ranked below another visitor.

I was excluded from further consideration and should regard the email as a rejection.

Obviously a common tactic for search committees in these situations is to not say anything to the lower-ranked, but still hire-worthy, candidate(s) while you negotiate with the top choice — this would go along with interpretation 2. But my previous communications with the search committee made the "keep lower-ranked candidate in the dark" strategy untenable because they had promised a follow-up at a fairly specific time. They had to tell me something at that stage.
The final sentence led my mentors and I to conclude that it was likely, but not certain, that I had been excluded from consideration. On the other hand, it may have been included just so I wouldn't be blindsided by an automated email later on if the top choice indeed accepted the offer. Normally you can never know which interpretation is correct when I was ultimately not offered the position, since either one is consistent with my not getting the offer.
In this case, I later learned who the other candidate who visited after me was. This candidate was also not offered the position and received a similar/same note at the same time. We are quite confident, though not 100% certain, that at the time we received this note that no other candidate had visited and the timelines involved allowed for no more than 1 other candidate.
A couple months later, the department announced they had hired 2 candidates for that position. This leads me to conclude that they likely brought just 2 initial candidates on a visit (the other person I know and me), we were both found unacceptable, and they subsequently brought additional candidates to campus and later decided to offer at least 2 of those.
My recommendation: If a candidate has been eliminated from consideration, please make that clear. The other information I would later get about the process leads me to believe that when I received this note, which did not explicitly reject me, I had already been ruled out as a viable candidate. I suspect the Department Chair intended me to get that message, but did not word the note carefully enough, perhaps due to an effort to soften the blow. I don't know that I needed/wanted to hear the gory details (e.g., we were sufficiently unimpressed with you after your visit that we had to extend our search process beyond its initial plan just to get somebody we could hire) but certainly I would have benefited from not hanging on to a bit of hope when it later became clear that I was wrong to do so.
I and the other candidate waited in limbo, unsure whether an offer might be forthcoming, until seeing Twitter announcements from the 2 who received the job. If I hadn't seen those announcements (or if it took another couple weeks), the possibility of a forthcoming offer could have affected negotiations I had with another institution.
Aside: I was fine receiving this information via email. In fact, I'm glad I did rather than in a phone call. Such a conversation would be awkward, especially given the emotions involved. That being said, I'm mildly phone-phobic so there's not a lot that I like to do over the phone.

Did you consider the possibility that the two hired candidates had their interviews before you did?

Would have been unlikely — I was called to schedule my campus visit about 30 minutes after the last Skype interviews were completed and I was told there were 3 potential time slots, the first a week after that phone call. That was ultimately my slot. I can't rule out that there were 3 candidates invited in the first round, but that would have been a very tight timeline. Did they already reserve a slot that would have started about 4 days after the end of Skype interviews? Not impossible, but unlikely. In my field, I've never heard of 4 candidates coming for 3-day visits in a 2-week span.

The fact that they contacted you immediately after the phone interviews doesn't mean much. Maybe other people were invited right away after their phone interviews, too. The typical number of on-campus visits makes a better case (I can't comment on that since full-day visits are untypical here).

There is no perfect way to "reject" someone. Regardless of the industry, candidates anticipate a minimum response but rarely will this cordial note contain a reason for the rejection.
Despite this, when a candidate offers their time to do a teaching demonstration, I feel it behooves the interviewers present to provide constructive feedback to the candidate. We should remember that the candidate spent hours on the preparation as well as the execution of this demonstration and would like the committee to acknowledge their effort. I make it a policy to always ask the candidate how they feel they performed and what areas would they seek to improve. Then I will provide some feedback to them about their presentation.
A word of caution
Given that we live in a highly litigious society, everyone must choose their words carefully. I advise not commenting on the person but focusing on what was presented and how it was presented. Furthermore, the old adage holds true here, "less is more." Keep your feedback concise and stay on point. Moreover, this feedback should happen at the end of the presentation so as to avoid legal issues that could ensue if provided in written form. Lastly, use your best judgement and follow your instincts when and when not to provide criticism.

