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Am I obliged to tell students that there are different versions of the exam?
This past term, I was teaching in a collaborative classroom where students sit together at round tables. This works well for in-class activities and peer learning, but is the not exactly the best configuration on the day of a midterm or final.
Concerned that some students might have wandering eyes – either inadvertently, or perhaps even intentionally – I came up with something that might help. Several of the exam questions required some basic arithmetic, so I made three different copies of the exam, where the numbers in the word problems varied a little bit. (Each version's problem was solved the same way, but the end result would be different.)
Later, I was talking with my daughter about what I had done. She asked me if I told the students that not everyone was getting the exact same test. (I had not.) She told me about some classes she had taken where the instructor had done this same thing, but announced it ahead of time (saying something like, "There's no sense trying to copy an answer from a neighbor, because the problems vary.") She also said that one instructor had gone so far as to print the exams on different colored sheets of paper. (My daughter assumed that all the orange tests were the same, all the blue tests were the same, etc., but that was just conjecture.)
If this makes any difference, there was already one cheating incident (or a class project) earlier in the term.
Also, I realize that it's often the "Show your work" part of an exam question that is the most important part, but that's not the case for this particular course. It's an introductory programming course, and I give small snippets of code, asking, "What does the output of this program look like?" So, for some of these questions, it would be very easy to copy an answer from another student's exam.
This made me wonder:

Am I under any obligation to share with my students the fact that there are multiple versions of the exam? Or is it okay to remain silent about the issue?
Is there any good reason for doing it one way or the other?

Presumably you would prefer for them to study and learn the material and take the test honestly, and not for them to cheat so that you can catch them. In which case there is a very good reason to tell them that cheating is not going to be a winning strategy.

Exactly as @ff524 says: there'll be vastly more impact (for people otherwise inclined) on study prior to the exam if you tell them well in advance of the difficulties that any prospective cheating will be more complicated. I'd avoid different colors, since that would make it easier to determine candidates for copying-from. Some years ago, I went to the trouble of writing a simple bit of software that would cycle through different-but-similar problems on cycles of 3, 5, 7 so that I could have 100+ exams that were not identical (but comparable work-load, comparable ideas).

... and even long-answer questions that refer to particulars are harder to "copy" when the particulars differ in potentially un-noticed ways.

You could make "show your work" questions for programming. Look over at some of the language tags in StackOverflow. Many of the questions are about why a program produced an answer the OP did not expect, and the answers are explanations of the reasons for that answer.

@paulgarrett I usually use different colors because it makes reorganizing papers for grading easier.  And I don't worry too much about cheating.  But if you want, you can use more colors than there are versions of exams.

@ff524 I am not completely convinced by the argument. If you tell them in advance, you only motivate dishonest students to find better methods of cheating. Instead, cheaters getting caught and punished may have more effect as a deterrent for future classes.

@FedericoPoloni I only know that in my classes, when I tell my students about anti-cheating measures in advance (different exams for adjacent students, assigned seating given out at the exam), I have virtually no cheating. I also give exams that are open book, open notes, so no cheating by bringing cheat sheets. I get extra proctors, who look out for students with phones out. The main method left to cheaters is to go to the restroom and leave notes for one another in there, but I don't see a lot of students leaving the room during the exam, either. It seems to work.

@ff524 - I'd like to think that the vast majority of students are going to study for the exam and don't plan to cheat in any way. It's that small minority of schemers I'm worried about. I didn't mention this in my question, but one reason I feel funny about announcing the strategy beforehand is that I risk alienating the majority by painting them as untrustworthy. Staying silent simply means if one or two students are tempted to cheat on exam day, that attempt could well backfire, but, by not mentioning it, I don't portray myself as a paranoid painter with a broad brush.

@user37208: I often used different versions of the same test, at least in lower level courses, but I also (sometimes) said there were different versions when there was only one. In general, as for whether to tell students or not, I don't see why one wouldn't. My main concern was to reduce cheating, not try to catch people cheating (which just means more work for me), although there was one time in the 1980s when teaching high school I deliberately set a trap for my 6th period class who I was convinced was getting answers from earlier classes and my principal kept saying I needed proof .  . .

@J.R. I think the "good" (not-cheating) students are also annoyed by cheaters, and don't like that many instructors let them get away with it (by not taking any steps to mitigate cheating). They seem happy that I am trying to make sure everyone is on a level playing field.

There is also the question of whether or not it is ethical for an instructor to design a "sting operation" against their students. That can exacerbate adversarial feelings between students and instructors and impair what should be a mentoring relationship.

Although there is this expectation that all conditions should be specified before courses, before exams, here there is a difference: They should not cheat by looking at their neighbour's work. Period. If they do, it's their own fault if things do not work out. A student that does not try to copy from their neighbour will not even encounter the problem.

You can probably get 70% to 80% of the desired effect (students not cheating) by just telling them there are different tests, without actually having different tests. That's a lot less effort for you.

At some point you need to tell the students. You do not want students leaving the exam and then talking about the answers and being totally confused. For example, it is not uncommon to hear a student ask after an exam, did you get 1 kg for problem 2. If the problems are different, this is going to make the discussions confusing and prevent the students from learning after the exam. Telling them on the way out of the exam room is often not feasible, so telling them in advance is probably better.
I would also suggest instead of slightly changing the questions, is probably not the best idea. It can lead to complaints that one exam was easier/harder than another. Further, if you provide solutions, it is much more difficult since you need to pair the solution to the exact problem. An alternative for reducing cheating is to mix up the order of the questions such that one student might get 1-2-3-4-5 and another gets 5-4-3-2-1. Then students can talk about the "train problem" and the "coin flipping problem" and not question 1 or question 2.

Apart from the potential waste of paper, for essentially algorithmic questions, a small extension of the software that puts together different exams can generate corresponding solutions... both to give to students and as an aid to whoever's grading. And the potential complaints that minor variations in data have a significant impact on "difficulty" is easy to dispatch in many ways... among them the presumed point that examples had already been done with varying data, and, anyway, why should a "5" make it harder than a "7"? In my experience, there are few such complaints, in part because...

... the students [sic] who'd want to resist the difficulty of cheating are (in my experience) significantly intimidated by ... "technology".

@paulgarrett how do you hand out the solution sets? Do you hand them the solution when you give back the exam or when they hand it in?

I've done both. The software that generates the exams also numbers the solutions. Further, given the propensity of kids to sit in the same general area, in large-ish classes this makes it easier to return exams (not pinging all over the room). Further, the numbering indicates proximity during the exam, so evidence of cheating on adjacently-numbered exams is more damning than otherwise. For that matter, numbering exams even if the questions don't changes does give information that cheaters might be inhibited-by...

... and, for detering cheaters, the insinuation that the instructor knows all the students, or has ways of tracking them, seems at least to mildly inhibit low-level cheating. I was "gratified" to have students tell me that they were "amazed" that I could match their name to their face... not to mention location in the room. ("Go me!") Well, duh, the obvious devices will enable this... and the students who are amazed deserve to worry about the effectiveness of their planned cheating schemes?!? That is, in fact, just creating a certain amount of "friction" can help ... deter?... students.

"and being totally confused" - unless they know this mode of 3xams since their early school years, in which case they'll quickly figure out what's going on. "prevent the students from learning after the exam" - this depends on the general timing; if the exam takes place during the time without classes, students usually take a break from learning anything about a given subject in the timespan between the exam and the release of exam results, anyway. Lastly, there's certainly a trade-off as anything that renders it easier to refer to problems after the exam ("train problem") can also help ...

... identify reordered problems across exam variants. Preventing such an identification despite reordering might be particularly hard if problems are very "visually unique" (figures, noticeable code block indentation, ...).

Your point #2 is a true concern in the general sense. However, in this case, I was aware of this potential problem, and I carefully ensured only the end results differed, with the difficulty of the individual problems remaining consistent.

