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I violated academic integrity unknowingly by sharing assignment resources with fellow student. What should I do?
So, before I tell my story, I'll qualify by saying I have a bit of a guilt complex and its possible I'm overthinking all of this.
I was looking through my university's honor code and I came upon "collusion," in which students are forbidden to work together on assignments unless explicitly authorized.  This caused me to realize that I had probably broken this rule last semester on a paper in one of my classes.  The class is over, I got an A on the paper and an A- in the class.
To be clear, I didn't see what I was doing as bad at the time.  We deliberately avoided sharing outlines with one another, and neither of us saw each other's paper.  What we did do, however, was work together for a few hours and compile a single google drive file of "paper ideas" in which we assembled references in the two texts (the paper was a comparison of two philosophers).  Neither of us had completely read both authors, so list of references and ideas was helpful.  Again, this wasn't an outline, just a long page of notes related to the authors, from which we separated and drew our own outlines and wrote our own papers.
I know ignorance is no excuse, and I feel pretty bad about this situation.  I'm wanting to go to my professor and explain the mistake, but I'm concerned about it because it was an honest mistake and I'm not sure I want to drag this other person into it.  She is graduating in two weeks while I have another year to go.
I'm just trying to get some feedback as to what I should ethically do as well as potential outcomes of this scenario.  I certainly recognize that I shouldn't do what I did again.

Don't worry about it...

Do you think you're dealing with anything the OP in this question, or is it more mild? http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58608/i-could-see-what-part-of-the-exam-paper-another-student-seemed-to-be-focusing-on/58626#58626

Corvus, a little.  Perhaps more mild.  But I definitely deal with the OCD.  I've been able to manage it, but in this case I feel like its a more black and white rule violation.

There is little distinction between what you did and reading someone elses' unpublished work. Or coming in with prior knowledge for that matter.  Neither of these would be a punishable offense.

Me and basically my whole batch (or school to be honest) do it occasionally. My point is that this is pretty commonplace. You're just overthinking it. Move on. Learn a new hobby.

If the teacher doesn't catch it, either it wasn't an offence worth prosecuting or you need to switch schools.

You can explain to your professor about it, just as you do in the above. Perhaps he will deduct a few marks. But if I were him, I wouldn't, and I would even compliment you for your honesty.

There were very few classes that I didn't break that rule in. It is not a strict rule. It is intentionally worded broadly in order to be more enforceable in a situation where cheating was actually involved. Otherwise, it's expected for students to work together to some extent and there is nothing wrong with that unless stated otherwise. If you didn't think you were cheating at the time, you're probably on good grounds.

"students are forbidden to work together on assignments unless explicitly authorized" This is where academia fails to prepare students for the business world. I understand the reason for wanting students to do their own work for practice and repetition, but when it comes to getting work done in a job, it's better if you work with a team to work more efficiently.

Next time, ask the professor what level of collaboration is OK. It's not like you can't talk to your friends/other students about your paper ideas, and bounce ideas off each other. Coming up with a list of references is very different from plagiarism. This sounds like minor. In the future just double check first if you are worried it may violate the honor code. If you must go ahead and ask your professor about it now, but frankly it seems so minor, unless they said "Don't talk about your paper to anyone" then I wouldn't bother.

It's funny how societies differ. I have never been to a university were people don't give their best to help each other by providing all the questions, previous tests and other content they can get their hands on, regardless of what is allowed or not. The system and the degree were common enemies which brought us students closer together.

Why did you even bring it up? At my college, everybody cheated like mad and I had little luck because I was reluctant to do it too. I recommend that you find out what is the norm and then go with the flow.

As a TA, if I was grading two papers on the same idea but executed uniquely, I wouldn't try to call either of you out on it - so long as it was clear that your content was not shared.

Honestly, I think you need to shift your paradigm. You are paying these people ( a lot of money) for a service in hopes of accelerating your growth. What you did helped both you and the other student learn. Neither of you cheated, you helped each other grow more efficiently than you could have on your own. You should do this more often.

Philosophy requires thought exchange with fellow students. It's not like you can avoid talking to everyond

This seems like a horrible policy. When I teach, I want students to learn from each other. That's the difference between a homework assignment and a test.

You are overthinking this.  I don't want to make light of academic integrity, but given the cheating that does happen all the time, this is a very minor offense.  We all make mistakes, and what you need to do now is learn from your mistake (one of the things you need to learn is to not freak out about making a mistake).  The appropriate punishment is what you're experiencing right now. Going to the professor now would be a selfish move that is intended to give you peace of mind at the expense of drama and stress for your fellow student and the professor, so don't do it.

I agree that the OP is probably overthinking it, but somehow I arrived at the opposite conclusion from "don't do it".  I don't see why contacting the professor is "selfish": given that the OP thinks there might be a problem, isn't it the honorable thing to do?  (Especially, I don't get the "drama and stress for...the professor."  It's our job to deal with stuff like this, right?  If a student came to me with something like this, I would talk them down.  No problem.)

Rather than don't do it go ask and find out if it was even wrong.  You don't have to admit anything to ask what the rules mean.  You may find you're allowed to do more than you think.  We can't really tell you since we're not your instructor.

Nothing that you describe sounds to me like academic dishonesty.  The point of having other students around is to gain something from interacting with them, and your interactions with your study partner sound like helpful studying together rather than "collusion".  If I understand it correctly, you did all the writing independently, but you had each done some reading that the other hadn't, and you used that to suggest to each other what you should go back and read and then write about.  For me, the only thing that could be problematic is if you used your friend's references to the text without yourself going back to the text.  This would be a failure of due diligence and a (rather mild, I think) instance of academic dishonesty, as you are creating the impression that you read something that you didn't read.  Again I want to emphasize that for me this is quite mild: even professionals sometimes quote things secondhand.
On the other hand, internet strangers can only give you so much absolution.  If you are concerned that you might have done something wrong -- and it sounds like you are -- talk to your instructor about it.  Be honest, explain that your worry that your actions might possibly be problematic came only upon reading the honor code later, and see what the instructor says.  The most likely outcome is that the instructor will largely or completely allay your worries, and you will probably also gain a better understanding of what sort of collaboration is helpful and what is forbidden.  There is a chance that the instructor will regard your behavior as actionably problematic, but if so the honorable thing would still be to bring it up.
Good luck.
Added: The above advice is under the assumption that you have no reason to think your instructor or institution will wildly overreact to what should be, at worst, a minor infraction.  I don't really agree with the comments which imply that one can never know whether this will happen: in fact, a student attending a particular institution and a particular course should be able to get some sense of this.
If the OP feels that there is a chance that something bad will happen or feels somehow unqualified to think rationally about it (there are a few hints of that here, honestly) he could take a more intermediate step to figure out which way the wind is blowing.  For instance he could talk to an ombudsperson or university official and ask about the legitimacy of such a practice in general terms.  In another situation he could bring this up hypothetically to the instructor, but in this case that seems like a poor safeguard: since the course is over, I can't think of any reason a student would bring this up to the instructor unless he has performed the practice he's asking about.
Anyway, given that the OP is worried about something that I think but am not completely sure he does not need to worry about, I think he should seek reassurance in some way.  Maybe others regard this behavior of the OP as being primarily pathological / OCD.  I don't see it that way: concern about whether you've violated the honor code is not pathological.  The OP is behaving in a way which is atypical of most students I've known, but not atypically worse.  Moreover, talking to someone will give him a clear idea of the line between collaboration and collusion, which should be helpful to him in his last year of study.  Lingering guilty feelings seem much less healthy and productive.

Also - try to present the information mildly.  When explaining this sort of thing in person, it can be remarkably easy to improperly lead the conclusion ("I think I may have cheated on my paper" is a lot different than "Is it okay if two students share research ideas when writing a paper?", for example).

@Pete: I'm the downvote, sorry. I think you are downplaying the possible complications of talking to the prof. Many are reasonable and would likely dismiss the issue, but between weird personalities and righteousness in academia, the chances of things escalating are real. And even if it is technically "the right thing to do", it is enabling the OP's issues.

@Martin: "The chances of things escalating are real."  Yes, but they are connected to the possibility that the OP has actually done something wrong.  As I tried to make clear, it sounds to me like he has done little to nothing wrong, but that really depends on the expectations that the course instructor set up.  I also don't like the idea of suggesting not to do "the right thing" because of the possibility that someone else might behave badly...absent any evidence of that.  The OP knows his instructor; we don't.  What's the point of an honor code if we assume that people will behave badly?

Let me also add that although the "honor code" at my university is not something that I ever hear the students talk about, I have faculty friends at other American institutions (think SLACs, especially) in which the culture there is for students to take the honor code very seriously.  I have heard stories of self-reported "infractions" which are ridiculously minor.  There are probably also big universities where academic honesty hearings are triggered more-or-less automatically.  So for the OP to have some sensitivity to the culture of his institution is probably advisable.

