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Effective way to deal with misuse of mobile devices in class
I'm at a North American, state-run university (not an elite institution), which is relatively modern in terms of supporting mobile devices. The school is proud of its WiFi coverage in every classroom, and recently rooms were updated to have electrical outlets at every student's seat (even in auditoriums), so they can charge their devices. All courses are three-hour periods, once a week.
This mobile-friendly environment is great when integrating mobile technologies in class. I make use of Mentimeter (real-time quizzes), the students can follow the PDF lecture notes and/or electronic copies of texts, take notes on their laptops, look things up on the web when I ask questions or when they do exercises, etc.
However, it makes for a challenge during courses when students use these devices in distracting ways. Definitions of "misuse" are situational, but for this question, I'll call it any use that detracts from a healthy learning environment. Concrete examples include watching a video or playing a game on a laptop (distracting neighboring students), texting, using Facebook rather than working an exercise in group, etc.
Laptops and smart phones in class are not new; in the past I was able to deal with their "misuse" relatively easily. A student would be easily embarrassed and close his laptop if you called him out when you saw that 5 students around him were all looking at his screen and smiling. I ask a lot of questions during my classes, so I could "pick on" students who caused disruptions with their mobile device (or otherwise). Drawing attention to one student in large groups is an effective way to change behavior, usually.
However, last semester was more difficult than ever, with 40+ students in an newly-electrified auditorium. During one class interruptions occurred 3 times, and I had to talk to offending students during the break about it. During the mid-term, I had one student argue with me at the start because he wanted to keep charging his iPhone at his desk in front of him. He insisted he wasn't going to use it during the exam to cheat, but I cited the policy barring mobile devices during exams and mentioned he'd have to explain that to a discipline committee - he complied. Needless to say, those "correctional" situations don't win points for the professor in the course evaluation. On the other hand, I learned that if I don't intervene (early in my career I would ignore these behaviors), students who feel distracted will complain during evaluations (most are too shy to say something during the semester).
The solution it seems is to add yet another item in my already lengthy syllabus and explain the desired behavior during the first lecture. My school has no official policy as far as I know regarding mobile device use, apart from an IT security policy that doesn't address the distraction issues. I did some searching on the web and found that some schools have policies, e.g. McGill. What is not clear is how effective the policies are in large classrooms, how easy they are to enforce without becoming the "text police", how well they work in non-elite universities, etc.
I contrast all this with the fact that my students almost never misuse the "phone" part of their devices (they don't ring during lectures and they don't talk on them except at the breaks). None of that is in my course plan and I never have to explain it at the start of the semester or take action.
So, how to reduce misuse of mobile devices in large classes while maintaining a friendly atmosphere?
EDIT see this article for the students' perspective of the problem, and why it's not like other classic forms of distraction. In the conclusion, they state it could be useful for institutions to define policies about proper behavior in the classroom regarding mobile devices.

This mobile-friendly environment is great when integrating mobile technologies in class. — Honestly, this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

@JeffE can you explain why?

You're requiring students to have an distracting device open in front of them during class, and then you're surprised that they're distracted?  Humans really aren't that good at multitasking.

@JeffE My school/I don't require mobile devices, but we accommodate them (I decided it was the wrong approach to try to ban them years ago, especially since the admin put in WiFi and electricity). The recipe for disaster occurs if there are no "rules of the road" for their use in class.

Back when I was young, we didn't need a mobile phone to be distracted during a lecture.

@FedericoPoloni Ah, the times I played connect four with my closest mate when I was a student! :-)

@JeffE I'm sorry, are you saying that mobile devices are automatically a "distracting device"? That's not necessarily true, I bet there is a very small majority of people misusing or being distracted by their devices when they are not supposed to. If a student wants to be distracted, they will find a way to wether they have an electronic device or not.

@JeffE The issue is not the modern tech, it's the distraction. Distraction always existed. Students who want to pay attention will pay attention, and students who don't will not, with or without mobile devices.

There is nothing new in what you describe. As a student who oft got bored during lectures, I have done some distracting things during them, even though I didn't have access to any electronic device at the time (I'm young enough that they existed, but it wasn't accepted practice to bring them to class). We did crossword puzzles (collaboratively), we played cadavre exquis, we read newspapers and discussed them, we flirted, we worked on other stuff, … What makes you think the situation you are experiencing is specific to mobile devices? The cause of the distractions is different from other situations, but I think the issue is the same and the solutions are, too.
So, what I would suggest is: warn your students that while what they do is their business, you expect that their behavior does not interfere with other's study or the general class atmosphere. Tell them that mobile devices are useful, but that they should be careful not to abuse them. Handle non-compliance as you would a typical incident: talk to them, give fair warning, but clearly set the limits and enforce them if it comes to that.

What makes this specific to mobile devices? See my edit including the reference to a study that gathered feedback from the student's perspective. I agree that communicating the expectations clearly and early is important.

There's an old joke about the student who pulls out a deck of cards and starts playing solitaire in the middle of lecture.  When the professor calls him on it, the student says "Oh, I'm sorry, I forget my laptop."

+1 for "while what they do is their business, you expect that their behavior does not interfere with other's study or the general class atmosphere" - it's university, so whether they're paying attention to the lecture really is their business, and it's more productive to focus on just preventing disruptive behavior.

As well as preventing disruptive behaviour, I think it is also unacceptable for students to behave rudely/disrespectfully towards their lecturers (whether they are paying to be there or not).  Openly signalling disinterest to the lecturer by overt inattention is rude/disrespectful.  Rudeness towards people who are just doing their job is rarely acceptable in other sectors, so I don't see why it should be acceptable in academia.  Discrete inattention is fine, at least it shows some consideration for the lecturer as a fellow human being! ;o)

@DikranMarsupial I think the other side of that is that it's disrespectful to give a lecture that doesn't command attention / is so un-interesting that a large portion of students turn to distractions.  It's not a clear thing, there's plenty of grey area .. just sayin', profs who give good lectures on interesting topics deal with this issue a lot less.

@hunter2 This image from the 14th century sums up your comment (look at the back row vs the front): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecture#/media/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg

Here's the policy I will try in my course next semester:
Policy for the use of electronic devices
To promote a better learning environment in my classes, I established this policy of using electronics devices (EDs). Allowing EDs in my classes is a privilege and not a right. That is, until my university establishes its own policy in this regard.
Goals
EDs offer several advantages in my classes. The lectures may be richer and more dynamic, you can perform Internet searches, answer questionnaires given by the teacher to validate comprehension immediately, do exercises with UML tools, take notes in an electronic document, etc.
However, there is a less positive side of the use of EDs in a lecture.

Several studies on multitasking [1] [2] show that students who focus on a single task in a course to learn more and have better results than their colleagues who work on multiple tasks simultaneously.
Another study [3] shows that the time to read a text is greater when responding to text messages during the reading.
According to surveys at several universities [4] students find laptops distracting during lectures. I have personally received comments in written evaluations for my courses that showed students were disturbed by other students who attended the course with a computer, but who used it to do other tasks during class.

Code of conduct

You should minimize the use of EDs for tasks not directly related to the course.
You must not access (or leave plugged into an electrical outlet) EDs during any kind of evaluation (quiz, exam, etc.), without my permission.
You must put your ED in a "silent" mode during the course.
You must place the screen of your ED to allow eye contact between you and me and other students.
You must close your ED when I ask, for example when doing team exercises.

Enforcement of the policy
Here are some indicators of possible non-compliance with the policy that are easy to detect and for which I have given several warnings in the past:

A student with his hands between his legs who looks down occasionally, smiling...
Many students staring at the a computer screen of a colleague...
A laptop fan running at full speed...

In case of non-compliance with the policy, I will give you a warning. After a warning, you may lose the privilege of bringing your ED to class.
References
[1] Hembrooke, H., and Gay, G. "The Laptop and the Lecture: The Effects of Multitasking in Learning Environments." Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 2003, 15 (1), 46-64.
[2] Young, J. R. "The Fight for Classroom Attention: Professor vs.. Laptop. "Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2, 2006, 52 (39), A27.
[3] L. L. Bowman, L. E. Levine, B. Mr. Waite and Mr. Gendron, "Can students really multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging while reading, "Computers & Education, vol. 54, no. 4, p. 927-931, May 2010.
[4] Joan A. Williams, Helen Berg, Hannah Gerber, Melinda Miller, Donna Cox, Nancy Votteler, Carwile Dixie, and Maggie McGuire, "'I Get Distracted By Their Being Distracted': The Etiquette of Texting In-Class" Eastern Education Journal, vol. 40, no. 1, p. 48-56, 2011

More than one year and around 150 students later, I can state this makes a big difference. Students are still easily distracted, but enforcing the policy is easy and mostly free of drama. The back row of class is where the worst offenders migrate, but it's much easier to manage.