@J.R. The alternative view is that by doing some simple and obvious protocols to minimize cheating during an exam, it lowers students stress levels during test and eliminates distractions (at least when non-cheating students have had experiences in other  classes where they feel that another student is 'cheating' but the instructor doesn't notice (or appears to ignore it).

I suggest one way to let students know there are multiple versions of the test is to not say anything before the test, and just pass out tests with big "VERSION: {A,B,C}" labels. Students will infer this means there are multiple versions, but without enough time to plan a cheating strategy. It's not really dishonest either, as not knowing there are different versions of the test won't change how anyone studies. It's fairly common where i'm from.

I don't see how changing the order provides more than a slight impediment to cheating.

Making different versions of the exam is standard practice in a lot universities when physical barriers against cheating are not available, when students take the test in different moments or with take away exams or homework.
Provided that difference of versions is not noticeable at first sight, not telling the students in advance won't harm honest students, but it will make dishonest students to unsuccessfully cheat in a way that will be easily noticeable - probably some students will produce the answer to their neighbours'questions. Therefore, I don't see an ethical problem in not telling them.
In the end it depends on what is your goal: If you want to catch dishonest students cheating, don't tell them, but if you prefer discouraging dishonest students from trying to cheat, tell them. When faced with that dilemma I usually choose the later.
Of course, by telling them you will give cheaters some useful information on how to cheat, but that should be addressed in another way.

A trick I have seen used, and plan to put in practise where suitable, is to make students use (parts of) a unique identifying number as the initial factor or exponent in the question.
For example, universities often have nine-digit student numbers which are ideal for being encoded in a computer science or mathematics question, especially where it is knowledge of a process or algorithm being tested, or the answers can be easily formulated from just the number provided the techniques applied are correct and accurate.
This allows students to study or even work together on an assignment/test, speaking generally about techniques and concepts that are relevant, without being able to directly share answers unless they do all the work together - in which case you have explicit collusion. In my experience this is a lot easier to find and a lot easier to penalise - because you can never quite judge whether Student A was exposing answers or Student B was copying without their knowledge, or that they had a system going, if they simply present the same answers from the same question.

Good idea, but I see two possible issues: 1) These numbers are sometimes meant to be confidential (especially towards other students), as they are used to semi-publicly indicate grades on bulletin boards. 2) If a student correctly solves the task with another student's number, wouldn't they still get most of the points? After all, the only factual mistake is a wrong initial value, everything else is a subsequent error. So, copying would only carry a minor penalty, only the points subtracted for picking the wrong initial value.

To 2. If the number you use doesn't even resemble the one listed on your paper's coversheet, you're immediately being called in for a frank discussion of the academic integrity policy, which the student signed to state adherence with. To 1. If another student can tie a number (not their own) to another student's identity, they're already in breach of any confidentiality and integrity policies that apply by their own hand, not of anybody else's.

I'm not sure what you mean by "they're alredy in breach of any confidentiality and integrity policies that apply by their own hand". Surely, no-one can breach a confidentiality policy by knowing something. However, the issue I'm seeing is rather that it's the instructor who more or less makes students share their (confidential!) student numbers with other students. By including the student numbers into the problem while allowing group work, it is barely avoidable that some students will see other students' ...

... numbers. I do not realistically see students "abstractly" solve the task in a group, and then switch to "lone warrior" mode to compute the solution based upon their personal number.

I'd be more inclined to give each student a number I generated myself, rather than rely on, say, their student ID number. It might be a little more work, but it avoids a lot of potential complications, too.

There was a case like this on a math test at Ohio State long ago.  Distinguished senior professor was magnanimously teaching a large-lecture elementary course (math for poets kind of thing).  He had students use digits from their student ID in the problems.  This made all exams different.  Then the lowly TAs had to grade the tests...they were up all night and still hadn't finished by the next morning.  (Of course, this was in the days before personal computers.)

@O.R.Mapper there is nothing requiring group work; this is an option available to students regardless. They do not need to share the specific number in order to speak of algorithms or concepts. Thus either they have shared the number themselves (their right) or another student is cheating in order to view their work (their own breach of policy). That you do not see it happening, is not relevant to the fact it does.

@GEdgar the number changes nothing about the exam except the number used to start with. Every student still has to show the correct algorithm, explain why it works, and get the appropriate result at the end. Marking all of that is identical except for the number - in which case the TA plugs it into the formula they know to be correct, and grinds out the answer expected in that paper. Even on P&P that shouldn't take long, and becomes a trivial complaint these days.

Nij: "They do not need to share the specific number in order to speak of algorithms or concepts." - for a student who does not yet completely "get" a concept yet, it can be hard to determine that the actual number needs not be shared in order to get some useful advice on a concrete issue. To the student, this situation appears as "Either I fail to solve the problem because I cannot ask peers for advice, or I am forced to reveal my student number." Therefore, as an instructor, I am extremely careful about creating situations ...

... that could be interpreted as forcing students to reveal any confidential information about themselves.

The question of the OP was not about how to improve. It was about sharing with the students the fact that there are multiple versions of the exam vs. remaining silent about this.

"Is there any good reason for doing it one way or the other?" -  the question asked, I gave an answer.

Don't use a student ID number if you're in a setting where exams are marked anonymously - because that means that the person marking the exam could know whose exam it is.

There are two possible motivations for your actions:

You wish to catch and punish students who you suspect to be cheating.

You want to disincentivize students from cheating, as they will learn more by studying and taking the exam on their own.

If your main goal is 2 (which I believe to be a better motivation), then surely the best course of action is to tell the students far ahead of time that there will be several different versions of the exam and that it will be fruitless to try and copy off their neighbors. That way, students will know not to copy, and may invest more time into studying for the test and thus learn more. (More cynically, it may encourage them to find other ways to cheat, though you may find ways to deter other common methods. Honestly, even if they try and cheat by making a "cheat sheet," at least they'll accidentally study in the process).
If your main goal is 1, then yes, not telling the students in advance is certainly optimal. Be careful what you wish for, though, as failing many of your students (perhaps more than you expect) might open quite the can of worms.

(1) You are under no such obligation.
(2a) If they know ahead of time, they will not even try.
(2b) If they do not know, you will be able to directly detect copying-from-neighbours and have the offender punished.

Here's a late answer, based on the fact that in the time since the OP was originally posted, I started giving tests in a computer lab, via our school's LMS, and in part making use of random-block questions that randomly pull from a larger testbank. Among the advantages are that every test is a unique combination of questions, and that this structure can remain fixed between semesters: we always get unique tests without any extra effort from the instructor.
I'm broadly in favor of making these things transparent, or at least not intentionally obscured from the students. What I've done is put a written note in my syllabus testing policy, "Tests may be randomly differentiated among students." This just happens to be in the middle of one of several paragraphs; my broad assumption is that none of my students read it intelligibly in advance. I assume if students communicate it will be obvious after the first test this is happening.
To date (after 3 years) I've never gotten an inquiry or complaint about this structure, so I see only upside to having it publicly documented in the syllabus.


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How many and which references to own publications should be included in a research statement for post doc position?
I am composing my research statement for post doc applications in astrophysics/cosmology. I found that if I cite all the work associated with my work, then the references itself are taking around 2.5 pages. Some of the job applications have a restriction on the length of the research statement including the references. In such cases, do I not cite all the references? How do I pick which reference to keep and which one to ignore?

Interesting question, but I dont think there will be a generally applicable, optimal number of references to include.

Footnote: "Citations refer to publications listed in my CV."

I think it would be best if you cite a small number of most relevant work. Readers from your field will probably get an idea from a limited bibliography. You can perhaps provide with a link to a page that you set as an extended version of bibliography related to your work. If page limit is an issue you can explore various alternative citation styles which might be more compact and save you space. One example is to use just the name of first author followed by et al.

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What happens if an author acknowledges a potential anonymous referee in the paper?
Let's say that you thank Professor X in your paper that you will submit to a Journal Y for providing you some insightful comments. It is never possible to know but let's assume that Professor X is the anonymous referee for your paper. This is possible since you make a list of potential referees (this is quite common for some journals).
What would be the reaction of an editor?