What does "SLACs" mean? I tried to search it and found various things. One thing I found might fit but I am not really sure.

@quid Small Liberal Arts College

@NoahSnyder thanks, that's close to what I found; "small" was "selective."

However well the OP "knows the prof", he/she is unlikely to be aware of any other issues that the prof may be already dealing with. For example if there are more serious integrity allegations already being investigated, the prof's response to the OP's "confession"  might well be "oh no, not another one" and appending it to the ongoing investigation, rather than playing it down as an isolated minor incident.

As a personal tutor, I actually have to look at students' papers without giving them original ideas or inadvertently intruding on the authorship of papers by commenting too much. Here are some guidelines I'd recommend:

Sharing citable resources is generally okay. After all, each student has to assess each resource and figure out how it can be used to support their ideas.
Sharing excerpts from your paper, original methods/algorithms, solutions, original data, results, and conclusions is not okay, and you should never copy any of this if someone shares it with you.
Sharing potential ideas and approaches can be okay, as long as students do not get to the point at which they are sharing original, grounded ideas or conclusions that can then be used by other students. For example, if one student says that they read some long article and felt that it provided sufficient support for a particular conclusion that they have drawn, another student could then state the same conclusion and support it using the article, perhaps without even reading and assessing it themselves, all without citing the student who shared it originally. However, in certain situations, you might even be able to cite a student's ideas, just as you can cite a professor's ideas if you ask them a question by email, for instance.

Based on what you wrote, I would think that as long as you took the shared notes with a grain of salt, did not copy them directly, and looked at any shared references yourself to verify any points made, what you did was likely fine. Did you include any ideas in your paper that were someone else's, but you claim as your own? Or did someone else use your ideas without citing you? These are the questions you want to be asking.

I don't understand the part "without giving them original ideas". Could you explain this more ?

By "original idea," I just mean that I personally don't go telling my students my own researched conclusions about a topic. It's their job to do the research and make the conclusions, and frankly, if someone did use my ideas in a paper, I'd deserve to be an author, because the outcome of the paper would not have been possible without me. Hope that makes it clearer.

Technically, if you walk down the street shedding skin cells, as humans often do, you're guilty of littering.
Telling you not to worry about this is irresponsible.  Not because what you did was even close to wrong.  But because you're right.  The problem is you need to understand the expectations of the culture you're in.  While reading the rules is good, reading the rules won't guarantee that you understand.
Read the rules.  Form questions.  Ask questions.  You don't have to admit to anything.  Just talk to an advisor or professor about any questions you have about what the rules mean.  Following their guidance is likely safer than second guessing the rules.  They may give you permission to do things you never imagined you could do.
I've had students nearly fail because they were trying to be so 'honest', they didn't accept any help.

+1 for nearly fail because they were trying to be so 'honest' they didn't accept any help.

I'm not actually convinced what you describe qualifies as "collusion."
First off, there's some question about what "work together on assignments" means in this context. It's a bit off a nitpick, but if the assignment was "compare the two philosophers" you're off the hook. If it was "read these two books and then compare these two philosophers," then you might need to consider one of the following courses of action (if you feel you must):
(a) you could contact the professor in question and tell him that you hadn't read the entirety of both texts and that you and another student split the reading to  find passages relevant to the papers. Presumably, you each read (at a minimum) the quotes you used.
(b) you could contact an ombudsman or student advocate and explain the same and ask their advice about whether you must report it.
(c) you could absolutely nothing.
If you choose (a), then at most universities a claim that an event of academic dishonesty has happened depends on the professor filing it. (b) Depending on the university, there may be a common policy that must be followed -- which could include (i) failing the course, (ii) grade reduction in the course, (iii) a mark on your permanent academic record, (iv) a temporary mark on your academic record, (v) meetings with deans, (vi) remedial academic integrity tutorial, (vii) suspension, (viii) expulsion, (ix) effects on your grades in other courses.
My guess as someone with a philosophy PhD who has taught several courses is that your professor will just laugh this off and appreciate your honesty. If not, I can't imagine anyone thinking what you've described merits anything more than a minor grade deduction -- but again some schools have policies that don't leave much room for discretion.

I don't believe you have done anything wrong.  I agree with your insight that you are overthinking this.  I don't recommend you report anything that could indict you or your classmate.
I do recommend that you read about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and notice if you see yourself matching that illness.  My understanding is that many people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder experience hyper-moral dilemmas and conundrums like the one you face.  From what I have read, the guilt complex you mention is a common symptom.  You may also wish to read about scrupulosity and see if that sounds familiar to you.
I'm not a medical doctor or psychologist, so if you think you may be suffering from one of those illnesses (actually, I think the professionals categorize them as a single illness), or something similar, perhaps a visit to an appropriate professional may help you in your life.
I wish you the best of life.

Good advice. A side thought about some mental disorders & "health care professionals", if you see enough and take enough tests, you'll probably "qualify" for at least one disorder. I read on time.com that "[A CDC survey] estimates that one in 11 children had been diagnosed with ADHD by a health care professional, an increase of 42% between 2003 and 2014. “[That number] is preposterous,” says Connors, who studied and treated ADHD for 50 years before retiring. “That would make it an epidemic.”" - (Connors is C. Keith Connors, creator of Connors Rating Scales for ADHD)

Maybe true, but at least there's so much info online that patients have a good chance of knowing the latest research (sometimes better than doctors), and most places (N.America, Europe, Aus.?) you can see different doctors (or "professionals") until you find one you like (i.e. agrees with you)

I would characterize your actions as "borderline." In your shoes, I wouldn't worry about them, but neither would I be in any hurry to repeat them.
You and your friend worked together to create and share a common database. On the other hand, you scrupulously avoided looking at or comparing each other's work. There wasn't any actual copying, but your common efforts lightened the intellectual burden on both of you. I would say that you "collaborated" without "colluding."
If you reported it to the professor, my guess is that the likely response would be similar to mine: "I'll let you off this time, but don't do it again." The actual response could be lighter. I would not rule out that it would be heavier (although I consider this unlikely).
Given the circumstances, just "let sleeping dogs lie." It's not a clear violation, although it is close enough to make some people uncomfortable. Warren Buffett, a financier, warned his people against "just staying inbounds." He said, "You can do very well hitting the ball down the middle of the court.

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Should I list all my research on a CV? Or should I only put the most significant medical research trials?
I am updating my CV and applying to jobs in medical research. I am wondering if I should put all the trials that I have worked on with various other doctors or just the most significant ones?  I have like 40 research trials I have worked on and it seems immodest and overdone.

Yes, you should list all your published papers.

CVs are not a place for modesty. They're where all the facts go about you!

Are you making a distinction between "research trials" and publications? In general, the emphasis is typically on publications and grants and less on "projects that you worked on".

Ah, this is a good question!
Unlike a resumé, in which one includes only the experiences/skills that are relevant to the position being applied for, a CV is meant to document all  reasonable academic endeavors and accomplishments. In some cases, lines on your CV will be only loosely related to your main research interest; my CV for instance includes several co-authored papers I am not particularly keen on.
I don't know that there is any hard-and-fast 'rule' stating your CV must be complete, good and bad, but it has been my impression over the years that one includes pretty much everything.  If you've ever wondered why your department chair's CV is 35 pages long, now you know why.

As far as I know, professors, senior researchers and alike have two resumes: a short one (1-3pages) listing main milestones, and a long one, which can be up to 50pages (longest I have encountered), listing all and every thing they did.

I have seen 200-page CVs.

@JeffE Indeed, not that surprising (admirable, though).

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Is it appropriate to ask an author for an English translation of a paper?
I have found an interesting paper which is very relevant to my research. After reading the abstract in English, I would like to continue to read through the methodology and its discussions. However, only the abstract is available in English, and the content is in another language which I don't know.
I really want to read through the content as some of the figures are very interesting to me. I have tried to translate it using Google Translate, but it is very difficult to understand.
Is it appropriate to send a polite email to the author, asking for a translation of your paper in English? Does the author have the obligation to do so?

I guess what you can also do is to ask if the author has published in English another paper related to the one you have found.

As far as I'm aware there is no obligation to provide a translation of a published paper from one language to another.
I think it would be rude to ask for a translation of a paper. However, it would generally be fine to enquire as to whether such a translation exists, or whether similar work has been published in English.
More broadly, it may be in the author's interests to provide an English translation in order to increase the impact of his or her work.
If the work is really important to you, you could always pay for a translation. At the extreme end, perhaps where there are a large number of important works in a particular language, you may even want to learn the language.

+1. If the author had a good command of English, he would probably have published in English in the first place. Therefore he probably doesn't speak English very well, and translating an entire article would be a nontrivial amount of work, perhaps a full working day or more.

Im not sure how common it is, but around me the level of english has very little to do with publishing in english or not.  It is usually a lower quality journal or conference with less chance of a connection to existing work being found.