One thing that I must add to the other excellent answers.
If the candidate has already had an on-campus interview, deliver the bad news as closely to face-to-face as possible.  In particular, if the candidate already attends or works at your university, tell them in person.  If they aren't local, tell them over phone or even Skype.  Deliver the bad news by email only if a phone call isn't possible (or the candidate has expressed a preference for email).  Deliver the news by physical mail only if email is not possible, or if required to do so by lawyers whom you are now working incredibly hard to get fired.
If your previous communication with the candidate was only through email, a simple plain-text email rejection is acceptable.  If your previous communication with the candidate was only through postal mail, then your time machine has apparently stranded you at least 25 years in the past; you have more significant problems than delivering a rejection.

Receiving a phone call is frequently annoying, even more so if its purpose is just to tell me that I'm not being hired. A Skype call is even worse because the call would have to be preceded by an email to fix the time of the call and the software employed (not all people can use Skype at work). So, no, just send me an email, thank you.

@MassimoOrtolano “or the candidate has expressed a preference for email”

I always appreciated the phone call rejection. I had a few less than professional examples where folks would simply ignore me, so I had to infer the rejection after a month (and this is for on-campus interviews). I understand this is partially due to people not giving the official reject while they still go through the hiring process with other candidates. One place I simply got the HR rejection letter via snail-mail (again for an on-campus interview).

It can be a subtle difference, but I disagree on the default action: that is, deliver the bad news by phone only if the candidate has expressed a preference for that, not the other way round.

@JeffE When my wife applied for a job, she once got a voicemail message on a Friday trying to schedule a call for Monday, and she spent the weekend fairly certain that she had the job - after all, who would call to let her down? In the end, it turned out to be an overpolite rejection. I'm not sure you want to risk that sort of thing

Shouldn't you deliver the news in the same way to all candidates?

Just something that I would add to some of the good answer we have already. If the candidate was really good, and would have been hired had there not been a better one, I might include a sentence indicating that we would be happy to see them apply again in the future.
Of course, if you ever write this, it better be true.

The following is my personal opinion, I don't claim it's provably objectively best.

And would they send the rejection by mail or email (including PDF attachment)?

Physical mail is too slow; don't prolong the pain. And this is doubly true if they're from abroad.
email is perhaps less dignified, but it's acceptable, especially if the applicant thinks about the above consideration. If you do it that way, make two versions: The body of the mail and an official rejection as a PDF.
But I think what you should do is make a phone call personally to reject. That allows them to do a bit of venting or fishing for information with whoever calls them - and it's up to that person to withstand this or to disclose some information - but emotionally it's less frustrating in my opinion. It also emphasizes how they weren't rejected out-of-hand, automatically, mechanically. Of course - the phone call doesn't come instead of the other options; after making the phone call, send the email or the physical letter (which is perfectly ok in that situation.

Do they tell the applicant about the reasons for the rejection?

This depends on what you mean by "a good way". It's more convenient for you - personally and as a department - not to say anything. The rejectee won't be able to argue, or to appeal, or in extreme cases to sue.
But if you care about the rejectee at all, then definitely be forthcoming with them. If you have a somewhat formalized procedure for evaluating the different candidates, that would be a good crutch for such a description: "While we were impressed by your X, another candidate presented a more impressive Y". If you really want to be candid and help the guy/girl on their next attempt, disclose what you had perceived as flaws - although that's the kind of disclosure likeliest to elicit arguments.

Do they try to do more to soften the bad news?

Generally, no. You very rarely have anything to say that will actually soften the blow. However, the personal communication - such as a phone conversation - does soften the blow IMO.

i've gotten a few of these letters.
best to remind the candidate before they arrive for the interview/lecture, during the time when they are on campus (at least once), and in the rejection letter, is that the position is competitive and there are other candidates and that he/she may very well not be the one that comes out on top.

so you fly the candidate in and lodge them at a nice inn at your expense.  perhaps the day before the interview/lecture.
on that night previous to the interview/lecture, you take them out somewhere nice to eat.  perhaps include everyone in the Search Committee that can make it.  maybe also the dept. head if this person is not already on the Search Committee.
on interview day, take this candidate to the student center (where there is food) along with students (upper class and grad students in your department) that have expressed interest in coming to the candidate lecture.  let the candidate interact with these students.  pay for the candidate's meal.
make sure the lecture is well advertised with 8.5 x 11" posters (and email sent to everyone in the department and perhaps related departments) announcing the guest lecture and the topic of the presentation.  make sure there is no (good) reason for the candidate to think that, if no one shows up, it's because no one knew about it.
do everything you can to relieve the candidate of any burden or cost (other than the candidate's time) of the interview.

anyone other than someone with the ego and sense of entitlement of Donald Trump should understand that getting such a position is an earned accomplishment, not an entitled right.
then when the rejection comes, the candidate may feel that they missed something, but they would have no reason to feel that they were deprived of something as a consequence of the interview.