As an editor in both computer science and biology, I would generally consider a person listed in the acknowledgements to be involved enough to have a conflict of interest, and therefore would not invite them to be a reviewer. This is a heuristic, not an absolute rule.
It is also worth noting that I usually solicit a review from precisely one of the recommended reviewers, since recommended reviewers are often "close" in the network of the authors, and I want to have more independent perspectives as well.  It's still worth listing multiple recommended reviewers, since some may be unavailable, but it's not useful (for editors like me) to make a very extensive list.

Wouldn't it be rather easy to exploit that rule to make sure that someone is not going to review my paper?

@FooBar that's probably why it's "a heuristic rather than an absolute rule".  After all, there's a difference between a quick chat at a conference with someone you don't know well and a former colleague whose lab you just visited for a week.

@FooBar It's a practice that definitely has been exploited before (I can't say how common it is - hopefully not very). If I can find the link I'll comment it - but there's been a question here about that before, where a group was repeatedly ackowledging an individual (that had no relation to them) to avoid ever having them review their papers.

@FooBar Editors get to use their judgement, if something seems fishy.  And if there's actually an issue with somebody's work, it won't generally be the case that precisely one individual is critical to detecting it.

Nothing would happen. In my area (math) it is quite possible that X will end up being the referee in spite of the fact that you mentioned them. Providing someone with insightful comments is not considered to be a connection strong enough to constitute a conflict of interest, so the editor would not normally have any reason for concern.
I should note that in math, authors submitting papers for publication are not typically asked to suggest names of potential referees, so perhaps that makes the answer less relevant for you.

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Advisor trying to patent an idea for himself even though we wrote the paper together!
My advisor is trying to patent an idea without me. I got to know that he is registering the patent through the IP officer at our University. When I asked him about it, he did not give me a straight answer and has not responded to any of my emails inquiring about this. The idea he is trying to patent is literally the entire paper that a colleague and I wrote as co-first authors. I have defended my PhD and I am about to begin my job in industry.
Any advice on how to go about this situation ?
If I go against him,I have 2 fears at the moment i.e.

He might make my colleague's PhD miserable because the two of us would be on the patent, which he does not like (he tried to remove one of the inventors on a previous patent but I convinced him otherwise). I was lucky enough to graduate on time.
He would not provide me any more recommendation letters for green card, etc.

And advice is appreciated.

Who came up with the main idea behind the proposed patent?

Is the paper published?  If so then your supervisor may find that the idea cannot be patented.  So your problem goes away.

This is unfortunately common. Happened to me already twice, and I have several colleagues who went through similar situation. I am still in good terms with both ex-advisors who scooped me off patent ideas. Take a deep breath.

Yes, the paper is published. I believe there is a rule that within one year of the work shown to public, the patent can be filed.

Regarding the idea, it was during a joint discussion. There was no single person who came up with it. It is just a straight reward application and implementation of a certain system.

@computationally_curious: The one-year rule exists in US law, but not in most other countries.

The proper place to handle this, now, is the IP office at the university. Raise the issue in your own name so that your colleague doesn't suffer any consequences, but if negotiations follow, make sure everyone appropriate is included.
But you may also want to consult an IP lawyer. The university may be able to help you with this also.
It is hard to avoid all negative consequences in a situation like this, of course. Especially if the professor is a bad actor with power.

+1 The IP office has a strong interest in the patent being valid. Not listing all the inventors on the application can make it invalid.

Depending where the OP is, there may not exist any truly local IP office nor moderator in the institution. Also in some cultures and countries the law is not the best resource, particularly with academic disputes. Your last paragraph is very real.

I have had similar issues in the past. My advice is that you first consider how important is this patent for your career (and why), and try to deal with the delicate situation in the best possible terms.
In both cases where I had this exact same problem, these were ex-supervisors who seriously treated the joint ideas as their own. So you have to be careful in approaching the topic, as they may be genuinely surprised (in their heads) by any accusations. I believe I dealt with the situations in the best possible way, mainly by securing publications and not fighting them. I was ultimately not included in any of the two patents. One of the patents was apparently never approved exactly because I published the exact idea online as soon as possible, first in my personal blog and then as a "perspective" in a single-authored review paper.
I remain in good terms with them to this day. I understand they were egoistic and self-centred in completely ignoring my merit but I have heard of several similar cases. I believe anyone can be pushed that way amidst department pressures, by the sheer power to just do it. Usually all they want/need is a CV line, and have no monetary interests in the patent idea itself.
Perhaps you could likewise? If you really need this specific patent, and your advisor is clearly unwilling to face the problem, understand you'll enter a major conflict. I don't think it will be worth the trouble, in most cases, unless you're confident this patent will make you rich or unbeatable in the job market.

If all they want is a CV line, how does it harm them to share the credit?

@PeterTaylor I don't know exactly how to answer that. In my situations they really treated shared ideas as their own, and insisted on having that impression. I think it's partially ego plus avoiding having to deal with someone else who might want a more privileged authorship status.

I think this is excellent practical advice - like you, I don't approve of the conduct of these people, but it is important to be realistic about what can be done to salvage/preserve one's interests as a (more) junior academic

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Response article to a flawed paper you reviewed
I recently reviewed an article. I found weaknesses in assumptions that meant none of the conclusions that were made could actually be made; basically they had absolutely no result.
As such, I gave a detailed review (~ 2000 words) explaining why the assumptions made by the authors were wrong. I was civil and polite throughout, it was not an attack and I tried to remain constructive. I recommended to the editor to reject the paper and, despite recommendations of accept with major revisions from the other two reviewers, the editor rejected the paper. I believe that the authors will take the easy option and just submit to another journal without making serious edits, rather than paying serious attention too my review.
If the paper does get published in (almost) unchanged state, should/could I write some kind of response article? How does one get to do this (should I email the editor with a draft of a response article)?
Should I contact the authors (before they publish, after they publish, or not at all, before or after I contact the editor, before or after I submit/publish a response article)?

Remember the review confidentiality! By contacting them before the paper is public, you are identifying yourself as one of the previous reviewers... After it is published, then enter the rules of your field, the fact that you were the reviewer is irrelevant.

Somewhat related: How to deal with repeated resubmissions of a bad paper

@FábioDias: This might be offtopic, but I always thought that reviewer confidentiality is "one-sided", i.e. it is important that the authors of the paper do not get to know the identity of the reviewer if the reviewer does not decide to disclose it himself. I can't see a problem in the reviewer's identifying himself. Am I off track? If the authors knew the reviewer without him/her intending it, they might be vengeful (e.g.), so the identity should not be revealed from the side of the editor, but if the reviewer decides to do it himself...

Why do you believe the authors will try to resubmit elsewhere without making any changes? I don't see any reason to assume bad faith on their part.

@PhoemueX In the case of successful publications this is irrelevant. I'm not sure if this is part of the regulation for papers (I might have been using the rule for grants/fellowships, that is indeed more restrict). But either way, it is probably not a good idea, in general. People are weird, they might hold grudges....

@Kevin Got a feeling they will given some of their previous publications which have critical response articles, and on some other papers (from other authors) I've suggested rejection for have later turned up elsewhere unchanged - so I'm a bit fed up of wasting my time with reviewing to the best of my ability.

Wait. The authors have seen your review, they should know that they have a problem. There's nothing to be done until the flawed article appears in another journal (if it ever does). You might write a draft response article and sit on it until the unchanged article appears. If it does, you can update your draft based on any changes and submit it to the same journal in response. If they fix it before resubmitting it, then you have nothing to do, and your review will have been successful.

By waiting to publish a response until the unchanged article appears (if it remains unchanged), you are also more likely preserve your anonymity as the reviewer.  If you publish your response article before the unchanged article is published, your anonymity as a reviewer is much more likely to be compromised.