Your problem is quite a common one and one that I face all the time. It is easy to see the benefits brought by laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. and for those of us who were focused students, it seems like a benefit we want to give the younger generation. However, there are a lot of non-focused students who do use these devices to distraction, both their own and others.
For me, I try to make the class more interactive, less stand-and-deliver. That is, I tend to call on students all the time and I asked one student to comment on the opinion of other students. If the students are unable to give any meaningful answer (e.g., if they simply say 'yes, I agree with his point') then I dig until it is clear that the student was not paying attention. If that's the case, then one warning if I'm in a good mood and none if I'm not.
I make it clear that they have the choice to be there or not. University is not for everyone. If they don't want to be there, get out. If they do want to be there, then act like it.
I usually don't have to do it too often but I do have to do it from time to time to remind them that school is not relaxation time. Keep the classroom a little tense...it will keep them on their toes.

I would be interested to know how you usually get evaluated by your students. From your approach it seems that you are tough with them and that usually means that they will mark you down for it. Could you expand on that and are there patterns that you have noticed in student evaluations given your class behavior in different terms, etc?

@blackace I am quite strict but not the strictest in my department (but stricter than most). I generally have the highest student evaluations in my department. I believe students like 'tough love' and I do love them and they know it...but I'm tough and they know that too. I believe they tend to learn more in my classes than from the average lecturer...and they do end up appreciating that.

+1 for a tough love approach. How selective is admission to your university/program? The "university is not for everyone" is more or less true depending on that factor.

Admission is actually quite easy. The fact is that there are many people in this country (in Asia) who never get a university education.

"university is not for everyone" is also a good argument for allowing students to never attend class and still write the final exam. The distracted students might be distracted because the lecture speed does not fit them well.

I'll start by quoting from earthling's answer:

For me, I try to make the class more interactive, less stand-and-deliver.

To me, that's the key.  I'm writing this as a separate answer because I elaborate significantly differently.
Consider the technique of a "flipped" classroom.  This teaching technique involves:

eliminating lectures
have students learn material at home (e.g., by reading text)
in-class experience involves:

Students asking questions
Students doing exercises that provide hands-on experience

I've heard quite a bit of positive feedback by a college administration that was pushing this.  I also read some feedback (one example: this question) which seems to indicate some dissatisfaction, particularly among students.
I'm actually not trying to promote the flipped classroom here, but simply to use it as an example of another approach.  If students aren't asked to just sit and listen (and take notes), they may be more inclined to do things other than be distracted.
Eventually, the situation (some may call it a "problem") of electronic devices will intensify (some may say it will worsen).  I really do predict that people are going to get cybernetic implants.  A lot of people may disagree because it seems too far-fetched, but here's my counter argument: the biggest problems with putting a cell phone into the body is that current cell phones use poisonous/bad/dangerous chemicals in the battery, and having the antenna under the skin might not be something I've seen yet.  However, under-skin electronics are in use today, including pets that have Radio Frequency Identification (RFID tags), and people placing more advanced Near Field Communications (NFC) devices in their hands.  In theory, the body can probably be an energy (power) source, which would also be useful for medical applications.  Now, once these technologies improve and teenagers figure out that an under-skin antenna will allow them to text message without adults knowing about it, I predict that's no way the teenagers won't get implants.
Therefore, attacking the visible use of devices is not going to be the best approach.  (Also, as more and more people use electronics, including adults in the workplace, forbidding them can become more and more challenging and risks making the instructor seem more and more irrelevantly out-of-touch.)
So, the key I see is this: Get them engaged and focused, by requiring interactive involvement.  That may be by using a "flipped" classroom, or by competitions (that keep evolving as skills improve and competitors get better), or some other methods.

Ban distracting others, don't ban doing your own thing
Students will always want to do their own thing, you're likely not going to be the one to convince them that texting isn't okay in a lecture if 18 years of schooling up until now hasn't taught them that, but playing something bright and flashy in a lecture is obviously distracting to people behind them. Lecturers at my previous institution's solution to this was to tell the hall at the beginning of the course that if someone's screen was being distracting to use that same universal free wifi to send him a message through a little page he'd set up so he could give a general reminder not to do distracting shit. Which only had to happen a couple of times before the laptop users realised they should probably stop in general. They never bothered with phones because fighting against phones today is just so much more trouble than it's worth, and it's almost impossible to tell whether what the person is doing is work related or not, I personally used to set reminders for myself to google things later in the evening and google for other explanations of things that I didn't understand on mine, and I probably would have been worse off for not having it.
I don't know if you'd be able to do things similarly, but that's how it was solved at my previous university anyway.


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Is it fair to organize conferences in beautiful tourist places?
Sometimes I receive some emails to attend scientific conferences organized in beautiful tourist places.
For example, recently I got a message for a conference in the wonderful Italian Cinque Terre, that was promoting both the conference scientific relevance and the beauty of the city locations.
Or, another time, I received a message that invited me to attend a conference in the marvelous mountains of Bardonecchia next winter. In this case, the mail said that organizers would provide a ski pass for skiing activities for any participant.
These kind of conferences leaves me quite doubtful.
The aim of the organizers is obvious: to sum up the beauty of the places to the scientific importance of the conference, to convince more people to attend.
But is it fair?
I'm wondering: is it right to organize conferences in wonderful places, to make people coming more for the beauty of the places than for the scientific relevance of the event?
Should not a conference be attended just and only for the scientific relevance?
Does it have to be necessarily a partial vacation for attendees?

Fair to whom? People who don't get to go? Other conferences?

How would you recognise an objective answer to this? What sort of facts are you expecting to emerge?

@EnergyNumbers For example those raised by aiesmail...

Sidney Harris did a cartoon about this...

A colleague told me he once was in Louisiana for a conference. His talk was in the morning of the first day, after which he rented a car and took off to Florida for the remainder of the conference. My point is that unethical behavior like this depends more on the person than on the conference location. Traveling is very tiresome, so if a venue allows you to both work and relax after work, I see that as a good thing.

Some important universities and research centers are located in inherently beautiful and/or touristy places. That doesn't prevent them from organizing conferences.

I would argue that so-called "travel junkets"—such as conferences with dubious scientific or technical content—that are organized in exotic locales more to provide a vacation for attendees than to provide a rewarding scientific exchange are largely indefensible, and I certainly would not authorize use of my group's travel funds to attend such conferences, either for myself or for my group members.
However, I see nothing wrong with combining a high-quality scientific program with pleasant surroundings and environments that make attending more of a pleasure. Academics are humans, too, and can certainly enjoy aesthetics and exploration just as much as anybody else! For instance, I much prefer attending conferences in cities like Boston or San Francisco in the US than I do conferences in (for example) Cincinnati or Salt Lake City, because of the range of things to do and see in the former cities is so much greater than in the latter. That doesn't mean I won't go to the latter—but it does mean that the conference will have to do a better job of selling itself than one that's located somewhere more "interesting."

@aiesmail Yeah but in the case of an "interesting" place, isn't there the risk of attracting people more for the trip than for the science? Would it be wrong to organize a conference in the middle of nothing?

Yes, that's always a risk; but somebody could always choose to stay holed up in their hotel room for the whole conference, anyways. As for a conference in the middle of nowhere, yes, that could be done—but you'd also be responsible for housing your guests, and making sure they're kept busy. (Basically, you can hold a conference wherever you like, so long as you're willing to accept the consequences—such as low turnout if you hold it somewhere nobody wants to go!)

@DavideChicco.it - organizing a conference in the middle of nothing might be logistically significantly more difficult than organizing a conference in a place to which people come often anyway.

@Ana It depends on what you mean for "middle of nothing"... I don't intend "middle of Sahara desert", I just think about a non-tourist location. For example, my Australian friend told me that Camberra is a very ugly city but very easy to reach (I hope this do not offend any Aussie here around :-)

Hey ! I live in Salt Lake City :). It has probably the best hiking and skiing in the entire US !

@DavideChicco.it: Canberra is not an ugly city. It is very pleasant. Lots of nature. A large lake in the center of town. It's just a little boring to live in. Also, it's easy to reach, once you've made it to Australia.

@Suresh Most people unfortunately don't realize how great the southwest is!

It's often quite difficult to get people to travel long distances -- Europe to California loses you a day -- for conferences.  Many established figures in a field will prefer to stay home (in my own discipline, I can think of 4/10 of the major figures who essentially refuse to travel).  The addition of an alluring locale is often an attempt to get these people to come.  Also, if the conference is held during school holidays, quite often the researcher's family will come too... and a middle-of-nowhere conference makes it harder for the family to entertain themselves.

@DavideChicco.it : a place that isn't used to receiving tourists also doesn't have hotels, conference venues, the necessary density of restaurants, etc.  Also airfare is usually cheaper to a popular destination (or airline hub).  This doesn't necessarily force one to choose a vacation destination for a conference, but makes vacation and business destinations more popular.

Often a “beautiful tourist place”

Has cheap flights to it.
Has cheap hotels.
Has lots of flights to it.