The reason for the language may be also related to the field and the funding body. For example, a comparative research in law enforcement across countries founded by a Spanish agency is more likely to be written in Spanish because they want it to be useful for their staff.

+1 for the 'pay for translation' suggestion, though there is a potential problem: if the paper is very technically-challenging, it may be very expensive to translate. For example, element/compound names between English/French (chemistry) may be difficult to translate, thus increasing the cost.

@ChrisCirefice: not to mention the challenge of actually finding someone that is both linguistically and technically competent enough to perform an accurate translation. In some cases the translator needs to actually understand the subject matter in its specific context - knowledge of the terminology in the wider domain is not enough. Being from Greece, I've often had a problem with technical books being mistranslated in subtle, yet important ways... Which is why, when possible, I avoid translated works completely...

@ChrisCirefice Element names will be in any dictionary. Many compounds are easy to translate: look up the compound on English Wikipedia and follow the link to the corresponding French page. Of course, that won't work if your paper is about a novel compound that, by construction, Wikipedia doesn't know about.

@DavidRicherby I've never seen compound names in a dictionary. What I meant was that it takes a technical knowledge of the 'conjugations' of elements into compounds in both languages to be able to accurately translate. And it's not just chemistry where the jargon comes into play. All fields have their own little ways of being complicated, and translating technical works makes them likely to have a degree of inaccuracy which is never good.

Is it appropriate to send a polite email to the author, asking for a translation of your paper in English?

The answer to almost any question that starts with "Is it appropriate to send a polite email" is yes. You are of course allowed to ask.
That being said, if there is no English translation of the paper already available, to which the author can just point you, I am pretty certain that the answer will be "no". It seems very unlikely that the author translates an entire paper on your request into your language, basically so that you don't have to.

Does the author have the obligation to do so?

Of course not (and I strongly suggest not indicating anything along that line in the polite mail you are writing).
Let's assume for a second the paper is actually written in English, but you are a native speaker of a not very common language (Swedish, for instance). Assume further that your English is not very good and you cannot understand the paper well. You wouldn't feel entitled to having the author produce a Swedish version of the paper for you, would you?

It is in an author's interest for his/her work to be read and cited; this is the reason most authors will be happy to hear from someone who is interested in their work (it is, after all, a potential citation-in-waiting…).
With a bit of luck, one of two things happens:

She already has a translation of the work (or something close to it) which she happily shares
She is willing to work with you on coming up with a good translation. This will involve some work on your part - she provides a "poor English" version which is sufficient for you (who are an expert in this field) to grasp; and in return for her help, you edit the document into a "good English" paper which you send her to say thanks for the help (so the next person gets option 1). You might even collaborate on improving the work and turn it into a joint publication in an English language journal.

An outcome such as the above would be a win-win. The only way to find out is to send a polite email.
There is NO OBLIGATION on the part of the author to respond or provide a translation - but assuming that she takes her role as an academic seriously, she ought to be happy to help you come to an understanding of her work.

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What is the page limit for an open access review paper in IEEE or Elsevier?
I am writing a review paper in the field of engineering.
At the moment the paper is 20 pages and I am afraid that this goes up to 80 pages when it is finished.
I was thinking about making it open access. However, I am afraid to break the paper into several parts and pay the open access fee multiple times which I definitely could not afford.
Could anyone please advise how much is the page limit for an open access review paper in IEEE and Elsevier. If my paper is not publishable there, where else could be a valid and feasible journal for me?

80 pages double spaced + refs? If so, it could go through Elsevier given that you email an editor first (and sometimes with such an email).

Such limits are not set by the publisher, but by the individual journal, and can be different for different journals of the same publisher.  So just saying "IEEE" and "Elsevier" is not specific enough.

IEEE say on their FAQ-page:

There is no page limit for articles

It is more complicated for Elsevier, as different journals have different page limitations, you simply have to check the journals' webpages.
Having said that, a paper of 80 pages seems to be rather long - in my field this would certainly result in an immediate rejection, unless you explicitly classify it as a review paper - and that seems to be what you should do. In my field, however, you are not simply writing a review paper, but are usually asked to do so and then it is clear/obvious (even expected) that the paper will be long.
So, if you were asked to write a review paper, everything should be fine, write as many pages as you want. If you have decided on your own to write a review paper, check if you can classify it as a review paper during submission process - if not, tell the editor that this is a review paper (the referees have to know this).

It is interesting that recently I have received an approval from IEEE Transaction and they told me you have 12 length and they only accept extra 2 pages at a penalty cost. That is what has worried me for a review.

@ar2015 you should point them to their own FAQ page then

The FAQ you linked is for IEEE Access, which is just one of some hundreds of journals published by IEEE, and that policy is for IEEE Access only.  It's not a publisher-wide policy.  Many of IEEE's other journals do in fact have page limits.

IEEE Transactions have slightly different requirements and page limits during the submission process, so simply saying 80 pages without explaining the format does not help us give a proper answer.
Some comments from my experience:

Many IEEE Transactions do not accept Review articles without invitation or discussion with the Editor-in-chief. Some others,however, do.
The longest review paper I have seen in my field is around 20 pages content and 3 pages references in the IEEE format, and that is a rather unique exception to the typical standards.
Are you a well-recognised professor in the area writing the review with other well-recognised people in the field or many years of working experience in the field and articles in the area? If not, I cannot see how such a long review document will be accepted. From the way you are asking the question, my guess would be no.
In the AE meetings that I have participated there is a general consensus among editors and AEs that the literature review of a PhD student is typically not considered a review article, these submissions in mane cases are rejected before peer-review.
Besides the open access fee, IEEE has a per-page fee for publications longer than 8 pages in their journal. So even if the paper is accepted, a 20-page formatted article would need, on top of the OA fee around US $1500 - $3000 to be published.

Hope these help.

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Is it plagiarism to use an online tutorial as the basis for completing a programming assignment?
Let's suppose that you were assigned a programming project, which is considered from your teacher/professor, not easy. However, you manage to find an online tutorial, that guides you step-by-step through the process needed (so the source code you have written doesn't have much difference from the one on that tutorial).
The final solution is based on this tutorial, but you have also added your own information, corrected some minor errors, etc. I don't know if this matters, but you know exactly what every single line of your code does, you are able to explain and answer complex questions, etc.
Is that considered plagiarism, and if yes, why? If not, how can somebody support that on a teacher/professor?

As always - cite your source. If your work is being part  of an assessment, also say what added value you provided as compared to the material you used. If you do this, you do not plagiarise, and you also do not commit an assessment offence.

@CaptainEmacs The scenario that I was imagining is that you read a post on Stack Overflow on how to calculate the Fibonacci sequence iteratively, then the student is asked to submit homework on this or given a quiz, and unintentionally replicates the code from memory. Is that learning or is that plagiarism?

@CaptainEmacs Surely you wouldn't want students citing 50+ sources (from my experience, it could be far more) for every programming tutorial they looked at to aid them in their current homework assignment. At that point they would be spending more time managing their sources than they would learning the material.

@AustinHenley Unfortunately, this is not the case. I'm not talking about a ten-line snippet, but about a 200 line code like a Linux driver. However, the tutorial was doing exactly that: explaining a situation step-by-step and then writing some code (a function doing sth). I didn't copy-paste the code, in fact I was studying that particular function, what was doing, etc. and that's why I'm able to know exactly what my code does.

@Arkoudinos In that case, Captain Emacs is right. Just cite it. In my undergrad I did this a few times when reading arcane tutorials, I added a comment at the top of my code that linked to the tutorial and gave a brief description of how I used it.

@AustinHenley, vaguely remembering 10 to 15 lines of code (that really can't be written in too many different ways) is a far cry from following a detailed tutorial to develop something rather complex, as I understand OP describes.

@AustinHenley Common sense is needed. If a comparatively trivial function is being used that's been taught in a tutorial, a citation may not be necessary. But anything nontrivial should be cited. And, yes, if there are 50 things to cite, they should be cited. It's part of academic life.

How do you decide if it's trivial? Guideline is: if something has probably only 3-4 distinct ways of being canonically done (such as Fibonacci), which are common knowledge, a citation may not be necessary (note, this implies the solution is very short; could also be from memory). If there is a non-canonical way of doing it which you picked up somewhere (e.g. treating Fibonacci as a matrix iteration, which is non standard in computer science treatments), it needs citation, even if it is short.

Surely you wouldn't want students citing 50+ sources --- Yes, I would.

@JeffE I wouldn't. Keeping students engaged and successfully completing programming problems is hard enough. I'm currently at a CS Ed conference and heard presentations from Top 5 schools that have the same problem! It is ludicrous to say you have to cite every material you've ever used to teach yourself something.