@Joshua, anonymity in the peer review process is primarily to protect the reviewer from the nasty or overly nice things the they might have said. Some people sign their reviews before sending them in to further emphasize their stand on their position. I suppose it's up to editors whether they propagate that signature to authors. Publishing your counter article early however does violate the confidentiality of the submission process and should not be done to protect the authors from not-yet-due criticism, however.

You have mentioned that another reviewer has recommended with "accept with major revisions", did s/he pointed out the "wrong" assumption the authors used in their paper? If not, did any other reviewer do that (assuming that there is more than 2 reviewers)? I'm assuming that you can access their review (many journals allow that once you have posted your response). Keep in mind that the editor will most likely go with the worst case scenario (worst decision).
As a reviewer, your job is to evaluate the paper (fairly and up to your knowledge). You may not contact the authors now and reveal that you are one the reviewers (from my understanding). If the paper has "zero results" utilizing such a severe "wrong" assumption, then why are sure that they will submit the paper as is to a different journal and won't take your review into account? Do you know them personally (that is a different story then!). Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that the paper will published in its current form anyway! If you have spotted mistake, other will too!
You can however, if the paper is published, email the authors with questions or explanations. Ask them to include an "errata" or withdraw the paper (if possible). You can even write a response paper (not sure if applicable in your field), in which you can discuss what's wrong with the aforementioned paper. This can be done, either by citing their work (less harsh) or directly critiquing their work.

"the editor will most likely go with the worst case scenario (worst decision)" That's certainly not a general rule in my field.

I agree. As a side note, it will be helpful to others if you have included your field in your comment.

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Should you include your collaborations in your CV?
Should you create a section listing your research collaborations in your CV?
If yes, should you name of collaborators (who might not be known to the audience) or list the institutions and their countries with which you have collaborated?

Usually this is shown implicitly by listing the other authors of your papers in your "Publications" section.  I've never seen a separate section used.  Collaborations that didn't lead to papers are usually not something to brag about.

NSF biographical sketches require you to list collaborators, students advised, postdocs, etc. for purposes of determining who would have conflict in reviewing your proposal.  That's not an ordinary part of a CV, but it is something that's needed in the context of applying for an NSF grant.  It can be very painful to keep such a list up to date, because names on the list "age-out" after a certain time and should be removed.

@NateEldredge how one can find collaborations from list of authors? Co-authors can be my students and co-workers in my group or department. How to show that I am a collaborative person with international collaborations?

All co-authors are collaborators.

What Kimball said. In particular, your students are collaborators.

For the main question, you may to include the list of collaborations in your CV. Although it could be inferred from your publications, not all collaborations have the need to be published, especially in the case of classified projects such as the ones funded by your nation's defense research department.
From the arguments from the comments, it is clear that co-authors are considered to be collaborators. In some cases, all of your co-authors may not hold considerable contribution and certain collaborators you wish to show are not in the list of co-authors of your papers. Hence, you may include a Major Collaborators list in your CV and cover those whom you think are important collaborators you have worked with.

Isaac I agree with you. Just highlight the prestige collaborators in your CV to promote your works.


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Why would a professor assign more grades to a presentation than a report in a software engineering subject?
I am doing my master's in Software Engineering at a German university. I had been told that the seminar presentation influences the final grade more than the contents of the seminar paper.
But the irony is I work more for the contents of the paper (about 2 months) than the presentation (about 5 days). Why is it so?
FYI, I constantly discuss with my supervisor (who decides the grade) regarding my progress and incorporate his comments as well.

What is the context, exactly? Which seminar and paper? Do you mean the thesis defense?

The context is not actually a thesis. It can be considered as a mini thesis (it carries  just 10% of thesis credit points). Yes. I mean defending the paper at the end of submission.

But the paper has been submitted to a journal or only to the defense committee? Could you please add the information to your question?

In some universities, there are not thesis but short/long papers to be defended in public presentations(30-40min). Some of them are submitted to journals, and others only to the committee I had a friend in France at University Paris Sud who has done this, in automatic system control engineering.

The paper could be prepared with external help, either legit (your advisor) or not (your friend or some external freelancer). The presentation is a testament on whether your material is yours, how well you understand and how well you can present it. All these skills are very important in the research workflow.

Shouldn't you address this question to the people who created this policy?  How are random people on the Internet supposed to know what their reasons were?

That's very easy to answer: because your university has decided that it be so.
Professors don't have a lot of time, and it takes less time to listen your presentation than to read your paper. (I am not suggesting that he won't read your paper, but most likely he won't.)

@NateEldredge Well, if a policy is widespread in a country, or in different countries, the reasons might be known to many.

The is no country-wide rule on this, and often, splitting the percentages is the decision of the individual professors/lecturers. There are even some that don't need the paper version. Because the seminar talk is supposed to be partly interactive, it is also much more well-suited to determine whether you actually understood the material - which may be a motivation for this rule.

Imagine giving the presentation without spending the two months writing the paper. Could you still prepare it in 5 days?

Thanks a lot for all your responses.. I will surely raise this question to my supervisor and eventually to the authorities who created this rule. @Alexandros , your explanation was really helpful :-)

Presentations generally involve a discussion with the panel, questions from the audience, and even heated debates.  Papers present the research and can absolutely give an impression of the knowledge of the writer, however, it can be easy to hide behind a paper.  You can't hide in a presentation.  It becomes quickly, and sometimes painfully, obvious in a presentation when the researcher has not fully developed their work.
Also, very few people will take the time to read the paper, but there's a good chance that quite a few people will attend the presentation.  How well you present your work will reflect the quality of the work in the eyes of the audience.  It might be outstanding research, but if you can't present it well and your message is lost, the work will be shrugged off.

In one sentence: Apparently, the primary objective of the seminar is for students to learn professionally presenting information related to their field.
This presentation involves both an oral and a written part. Among these, it is arguably the oral part where you can commit many more mistakes that the seminar can address. Mistakes in the written part, beside very general stylistic conventions, often depend on individual styleguides, are pure language issues (and thus beyond the scope of university courses - language majors excluded), or depend a lot on individual circumstances thatbmay or may not be the case in a text written by a student. This supports putting more weight on the oral part.
That does not mean that the contents of documents is generally unimportant, just that it is not in the focus of that particular seminar course. Of course, students are still given topics from their field, and there are several reasons for this:

Presumeably, it is one general topic that can be assumed to be interesting for all students in the seminar (adduming they all have the same major).
In case there are any peculiarities when presenting information in the given field, these are best conveyed/highlighted/discovered by presenting on-topic information.
while students may be assigned different concrete topics, referring to the same field makes the talks at least remotely comparable in terms of style of information presentation.

On top of that, your task probably requires even a bit of thinking rather than just gathering existing information - if only to make the task not as dull for you, and maybe also to reduce the probability to find a ready-made solution that exactly fits your particular topic. Still, the task is probably still not highly creative as such (at least I would not consider the development of a totally new technique a suitable topic for such a seminar, or anything else that is not mostly a "routine" task in the respective field). Much of the work you spent was likely spent on tasks such as literature analysis, which should help structure the information for both the written and the oral parts alike.


text:
Is it reasonable for an anonymous reviewer to add the completion date to their report to show they completed the review in a timely manner?
As a referee, I like to submit my reports in a timely fashion in order to avoid unnecessary delays in the publication (and also because I hate when referees spend months and months reviewing my papers). However, I have noticed that sometimes the journal does not make a decision on the paper until several months or weeks later. I have an example when I submitted my report in July and the decision was made in November. I was wondering if it would be correct/ethical to put the date on my report in order to show the authors that my report was submitted on time, even if I am an anonymous referee, and that other referees or the editors are to blame for any delays.

Keep in mind that the date can help de-anonymizing you because the conventions are very country-specific. For instance, MDY instead of DMY, or using dots, slashes or hyphens as separators, are all pieces of information that subtract precious bits of entropy from the pool.

@FedericoPoloni Sure, but knowing that you could chose a format different from the norm for your country, or you could vary the format from one report to another.

Usually acceptances are not made right after all referee reports are in (at least in math).  There's generally a stage of revisions, and then there may be editor discussion.