Even for conferences that only have people from the UK going, it can often be more cost effective to run them outside of the UK.
But even given the above, it can be a problem being seen to be going if public funds are paying.

Some years ago, I was one of the attendees at a small meeting that involved people from several locations around the US. We asked our employer's travel agent to pick the location to minimize the total expense. The answer was not one of the home locations, but Reno, Nevada, for exactly the reasons in this answer.

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Is it proper to cite a web page using embedded metadata for an APA paper?
I saved the home page for the Academic Libraries of Indiana to Zotero, and it pulled back an author from the metadata embedded in the page.  After pulling up the source of the page, I found a meta field defined as "DC.Creator" (which, according to the comment above the metadata block is a Dublin Core element).  Given that the page itself doesn't display this person's name, is it appropriate to cite the page as authored by that person, or should the institution be named as author?  I suspect if I cited the page as written by the organization it wouldn't be considered wrong, but at the same time, knowing that metadata is there makes me feel odd not attributing the authorship to the defined (but somewhat hidden) author.

Some large websites, assign responsibles for each page, so in the case of a question or need for update that person would handle it. This does not mean authorship in its academic sense. So if the page does not contain a scientific claim and you refer to that just as a web-page then it should be attributed to the university (or department?), I guess.

I'd go with using the name from the embedded metadata. It's a little unusual but they've clearly made it available in some fashion, and intended it to be used - they wouldn't have marked it up as DC metadata if it was meant to be unknown!

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Is it unethical/unscientific to omit outlier data in a publication when they are in FAVOR of your argument?
I have a scatter(log-)plot with some 10,000 data points that plots the running time of some algorithm against the input on random instances of some problem.
I have a lot of these plots, and due to space constraints I can't exactly dedicate a large amount of space to them. The plots are 1-2 inches tall. The trouble is that a handful (maybe 5 or so) of these samples have taken a ridiculously short amount of time to complete (say, a few milliseconds), whereas pretty much all of the other data points have taken 2-3 orders of magnitude longer.
I'm trying to show that my algorithm is fast, so I figure it shouldn't hurt to just omit these handful of data points and generate more samples, right?
I feel like mentioning anything would unnecessarily confuse the reader, and keeping them would annoy the reader since the plot would have a large amount of blank space. And obviously it's not like I'm trying to suppress evidence against my research or something---the discarded data is only in favor of my algorithm.
Would I be violating some ethical code here if I just discard those samples without mentioning anything so that my plots look nicer? Is it unscientific? And if so would anyone actually care?

Did you mean 5 out of 10,000 were super faster?

@scaaahu: Yeah. (Is there another possible interpretation of my question that I'm missing?)

No, I just want to make sure I read your question right. Five out of 10,000 is extra-ordinary. There could be some other reasons for that to happen.

Would a broken axis solve your problem?

@Wrzlprmft: Not really, the broken axis would be even more confusing than just including it...

Is it unethical/unscientific to omit outlier data — Yes.

Wow, this question got a lot more views than I ever expected...

Science aims at revelation and insight.  Before you can even consider dropping these samples, you need to understand why they exist.
The reason is that unexpectedly "good" data can be just as much a sign of problems with your theory as unexpectedly bad data.  Are these data points telling you that you've got a bug in your algorithm?  Are they saying that the instrumentation you were using for timing was unreliable or not calibrated properly?  Or is it just that under certain circumstances your random problems happen to be exceedingly easy to solve?  There may be other possibilities as well.
If you can't determine why the outliers exist, then you must include them, in order to help the reader evaluate your work.  If you determine they exist for a problematic reason, then, well, you're not ready to publish yet.  If you determine they exist for a benign reason, then you can drop them from the figure, but you must explain exactly what you've done in the text and why, or else you risk misleading the reader.
At the end of the day, the data you got is the data you got, and you need to deal with it honestly.

... problems with your theory or with the experiment. Remember, "I can't explain that" is where the real discoveries are found.

At the very least, I think you need to find out if the outlier values are reproducible by re-running the same input - even if the input was generated "randomly", you can presumably save it and re-use it. If they are not reproducible and you can't explain why, the next question to ask could well be "do any of your results demonstrate anything at all".

Also: there have been several studies where what appeared to be outliers were, in fact, the valid data. I wish I could remember them off the top of my head, but I read something about it in the last year or so.

@keshlam: Big discoveries don't go "Eureka!" They go "Huh, that's funny."

Is it unscientific?

Yes.  The purpose of these plots is not to show that the algorithm is fast, but rather to give an accurate picture of its speed.  Intentionally removing outliers without explanation gives a distorted picture.  It's OK if you are clear about it (for example, explaining in the caption or text about the outliers that were removed and why), but not if you do it silently.
These outliers could really matter:

Maybe they indicate a bug in your code, in which case removing them would look like you were deliberately covering up sloppy work.
Explaining the outliers could be scientifically interesting and important (perhaps it could lead to an even faster algorithm), but nobody will try if they don't even know they are there.
If someone else implements the algorithm and compares their results to yours, they may waste time trying to understand why they have outliers and you don't.

Especially for algorithms, where the performance of edge cases is important, the notion that you can toss out outliers is...a little problematic.

@Fomite: Well my idea was that worst cases are almost always interesting, but best cases seldom are, since it's easy to make an algorithm have a "fast path" for returning answers to easy queries. For example, imagine if you were trying to sort a list, only to find that the list was already sorted. Then you wouldn't need to do anything else at all, and algorithm would finish much faster in these cases. But (unless your algorithm is recursive) this best-case running time would be uninteresting when benchmarking the performance of your sorting algorithm, so you might try to exclude it.

@Mehrdad it can be useful to have such an algorithm in a situation where you expect your lists to be ordered most of the time, but not always. Best cases are indeed interesting, and as your own testing suggest, not so contrived (once every two thousands random cases).

@Davidmh: I never denied the usefulness of having such an algorithm. I denied the usefulness of plotting the best-case behavior of such an algorithm in many (not all) cases. It makes it harder to meaningfully compare the algorithm against others unless for some reason you expect the lists to be ordered most of the time, which you generally don't.

Yes. For a practical scenario, imagine someone trying to replicate your research, going only by your paper, and beating themselves over the head thinking they have a bug, because their plot shows these weird outliers.
Basically, you have to give people all the information, because you don't know how they're going to use your paper. Probably, most readers won't care about the  outliers, and probably they would judge the method the same, but it's not up to you to make that decision.
Of course, you have to filter out the noise, somehow. Usually, the trick is to figure how to give the reader all the information, while allowing them to focus on what's important. In your case, I would just say in the caption to the plot, that 5 runs of the algorithm were so fast that they were outside the scale of the plot (or something to that effect).

+1 for the first paragraph. That's more convincing than I'm finding some of the other answers.

The key issue is not whether or not you remove the outliers, but whether or not you describe and explain what you did.  There are many valid reasons to remove outliers, but if you do it, you need to say that you did it and say why.
In contrast to some of the other answers here, I don't think it's absolutely necessary to fully explain the outliers before excluding them.  But if you don't have an explanation, you need to say that too.  Ideally, you would explain the results both with and without the outliers.  If the presence or absence of the outliers doesn't affect the overall conclusion, then you can still stick to that conclusion, while mentioning the outliers as a curiosity perhaps worthy of further study.
Of course, how any of these strategies will be regarded by reviewers depends on your field and publication venue.  But those reviewers need to be aware of whatever choices you made in your analysis.  Discarding outliers is an analytical choice, and making any analytical choice without disclosing it is unscientific.

As someone with less of an academia background and more of a computer science background, my first instinct for a small amount of tests failing is that these particular tests did not execute properly. Basically, your algorithm didn't complete and returned early due to a bug. This bug can either be in your code, or in your dataset, or in both. Either way, a difference of orders of magnitude is not normal. Check the results of those particular runs and see if they're normal. For all we know, those 5 datapoints might actually be the algorithm running correctly, and those 9995 other datapoints are the bugged ones (unlikely, but possible).
As for displaying these outliers, have you considered displaying that graph with a log(10) Y axis? This would reduce the amount wasted space, but still show that there are outliers.
Either way, removing datapoints for formatting reason is falsifying data, just like you would have if you removed them because they didn't prove your point. It can easily kill your career.

@Mehrdad it might be a little extreme, but it definitely wouldn't help your career. You're basically removing datapoints because they don't fit your idea of what the data should look like. That indicates that you think your idea is more important than reality, which is contrary to what science is all about: generating an accurate representation of reality.

Usually hidden or distorted data catches up with the perpetrator with unpleasant results. If you want to take the risk, that's up to you. In general people in your field who are your competitors will be a lot less kind than people on this website. They will take delight in proving you wrong if that's what you are. As others have said, you need to be able to explain the outliers or you are not ready for publication.