Using online material to learn is not plagiarism.
This is a great way to learn (e.g, worked examples and subgoal labeling) and is a common way for instructors to try to teach something. Am I plagiarizing every time I use a common design pattern? No.
However, copying and pasting code from online is. It gets a little fuzzy when working on simple assignments that can be found easily online because it could be weakly argued that you are recalling it from memory. I would definitely not be concerned about this, especially if you think you understand the code and were not trying to cheat.
If you're genuinely concerned, you could even discuss it with your instructor and they might realize that they are not spending enough time discussing a certain process or giving you enough practice material.
EDIT: Based on your clarification in the comments, if this is something more specific/arcane and not a tutorial on something general, then just cite it. I have done this in my programming courses before. I added a comment at the top of my code linking to the material I referenced and gave a very brief description of what it is and how I used it.

"If the solution was already out there, the company would buy it, not pay someone to sit in a chair and type it in again." Assuming, of course, that the company is aware of its existence and that it fully matches the company's requirements. There are many programs that do much of the same stuff in a broad sense but differ in terms of the details (which is one of the reasons for the proliferation of programming frameworks/etc. that exist). Programmers shouldn't develop new algorithms to solve problems when existing algorithms do the job just fine unless their job is developing new algorithms.

Your logic is flawed. If the assignment was "write a database server" and someone would provide MariaDB source code the student flunked the assignment. If I pay a developer to do the same thing and she wrote her own database server I'd fire her. In order to learn it is imperative to do things that thousands of other already did before. Otherwise, no new concerto pianist would have to learn beethoven.

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


text:
How good is phrase in letter of recommendation describing my smart but unorthodox solutions?
I have a LOR from my previous employer and I want to use it for the MSc application I'm preparing. However, there is a certain sentence in this LOR that even though I understand its meaning (based on facts I know of course), I don't know if it will be good for my application.
"Major characteristics of his job were the clean, well commented code and the smart, yet often unorthodox solutions."
How bad can it be for my application?

@ChrisWhite I think it is bad form for students no to waive their rights to see the letter, but lots of letter writers show their letters to students.

While I see nothing wrong with the phrase, it would be better if the LOR provided examples.

That phrase would not stop me from interviewing you, but I would ask you about it during. (Private sector, not academia) It tells me that you're very capable, but perhaps still a bit inexperienced and will need a bit of mentoring until your work is industry standard. It also tells me that you're a creative thinker though. That can be much more valuable in the long run than having someone who does "industry standard" work. Like I said, I'd ask you about it at the interview.

"Smart and unorthodox" sounds like "We didn't get what he was doing at all but the code worked exceedingly well so we didn't care.".

@ChrisWhite This specific MSc programme mentioned that the LORs should not be sent by the teachers/employers but I should upload them. However, not my teachers neither my employer had a problem with me reading the LORs.

If I were reading this statement, I'd take it as quite positive.

Clean, well-commented code is a very good thing, especially in a young programmer
Smart solutions are good
Unorthodox could be good or bad, but going into an academic context it's probably more good than bad.

Qualifying 'smart' with 'yet' makes me feel that letter-writer meant to bring across something negative after (when would you qualify smart with yet if the qualification is positive?), but they might have been too clever for their own good as I don't know what it might be.

That's exactly the reason why I worried about that statement. I know what he means by stating that, because of some particular facts. However a third person may interpret it in some other way.

"Major characteristics of his job were the clean, well commented code
  and the smart, yet often unorthodox solutions."

I don't see any way in which one could reasonably interpret this statement negatively. If the solutions were smart, then by itself obviously that's a good thing, whether or not they were orthodox. And if they were both smart and unorthodox, that's even better, because:

the fact that they were unorthodox shows that you came up with them independently rather than just regurgitate some smart but unoriginal idea that everyone is taught in freshman year;
the fact that they were unorthodox and smart means you are not only creative and think independently, but your independent thinking actually leads you to smart solutions that haven't been thought about by (many) others. What's not to like about someone who has such characteristics?! I think only in some crazy place like North Korea would this be considered a bad thing.

Finally, the use of the word "yet" can be either a subtle logical error on the part of the writer, or a reference to the (probably correct, IMO) fact that if a solution is unorthodox, statistically speaking it is likely to be less smart than an orthodox solution, since if the unorthodox solution were superior then there would be room for someone to popularize the unorthodox solution so that it would eventually become orthodox. In other words, a situation in which there is a smart yet unorthodox solution is a kind of "market failure", or an opportunity for "methodological arbitrage", and hence somewhat rare. With that said, such situations clearly exist, and any person who has the ability to discover and exploit them is in my opinion worthy of high praise.

I like (+1), but your longer analysis in the last paragraph fits, to my ears; the statement "unorthodox, but smart." "Smart, but unorthodox" to me is either a logical fallacy (as you say it might be), or an attempt that fails to communicate a negative.

@gnometorule "this man is a genius" can also be a failed attempt to communicate a negative. I.e., if you are willing to assume that the writer's intent is different from what they actually wrote, then anything becomes possible. So I think it would be foolish to try to infer something negative here. We cannot know for sure what the writer meant, and possibly there is a microscopic logical inconsistency of a kind that one finds in every text above a certain length, but so what? The most logical thing to do is to interpret the words of substance "smart" and "unorthodox" and just ignore the "yet".

"Smart, yet unreadable."/"Intelligent, yet useless" - the OP is right to be ambiguous about the statement. It would be more positive if it were something like "Clean, yet efficient"/"smart yet practical"/"unorthodox yet portable" - in other words, if the second term is charged with more positive meaning. In academia, however, "unorthodox" (as jakebeal says) can be viewed positively and so it's probably less of an issue than when applying to industry.

@CaptainEmacs there are certainly examples (as you point out) where "yet" can contrast a positive quality with a negative one, but that's simply not the case here. Note that in my answer I gave a plausible-sounding (I think) explanation for why "smart" and "unorthodox" can be viewed as standing somewhat in opposition to each other, despite both being generally positive. In this interpretation the use of "yet" is logical but still doesn't imply anything negative. And as for "It would be more positive if...", sure, of course the sentence can be more positive, but that's neither here nor there.

@DanRomik Yes, your interpretation is perfectly possible, but the ambiguity is essential part of the formulation and we do not know whether intentionally or not. Without more context which the OP does (understandably) not provide, it's reading entrails what the writer might have had in mind and what effect that may have on the reader. If the reference is generally good, the sentence may be interpreted as positive. If the reference is a mixed bag (and that means it contains a couple of so-so-ish statements), I would treat it with scepticism if I were the OP.

I know I'm going against the grain, but I wouldn't hire you and I think the one who wrote the sentence was trying to warn future employers without writing down something obviously negative and actionable.
I interpret the sentence, especially the ‘unorthodox’ bit, as saying that you don't play well with others, don't really function in a team, and don't always deliver what was asked of you or what the situation demanded.

You seem to forget you are on Academia SE, not Industry (Workplace) SE.

-1. Regardless of whether you're from academia or industry, just the fact that you already know you wouldn't hire the OP based on such insubstantial information deserves an immediate downvote. Even on the off-chance that your ultra-snap judgment happens to be correct, that would be by pure luck, since the only reasonable way to reach such a conclusion would be by reading the rest of the LOR.


text:
Should work as a lab assistant be listed under work experience on a CV when applying for a Masters in computer science?
I'm preparing my CV for applying to a MSc program in a specific Computer Science field. In the section of "Working experience" I've written about my work placement and the main job I've had the past few years (both are related with my field of studies). However, in addition to them, I was a lab assistant in my department for a whole semester. My question is, should I also mention this as a working experience? If not, what is the best way to include it to my CV?

Lab teaching assistant? Lab research assistant? What did you do?

My job was to stay for a few hours per day in the lab (since I was working on my own projects too), making sure that any student who wanted to work would have access to the necessary equipment. I was helping them setting up anything they needed (boards, instruments etc), solving minor issues with their projects, and in general I've had to keep an eye on the whole situation while the professor was away.

Your lab job sounds like a Lab teaching assistant to me.

I suppose you could include 'lab teaching assistant', but a research assistant would be of a better significance to include in an academic CV. If you do have other occupation to add over the years, you might not need add this one.

So, if it is to be included, it would be definitely as previous occupation, right?