I'm not sure how this answers the question.

well @Thomas, sometimes a patient with symptoms of a malady asks "What pill can I take that will make me feel better?"  and sometimes "answer[ing] the question" might be what to do to prevent or mitigate those symptoms.

I like the sentiment of this answer, but it doesn't fully answer the question does it? I understand exactly what you are talking about - but I feel the question is more about trying to provide feedback to unsuccessful candidates.

the idea, @shaunakde, is that you can kindly tell the faculty-position candidate that they are not being offered the position and that it was still a good thing, from the perspective of the department, that he/she applied for it and was on-site to be considered.  that's the softest we can make the blow.  but that will not be credible unless you actually make the application experience and the on-campus interview and presentation experience a positive experience.  that's the central point. (that it appears a bunch of academics here are missing or at least not heeding.)

and to remind the candidate at a couple of points in the process, that he/she may very well not be offered the position because it is quite competitive (hell, how many people get offered university professorships?) and there are other applicants.

@robertbristow-johnson I do understand that, and I do not think this answer deserves downvotes. But at the same time, I also understand what the downvoters were thinking. For what its worth, let me try upvoting so you don't lose as many reputation points. Hard luck, sorry. SD

i believe i understand what the downvoters were thinking and i also think that they were missing my main point in the answer.  thanks for the upvote.  but i am not worried about my rep count here.  it can go up or down as it likes to.

"We'll call you" - a classic joke I know but still effective. Set up the expectation before hand that there will be no feedback, then you don't have to give it if you don't want to.

This just keeps people in limbo.

Sadly some places do proceed like that. This is maybe even more infuriating for academic positions than for other applications, because of the very tight calendar accompanying the recruitment season.

I don't think the OP was asking how to be evasive and unpleasant to the candidate.

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text:
What is the median math GRE subject score for admission to a Group 2 or 3 PhD program in applied mathematics?
What are the typical (median or maybe third quartile) scores on the math subject GRE for successful applicants to a math program at the PhD level, in applied math, at a Group 2 or Group 31 school?
1This is a ranking system the American Mathematical Society uses for graduate programs. Generally, Group 1 schools are considered the best, while Group 2 and 3 schools tend to be smaller and less prestigious.

What is a "Group 2 or Group 3 school"?

This is a ranking system the American Mathematical Society uses for graduate programs. Generally, group 1 schools are considered the best and include the Ivy League schools, top private schools, and the good state schools. Group 2 and 3 schools tend to be smaller and less prestigious. If you plan to go into academics, you'd want to go to a group 1 school. If you plan to do applied math, esp in industry, then the distinction between group 1 vs groups 2 and 3 is not that significant.

How much do Applied Math programs really care about the Mathematics Subject GRE? I checked two highly-ranked universities which have separate departments for Pure and Applied Mathematics. In both, the Applied Math department requires the regular GRE but not the subject one (although it is recommended), while the Pure Math department requires both the general and the subject GREs. On the other hand, if you're applying to universities where Applied and Pure are in the same department, they may put more weight on the subject GRE.

@PeterShor  My motivation is two fold: first, I see more schools "suggesting" PhD applicants take the subject score (b/c the general math GRE is at such low level). Secondly, I think they can strengthen a candidate's application. In my case, I am interested in the applied math programs at Univ of Delaware and UC Davis, 2 good non-group 1 schools, that specifically that do require it. Overall, however, I think you are correct, in that if you are not wedded to a specific school, you can probably find a decent applied math doctoral program at a non-group 1 school which does not require it.

I suspect that Applied Math departments are much more forgiving of lower Mathematics Subject GREs than Pure Math departments, because your score depends in part on how much pure math you've been exposed to, and this isn't as critical if you're planning to do applied math. Of course, you can have a score that is so low you won't be admitted.