Is purpose to make editors look bad or somehow give them a poke to work faster? (will adding a date on the referee report  that author sees change the editors workload?) Or is purpose to distinguish your report from the other referees (who took long time) and if so, to whom is that particular message directed, the editor or author? I suspect that putting a date inside the referee text would just give the author  something more to be mad about (look how long things sat on editors desk) but otherwise be neutral in effect. (so, I only see it being a net negative to do it)

@FedericoPoloni: Just follow the ISO 8601 standard, then the information leaked about your locale tends to zero.

Incidentally I looked a few old referee reports I downloaded.  For some of them, I could see the "date created" in the pdf info.  For the others, I suppose the journal tried to remove any identifying header data.

Would it be "correct" or "ethical"? Probably.
Would it do anything? Probably not. There are often reasons for a review to come in late, and some of them are not just "The reviewer is a slacker". Beyond that, the editorial staff at a journal has their own discretion beyond just "What do the reviewers say?", and that can (and should) take time.
Assuming you're anonymous, I can't really see an upside as an annoyed author of a delayed paper behind knowing that "It's totally not Reviewer 2's fault".

+1 especially for the last sentence, which was my immediate response when I read this question.


text:
Very obscure job posting for faculty position. Pass onward, or keep to myself?
I am a contract-limited faculty member in the United States. My subfield is small, but known for its warmth and intimacy.
A friend of mine in a different country recently sent me a job posting advertised by another institution in the United States. I have absolutely no idea where he found it. I didn't even know that this school had a department in my field, frankly. The deadline is in three weeks, but the job posting has not made its way to the central repository of job ads in my field, nor hit any of the major mailing lists. Yet it's a coveted tenure-track position that seems legitimate, described in a Word document hosted on the webpage of the department in question (though not directly linked to from it, as far as I can tell). I've never seen a job more poorly publicized. I suspect that this department is hiring someone in my subfield for the first time ever, so I can understand not knowing about the appropriate mailing lists, but beyond that it seems awfully odd.
Anyway, my question is about ethics and competition. The first thing I wanted to do was to send the job posting around to a circle of colleagues who, like me, are looking for long-term academic employment. Of course that brings with it the risk that the job could be given to someone who wouldn't have heard of it otherwise, but I just can't get comfortable with the idea of sneakily keeping it to myself. Not when the support of my colleagues is one of the major reasons I was able to get to this level. I'll probably apply for the job, of course; but if I don't get it, I want people I like to be in the running!
Or is that utterly foolish and naive?
I guess I'm trying to figure out where the line is between being helpful and being so generous that I'm shooting myself in the foot. In this case, I can't find it by intuition alone. Would appreciate input. Thank you!

This seems like more of a matter of personal values than academic etiquette. I can't see how answers would be anything but personal opinions.

I think there is nothing wrong, in any moral sense, for you to keep it to yourself. You should not feel obligated to share this information to others, if you feel you can benefit from it. However, if (and this is a big if) you feel too uncomfortable keeping it to yourself, then you should consider sharing, to the extent that it would make you feel better about yourself (although, again, I see no reason at all you should feel bad).

You should also consider that it may have deliberately been badly circulated as they have a preferred candidate in mind already.

Everything you write rings multiple alarm bells to me. No good department is that amateurish in their hiring by accident. I would assume that the position either does not really exist, is already planned for somebody, or will be a hellish nightmare to actually work at.

@ff524 Isn't that already a statement about academic etiquette? The absence of something still can be significant, as the OP is essentially asking whether academic etiquette dictates something: The answer being that in academics it would be accepted to keep such a thing to yourself.

Thanks so much, all, especially those who've called it as a red flag; I really appreciate the heads-up. Couldn't decide whether to be suspicious of the circumstances or default to Hanlon's razor here...but thinking it through, as xLeitix points out, it's not particularly auspicious either way.

Is it possible that the department had in mind a particular person they wanted to hire, but rules forbade them to do that without first advertising the job, so they did the minimum necessary to comply with the rules?

You should really confirm that this is a valid job posting before you start thinking whether you should share it with others, especially if you want to apply for it yourself. The Word document that you've found might be only a draft version, or might refer to a position that is not available anymore. I would consider it slightly embarrassing if I sent out an application for a job that actually doesn't exist. Contact the hiring department before doing anything else.

curious in retrospect. Let me guess, someone already working internally at the department got the job.

You are not obligated (unless by your own moral principles) to facilitate the distribution of job ads.
You could take a broad self-interested perspective. In this case, you decide whether and how much you want the job and get a sense of your chance of getting the job without further distributing the job ad. Then, you think about how much you value others you care about getting the job and how much you value the profession as a whole making a better selection decision, and how much more likely that is to occur if you were to distribute the ad either to colleagues or to broader mailing lists, and also a sense of the cost in terms of your chances of not getting the job. From there, you can see what most aligns with your values and goals.
In general, I would think of job applications as a domain of life that is often governed by the principles of fair competition. By fair competition, I mean the idea that it's okay to focus on yourself. You shouldn't go out of your way to hurt other applicants, but that equally there is no expectation that you will help other applicants also (especially when you are competing for a single prize). Thus, if you learn information that might help your application (e.g., interests of the employer, what they're looking for, etc.), you are under no obligation to share this with other applicants. If you know about the job, and others don't, you are under no obligation to share it. The assumption here is that it is a domain of life where the ethics of competition operate. The assumption is that other "competitors" in some sense are also operating by these rules.
Anyway, these are two perspectives. My sense is that if you're very keen on getting the job and you think that you have a reasonable shot at getting it, that it would be reasonable to keep it to yourself.

Okay, so this was both tremendously helpful and just downright fascinating. Thank you so much for the input.

My own thoughts, having recently obtained a job by similar means (albeit a lecture position): if the posting exists somewhere, opportunity exists to find it, and unless it is an emergency posting from a rural or small-city college, websites are going to be checked by someone, e.g. a newly minted graduate wanting particular areas to work or faraway professor with family nearby.
Additionally, your friends may themselves have connections you may not have that they aren't revealing - a colleague in the know, or a friend similar to yours, for example. So, unless you and your friends have some kind of pact to play the field equally with respect to one another, then go for it.
In almost a decade of experience, including being on hiring committees, positions sometimes aren't posted to the usual websites intentionally, if there's an internal lecturer or adjunct they're looking to "bump up," especially for states who require posting the job for a set time regardless of whether the department has someone in mind beforehand (but, again, I'm not at a tenure-track higher education institution, so take this with a grain of salt). The lack of broadcasting the job on the usual channels may indicate that they have someone internal or orbiting the college in mind, or, worse, indicate a scrambled or weak administration, so be circumspect if you do land an interview, and watch for signs of significant need for improvement in the institution's administration.

"The lack of broadcasting the job on the usual channels may indicate that they have someone internal or orbiting the college in mind". That's the first thing to suspect. The other possibility is that the job offer doesn't exist and you just found some kind of draft hosted in the web server.

Thank you so much for this - majorly helpful perspective in multiple ways. My post stopped (barely) short of outright suspicion about the circumstances since I didn't want to start off by assuming deliberate sneakiness, so I'm very glad to have the heads-up that doing so might well be reasonable! You and xLeitix both pointed out that either way, it's not reflecting very well on the department that the job ad came from, which is a conclusion I hadn't quite reached myself. Possibly because 'JOB IN SUBFIELD!' has a way of making an early-career faculty member a little starry-eyed...heh!

Apply for the job.  Do not spread the word, partly because you want to get the job, and partly because you're not even sure if the job really and truly exists.
When you are well established, you can be altruistic and share job leads.
This is similar to the instructions given on airplanes: in the event of a loss of air pressure in the cabin, put your own mask on first, and THEN put the mask on the child.

That's a misunderstanding of the oxygen mask instruction reasoning. It is very likely that if one is trying to help put on a mask on someone who cannot while one does not have a mask on that one will fail and neither will end up with a mask. If one puts one's own mask on first, one then has more time and oxygen to help with the other. This is a very bad comparison.