@Nzall By my reading of the question, OP wasn't removing data points because they didn't fit his idea of what the data should look like. When you run a program many times with a variety of input values, you may serendipitously have some data which falls straight through all the if-then-else branches and looping-until-done structures like diarrhea.  If there's nothing wrong with those input values, and there's nothing inconvenient about those time results, and including these particular graphics would clutter up the paper unnecessarily, then I don't see the problem with not choosing those...

... particular plots to include in the paper.  When we hear "outlier" we sometimes jump to conclusions.  It can be helpful to examine what exactly is meant by "outlier" before drawing a conclusion.

@aparente001 If you have data which falls through the cracks and gives unexpected results, then you should see why it falls through those cracks and why it gives those results. Extreme outliers might point to a mistake in your data processing algorithm, which sometimes might even change the result of that same algorithm applied to other datapoints.

@Nzall - In this case they are not unexpected results, though, right?  What I understood was that some input values serendipitously take all the short branches in the if-then-else diamonds.  ("Fall through the cracks" is not what I was talking about.)

@aparente001 As an IT professional, input data that "serendipitously" takes all the short branches is highly likely to not be processed in the same way as other data and as such might not be processed correctly. What I said is technically not really any different from most of the other answers that were more higher voted than me.

@Nzall - True, that your answer is similar to others. Yours is recent, and yours takes a stronger stance. (I assume that's why you wrote it -- you wanted to go farther than the other answers went.) // Look, if I propose an algorithm that behaves ridiculously well with a tiny fraction of the input data that were randomly generated, and I decline to present those particular performance results to support my claim that my algorithm is faster than others, that is very different from omitting a subset of performance results that refute my claim. // Think of the flow chart. Let's say ...

... for the sake of simplicity we have a flow chart that has a series of "if such-and-so, do this or that, else do nothing," and some of the randomly generated data happen to hit most or all of the else branches, thus shooting through the flow chart ridiculously quickly (that was where I used the diarrhea metaphor), does this mean the algorithm is no good? Here's another way of looking at it. Imagine a decision tree where certain branches involve very little looping, and occasionally the input data traverse, serendipitously, those particular branches. The run time for those particular ...

...inputs can be ridiculously short. // Now, it's true that in this case it might be a good idea to set up the program to perform the algorithm ten times in a row -- always.  But that would not eliminate these outliers. // Re your comment "takes all the short branches is highly likely to not be processed in the same way as other data" -- what would be unethical would be to skip the testing and verification process. We have no reason to think that OP did skimp on his testing; we do have indications that he bent over backward to avoid doing anything unethical.

It's always a good idea to change your plots to make your data look clearer. It's never a good idea to change your data to make your plots look clearer.
There are many ways to tell readers about outliers. My favorite is to use a plot with a conspicuously broken axis, which calls attention to the outliers without disrupting the rest of the plot.
It's good that you're worried about confusing your readers. You should think carefully about how to warn your readers about details like this without distracting them from the story you're trying to tell. However, as many others have advised you, you should never silently ignore data to make your story sound simpler than it really is. Doing this might make your paper a tiny bit easier to read, but only at the potential cost of making your work impossible to reproduce (as Peter said) or throwing away an odd detail that would have turned out to be an important clue (as keshlam said).

To be pragmatic (and agreeing with the overall philosophy of being fully transparent always) just make your charts in the space provided with the outliers excluded and then put a big darn footnote on the chart explaining that 5 points were excluded due to size constraints on page and offer commentary there about why / how these points exist. Just my 2 cents from one long suffering academic to another...

as mentioned in other answers, the presence of those outliers can be interesting on itself, unless its a bug. It should be better to try and show everything properly than to hide them, even mentioning.

If you understand the reason for the outliers, and they represent a defect in your measurement methodology, then correct the error, and do the experiment again with improved instrumentation. You don't need to publish details of all the blind alleys you went down. If you don't understand the reason for the outliers, then ignoring them is unethical, though I'm sure it is very frequently done. If you do understand the reason, e.g. sometimes the algorithm just gets lucky, then you need to mention them, but they don't need to appear on the same chart as all the other measurements if that would make the chart unreadable.

Doing an experiment again might cost millions. Doing that for just a few datapoints seems ridiculous and it's better to use statistical analysis then.


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Search techniques for finding references at the start of reviewing the literature for your research?
Whenever we start new research, we need to do a literature review first in order to both get acquainted with the context and the concepts related to our research as well as to situate our research within the existing knowledge.
The problem is that in order to find relevant literature, you need to express what you are looking for in meaningful search terms. The more efficient and robust you make your "search string" (aka the keywords you use) the better you will express your information need and find relevant references. If someone is looking for "text classification for categorising books", it is better to word it as "book genre identification".
Are there any techniques for finding the perfect wording for your initial literature search? Myself, for example, I try to find an initial paper that is relevant and the browse through its cited papers to see if there is any paper that describes what I am looking for in a better way.

Welcome to Academia SE! I am trying to edit your tags a bit to attract the appropriate attention. I removed "review-process" since that refers to peer-reviewing, not literature reviews. But what does this question have to do with the "patents" tag? If it is not clearly, strongly related, that tag should be removed as a distraction. If it is related, then please edit the question to make the relevance quite clear. (But if it is only marginal, I would suggest removing the tag.)

@Tripartio thanks a lot for the help! I used the "patents" because I know that literature search also concerns patents search as well  since they try to find if a technology already exists and they need to do a literature patent review there.

You don't need "perfect wording for your initial literature search". Getting started on a new project is an iterative process. You think about the problem. You read some papers. You think some more. You find new places to look. You have ideas of your own and follow them up. Eventually you will discover things that are not yet known.
When you are pleased with your progress you do the literature review that's appropriate for the paper you are writing.

Hi, Ethan, thanks for the response. Maybe "efficient" would be a better word than "perfect". I didn't want to focus on finding the "best" but rather what kind of "techniques" that people have developed.   I would be more interested if you could provide an example from your past how does this iterative process looked like for you.

@StergiosEfes My personal strategies would probably not work for you. I don't read a lot, just play with problems that interest me and search the literature along the way. Sometimes I find out that I reproduced a known result (but I enjoyed doing it). So just work in a manner that suits your style and your problem. You'd probably be pretty well along by now if you's started your search (even inefficiently) instead of asking how to here. Good luck.

There is no one approach.  Presumably, you know enough about the topic to find one seminal paper that's been heavily cited.  You then look at the heavily cited papers the cited your first paper.  You then go read the other important papers that those authors cite.
Long story short, pick an interesting paper, and search forwards and backward in time from that point.

As @EthanBolker said, a good literature search is an iterative process that evolves along with your research progress. The very notion of a "perfect search string" from the very beginning constrains you to think only in terms of what you knew when you started the project without adjusting for your continuous learning as you advance in the project.
I would further add that it is a widely mistaken concept that the primary purpose of the literature review of a scholarly article (which I call a "background literature review") is to summarize the related literature. Well, that is often accurate in practice, but in my opinion, that is not the most useful thing that it might do. Rather, the primary purpose of a background literature review should be to clearly carve out the novel scholarly contribution of your article in relation to the literature. That is, by the time you have completed the article, the background literature review should focus on clearly showing how the existing literature is related or similar to what you are doing, but how your article goes beyond the existing literature and makes novel scholarly contributions beyond what exists.
You cannot write such an effective background literature review at the beginning of your project when you yourself are not quite clear what is the extent of your contribution. Although it is certainly good to do an initial search before you start so that you have an idea of the research landscape, it is only by the time you are finished and you can properly appraise what you have done that you would be able to complete a background literature review that properly places your contribution in context of all relevant literature. So, from that perspective, there cannot be a meaningful notion of a "perfect search string" at the beginning of a research project.
I think what you have described is a good way to start: "I try to find an initial paper that is relevant and the browse through its cited papers to see if there is any paper that describes what I am looking for in a better way." In addition, you should probably use Google Scholar to do a forward citation search, that is, find articles that have cited your initial papers and see if something more recent is related. Then, after you have completed your project and have a good idea of what your contributions are, you can try to search on the keywords based on your contributions to find if anyone has already done anything similar. Then read such articles to clearly understand how your contributions are different so that you can then write a background literature review that clearly highlights the uniqueness of your contributions.

Hi,  Tripartio! Thanks a lot for your answer! Maybe from my side the word "perfect" was not very accurate, "efficient" would be better. But what I am trying to see if the techniques one has developed over the years to find the related terminoology that will make them do more efficient searches when searching for literature!
And again, thanks a lot for your detailed response! :)

Presumably you will want to start a new type of research after:

You met someone that does some research that interests you
You read a paper that you liked and it sparked a new interest
You saw a talk about a subject that you liked

If 1. just ask that person, if 2. read carefully the introduction of said paper and list all the references cited there. Then go to those papers and read those introductions and do this iteratively. After a couple of iterations you will see some papers appear all the time, those are the seminal papers. Read those, then you have an idea what to search for.
If you are lucky, somebody has already written a review, so it's almost guaranteed that after reading a couple of recent introductions it will pop up there.
If 3. you can look for papers that they wrote and start from there. Perhaps you can even ask them to give a talk in your university (or ask a professor to invite them).