Well, six months of professional research experience would be better to showcase than that of lab teaching. Personally I'd avoid it if I had better things to show.


text:
Whether to take a holiday or get research experience when transitioning from masters to PhD?
Background:
I'm in a precarious situation.
I'm currently in the sixth semester of a ten-semester (five-year) combined bachelor's/master's program in engineering. So far I've had two relevant industry internships and have been getting stellar grades, but I lack research experience in my field. I am still unsure if I want to pursue a PhD, and I'm a bit apprehensive to make that life decision now.
All six semesters I've been taking classes and conducting research in a not-so-relevant field (mainly because research in my field is hard to get as an undergraduate) - suffice it to say after three years of this, I've somewhat burned out.
I'm currently signing up for classes for my seventh semester, which is the first semester I'm required to take graduate classes. Because I've felt a lot of academic pressure, I decided to sign up for less classes than usual to give myself a respite.
In response to this, my academic adviser recommended that I conduct research at a lab near campus to prepare me for a prospective PhD. I'm reluctant to agree because I wanted to take the semester to relax and pursue various interests I've fallen out of touch with since the start of university.
I voiced my concerns to my adviser and he is continually trying to pressure me to conduct research, citing that not doing so would be a huge missed opportunity and might hurt my chances of applying for a PhD.
Question
I don't want to leave this as an open-ended question (a la "what should I do?"), so I'll try to make it more structured:

How important is having research in a relevant field when applying to PhD programs?
Would PhD programs look unfavourably upon taking a semester to "relax," considering that a PhD requires a great deal of dedication?

Some people believe that, unless one bleeds from every orifice and pore, one is not a worthy scientist. Well, there are certain phases, or certain fields (think animal biology) where one has to work crazy times and forget about any type of available free time. However, in most fields, and in regular periods, this should not be the case. If you feel you need to relax, that's a good thing because it means that you have an awareness for your own needs. A burnt-out scientist is not a creative scientist; sensible advisers will know that. However, if you intend to keep this adviser, YMMV.

"Would PhD programs look unfavourably upon taking a semester to "relax," considering that a PhD requires a great deal of dedication?"  This may not apply to you, but if it is the semester after you apply, you do not have to tell them about it.

Wanna relax, then do so. Don't be somewhere you don't want to be. You have to be mentally ready to do a research. I have seen many cases of young intelligent individuals who started doing PhD, and then for various reasons gave up, because some serious work needed to be done and they want to have well... some fun (rightfully so)!
I would recommend do not burn the bridge with your supervisor as you might start doing PhD in upcoming years. Tell him/her in a meeting that you would like to finish your studies and enjoy life a little bit; before committing yourself to doing research.

How important is having research in a relevant field when applying to PhD programs?

Very. The more quality, relevant research, the better. The more researchers you can work with who can write you a good letter of recommendation, the better.

Would PhD programs look unfavorably upon taking a semester to "relax," considering that a PhD requires a great deal of dedication?

It's not a bad thing, but a lot of your competition isn't doing this and it'll be to their advantage. Although I think "the heaver workload of graduate classes" is a perfectly acceptable reason to cut back on classes for a semester. ;)
Ultimately, you have an obligation to yourself and your wellbeing. Doing this research is in your best interest if you want to look the best on PhD applications. But you have to figure out how to balance this with your physical and mental wellbeing.


text:
Teaching uninterested/under-engaged students in science courses
How should one engage uninterested students in a fast-paced, densely fact-packed science course such as chemistry or microbiology? I find that the only students who truly understand and engage with the material are those who already have a strong background in the material being covered, while the rest of the class is usually ranging from bored to panicking, depending on how much they care about grades. (For most of the students in these classes, the science courses are required for their major, so they are taking them because they have to, not because they are intrinsically interested in the sciences.)
So how could I engage the interest of these students without dumbing down the course material or slowing down the pace of the class? Neither seems a viable option given department wide standards at this institution.

How are you currently teaching the course? Number of students? Format (lecture, lab, seminar)? Suggested changes will depend on what you're doing now.

Twenty to thirty students, three hours of lecture and three hours of lab per week.

How do you do the lecture? Is it all lecture or do you use small groups, "flipping," etc.?

Mostly lecture using PowerPoint; try to incorporate group discussion, occasional small groups although space and time constraints prohibit the effectiveness of small groups.   I would like to incorporate out-of-class assignments that would force students to think about what they are learning in lecture without taking up too much of their study time. (This is a community college so many of the students are working parents who juggle multiple demands on their time. Anything I require of them out of class should directly relate to course requirements.)

From a pedagogical standpoint, you always want to teach with a couple of things in mind:

You have to have a standard for the class.
The standard you set should be influenced by the level your students start at.

These two criteria frequently are at odds with each other, which is a shame: you want to teach the most engrossing, intellectual class so that each student can obtain a mastery of the important details of the subject, yet sometimes your students don't have the background and are not prepared to learn at that level, or are unmotivated for other reasons.
A third issue, and the one that you brought up, is the question of what to do when you have a heterogeneous set of students where some are unprepared (or unmotivated) and others are well prepared. If you are at an institution where the standard is very high, one option (and probably the right one) is to teach the material with the expectation that everyone will try their best and that it will be challenging for everyone, and let the cards fall as they may. Do your best to point the struggling students who want to learn the material to avenues for help -- office hours, tutoring, key reading material, etc.  Don't worry particularly much about the ones who don't care -- if you're teaching an engaging class and they are bored because they don't really want to be there, that isn't your problem.  If you find that you do have too many panicked students, you probably need to re-evaluate your teaching style or assessment plan, and slow things down.  This is just the reality of the situation: too many of your students aren't prepared for the class as you envision it.
From your comment:

This is a community college so many of the students are working parents who juggle multiple demands on their time.

I believe in this case you may end up in the situation I just mentioned more than you'd like. I would venture a guess that many of your students have academic priorities that are less about getting every bit of learning out of your course, and more about doing well enough to graduate and be prepared for whatever the next step in their career is.  I urge you to try to put yourself in their shoes (this is always a good idea) and try to see from their perspective what the course means to them.  I have taught a college physical science course to non-science majors at the community college level where I was happy to give them the exposure to the material -- most of them had never taken a physics or chemistry class in their life (high school or otherwise), and I knew that it would not have been a good idea to try to force a lot of math-heavy science down their throats.
So I haven't really answered your specific question about how to "engage the interest of these students without dumbing down the course material or slowing the pace of the class." My suggestions are (1) to re-evaluate why you think you're already engaging (and tweak it to meet your students' level), and (2) to make sure you are providing concrete assessments for them to study for (or work on in lab).  If your students know what they have to do to get a "B" versus an "A", this might lower the level of panic if they see that shooting for that "B" will be obtainable while still giving them time to keep the other priorities in their life straight.


text:
How does someone with C's and F's in graduate-level courses and A's and B's in undergraduate courses get admitted to a PhD program?
I am currently the BA undergraduate math major (4th year), and I got ~3.3 cumulative GPA.  I'm the average student who likes math a lot, so I took more than 10 graduate courses and higher division undergraduate courses in mathematics.  For two courses, I received two C grades in those graduate courses by the same professor (hard exams and finals).  I attempted to get better grade in one of those courses, but received the F (because of super hard final and midterm, and because of the same professor).  For the undergraduate courses, I got mostly A's and one B+.
Though I still have time to maximize my chance to get into math PhD program by (probably) research experience and great letters of recommendation, I believe that I am more likely not to get into the program (because low grades greatly affect my application).  However, I have one question to ask: is it REALLY over for me to get into PhD math program if I receive bad grades in these courses or not?  I don't have lots of time to retake such courses, and if I do I will have to waste all money and time on doing so.
I don't aim to get into top-notch universities with excellent PhD programs, like Harvard University.  All I expect is a good PhD program for me.

Normally, I'd say this is a duplicate of this question and vote to close, but I think there's a different question here, because of the issue of the classes being graduate-level.

I have to think the same thing too.  I thought this question is different from the previous one asked before, but quite similar.  Thus, I asked this question.

Your chances are far from over! Just put together the best application you can, emphasizing the fact that you're a great researcher (if you haven't done much research, I'd advise doing a Master's thesis first), and make sure to get strong reference letters. I'm in a similar situation to you, with two C minus grades in graduate classes (due to personal issues, though I never mentioned them in an application). Now I'm admitted to a funded PhD program in a well-respected department. I think the best answer in aeismail's link is still very applicable to this situation.

In the graduate level courses, was the grading scale the same for undergraduate and graduate students? This varies from school to school, department to department, even course to course. Were you taking these classes without all of the prerequisites? You should consider all extenuating circumstances and tell your letter writers so they can help better explain away your grades and focus on how amazing your research is. Give your letter writers bullet points (suggested for them to edit/ignore as they see fit) to include in their recommendation letters. Faculty don't enjoy nor want to spend that much time on letter writing so make it easy. In your email to a faculty member you might write something like this
Hi Professor X,
Here is a reminder of things you might want to address in my letter of recommendation for __  (of course only if you agree with them)
Evidence of enthusiasm and ambition
-I took many graduate courses out of genuine interest for the subject despite not having taken many of the prerequisite courses. Even though I received the poor/mediocre grades in some of these courses, I was able to successfully translate some of the advanced knowledge and skills learned when I ... during my research project ...
-Some other way you can spin these poor grades into something positive
Thanks for agreeing to write this letter, I hope the above bullets make things easier for you; I know you are busy and have to write many of these letters.
Thanks again,
-Student
The point is you want your letter writers to spin the poor grades into something positive that fits with a cohesive story about you. You personally addressing the grades may sound a bit like excuses. A professor addressing the grades won't. It should be noted that some schools do have strict unspoken GPA cutoffs, but many really good schools do not.