Note that the AMS puts applied math programs in a completely separate group!  Also, most Ivy League schools don't have the best applied math programs.  Finally, you can get into many top applied math programs without taking the Math GRE.  I went to a top-10 program and only sent them Physics GRE scores.

This may not exactly answer your question though... Below are "official" statistics for two group-one (?) pure math programs. Note that whether a score is "acceptable" might also depend on whether you are domestic student or not (based on the Ohio State data).
(Since my reputation is too low to add more than two links in an answer, I can't provide more information at present. But I'll definitely update this answer once my reputation grows...)
Ohio State University: http://www.math.osu.edu/graduate/apply
"There are no a-priori minimum scores for the test set by our program. However, admissions become rare below the 50th percentile. The distribution of percentiles of subject test scores of Ph.D.-applicants we admitted between 2009 and 2012 is depicted below.
The data over the four admission cycles includes 125 domestic (in red) and 129 international (in pink) applicants. The median percentile for domestic students is 67, the one for international students is 95."

University of Pennsylvania: http://www.math.upenn.edu/grad/graddata.html
"Scores on the Advanced Math Subject Test of the GRE should be at least 750, though applicants with somewhat lower scores may be admitted if the rest of their application is sufficiently strong. The average GRE scores of the students who entered our Ph.D. program in the recent past were: Verbal: 597; Quantitative: 789; Advanced Math Subject Test: 820."
Edit: More data...
Cornell: http://www.math.cornell.edu/m/Graduate/app_details.html
"Most successful applicants score 700 or above on their GRE subject test."
Georgia Tech: http://www.math.gatech.edu/academics/graduate/faqs-graduate-admissions#MINGRE
"The PhD entering class in Fall 2006 had the following averages: ... Subj 795"
UIUC: http://www.math.illinois.edu/GraduateProgram/apply-phd.html
"Mathematics subject GRE scores of entering Ph.D. students in 2013: upper quartile 850, median 790, and lower quartile 690."
Penn State: http://www.math.psu.edu/grad/phd/faq.php
("Listed below are the average scores of students accepted to our program for the last several years...")

The NRC data has information on average GRE tests for EVERY math school:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amalxehk80PwdHRYSUpuWVVaa0VVVWRidXR6X21LZ0E#gid=0
Here's some caveats: the NRC data is known to have issues. "Average GRE scores" in the spreadsheet doesn't specify what it means. There are several possibilities:

it's the mathematics GRE test
it's the general test
NRC didn't specify which test they wanted when they sent out the survey to the schools, so for some schools it is one and for some schools it is the other

And there are two clear indicators of issues:

the prevalence of the number 800
the prevalence of the number 777

These wouldn't appear in true averages. So take it with a grain of salt, or maybe a bucket of salt.


text:
How to find the most relevant publications in field/topic
What is the most reliable way of finding the most relevant publications in scientific field and particularly a specific topic?
Does Google Scholar citing results suffice?

Why would citation count say anything about "relevance"?

write up the name of some experts working on this topic for years (google scholar) and look who wrote a review article, therein should be your list of relevant publications. Some branches like Physics have journals only dedicated to in-depth reviews (e.g. review of modern physics). A search engine cannot answer you what the relevant publications are, especially now (which a fresh review article does somemtimes). Often there are invited papers to experts containing "Roadmap", "Opportunities", "Challenges" in the title dealing with current state, open questions, necessary experiments...

by "review article" do you mean a survey? can you clarify what a "review article" is, more precisely?

IMHO, it is difficult to say which search strategy is most reliable. The Google Scholar (as well as Web of Science, Scopus, etc.) citations are a good place to start but they definitely should not be your only guide.
Another item to look at are survey papers and research monographs in your field of interest (and, nowadays, Wikipedia, Scholarpedia, etc.; note also that sometimes plain Google search instead of Google Scholar search brings more helpful results) and the references therein.
There are least two reasons to do so:

sometimes an important result makes it straight into surveys and monographs which get cited instead of the original paper(s);
a paper with an important negative result (e.g. one which closes certain research avenues) is sometimes not particularly well cited just because people move on to other research directions.

Yet another way to find relevant references is the so-called snowballing method a good description of which is given at this answer (without using the term snowballing).
And, of course, it is a good idea to ask your colleagues, especially after you've already done some searching on your own and just want to make sure that the search results you have are reasonably complete.