Hi BlueElephant!
I am mostly interested, (i didn't mention it) on techniques involving only you and the computer (not asking others). The ones you mentioned for listing the references are exactly the techniques I am looking for. If you got more examples than this please share more :))

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How to handle newly discovered problems in second and third round reviews
For the first time, I had to review a revision of an academic paper (I have already reviewed several other papers, but they were all rejected after the first round). While the authors had clearly improved the paper (after the first round, major revisions were requested by the editor (and myself)), several major issues mentioned in the first round of reviews were still not (or not correctly) addressed. Furthermore, due to the improvement in writing and structure, the paper was easier to read, and I was able to identify several flaws or strong limitations that I did not report in the first round. Consequently, I, again, recommended major revisions (while I hesitated with rejection due to the major flaws).
After having submitted my review, I received the reviews of the two others reviewers. To my surprise, both were positive (1 line comment such as "Issues have been addressed and I have no further comment") and the editor requested minor revisions.
In view of this, I am wondering if I have misunderstood how I should review a paper after revision as I did not make a real difference between round 1 and 2. Therefore my question is how far can/should we go in reviewing a paper? If at each round, improvements are made but new flaws or mistakes are spotted, should we stop mentioning them at some point?
This process might be theoretically infinite. Furthermore, as an author, I know that several rounds of reviews are exhausting and stressful so I do not want to be "that reviewer" (the one who is too picky and who completely slow down the publication process).

(1) The comments of other reviewers should not bother you; often reviewers will be from mutually exclusive fields, so as to provide better representation. You should stand by your professional opinion irrespective of the others.
(2) I firmly believe that you should spend a lot of time on first and second review. If you are finding new and significant errors beyond these rounds, it means you didn't do your job rigorously before.

EDIT: Several comments highlight the valid point that sometimes revisions are required just to make the paper readable. My position on this is that if more than 2 'readability-reviews' are required, the authors are either unable to use the language adequately (and should be directed to a suitable resource- a reviewer is meant to check technical content, not be a style coach), or are unwilling to make these suggestions; in which case there is no point asking once again.

Comments/questions regarding your previous objections are ok, but entirely new objections in third or subsequent rounds leave a bitter taste and lead to a lot if time being wasted.

Actually, regarding 2, it may mean the paper should have been sent back to the authors before round 1. In my experience, this happens because the initial paper is inexcusably sloppy, but the editor does not want to offend the authors.

Well, changes made in light of earlier objections may create new problems. This is not necessarily the reviwer's fault.

I've also had the experience of not seeing serious problems in earlier rounds because the unclear writing masked these issues. That is a fundamental part of OP's question. Your answer seems to imply that OP did not spend sufficient time in earlier rounds, which I don't think should be assumed.

As a counter to your second point: I have often reviewed papers that were so sloppily written that mistakes could only be spotted upon second or third rewrites. If I had to catch everything in the first or second round, I'd essentially be rewriting the whole paper.

@Dawn - I agree. Have edited the answer to reflect this. Nevertheless, I don't believe this should be done more than once- we are wasting everybody's time by doing so.

@cfr - Indeed. But that is not the case in this question, therefore I did not address it. See: 'Furthermore, due to the improvement in writing and structure, the paper was easier to read, and I was able to identify several flaws or strong limitations that I did not report in the first round.'

@Designerpot - Its unfortunate that you've had to do this. I personally wouldn't review something that needs to be sent back thrice for readability issues. There are language services available for this. Additionally, most journals I submit to/review for have a pre-editorial check at journal office where basic formatting, grammar and spelling is checked. So effectively that would mean one more readability review by default. Slight overkill, don't you think?

I read (2) as a general claim. If it is meant to be specific to this case, that's different.

This has also happened to me, so I appreciate this question. I think this situation occurs, in large part, because a totally sloppy first draft is sent out for review rather than desk rejected. So in some sense this is not your fault.
In the end, I gave a review including all the issues I had identified and then asked the editor for feedback regarding my (second and third round) reviews. He explained that he was pleased with my approach, although in the end he ended up telling the authors that some of my comments from the third round were optional.
The feedback I received makes me believe that a reviewer should continue to point out issues in the second and third rounds, even if they are new. Then alert the editor to the fact that you are finding new issues (perhaps note that it is due to the substantial rewriting). Final decisions are up to the editor and usually they are happy to be able to consider the points, even if (in the end) they tell the author that some  points can be ignored at the later stage.

I appreciate the fact that you are asking this questions with sensitivity to the authors' feelings. Although we should be professional and objective in doing our reviews, we should also respond in ways that take the authors' human feelings into account.
In this case, I think you should indeed present the new concerns you have at each round, especially if they were hidden earlier do to poor writing. However, when you do so, I recommend that you send a note to the editor explaining your concern that it might be unfair to the authors to bring up new major issues so late, and so ask the editor to use their discretion in making the recommendation. That way, you fulfill your responsibility to objectively identify the problems with the article, but you absolve your conscience of any possible guilt for giving the authors an unfair experience--it is the editor's responsibility to make the decision, not yours.

If a paper has problems from a scientific point of view, then there shouldn't be consideration given to the result of the review being "unfair" to the authors (as long as it's not "unfair" due to bias). The point of reviews is so that we, collectively, do good science. We shouldn't sacrifice good science just because meeting that standard is inconvenient for, or "unfair" to, the authors. OTOH, it is quite reasonable for the OP to recognize that the author's might be frustrated and A) preface their comments with wording meant to reduce the emotional impact of the review and

B) introspectively attempt to determine what they could do better/different to have more issues resolved/identified in the first review, so that such situations are at reduced/eliminated in the future. Basically, the point I'm trying to make is that you can be considerate of others/the feelings of others and put effort into making them not feel as bad, but when doing so you shouldn't sacrifice the primary goal of the process: good science.

@Makyen, good points. I agree.

Stand on what you believe is most correct and do not leave the paper with flaws like that. Your decision matters before it is published. After publication it would remain online and others may not be able to figure out these flaws. In fact others may follow these errors and publish papers in the future. Your obligation to the paper takes precedence over that of the journal i.e if the paper is published elsewhere and the comments are well addressed it is better than publishing it in the journal with those flaws you have identified. However, it is important to mention that you should try at the first few rounds to read the paper thoroughly.

Give every detail and proof you have concerning the paper while being polite to the authors. Instead of saying 'the authors' say 'the paper' etc
Apologize and make it clear that you have not seen these issues in the previous round.

The point is that the reviewer is like a Judge, whenever he finds new evidence, his judgement could change

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Review process of revised journal paper
A few months ago, I was asked to review a paper. The result of the review process was a "Revise".
So now I was asked again to read the revised version of the paper. But now I can only select "Accept Review" or "Decline Review".
Does this mean that the paper will be reviewed again with other reviewers?

Ask the editor you are doing the review for - they will know exactly how their process works.

It means they're inviting you to review the revision. If you accept the review, then you get to read the paper, make new comments, make new recommendation, etc. If you decline, they'll either find someone else or make a decision.
Based on your description, there isn't enough information to tell if there are other reviewers invited. You certainly are, but don't know about the others.

That makes sense, thanks.


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citing from a review
I'm writing my first proposal for M.Sc. , meanwhile, I keep reviewing many papers and tracking sources of citation, I noticed that some authors cite from review introduction while others cite from review conclusion. Does it mean that I can cite from any part in review paper as long as the cited information is by the sound of the review author (when he/she doesn't talk about a certain research nor cite from any) wherever it can be found in the review sections ??
thanks

Cite and reference...

so its ok then .. thanks

some authors cite from review introduction while others cite from review conclusion. Does it mean that I can cite from any part in review paper...?

Yes: You can cite any aspect of a paper. Albeit, you should avoid citing a secondary source (i.e., when a paper cites another, cite the original source,* rather than that paper). It is sometimes useful to cite a particular aspect of a paper, e.g., [Section 3, 1] or [Theorem 7, 2], so that readers can find specific aspects of papers to which you are referring.
*Do not cite the original source without sufficient consultation.

In some fields it is also ethically-required that if you cited a primary source you found in a secondary source, your citation look like "XYZ-primary-source, cited in ABC-secondary-source". This both acknowledges the work of the review author, and makes it easier for future readers to have access to what you were looking at. In other fields - please consider it even if it's not a requirement.

@einpoklum Do you really mean if you cited a primary source you found in a secondary source? It would surely imply that almost every citation is secondary. A slightly weaker statement that adds the requirement without looking at the secondary source holds across many fields.

I meant that if you read XYZ's book or paper, which cites ABC, then you shouldn't just cite ABC with no mention of XYZ.