The grading scales are different for both undergrad and grad for my school.  Grad grade scales from A to C and then F while undergrad grade scales from A to D and then F.

Actually, I took those graduate courses with prerequisites.

OK well, the point about your letter writers spinning the grades still stands though. You will just have to find another angle. I'm pretty sure there is going to be some positive way to spin it. You just have to think hard about it. If you can translate anything you learned into an REU or project there is still time to do this.

By the way, that is a good answer to go for.  Very simple way to deal with recommendation letters.  Seems like your answer shows that I'm not really over yet.


text:
Can you publish studies based on confidential customer data that comes from private companies?
I am working on a project in biostatistics involving some private companies.
Specifically, these companies share data about their customers with us and we try to apply our algorithm to this data. The good part is that both the algorithm and the application are very new, and seem to work quite well. Unfortunately we can not publish this data in paper or conferences, as it is privately owned.

What is the typical way to proceed in this case?
Does the fact that it is not possible to publish the data implies in general that also results based on this data are also unpublishable?

Publishing data based on confidential private company data
Where the company consents, it is possible to publish studies based on confidential customer data. Common requirements are

Don't identify the company in any publication and possibly be broad when discussing the context of the company (e.g., location)
Don't make the raw data available to other researchers or on online repositories
Don't present individual-level analyses or small group analyses which might allow any customers or proprietary data to be identified

When you initiate a relationship with a private company to analyse their data, it is important to discuss and agree on a number of matters:

Are you able to publish research based on analyses of their data? (note that this can be done without sharing their raw data)
If you publish, to what extent do they require their details to be concealed? (e.g., no disclosure of place, companies, etc.)
How will authorship of publications work? Does anyone at the company wish to be a co-author? If so, what level of contribution do they need to make and how will this work?
What if any rights of veto or influence do they have on what can be published? Will you have academic freedom to publish results even if they do not support the company's commercial agenda?
Are you able to share their data with other researchers or on suitable online repositories?
Will they give you money or other compensation for analyses you perform or reports you write for them? If so, what are the details?

Types of Relationships:
In general, there are different kinds of partnerships between academia and companies that relate to the analysis of data. Relationships should be formed based on a shared understanding of goals and mutual benefit.

Pure consulting: In this context, while you are in academia, you can often still provide standard consulting services. In this setting, you would charge commercial rates to the company for any insights you gain.
Pure research: Data is shared with you by the company with the explicit aim of assisting your program of research. The company may be curious about the results, but is principally motivated by a general desire to assist in your research. The company does not have any explicit expectations about customised reports and so on beyond the research program that you pursue.
Hybrid consulting/research: In this model the company is seeking to gain insights into their business. Providing customised reports to them and other services may be part of the exchange for allowing you access to the data for research purposes. Alternatively, allowing you to publish research based on the data may be one of your conditions that may offset the fee you charge the company for other services you provide.

Within all these models, there are many variations. The important point is that early on in the relationship, you ensure that both you and the company agree on what model is being adopted. These matters can also be renegotiated.

It will very much depend on the data in question, and what agreements you've reached with the private companies. For example, a lab I used to work out paid rather handsomely for some data that underlies some of our models, but it's basically ours. We publish as we see fit.
A couple points:

If you want to publish the data itself, that should have been negotiated in advance, though it's reasonable for a company to say no.
If you wish to proceed, you could try to renegotiate, but again, this should have been done ahead of time.
No, not being able to publish the data does not imply you cannot publish the results of your research. You should consult the original agreement made with this company to see if, and how, publishing results is allowable.

If you genuinely can't get anywhere, it may be possible to simulate data with similar properties and publish on that.

I won't do it, the company where I did my research allowed me to publish the results of investigation, but they warned me about future workers that may not be happy with the publications. Anyways, if you dontt allow any reader to get an idea of which is the company, there wont be any problem.
But talk with the workers of the company first.


text:
Why would manuscript status change from "awaiting reviewer decisions" to "evaluation requests sent to reviewers"?
I submitted a manuscript two weeks ago to a journal. I was following the progress of handling my manuscript depending on the status revealed by the journal's website within my account.
The status history showed the following:
1. Manuscript accepted for processing
2. Evaluation requests sent to reviewers
3. Review is pending
4. Awaiting reviewers decision
5. Evaluation requests sent to reviewers

The journal never informed me about the decision. What are the reasons behind this behavior? Is this normal ?

Please don't delete your question after you get an answer. People here write answers so that they will serve as a resource for the person who wrote the question and for future readers. It's inconsiderate to answerers and to those future readers if you delete your question (and with it, the answer) for no good reason.

This happens frequently if e.g.

some reviewers agree to review, but don't submit their reports by the deadline (or tell the editor that they won't be able to complete the review after all.) Then the editor tries to find additional reviewers. Or,
the reviewers' reports come in and they are conflicting, so the editor wants more reviews to help him/her make a decision.


text:
Is it legal to provide a copy of published IEEE paper on my personal website?
As the second author of a paper published by IEEE am I allowed to provide a download link to a copy of that paper on my own website? The official paper can only be found at the IEEE CS Digital Library behind a paywall. I'd like to provide free access to it.
Does it make a difference if free download links of the paper can already be found with Google Scholar? Should I prefer to link to the download on the university's publication directory instead of providing my own?

It is almost always allowed to provide a download link to a preprint of a paper, and almost never allowed to provide a link to the published version (which is usually typeset by the journal).

@AlexBecker A counter example is ACM, which allows you to provide a link to the "definitive" version of your paper.

@AustinHenley Yes, there are definitely counter-example to my "almost never". I think it's still almost never, but this is changing with more and more journals warming to the idea of open-source.

One of the most comprehensive resources to answer this question is http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/.

The general answer to this question is "read the copyright agreement you signed when the paper was published".

Yes, you can.
From https://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf:

Can an author post his IEEE copyrighted paper on his personal or
  institutions’ servers?  Yes. An author is permitted to post his IEEE
  copyrighted paper on his personal site and his  institution’s server,
  but only the accepted version of his paper, not the published version
  as  might be downloaded from IEEE Xplore.

Directly from their more recently updated paper policy (http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/paperversionpolicy.html):

The policy reaffirms the principle that authors are free to post the
  accepted version of their article on their personal Web sites or those
  of their employers. Posting of the final, published PDF continues to
  be prohibited, except for open access articles, whose authors may
  freely post the final version.

Note that they sometimes really mean the "personal site" part. We once had a problem with Springer: somebody from our chair had put it on their project's website. Although it was a small site hosted completely on the chair's server, they sent a notice to remove it and explained that permission is granted to link it only from the author's page in the "staff" section of the chair site.

@dgraziotin The question in the post says author of a paper published by IEEE, so my answer is correct. The title is ambiguous, is he referring to the paper without reference to the version or does he mean the version published by IEEE? I thought he meant the paper, with no regard to version.

Additionally to Austin Henley’s answer, you might want to check the copyright notices you signed for your papers. All the IEEE Copyright forms I’ve had so far (latest July 2020) are identical, and say the following (emphases mine):

AUTHOR ONLINE USE

Personal Servers. Authors and/or their employers shall have the right to post the accepted version of IEEE-copyrighted
articles on their own personal servers or the servers of their institutions or employers without permission from IEEE, provided
that the posted version includes a prominently displayed IEEE copyright notice and, when published, a full citation to the
original IEEE publication, including a link to the article abstract in IEEE Xplore. Authors shall not post the final, published
versions of their papers.
Classroom or Internal Training Use. […]
Electronic Preprints. […]

It’s probably a good idea to point to the publication you want people to cite anyways.
And this could help distinguish what the IEEE means by « accepted version of his paper » as opposed to « final published PDF ».
While this difference is rather evident for a journal, where editors typeset the document, the distinction is less easy for conferences where you directly submit a PDF that is then published.

I'm really wondering what "prominently displayed IEEE copyright notice and, when published, a full citation to the original IEEE publication" means. How prominent does the prominent copyright notice has to be? What exactly should it say? And how exactly it this citation supposed to look? Are there any examples?

A copyright notice is “© IEEE”, possibly with a year “©2022 IEEE”. I just put it in the page footer, that way it’s prominent enough and appears on every page, and it doesn’t change the rest of the document. That’s also where IEEE puts their own notice on papers downloaded from IEEEXplore. For the rest it tells you what to add: full citation and link.


text:
How to satisfy PhD requirement that publications be available online when papers have been only just been accepted?
It is a requirement of my PhD to publish a certain number of papers. And for the papers to count, they need to be available online. I have deadline in my PhD study.
I have three papers accepted in one journal. It will take time to be online.
I can access my papers through ResearchGate but couldn't find them in Google search.
How I can find the articles in Google search from ResearchGate, without waiting for the journal publishing procedure in order to meet the requirements for my PhD?