@JoshuaZ - What you explained about the reason the adult is instructed to put on their own mask first is exactly the reasoning I was using.  How do you see this analogy as not applying?  I see it applying because when you are well established, you can be altruistic and share job leads.  I'm interested to understand your point of view better.

This is not at all the same. In the job example, everyone can potentially benefit from the job advertisement but only one person can end up getting. In the airplane mask situation there's a difference of what order the masks are being put on which maximizes benefit for everyone. The situations aren't similar.

@JoshuaZ - Thanks for explaining your thinking.  I can see that you feel strongly about this!  I would suggest that you post an answer laying out your own thinking (unless one of the other existing answers already covers the ground that you would).


text:
Phd difficulties: waiting to finish, supervisor not reviewing thesis
I am at the end of the fifth year of research. My thesis was written last year but my supervisor refused to take in any submissions stating that he is very busy. I followed up from time to time for feedback but that irritated him and he told me to wait till he called me on his own. I have now applied for an extension at the university for another year. In a recent face to face conversation on what is expected of me and how to move things forward, my supervisor says that it will take time for him to begin the review and that Phd depends on mostly my behaviour and not the research work that I have done.  I have sought the university's help informally but they say they cannot do anything to help. They say I need to sort it out myself. What should I do?

It is a tough problem, but what can we answer?

@anonymous I edited the title, hopefully better capturing your question. But if I have got it wrong, please change.

What should I do?

Talk to a departmental academic that you trust and ask for guidance. Hopefully, they'll help you proceed. Otherwise, contact your department head. (You may ask several academics before escalating to the department head.)

I'm absolutely horrified when hearing stories like this.
In Denmark a PhD is nominated to 3 years, although most do a 3 or 6 month extension. But then the thesis must be submitted within this time. Hence, there is a fixed date (already when you start your PhD) for when to hand in your thesis. At the time of handing in, you can of course apply for an extension, but it's you who decide and not the supervisor (if you have a good relationship with him/her, its a joint decision).
For you particular situation, I would (as I can see other also have) recommend that you take action seek advice from other professors or senior staff. Do you have a guidance/counselor or perhaps HR staff at the PhD school?
At my university I've had talks with guiding staff at the PhD school (HR people), regarding disagreements with my former supervisor.

What should I do?

Escalate within the university.
You have finished your thesis, but your supervisor is not reviewing it, and thus you are stalled in your PhD progress and unable to progress. This is not reasonable- reviewing your thesis is part of your advisor's job. So you should escalate.
You might try doing this informally first - as it sounds as though you have already tried - by speaking to people you know and trust in the department. But if this fails you will have to do something formal, by contacting a person in charge of PGR student progression, or a head of department, or similar. Unless there are significant factors that you have not told us about, they are likely to support you, because no department wants students taking extensions when they could be defending and graduating.

It seems like you're in a tought spot there. I've been through similar. I don't know how it works in your country, but here we're allowed to have a co-supervisor. Since my supervisor was also busy with something else, she's actually the one who came up with the idea of getting myself a co-supervisor.
Maybe that's an approach you could try. respectfully tell your supervisor you understand he's busy with things of his own and that maybe you would both benefit from having someone else reviewing your text and giving you feedback. It would earn you time and remove some of the pressure from him. It is also a good opportunity to make some network and prospect future steps.


text:
What is this 'tenure track' thing really about?
I'm planning to apply for PhD programs in Engineering in the US this fall. If I get in then, following the PhD program, I will most likely end up going back into Industry (hopefully landing a higher-level, more research-oriented position). However, I am keeping an open mind to staying in academia, although reading articles like this one is somewhat off-putting.
So, to my question: what is this 'tenure track' thing all about, really?
I mean, why should there be this distinction (which is apparently being set right at the start of someone's academic career) that some people will be eligible for 'promotion' and others won't, regardless of how good they are and the level of the work they do? Why can't everyone who is doing academic research/teaching post-PhD be eligible for a tenure position, if they work hard and publish enough high-quality papers?
This question probably seems a bit naive coming from someone that hasn't done a PhD and has more experience in Industry, but the situation seems somewhat unjust. Is it basically equivalent to the situation in Industry between those that are full-time employees and those that are contractors/gig workers? (although, of course, contractors working in Industry tend to earn higher salaries than permanent staff, to offset their reduced benefits and lower job security)
Are there any examples of universities that are moving away from this model of tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track (particularly in the US)?

Most universities in the US have non-TT positions such as research assistant professors and teaching assistant professors.

At this point, at least in mathematics in the U.S., the "adjunct" (as opposed to tenured or tenure-track) people are paid much-much-much less in general than tenured or tenure-track people. Some exceptions, perhaps in "financial math" or "big-data math", but I do not have numbers. Certainly the vast majority of "adjunct faculty" (quite analogous to "consultants") are paid at the level of grad students, etc. Yes, there are a few "contract faculty" who have longer-term contracts, and are paid decently, but they are still second-class citizens...

One way to look at it, from the perspective of industry, regular faculty positions are part instructor, part researcher, part administrator, part middle manager, and (in a sense) part board of directors member. We simply don't need/want that many people in such an "insider" role in our departments. Despite how massive our online MS program has gotten or whatever. Every tenured faculty member has a ton of responsibilities and rights in running the dept and school.

@ASimpleAlgorithm, that is a point that I'd not thought of, and had not heard before. Thank you for making this point!

@ASimpleAlgorithm I think that could be its own answer, or if you want to go ahead and edit it into mine that's fine too.

@ASimpleAlgorithm So why wasn't this a problem during the period before universities started hiring contract workers to do the majority of the teaching?

@ASimpleAlgorithm thanks for your input. However, the main focus of my question is not 'why are there not more tenure-track positions'. What I am trying to get at is 'why is a large segment of the 'academic workforce' seemingly being 'locked out' of those positions at an early stage in their career?'

Why can't everyone who is doing academic research/teaching post-PhD be eligible for a tenure position, if they work hard and publish enough high-quality papers?

Supply and demand: tenured positions are pretty much lifetime positions. Not in the sense that the positions are fully guaranteed without having to work towards them once obtained, but in the sense that, absent misconduct or complete failure to meet expectations, there is a job there.
There are way too many PhD graduates in most fields for them to all have a permanent position in academia. I suppose you could start every researcher on the tenure-track and then make many more people fail to get tenure, but I don't see that as an appreciably better outcome than limiting tenure-track positions: there has to be a gate someplace. "Tenure-track" is really just a probationary period in which candidates demonstrate they are suitable for tenure.
Like hiring for any position with many applicants, there will be imperfections in the hiring process. There are too many "qualified" people, too many difficulties in determining objectively which of those qualified people are "best," and too few positions to put them in.
edit to address clarification in a comment:

I don't understand why it would be less desirable to have more people failing to get tenure, as opposed to the 2-tier system that seems to exist. Why not put that 'gate' at the point where a tenured position needs to be filled, and then decide? Where is the incentive for the institution to not want to keep their options open as long as they can? Surely that would also be better for the majority of postdoc academics, who are currently on non-tenure-track and (apparently) locked out?

I wouldn't see them as "locked out" necessarily, there are lots of possible situations: a post doc (in some fields labeled a non-tenure track assistant professor; the distinctions are small though I believe more likely to include teaching for the latter) is someone who hasn't gotten a tenure-track job yet: their "clock" hasn't started yet.
Or, they are someone like me, with a semi-permanent soft money academic job, who likes research but didn't want all the extra stresses of finding money and earning tenure that a tenure-track position requires, and who is willing to take the difference in pay and independence.
Or, they work in a field like medicine where their primary responsibility is as a clinician, but they also teach, and they don't do enough research to fit their institution's standards for the tenure track.
In experimental fields, hiring a new tenure-track assistant professor is a big financial investment due to needed lab space, equipment, etc. Non-tenure track positions like post-docs let people build their research career in someone else's lab space and develop their independence more gradually.
The other side of the coin are the primarily-teaching adjunct-type positions; these positions are a tough topic that's been addressed elsewhere on this stack, but in summary they exist because people are willing to take them when they can't get another job (either to keep the possibility of an academic career alive, or just as a paid job), and they are a massive cost savings for universities. Whether that is ethical or not is unclear, but eliminating them would likely reduce the number of academics employed even if it increased the average salary/benefits.