@einpoklum Can you give some exemplar fields? It seems like a bizarre methodology (to me), since many papers are discovered via another and recording this trail seems rather burdensome (and in some cases it may become problematic, e.g., with multiple authors, over the duration of a research career, ...)

In my experience, it's like that in legal scholarship / legal rulings (at least in some countries).


text:
Allegations of harassment by a faculty member and reporting?
This issue is about a university in a third-world country.
I friend of mine, "Zelda," is a faculty member at a reputable university. During one of her sittings with an undergrad student, "Alice," she learned that another faculty member, "Thomas" is sending Alice some inappropriate text messages and emails.
Alice also mentioned that she has heard similar things from another student about Thomas. Alice offered to show some texts to Zelda, who refused, but told Alice the office of student affairs handles such matters. However, Alice is reluctant to report, and just wants to graduate ASAP, and thinks that Thomas might damage her, as he is quite powerful within school administration.
I am convinced that, given Alice is not the only student who is being harassed, "T" will misuse his position and will continue his inappropriate behavior. And I am also convinced that office of student affairs will take action, if notified. I guess that Zelda does not want to be a whistleblower, although she believe Alice.
I think that keeping quiet will only make things bad for other vulnerable students. Please mind that for a woman, going to university in that country is a privilege.
Thomas' behavior is not on the university's radar. So, I am thinking of dropping an anonymous email to office of student affairs. Is it OK to do such a thing? I have no affiliation with the university, Alice, or Thomas.
Is it OK for someone, who has nothing to do with Alice, to drop an email asking administration to take a look into these allegations?

A compelling question, a difficult question, and very dependent on many specifics of the situation... Also, anonymous allegations have problems with credibility, and perhaps even legal issues (e.g., in the U.S., accused people are generally allowed to know their accusers...) A bad situation, but/and also tricky.

In some places, such as where I am, there are local dignity at work representatives, part of whose role is to support those who don't want to make a complaint.  Do you have anyone similar?  If the student in question doesn't want to talk to them, you (or Z) still can, without the need to name names at least at first

I support your idea, but you must be very very careful. In some cases, if the university finds out Z was involved, and someone in the school administration is as immoral as T, then things can get very bad for Z. So if you are not sure how things will turn out, you would do well to not only be anonymous but also try to ensure that the complaint cannot be traced to Z, including telling Z to not reveal that she told you anything. Reputability of the school is an unreliable indicator that the school will do what is morally right; they may protect their reputation but not their students.

See: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/full-list-of-universities-exposed-by-sexual-assault-investigation/news-story/f7c39dcacce8a9c839bc8b881172173b, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/02/09/baylor-not-alone-shielding-athletes-accused-misconduct-punishment, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/05/students-staff-uk-universities-sexual-harassment-epidemic, https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/30/stanford-sexual-misconduct-revelation-exposes-storied-professors-secret,

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/07/in-university-sexual-harassment-cases-a-chilling-power-dynamic.

Not only is it okay, in the US it is manditory requirement for a faculty members to report issues of sexual harrassment (part of something called Title IX) they hear about from students.

@Kimball:  Under the law, US institutions are required only to make a clearly-defined policy about who is a "mandatory reporter" under Title IX.  But many US institutions, including mine, include almost everyone in that category (with some exceptions such as chaplains & health professionals), so the effect is much the same.

@Kimball this was apparently in a 3rd world country so your comment makes very much sense.

I would suggest instead of using letters, to use whole made-up names, which are much easier to read and follow.

I think your post would be a little easier to follow if you chose some fake names instead of using letters. E.g., Z could be Zelda, A could be Alice, T could be Tom, B could be Barbara. If you want a little more randomization of the names, you could use this generator.

As Allure points out, opinions on this matter will vary, so let me note some points that I think are important here, and also offer an opinion that is slightly to the contrary of some other answers.  (For brevity, these points are framed as an answer to the person you are talking about who is the academic dealing with these students.)

Academics have a duty of care to students: Students at university are adults, but they mostly are still young and inexperienced.  In my humble opinion, academics should generally err on the side of pushing for assistance in cases like these, even if the students are reluctant.  Students are generally young adults who may be intimidated by the positions and standing of older adults who have attained academic success and institutional power.  Having another academic push the matter forward may be helpful in overcoming this disparity.

Harassers thrive on the "I won't make a fuss" mentality: Without making any assumption about whether or not harassment has actually occurred in this case, it is worth noting that cases of harassment tend to be done over and over again by a small number of individuals, and tend to proliferate because each person who is being harassed thinks it is only them, and they don't want to make a fuss and risk retribution by a powerful person.  In cases where a victim of harassment reports the conduct, it is not unusual for this to precipitate an avalanche of other allegations against the same harasser.  Recent events in Hollywood (e.g., Harvey Weinstein) testify to this fact, as do many other cases of sexual harassment.

Merely referring an allegation is not "accusatory": Reporting an allegation for it to be investigated need not presume the truth of the allegation, and need not be "accusatory".  That is the point of an investigation - to get to the truth from a starting point of it being unknown.  It is perfectly legitimate to report allegations you have heard on to the administration, while taking no position on whether they are true or false, but still asking the university to consider whatever investigation into the matter is warranted by the allegations.  There is no contradiction between wanting to bring this matter to the attention of the administration, and also wanting to avoid a false accusation.  Just make sure that if you do send an email to the administration, you write it in a neutral way that does not presume that misconduct has occurred.

In the end, evidence will be required: While it is legitimate to report hearsay allegations for the purpose of bringing a matter to the attention of the administration, you should bear in mind that your hearsay is not evidence.  Unless one of the affected students is willing to speak to the university administration about this, the university will probably be very limited in its ability to investigate the matter.  That is perfectly legitimate - after all, people should not be subject to negative proceeding against them without evidence, and hearsay evidence is weak evidence.

With this in mind, the contribution you can make here is to bring the allegation to the attention of the administration, leading to contact with the students, and giving them an opportunity to report this matter formally.  By acting as the initial referrer of the allegation, you can also show your students that actions are louder than words - you are willing to get involved, so maybe that will make them more willing.  Still, at the end of the day it will depend on them.  In my view even this step might be a good idea, even if the students ultimately decide not to proceed.  I don't agree with the recommendation to do nothing.

Have the courage to put your name to the referral: Think carefully about whether it is appropriate to report this anonymously.  If it is justifiable to refer the matter to the university administration, and if you frame your email in a fair way that does not presume misconduct, then you ought to have the courage to put your name to it, and stand by your own actions.  Reports of harassment are generally treated in confidence (at least up to the point where the accused is able to face the accusations), and this is an opportunity to set an example for your students and show that you are willing to act on your own principles.  If a grown-up academic can't show the backbone to make a report about a colleague, without hiding behind anonymity, why should younger students show the courage that is absent in their elders?

Anyway, that is my two-cents.  I can see that there are others with contrary opinions and I think their answers are also reasonable, though not what I would do.  It may be helpful to consider all these different ideas on this matter before making your decision.

Very well written answer. I agree with everything that you wrote. But I would like to point out that you missed one point. I am not connected to those students and university. My friend teaches there and she is not interested in getting involved. I am an unrelated person in the whole story but I think that is not an excuse for me to do nothing.

But still everything you said is applicable. All your points make sense.

Fair enough.  For brevity, I framed the answer more as an answer to the person who is actually involved, mainly to make it easier to read.  If you are another step removed from that, then the answer is really written to the person you're talking about.  If I had to frame the answer as an answer to a person who knows a person who knows a person, it would have involved a lot of annoying circumlocutions!

I have edited to add a parenthetic remark prior to my dot points, to make that clear in the post.

I think you’re strictly wrong when you say that a report of an allegation isn’t an accusation: it pretty much by definition is (and “I’m just reporting what I heard” is an ineffective excuse: the effect is the same). Still, that’s a minor language issue and I agree with your recommendations.

It is still an accusation from the person who made the accusation, but it need not be an accusation from the party that is passing on the report.  To say it is an "excuse" means that you don't accept that a person may ever legitimately pass on an accusation without investing it with their own acceptance.  If I go to a HR department to report some misconduct, and the administrator there says, "I'm not the right person to take your report, but I'll pass it on to the HR manager" does that mean that this administrator is now the one making an "accusation"?  Is her denial just an "excuse"?

@Ben No, I totally accept that (in fact, my comment explicitly said that I agree with your recommendation, which includes passing on an accusation). But by passing on the accusation they are propagating it. It’s tautological.

I understand we're in agreement over the substantive issues, so that is totally fine.  But regarding the language, I never claimed that the allegation is not being propagated.  Propagation of an allegation is appropriate in many cases.  The point I am making is that it is possible (and indeed common) for a person passing on an allegation to do so in a neutral way, such that the allegation remains an allegation only by the original complainant, and does not also become an allegation of the person passing it on.  I agree that it is still an accusation from the original complainant.