What field are your publications in?

Given that you already have the articles, why do you need to find them through ResearchGate or GoogleScholar? Is your goal actually to make the papers available online so that they are accessible on both ResearchGate and Google Scholar? And how is whether the articles are available or not online relevant to completing a PhD? If publication is a requirement for your PhD, then just provide some proof of publication from the publisher, or use the online first version.

Yeah to complete my PhD study I have to achieve the requirements of publication. Unfortunately the articles have just been accepted and the university said should be appear online.

@Fatin Then google scholar and researchgate are irrelevant. Presumably, the university wants to see the publisher put the article online. Such a link will be on the publisher's website. Many journals provide an online copy quite soon after acceptance. However, there are exceptions which do not provide online access.

@Fatin Okay. I think I understand your question. I've updated it a bit to make your question clearer.

Usually journals are willing to confirm you that a paper has been accepted. Does your university not accept these confirmations?

It seems a little odd, surely the test for a PhD should be content of publishable quality. Usually tested by publishing. Should a statement not be sufficient in the thesis stating the papers have been accepted be sufficient?

While every university is different, the following answer assumes common sense:
Whether an article is on ResearchGate or indexed by Google does not provide meaningful evidence that you have published an article.
When is a publication available online? An article is considered to be available online when it is available from the publisher's website. The delay between acceptance and online publication varies between journals. Some journal will put an accepted unproofed version of the manuscript up almost immediately. Other journals wait until proofs have been completed. This is often a few weeks after acceptance. Other journals have no "online first" version and you have to wait until the manuscript has been allocated to an issue, which can take anywhere from months to even a year or more.
For this reason, when evaluating a researcher or a PhD student, it often makes more sense to count publications once they have been accepted. This is especially true for PhD students. Now, for journals that make articles available online rapidly (e.g., less than a month after acceptance) then the difference between acceptance and online is minimal. However, where there is a major time lag, then it would be a stupid policy for a university to require a PhD student to have the publication actually published, as opposed to being accepted.
So in summary:

If you've published your articles in a journal with a short lag between acceptance and online access, then you might just want to wait a few weeks.
If you've published your articles in a journal with a long lag, then you should talk to your university about providing other evidence of proof of manuscript acceptance (e.g., editor acceptance letters).

It's not clear whether you are talking about normal Google or Google Scholar. Since both seem to be built form the same web crawl, the answer in both cases is: Just wait. It will show up eventually. Be patient because it might take weeks or months.
Google's search result and Scholar's database is built from a web crawler that slowly visits pages on the web. There are details on this on Google Scholar's "Inclusion" documentation. Both Google and Google Scholar looks on ResearchGate and it will eventually find those papers.
It likely won't make a difference but if makes you feel better, you can submit the URL to be indexed by Google. Then you can at least be sure that Google knows about it.

Each journal provides an estimated period before its available online. In my area, this is now as short as 4 weeks. Check your journal(s) for the lead time. It is likely in the author guidelines somewhere along with the stub detailing the statistics for the journal.
It is unlikely that you will face any difficulty in its becoming online given the competitive nature of the industry (academic publishing) and access times being critical. What may happen is that because of embargo(s), sharing the documents may be logged/limited by the publisher to maximize his revenues.
As Jerome mentions, it is unlikely being on RG / SSRN counts as being available online for your purposes. It may suffice for those needing to refer to your work in their own academic effort, which is why you should put it up on SSRN/Research Gate


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How to present projects that will soon be published on CV?
I have several projects that will be published soon. I am the 1st author in two of them and co-author in 3 of them. How to present this in my CV?

Possibly related https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34901/indicate-journal-name-for-under-review-and-accepted-in-press-publications-on

You may also want to ask the question of whether you should list them at all on your CV.
Some key distinctions about the papers: Have you got a complete draft? Have you submitted the paper to a journal? If so, what stage is it in the review process? Is it accepted?
In general, keep any listing of accepted or published papers separate from papers in preparation or under review. If you have very few or no publications, then a section on your CV for under preparation or under review papers may be useful. If you have many publications, most people drop the under preparation section from their CV.
If the paper is under review, it is a matter of judgement as to whether it is advisable to list the actual journal that it is under review at. Some people consider it poor form to list the submitted journal, given that anyone can submit a manuscript to any journal. Thus, it can be better to just list the authors and title. Equally, if the review has progressed, then that may be more relevant to demonstrating your future publication output, and you can indicate things like "received revise and resubmit", etc.
If the paper is accepted, then you can just put it on your CV as you would any other reference, albeit presumably you do not yet have page or issue numbers. If the journal has advanced online access, you may get a doi that you can include as well.

It should be immediately obvious to the reader of a CV which papers have been published, which ones are accepted, and which ones are under review.

For published papers, use the default citation style in your field (if there is such a thing).
For papers under review, I used "Submitted to Journal" when I was a more junior scientist. I have enough of a citation record that this is no longer very helpful.
For papers that have been accepted but are not yet published, I use "In press" to indicate its status. I have also seen "To appear" and "To be published" used for this purpose.

Don't add the "Submitted..." articles. There's no guarantee that they'll be accepted to that journal, and you could just say "Submitted to Nature/Science/other top journal" even if there's no chance of it making it in.

@awjlogan: If you’re a grad student or postdoc, you may not have much of a publication record. Under those circumstances, it’s important to list what’s in the pipeline.

In that case it should be just "Submitted for publication", rather than adding a journal. Say you claim to be submitting to Nature, get offered a job based on it, but it turns out it only made it into a toilet paper journal, your new supervisor isn't likely to be impressed...

Actually, knowing where a person submits reveals something useful: their sense of appropriate venues of their work. I’m less likely to hire someone who submits everything to Nature or Science.

@NajibIdrissi That was my exact point :) Worst case, it can be used dishonestly to get a place.

@aeismail Sure, clearly not everything can be in top tiers, that should be flag.  However, it's a decent indication of someone's work (and experience) if it's all in toilet paper journals.

I assume you also mention the journal when the paper has been accepted (this is not quite clear from the answer since you only mention this for submitted papers)?

Simply have a section titled "publications". In order to aid readability and emphasize your contribution, I have seen the following used (which I like)
Dukhiatma, J. Smith, D. Jones. "This is a paper", venue, year.
Dukhiatma, J. Smith, D. Jones. "This is another paper", venue, year.
K. Watson, Dukhiatma, J. Smith. "Yet another paper", venue, year.

If the paper has not been published, but has been accepted, it’s better to use an expression like “In press” or “To appear” instead of the year.

@aeismail I think that's an answer sufficiently distinct from this one, since it suggests a different way of handling what appears to be the most important aspect of this question.

@jpmc26: My  answer is now posted.

It depends on the nature of "Soon to be published".
For journals that have been accepted, or have been sent back for revisions, you can consider something like
Smith, J. My Amazing Science: A Bayesian Approach. Journal of Everything. In press/in revision.
For something where you have only just submitted it, you can use the notion of "In submission":
Shuri, P. Applications of Vibranium to Battlefield Injuries. In submission.
There are some people who believe that you should put the journal you have submitted the paper to in that line. In my mind, you shouldn't - a large percentage of people, myself included, essentially ignore that, and if you pick invariably high tiered journals, it can give off a feeling of a best being naive, and at worst trying to "juice" your CV. "In submission to Nature" doesn't mean anything.
Finally, there is the question of the notion of "In Preparation" papers - those that have not yet been submitted at all. For a junior scientist, I think it's understandable to have a limited set of these papers in your CV, essentially because the end of your training is moving these papers along, and this is essentially an indicator of "These things are highly in flux, and may be finished by the time you read this". I would only include one or two of these, and they need to be projects that are genuinely quite close to being done - you should expect to, and be comfortable with, answering questions about them.


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Why does Google Scholar provide a different number of references when sorting by relevance versus date?
I've noticed that sorting by date, and relevance has different numbers of results.  Why is this?
Edit: Here is a reproducible example:
Here is "foo" sorted by date (15,000 references)
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?scisbd=2&q=foo&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Here is "foo" sorted by relevance (300,000 references)
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=foo

Which aspect of Google Scholar are you seeing this behavior in? I can't figure out which piece of the UI you are talking about.

I edited to provide example

Thanks for the revision, it's a more complete question now.

(I'll repeat an earlier answer of mine, which is relevant here, although the question is not a duplicate. Nevertheless, the question itself is relevant. Why are you interested in how many Google Scholar results a particular search yields in the first place?)
The "approximate" ("about") number of hits Google reports is completely worthless - in all Google searches. To see why, look at this number on both the first and the tenth page of Google hits:
First results page
Tenth results page
When I just did this, I got "approximately 15,200,000 hits" reported on the first results page... but only "approximately 96 hits" on the tenth page.
Given the opacity of Google's search algorithms, which likely have a lot of sampling built in, it's not overly surprising to me that you get surprising results even if you only sort your results in a different way.
In addition, your results will probably vary depending on your search engine bubble (another reason why this number is useless).