Thanks for your answer; however, I don't understand why it would be less desirable to have more people failing to get tenure, as opposed to the 2-tier system that seems to exist. Why not put that 'gate' at the point where a tenured position needs to be filled, and then decide? Where is the incentive for the institution to not want to keep their options open as long as they can? Surely that would also be better for the majority of postdoc academics, who are currently on non-tenure-track and (apparently) locked out?

@Time4Tea Hopefully the additions to my answer clarify a bit, although now the answer is turning into a bit of a novel.

@Time4Tea At the great majority of institutions, if you get hired as TT, the expectation is that with reasonable productivity and collegiality you should get tenure. ("Full" is another matter.) It sounds like you're suggesting that we should have a much bigger pool of TT candidates, most of whom will not get tenure. The problem with this is that it's hard to make that kind of commitment to an institution if the likelihood of getting tenure is the same as the current likelihood of getting onto the TT. At least with the current (horrible) two-tier system you know where you stand at the outset.

@BryanKrause thanks for your expanded answer - it provides some very interesting insight into the different types of academic positions and the pros and cons of each. I found Buffy's comment helpful too, about tenure track being like a 'probationary period'.

@ElizabethHenning thanks for your comment. However, rather than suggesting there should be a bigger pool of TT candidates, I was more wondering why TT is necessary in the first place. Why everyone can't just be 'post-doctoral researchers' on a level playing field and allow anyone that is qualified to apply for a tenured position, when it becomes available. However, I think Bryan's expanded answer helps to explain it.


text:
Orientation of Table Headers in Science Report
Below are two examples of a table, with different orientations of the trial header.
The number of the trial represents the chronological order, but there is no relationship between all the Trial 1's, for example.

Which variation would be more preferable, and why?
If you have another, more preferable variation, please suggest it.

Not your question, but: You have far too many lines. In your first table you can probably throw away all lines except the one separating header and body. In the second table, you may additionally need the horizontal lines separating the different lengths. To enhance readability, add vertical spacing.

@Wrzlprmft thank you for the suggestion, will do.

Another sidenote: Are you sure that your time measurements are accurate up to 0.01 s? The human reaction time is about 0.2 s and I don’t think you measure by other means in the presumed lab-course setting.

@Wrzlprmft human error is considered in the variables, and is not considered here (I would, but teacher said stick to 0.01)

This is how I would do it (essentially your first example):

My rationale for this is as follows:

It allows for including the average over your trials – which you have to compute and probably show anyway, and here is the best place to do it, as it can be compared with the data from the individual trials.
Your reader usually wants to quickly assess the following:

Do the individual trials for a given length agree with each other or with the average?
Do the average values agree with some information outside this table (theoretical expectation, figure, official solution)?

Both are not very comfortable in your second example: You either have to check groups of three that are not well separated visually or you have to go over the data in steps of three.
The structure of the table is more easy to grasp.
Each direction is only used for one purpose – in your second example, going vertical could mean increasing the length but also going from one trial to the next.
The least import information you have is the trial number; in fact it shouldn’t matter at all.
The suggested layout avoids it dominating the information and repeating it – if you show it at all.

Thank for for the suggestion. In regards to the average, my teacher asked us to explicitly show how we got the average by including sample calculations, so the average will be left to a table further down the path.

Anything as complex as this I'd prefer to see in graphical form. Do you really need to show 4 significant digits? Can you create a barplot or something with these data and still get the idea across?

I would prefer the first table. It would be natural to add a column with average±stddev, which you would generally need to draw some conclusion from your experiment. In the second table, it would be more awkward to include this, due to having to span multiple rows.


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What is the meaning of “Review process will be blind to review”?
I am new to publishing and want to publish a paper as an independent researcher. The conference I want to submit this paper to states the following on their website regarding the review process:

Review process will be blind to review.

Does it imply that the review process is double blind? If not, would stating my affiliation as an independent researcher have any negative impact?
I am currently working for a startup company and worked on this paper in my spare time. Since the company is not associated with my research, I decided not to put in the company as an affiliation.

If that is the exact quote, it means the conference is not very thorough with spellchecking its website.

@TobiasKildetoft: The quote seems to be exact. An Internet search for that sentence returns exactly one result, which happens to be a conference website.

@Wrzlprmft Oh my. That website plays an audio ad when I visit. Bad sign.

@TobiasKildetoft And yet from a couple of cursory Google searches it does appear to be an IEEE conference, so I would take that to indicate high quality. Hmm, maybe also different cultural norms about conference sites in different parts of the world are in play here? Anyway, I concur--it's just confusingly worded.

@Philip That depends on what you mean by "an IEEE conference". Just being associated loosely with IEEE is not a mark of quality in itself.

@TobiasKildetoft Fair enough. Perhaps I'm wrong to think anything in this directory would have IEEE's imprimatur: https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/search/index.html . As it happens this same university has hosted all 4 instances of this conference.

@Philip As far as I can tell, the 2017 version of the conference is not listed there, only the earlier ones.

My guess: If the reviewers try to read the submission, the conference organizer will poke their eyes so that the reviewers will be too blind to read anything, leaving them only to accept every submission.

@TobiasKildetoft the 2017 version has been listed in the directory. That's actually what gave me the confidence that it wasn't exactly a fake conference. Am I wrong?

That's interesting. I was not able to find it in that directory, at least by searching for the acronym (which found the earlier versions).

@TobiasKildetoft Sorry to bother you about this, but should I be more concerned? I didn't think much of it earlier. Anyway, this is the link : https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/conferencedetails/index.html?Conf_ID=41247

I can't comment very well, as I am simply not familiar with conferences in this field.

@Philip IEEE is notorious for sponsoring low-quality conferences.

This sounds like it means double-blind review, but it is not really clear; the phrasing is not standard nor grammatically correct.  If it is important to you, you should contact the conference organizers and ask for clarification.

Actually I wanted to comment with "why would you want to submit exactly there", but I am too new here, reputation must be damned! I am confused over the formulation, too.
For experience, someone on the PC would sight the submissions and tell you if something is not Ok. Depending on the size of the conference, however, it might just be a desk reject.
You might want to contact the PC chair and ask.
Well, here are also some suggestions for alternatives, if your focus is image processing. The list is not exhaustive.
Conferences:

CVPR
SIGGRAPH Asia
Pacific Graphics
MICCAI
Vis
SIGGRAPH of course, but top-level and expensive
ICCV (heard too litle about it)
ICMR (heard too litle about it)
GraVisMa (heard too litle about it)
Bioimaging (heard too litle about it)

Journals:

IEEE TVCG
IEEE TMI
The Visual Computer
Computer Graphics Forum
ACM TOG (very high-reach)

I don't know of you picked the conference based on location, but submitting to a journal could also broadcast your result and you don't need to travel. For talking to people a conference is obviously better.

Thanks for the list. You are right; I did choose the conference based on location. Also, I don't think my paper is good enough to actually get through the review process for these journals.


text:
What is it called when authors trade citations?
Citation is one metric of researchers. That is why some of them lend citation to one another. For example, A writes a paper and cites B's work in it, and then B does the same for A, without the citations being relevant to the works.
Is there any word for such academic misconduct? I can think of "citation exchange", but I couldn't find any reference about it.

In some cases, this is just called "literature review". If you want to publish something new you'd be expected to demonstrate that you are aware of the state of the art in the field. If your field is fairly small, then it may become natural practice that you'll cite some authors and they'll cite you back. This is because you indeed consulted their (and likely improved upon it) and so did they to yours. @Scientist did place one clear line-trespassing example: When you submit a paper and the reviewer demand a citation.