@Ben It's not about brevity, it's about addressing the correct dilemma: OP is not asking for advice to give their friend, but for advice for themselves regarding what he or she should do.

@Pandora: In that case my advice would be for him to consider the advice I have written for the friend, and if he agrees with it, to pass it on.  I think the matter becomes excessively complicated if we try to give advice to someone to give advice to someone to give advice to someone.

Good, but I cannot fully agree. 1. Neither the OP nor the friend have read the text messages and are not in a position to judge if the content was inappropriate. A Cambridge professor I knew, in his 80s, called all female students "little virgins" openly and no-one seemed to mind. Judgement needs to be based on facts. 2. Denunciations by third party (anonymous or not) were the foundations of McCarthyism and the Cultural revolution. It's not acceptable. 3. Not enough is made of the fact that this is taking place in a third world country. 4. My uni cleared married prof who gave student VD...

Your point (1) is in agreement with my third dot point.  Because the person in question is only hearing this second-hand (and probably does not know all the evidence) it is appropriate for them to refer it in a neutral manner that does not presume misconduct and does not re-assert the allegation as their own allegation.  There is no "denunciation" of a third party; only a referral of an allegation to the proper authority to hear it.

@Ben, I think you're missing the point: OP considers to interfere, even if Z will not. Hence it's not about what advice to pass on to Z, but what OP should do if Z does not want to do anything (as seems to be the case).

If there are text messages, then there is hard evidence. If the student is worried about graduation, they can keep the evidence and report it after they leave.

This is going to vary massively based on opinion. Still, my reaction is to do nothing. A or B have to stand up for themselves, otherwise for others it's a case of wanting to help but not being able to do so. Imagine what happens if an uninvolved third party writes to the administration asking them to act:

The administration has to take the allegations seriously. To convince them of that, you need to provide evidence. It seems like you don't have any solid evidence, only 2nd-hand information.
Assuming the administration takes the allegations seriously, they're likely to want to interview A and B. If A and B refuse to cooperate, the administration can't proceed.
For the administration to proceed, they need to make A and B cooperate even though they've stated (at least in A's case she has) that they don't want to. Are you sure that you want to put them through this?

Another thing to mention is that you could be accused of betrayal of trust. Z can plausibly argue that she told you this expecting that you will keep it confidential (it is likely A told Z expecting Z to keep it confidential, too). If you report to the administration and they press you about this, what can you say?
I would talk to A & B, argue that they should raise the issue to the administration both for themselves and for others, but also defer to their decision.

In addition to encouraging them, the OP may want to offer to accompany them and participate with the process as a means of supporting them. In the same vein as Ben's last point, this indicates that the OP is willing to put their reputation on the line to help.

I entirely disagree with this. Even if the administration cannot find evidence to actually do anything about it this time, then the issue has still been recorded. If this keeps happening, at the very least it must become clear to people that it is not an isolated incident. If nobody ever reports things, the accused can make any single report look like it's someone with an ax to grind, and dismiss it as a case of he-said-she-said. That's so much harder if there have already been a dozen reports, even if none of the accusers is willing to talk.

I think if a person suspects (even without proof) that a crime is being committed, they are ethically responsible to pass whatever information they have to whoever could investigate the matter further. Sexual harassment (if that's what the "inappropriate messages" are) is a crime, and should not be the victim's responsibility to deal with. Additionally, perhaps A is reluctant to speak up, but would do it if approached by authorities directly.

@WolfgangBangerth even if there are a dozen reports, if none of the accusers are willing to talk, what can the administration possibly do? Any action at all would be presuming the accused is guilty.

@Pandora A is an adult, and she has already stated she does not want to speak up. To think "perhaps she'll change her mind" is something I'd find excessively rude if I were A. The message is that you think you know what I want better than I do.

@Allure: Employment is often at the discretion of an employer. So, while it requires actual proof to convict someone in court, a "preponderance of evidence" may be enough to not renew someone's job contract. And having a dozen, independent reports of the same thing, even if none of the women are willing to put their names next to a report, is a preponderance of evidence, in particular if these reports were all made without one knowing about the other.
It is true that employment of tenured professors works differently, but you get the idea.

@Allure: A lesson of the #metoo movement is that it is exceedingly difficult for many people to report abuse. But that it is liberating to know that many others have felt the same abuse. So an administrator may not succeed in convincing a single victim to come forward and testify, but the administrator may be successful if they can say "You are not alone. You will testify alongside 15 other women who have experienced the same as you have. Your voice will be heard because there are many voices."

@WolfgangBangerth not an expert with law, but I suspect the person can file for wrongful dismissal if his contract isn't renewed, arguing that there is no firm evidence. As for the administration convincing victims to come forward and testify, that's uncomfortably close to presuming guilt to me. If one doesn't assume that the person is guilty, then why is one attempting to gather evidence of guilt? More neutral would be to say, "if you testify we can investigate, if you do nothing we can't proceed. It's your choice."

Anyway as I wrote, this varies massively based on one's personal values. I would do nothing myself, but I would also not stop someone else from filing a report with the administration.

@Allure My point is that the issue is not just between A and T, it seems to include other women (who might not know they have options to deal with it, or who are too afraid to do something by themselves). A has her right not to testify, but I think it is unethical of external observers to keep it to themselves. Also, I think it's better to err on the side of caution: As long as the investigation is conducted discreetly, it is better to investigate and find the person not guilty, than it is to let a possible sex offender keep his job and inappropriately interact with students.

I don't think you can do anything, ethically. At least not in the way you are considering.
You write that "accusing anyone wrongly has serious consequences",
and "students and the university will be at the receiving end",
but have you considered the consequences for the student "A"
and for your friend "Z"?
The student "A" has said that she does not
want the stress and possible problems that
reporting the faculty member "T"
would cause. Maybe she should report him,
for the sake of other students, but she has decided that she doesn't
want to, or perhaps can't. Do you want to force her to this,
possibly even ruining her education? Who knows how she will react?
It should be her choice, not yours,
so you shouldn't name her.
Your friend "Z" didn't want to see the evidence, and doesn't want
to get involved. "Z" has made a similar decision as "A", for
unknown reasons. Again, her choice, not yours.
It seems to me that what your anonymous letter
should then say is something like this:

Hi, I am an unidentified person, who heard from an unidentified
  faculty member at your university that an unidentified student
  at the university claims that faculty member "T" is sending
  harassing text messages.

I don't think that will be very helpful.
You can, however, encourage your friend to take a more active interest, and try to get the student to report the harasser, perhaps waiting until after she has graduated.

Waiting until she has graduated sounds reasonable, until you realize that T is probably doing this to every batch of students, so there will always be a 'current victim' that might be affected by any attempt to investigate T. I do agree it's difficult to maintain total anonymity and provide any useful information, so the asker is going to have to find some compromise.

@user21820 that assumes that the story is true.  The OP has no first-hand knowledge ("I saw T do these things") of any wrongdoing, nor even second-hand ("A told me that T did these things"). This is third-hand ("Z said A said that T did"), which is also known as "hearsay" and "gossip".   ["Thank you, Simone" scene from Ferrus Bueller's Day Off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swBtLPWeKbU ]

@MontyHarder: Almost everything we do is based on second-hand knowledge. But it's statistically true that sexual offenses are very commonly carried out by predators. For you to dismiss the asker's question as hearsay and gossip suggests that you are or wish to be ignorant of the incredible prevalence of abuse of power everywhere, because no sane person would want to report such things without a vested interest (as the asker does) unless he/she believes it is true to some extent. If a friend of mine has never once lied to me, I would be inclined to believe other things she says. Same here.

@ user21820...since "A" claims that multiple students are in similar situation, waiting for A to graduate wont make much difference. There will always be someone who would be a current student.

@user21820 I'm calling it hearsay and gossip because that's what it is. With each retelling, some bit of the truth can be lost, and some embellishments creep in.  Statistics are not sufficient to convict someone of a crime.  We require actual evidence for that, and sane legal systems recognize the weakness of hearsay/gossip.  It may be more likely that T is guilty than that he is innocent of the specific offenses alleged, but the fact that neither A nor Z is willing to testify under penalty of perjury to that effect means that the OP should be very careful about spreading such stories.

@NAASI: That's exactly my point, which is why I implied in my very first comment that "perhaps waiting until after she has graduated" is not as reasonable as it sounds.

@MontyHarder: I did not say it counts as evidence. I'm only saying that you are wrong to call it just "gossip", which frankly demeans the victims of the many attacks that continuously occur everywhere. But I agree with you (I never disagreed) that one should be very careful about informing the administration of such a story. I commented only because I do not quite agree that waiting until after the student has graduated is frequently not ideal, unless you think that it is a one-off harassment.