Note: if you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included" on page 10, and page 1 and page 10 both say "about 15,500,000 results." (I don't know how many pages it says this for--at least to page 22.)

I'm looking at about 20 to a couple as there's only a couple dozen cites, to begin from based upon the original paper on the topic.


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Are there yearly announced post-doc positions within Canadian universities
I want to know if Canadian universities especially in Ontario propose post-doc position for PhD holders (coming from Europe), or any other research positions (associate researcher...)
or maybe they are hidden and one should contact labs to get these ?

Which field? Did you try searching the common job websites in your field? In physics/maths we have mathjobs, the AAS jobs register, INSPIRE jobs etc

Computer science, common job websites post post-docs ?

For funding https://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/en/home-accueil.html For positions contact each research group you're interested in.

alright thanks, so i assume every year there's an allocated amount of money for postdocs ? how often they hire postdocs anyway ? could you give examples of labs in Canada hiring certain amount of postdocs each year ?


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What's the meaning of Visiting Researcher / Ass. Professor?
I want to know how actually (and on the basis of what) visiting researcher (for PhD students) or visiting Ass. Professor (for lecturers) opportunities are offered worldwide (especially for USA/Canada) ?
Thanks !

For the European countries I've seen the answer would be similar:
Visiting researcher is not really a type of (funded) position, but a status. PhD students might do a research visit as part of their doctoral studies while still being paid by their home institution, sometimes supported by a travel grant to cover travel and housing costs. There are also post-doc grants providing 1- or 2-year funding that are implemented by having the involved institution host the postdoc as a visiting researcher. Finally, a professor on a sabbatical might visit another institution for a couple of months and in the course of that take on the visiting researcher status.
Fixed-term lecturer or teacher positions are created by the department as a regular type of position  (the term "visiting assistant professor" is usually not used). They usually have to be publicly announced and advertised, although the effort for advertisement is usually smaller than for a tenure-track or tenured position.

OK, But for the Fixed-term lecturer what are the requirements in general in Canada ?

@Sam If it's anything like in Europe, you will need a PhD or be close to finishing one, and have expertise aligned with the acute teaching needs of the department.

Does this mean a PhD degree and some teaching experience ? or that the PHD topic should be right in the teaching topic ? also 'close to finishing one' means it's OK to start before the thesis defense ?

@Sam They might need someone to teach the course on databases, or hexapoda. Then the call would mention that and you should point out your relevant experiences in the application.

@Sam Yes, starting before the defense would probably be OK, depending on the country (I know one country in Europe where it might be a problem, but that seems to be the minority). When you apply for a specific call, the call will mention this, or you can also contact their contact person.

Alright and typically what is the proposed duration of the contract (for the fixed-term lecturer) for a fresh grad ?

@Sam The duration of the position will usually not depend on the person, but be announced as part of the call. One or two years would be a typical duration.

Very clear ! thanks !


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Wrong way of teaching
I am from a South Asian country. I did my Msc in mathematics from a flagship university in our country. I think some parts of the course structure and the syllabus is incorrect. For example Differential Manifold is taught in 1st semester but several variable calculus ( Inverse Function theorem, Implicit Function Theorem etc) which is a prerequisite for the course, is taught in 2nd semester. I think it is clearly 'Rote Learning'. What steps can be taken against it ?

Steps from whom? From you? Do you have  a lot of power in your political/university system?

How is "Rote Learning" viewed in your country? How "open" to suggestions is your university? Do they care about quality of teaching?

In our country, 'Rote Learning' is considered a bad practice ( theoretically). But in practical, lion's share of the academic follow it. Students are taught to memorize stuff in any subject since childhood.

@Noname: then you probably can't do anything (unless you are a professor or politician).

I doubt that you will have much effect except at a personal level unless you join academia and influence curriculum over time.
There may be reasons for the current structure that you aren't aware of. Conversations with (trusted) faculty members about the philosophy of the program and the reasons for certain structures can both help you understand why this is and, perhaps, suggest other, better, ways of doing things.
But an outsider, even a graduate, will probably have little impact.
If both semesters are taught by the same person it is possible that a teaching technique called Spiral Education might be at play here. The first semester introduces things at a less-than-complete level that is only finished in the second semester. Of course this assumes a well thought out plan for getting students to the right spot by the end. It is even possible that the first semester is intended to teach "just enough" to get people going in a subject so that if they don't take the second semester they can still use what they learned. That may be more applicable to other things that mathematics, I suppose, but I can't see into the minds of the curriculum designer.
But a conversation with people involved might be valuable, both to yourself and to the institution.


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Can I use the whole mathematical proof from references like books and reputed research papers for my own paper?
Currently I am trying to publish my research paper on cosmology. I have found some useful proved equations in other research papers. As this is my first research paper, I have no experience with plagiarism in a research paper.
Can I add these proven equations from other papers into my paper?

Have you ever read a mathematics research paper?

You certainly can, and should, use the equations (and theorems, etc.) that others have proved. Otherwise, you would have extremely hard time getting anything new done, as mathematics and physics research is quite cumulative in nature.
You use other results by citing the source. At least in mathematics, sometimes you just write "by the Lax-Milgram lemma we get...", if you are writing for an audience which knows what the Lax-Milgram lemma is. If you suppose not all of the audience knows this, then you provide a reference to the result: "by the Lax-Milgram lemma [1, theorem 4.7] we get..." (where the citation format may and does vary). If in doubt, err on the side of citing, as it will be helpful for beginners.
However, if you are writing a research paper and the concept of citations is unfamiliar to you, then it is a good idea to get some help from a scientist in the field (or any field). If you are at a research institute, find someone there. If not, it will be more difficult, maybe impossible, to find a contact, but you might still want to try. Publishing scientific articles is not a trivial task and there are some traps (predatory journals).
[1] Reputable source with bibliography info.


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What is difference between PhD and Postdoc?
I am a PhD student in Mathematics. I wanted to know what exactly is the difference between PhD and Postdoc. Is it just the research that one does after PhD(kind of second PhD?)?

I want to address this question by citing my current Master's advisor when I asked him the same question:

In the Bachelor's, you learn the basics of the area.
In the Master's, you learn what people are doing in the field and how to read scientific papers.
As a PhD, you learn how to develop your own research and start having new ideas on the field.
As a Post-Doc, you learn how to mentor other people's research while producing your own work without supervision.
When you reach Professorship you only have to look smart!

No, when you reach full professorship you only have to look smart.  There's still "assistant professor" and "associate professor" to get through.

True, this was a very simplistic point of view but useful one I think...

In mathematics, a "postdoc" is a special kind of faculty job you get just after your Ph.D.  It may have a fixed term (not tenure track).  It may have reduced teaching, so that you can concentrate on your research.  You may have a "mentor" assigned to advise you on doing research.
But (unlike some other fields like experimental physics) you are probably not working in someone else's "lab" on someone else's research program that someone else got the funding for.

A postdoc is expected to know what they are doing, and to be productive researchers with minimal supervision. PhD students are learning how to be researchers: by the end of the process, they should be on par with a postdoc, but it will take time to get there
Edit: This comment has been copied from Barbara Robson's answer here.

The first and foremost difference between the two is that a PhD is "awarded" after defending a thesis (plus additional duties depending on the department). On the other hand, a PostDoc is a temporary working position that is assigned by some institution, whose completion does not require any defence.
What people do or do not do, researchwise, in their PhD and PostDocs is very much dependent on the area and on the department (you may look at other answers that go more in details on this and that I do not want to overwrite, as I would just copy and paste them).

Yes, please copypaste or give the link.

I have always understood a postdoc to be a "post doctoral" position, that is a paid post. The idea of a postdoc position is to do research roughly in the area of the PhD, with the person gaining experience that would possibly be of help in gaining a full time position.

Around here, PhD students also earn wages (unless they support themselves with a grant).

This is akin to asking what's the difference between research master's and PhD, or Assistant to associate professor.
A postdoc, is the next level after PhD (though not a necessary one). This is the main point.
Practically, it is different, in that it is less formal, with less specific requirements, and you are paid for it, as you are employed, not a student, as other answers here explained well.


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individual research grants
I am going to apply for some postdoc positions in Canada. I have some feedback from professor. They are saying about availability of individual research grants in their department. I do not know how this type of grants means?

You should ask them.

As the name suggests, individual research grants correspond to funding which can be awarded to an individual researcher (often a junior researcher). It usually covers their own salary, possibly also equipment and some travel/conferences budget.
Generally one has to apply by proposing a specific research project in a host institution, and the grant is awarded depending on the quality of the project.