In some field there is only a small community of researchers so cross-citation is very common and does not constitute "misconduct". Good reviewers in reputable journals will easily spot vanity citations. Researchers who engage in complicated schemes to get unwarranted citations are either incredibly vain or just plain stupid.

@CapeCode In some countries (e.g. mine), citation indexes are used to establish academic promotions at the national level and, indeed, there are rumours of authors creating citation rings to obtain these advantages. So, no, they're neither stupid nor vain, but fraudulent.Stupid are those who devised such a system.

Since you call it academic misconduct, let's call it "collusion". Just don't start any witch hunts ;-)

@MassimoOrtolano really? I'd think any half-decent institution would know how to filter out bogus citations or rely on bibliometric sources that do so.

@CapeCode Really. And the selection according to those parameters is automatic and done at the national level: if you don't reach X citation and H h-index you cannot even apply for a promotion.

@CapeCode I discussed a bit the system in this answer (at the moment, links are broken, I have to update them).

@MassimoOrtolano where do they get the h-index and citation count from?

@CapeCode Scopus.

@MassimoOrtolano ah Scopus is not too bad at filtering bogus citation, not like Google Scholar. That sounds more reasonable all of a sudden.

@CapeCode Scopus doesn't filter citations from undetected citation rings, and, thus far, very few have been detected, like in the example I gave in my answer.

Since many comment mention that two authors citing each other can happen in good faith, I took the liberty of adding a precision to make clear that irrelevant citations are those being considered here.

In addition to the terms suggested by Scientist, another relatively common term is citation ring, here ring being used with the meaning (from Merriam-Webster):

7 a : an exclusive combination of persons for a selfish and often corrupt purpose (as to control a market)
  b : GANG

Here are a few examples of usage of citation ring:

SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers
  retracted

(Retraction Watch)

Some other problems of the method were well outlined by Ulrich Korwitz (pp. 107-110): the problems of self-citation and the citation ring [...]

(T. Roper, "Citation Analysis of the Veterinary Literature: A Tool to Understanding Scientific Communication" in Libraries without Limits: Changing Needs — Changing Roles: Proceedings of the 6th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Utrecht, 22–27 June 1998)

This one is new to me and sounds even better, thanks for adding!

Citation ring has the right ring to it (pun absolutely intended)... any chance you could strengthen the answer with a link to where you noticed that usage, like @Scientist did? I've heard of "citation cartels" he mentions (from the source he links), but not of "citation ring" despite you saying it's relatively common.

@penelope I've added a couple of examples.

Awesome, upvoted :)

@penelope that's a good suggestion indeed! I'll upvote your comment if you upvote mine. ;-)

That peer review ring scandal in Taiwan caused an Education minister to resign.

@Scientist Oh my, never realized I might have started an upvote ring on a question about citation rings. If we get any more people in on it, we might even call it an upvote cartel :D

@penelope Well, actually, the main Meta.SE has already many posts about voting rings ;-)

My impression was that the terms "citation ring" and "citation cartel" suggest more than 2 authors.

@Monika There's no difference: two possible names for the same thing.

Also think back on the internet when Altavista ruled or Google was an upstart: Many websites organised themselves into webrings, grouping websites around a common topic (often hobby) and linking to each other, for significant boosts to PageRank-like scores. A citation ring clearly harks back to that terminology,  with both means and motivation strikingly similar.

I believe this is unethical practice but not "officially" misconduct. There is some ongoing research on this, elsewhere.
Some sources call this "citation stacking", while others call it "citation cartels". Mind that these terms were coined for journals while they certainly can be applied to authors.
Such citation schemes are an adaptation of other more obvious citation-boosting strategies, such as self-citations or citations demanded by journal editors and reviewers, which are much easier to spot and expose.

These are often referred to as citation circles, or citation cartels. See here.

cartel is very apt, plus 1

In the publishing world, it's called "logrolling".
According to wikipedia

Logrolling is the trading of favors, or quid pro quo, such as vote trading by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member.

This is completely unsourced and different to every other answer. Could you add a reference to where it's discussed under this name?

I believe that is the term used extensively in "Wit's End", about the members of the Algonquin Round Table in the 1920s. The term is also used in the Wikipedia article on that topic, to describe the practice of making favorable mentions of other members' articles.

Gaming the System – by authors
Gaming the System: Manipulating the Impact Factor in Research (done by authors in the first quoted paragraph, and by journals in the second quoted paragraph):

When it comes to research, many academics tell each other: “You cite my article and I will cite yours.” Academic departments and even the U.S. National Science Foundation have encouraged collaborative research as something positive, which can be true. However, many researchers routinely add their colleagues’ names to their papers as coauthors in order to make the researchers and their departments look good.
(...)
After an article is accepted by a journal, the author is oftentimes asked to add a few citations in the research article from that particular publication. Many, including myself, can testify to the practice of coercive citations. Authors now understand what is expected and load their articles with citations from the journal to which they are submitting before they are even asked.

Gaming the System – by journals
Increasing Citations and Improving Your Impact Factor (for journals wanting to increase their citations):

At SAGE, we will help you increase article citations without “gaming” the system with shortsighted strategies that can only compromise perceived quality. We’ll do this by providing editors with the tools to make informed decisions about types of articles and topics they might wish to invite, which potential authors to contact for relevant papers, etc. More generally, all our marketing and online activities are developed with the aim of increasing citations.

More generally, all our marketing and online activities are developed with the aim of increasing citations. Part of me just died.


text:
What happens if your handling editor leaves the editorial board?
I submitted a paper to a journal and after more than one year I got a positive report. I revised the paper as requested by the referee but when I tried to submit the revised version I discovered that my handling editor is not in the editorial board anymore. What happens normally in a case like this? Should I submit the revised version to a different editor?

Can you choose the editor of your choice?

No I can not. This is the problem. But the editor I chose when I first submitted the paper has been taking care of the submission up to now. For instance he found the referee. So I think the other editors do not know noting about the submission.

Welcome to Academia SE. Please [edit] your question to clarify: Did all communication happen directly with the editor, via mails to the journal, or via some online submission system?

I sincerely hope there was more communication than just 'after more than one year'. It sounds like there are some organizational changes within the journal that may be working against you.  I've had that situation too, and it led to unreasonable delays in review.  I suggest you go straight to someone on the editorial board and politely ask for some relief. Problems within the journal editorship should not impact you so negatively, which it clearly has.  In my case, this worked, and the review was immediately reassigned to a new action editor and fast-tracked. Don't be afraid to speak up, just state the facts and be polite. The main point is to ask the journal what they think the best course of action is.

If you have the choice, you should in principle be able to send it to any of the active editors. At many journals, there is no "choice" in the editor and the paper will be reassigned by the editorial staff.

As you replied to my comment that you can not choose an editor by your own choice. In this case, Editor in Chief will assign a new AE to your article. You don't have to worry about the change of AE, because new AE will make decisison based on your revised article and your response to reviewer's comments etc. However, you can also write a letter to new AE to inform him any delver that details about the progress of review process. Good luck!


text:
Is there an independent organisation that oversees the professional conduct of researchers in the UK/EU?
By professional conduct, I refer to issues related to how a researcher manages his/her research group, including funding (both research and salary) and human resource issue.
For example, there is the Office of the Independent Adjudicator in the UK that reviews student complaints against higher-education providers. But the service offered is restricted to students, and not directly relevant to the professional conduct of a researcher.
An example of such an organisation in the financial field is the Financial Conduct Authority, who oversees the professional conduct of both organisations and individuals.

Well, there are more than one for these issues. However, they are totally different and change from state to state. For instance mismanage or public funding could be a criminal offense (in my state). One body that is internationally recognized and has power in all matters isn’t there AFAIK.

And overseer cannot be independent. Do you want something like a court of audit (largely independent but without direct power) or a state attorney/prosecutor? Manage complaints and special incidents or read everybodys files?

And for what it's worth: The university administration does exactly that: Check that profs don't go over budget and duely hand in reports, pay the actual bills and salaries, etc.