@user21820 Stating the plain fact that it's gossip/rumor/hearsay doesn't demean any victims. It makes no statement about them whatsoever. It is simply a description of the epistemological difference between "I saw T do H" and "Z said that A said that T did H".  The fact that many people in positions of power abuse their power provides exactly zero information about whether T abused his power against A. I agree that waiting until A graduates is a bad idea, because the longer someone waits to tell a story, the more doubt there will be of its veracity. Statutes of Limitation exist for good reason

@MontyHarder: Then we agree on everything except the English word "gossip". I learned that word as having connotations of exaggeration or twisting, but if you don't mean that then that's fine. I suspect other people may misconstrue your statement in the same way I did, though. And also, thanks for mentioning the Statute of Limitation, as a concrete reason (besides my pragmatic reason) for not delaying unnecessarily.

@user21820 I used it in precisely the sense of the game "Gossip" (also known as "Telephone") in which one person tells something to a second, who repeats it to a third, etc., each of whom is trying to retell the story as faithfully as possible (without any exaggeration or twisting) but by the time it gets to the last person in the chain, everyone gets a good laugh out of just how different it is from the original.

@MontyHarder: Ah. I'd never heard of that game being called "Gossip", but rather "broken telephone". Anyway I'm glad the miscommunication is cleared up! Ironic.

Is it ok for a person, who has nothing to do with any of characters in the story, to drop an email asking administration to take a look into these allegations?

Since the country isn't listed, there is no way to provide any definitive legal or even cultural answer to this question.
However, aside from any legal or cultural specifics, this is a matter of conscience for "Z" to deal with personally. "Z" should consider whether they can live with their decision after considering the possible ramifications of their decision.

If "Z" does nothing, is "Z" prepared to accept that there may be future students that will be subject to such harassment that could have been prevented?
If "Z" does nothing, is "Z" prepared to accept that such harassment (either now or in the future) may escalate beyond inappropriate texts/emails that could have been prevented?
Is "Z" prepared for the possibility that this becomes a public scandal in the future and that "A" may make public statements that they confided in "Z" and that "Z" did nothing?

If "Z" cannot comfortably answer yes to these questions, they really should report the allegations to the office of student affairs.


text:
How can I join a university class conducted online as a non-matriculating student during COVID-19?
I'd like to join a class at a university, as a non-matriculated student, that I can participate in online, due to COVID-19.  I already have a PhD (in a technical field), and am looking to take a class outside of a technical field, with the goal purely being personal intellectual enrichment.  Many universities are moving classes online due to COVID-19, which makes this practical.
I'm not sure how to go about doing this.  It's easy for me to find classes in the field of interest (Middle Eastern history) in various university catalogs, and it's easy for me to see if the university is holding it online or in person.  But I haven't been able to find out which universities will allow me to participate without being a degree seeking student.  I'm not tied down to any one university or any one particular class, but rather any class in my general area of interest that I can fully participate in.  I know that the application deadline for the upcoming semester is very soon (for cases where it hasn't passed).  Can you give me guidance on:

What types of schools will allow such participation?
What is the application process like?
How do I find these?
How do I go about doing this?

Note that I know there are a lot of open classes, MOOCs, Coursera, etc., but that's not what I'm looking for.  I'm looking for the full structure and engagement of a full university class, with papers that will be graded, and the like.

To clarify:

non-matriculated means here "not seeking a degree", only (full) participation in a class
I am happy to pay tuition for this class
I'm located in the US

I believe this may be possible; once you find a university offering a class of interest, search their website for instructions on how to "audit" or "enroll as a nondegree student", and see if you can find the contact information of someone who would be willing to answer your questions. This will involve a fair amount of paperwork, and paying tuition -- which it sounds like you're happy to do.

Search for "non-degree" rather than "non-matriculating". That should turn up a site for many universities you're interested in.

What types of schools will allow non-matriculated participation?

I'll skip this part, because honestly it was news to me that there are universities that don't do this.  Usually the emphasis is on job-related courses.

What is the application process like?

Very simple, if you can pay.  They want your money.

How do I find these?

Look for a "school of continuing education," "university extension" or similar.  If you do not want something job-related, you might look at programs marketed to retirees.  In some places, such as those with a shortage of classrooms during teaching periods, this may be easier if you look for summer courses.  Availability of classrooms is not, of course, relevant for online courses.

I thought this would be closed for shopping, but after seeing the other answers I'm not so sure.

-1 Non-matriculated means not enrolled

@user2768 That is incorrect. "Non-matriculated" means not enrolled in a degree program.

@user2768 Not quite. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/matriculate https://www.dictionary.com/browse/matriculate

to be formally admitted to study at a university or college Seems to mean not enrolled to me. Only the OP can clarify, since the meaning varies between sources.

I did this to backfill some classes while I was preparing for my PhD curriculum. I had to enroll as a “non-degree seeking” student. The cost per credit hour was reasonable, although it did not give me access to many of the privileges that degree-seeking students were entitled to.

I'm looking for the full structure and engagement of a full university class, with papers that will be graded, and the like.

That is a big part of the work that goes into teaching. So the time you take up cannot be spent on "real" students. That would not be fair without some way in which you compenste for the effort. Setting up, administering, and enforcing such payment system is work, i.e. costs money. You can see that what you want is not that easy. MOOCs are an attempt to give something like what you want, but is still viable from the university perspective.

Universities do this precisely because it's profitable.  The students pay.

@AnonymousPhysicist Indeed, that's what Maarten and I have both noted.

For (full) participation in a class, rather than several classes, you may struggle. You could try institutes that specialise in remote learning / part-time study (and did so pre-covid), since they are more likely to offer single courses, especially those that target professionals. (My search provides results.)
If you want to study a number of classes, but just not graduate, then you can simply enrol as a regular student. There's no requirement to graduate.
Also (as per my original answer to your now edited question): Beyond MOOCs, schools won't allow this. As explained, it isn't in the financial interests of schools. Nonetheless, for a particular class that you're interested in, you could try emailing the instructor. If you present a good case, they may be willing to allow you to participate (just like they might allow you to participate physically). Whether you'll be successful is unclear: Participating physically would go largely unnoticed (in a large class), participating digitally may leave a digital trail (and isn't possible when students must login).

This is incorrect.  Enrolling paying students is profitable.

@AnonymousPhysicist Enrolling paying students is profitable: Indeed, I agree, that's what is written. What are you claiming to be incorrect?

@user2768 As far as I can tell, the original poster seems to be expecting to pay and happy to do so.

@academic The OP wants to not enroll, which doesn't suggest a desire to pay

Only one assumption is reasonable.

No, they do not want to matriculate in a degree program.  That is not the same as not wanting to enrol, at least in certain countries.

@DanielHatton Surely universities can only collect payment from enrolled students. Nonetheless, I agree the OP hasn't specified either way.

@AnonymousPhysicist You must have a different definition to me, looking to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/matriculate#synonyms and  https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/matriculate, they're both aligned with my understanding. Nonetheless, perhaps certain countries use different definitions

This set up is quite common in the US. I know the OP hasn't specified the region, but are you trying to say that universities don't do this in the system you're familiar with?

@AzorAhai--hehim What is quite common?

@user2768 Allowing non-matriculated (non-degree) students to take classes in exchange for money. They are last in registration priority, so often there isn't room, but it is common.

@AzorAhai--hehim The OP has now edited their question. I've edited my answer accordingly.

Now I'm confused, why would one class be harder than more? In any case, emailing the instructor would be inappropriate, because they would just direct you to the extension college or whatever unit manages NM students (if they even know about it). What system are you working from?

@AzorAhai--hehim Universities (typically) offer many classes, not just one, so a non-standard request is surely less likely to be serviced. (Exceptions are universities that specialise, as noted.) Emailing an instructor works in the physical world, so why shouldn't it work in the digital (beyond the point I note).

What? That sentence does not explain your point. In any case, your answer is not correct for any university in the US I am familiar with. If you're unwilling to clarify what system you're working from, I am going to leave my downvote, as this answer is not helpful to the OP in achieving what they're looking for.

@AzorAhai--hehim Which aspect is not correct? I haven't given a system, because my answer applies to several, including the US.

(1) There is no issue with registering for one class as opposed to several. (2) You cannot simply enroll as a regular student, to do that you have to apply and obviously someone with a PhD would not be accepted, and they would have to apply for the next cycle, and couldn't take a class this term. (3) "Non-matriculated" status exists so that someone doesn't have to apply as a new bachelor's student or whatever. (4) There is no need to email the instructor, you just enroll as an NM student and enroll in the class. You're proposing doing an end-run around around the system for no reason.

(1) Universities like to fill classes with students that take several classes. (2) Having a PhD (in a technical field) doesn't preclude enrolling for a degree (outside of the technical field) and the OP notes the application deadline for the upcoming semester is very soon (for cases where it hasn't passed) (3) That's not my understanding of the word, but sure, countries differ, regardless, it doesn't preclude it. (4) I'm proposing an end-run for many reasons, including, it might be the only viable option. Anyhow, I'll leave it there.