text:
What to do if I have seen an exam before I have taken it?
Today I saw a photograph of an upcoming exam at my university. At first I thought it was last year's exam; so I took a closer look at it as I think it is okay to see last year's exams even if they aren’t officially published.
Anyway, later someone revealed to me that it was the upcoming exam which we’ll take in about three weeks.
It was taken by another student in my course, who took it while the teacher was on a break outside the room.
I feel bad and unethical about seeing it, as it seems to be cheating for me, and even more I’m worried about my further career if this ever comes out.
On one hand I don’t want to harm the other student who took the photo, on the other hand I don’t want to risk my career.
It is a semi difficult exam; I would say you should pass it quite well if you learned for it.
So what should I do? If I tell the university I’d probably have to reveal the identity of the person who took it, which I don’t want to do under any circumstances.

There have been some questions on how the pic was made: the prof brought the exam to a lesson to give a rough guideline on what to learn or not. During the break he went outside (as I and many others as well) to get a coffee and that's how the pic was made. I know for sure that it is the upcoming exam as it had a big heading with our course name and year.
For those who say it is also cheating to look at old exams:
I think you agree on that seeing an actual exam before you are going to take it is another dimension than seeing a year-old one.
Also this is very common where I study. It´s not like we are using really illegal copies, it is just that we often see pics of post-exam reviews. It is allowed to make them and there is no NDA on it (at least I never had to sign one), the exams just aren't published officially. I also bet every prof knows that this is going on here and tolerates it (some said so explicitly).
Also some said I should "rat" the guy who took it: I don't know the punishment for taking a photo of an exam, but I doubt it is modest, considering the - in my eyes negligent - prof. Also I don't want to be responsible for "destroying" the career of another, very young, student. Also it would probably come out who "ratted" him out, and I doubt that I would have much fun in the next two years then (I think you can say that in our course it is considered worse to "rat" somebody than to do to reveal something unethical, but I really doubt that this differs anywhere in the world).
Anyways: Today I have created a new Mail-Address and send the Prof a letter, including one question I remember as a proof, where I told him that the exam probably has been leaked. I asked him to keep the matter as private as possible and I also asked him not to write back to me what he decided to do or to ask any person-specific questions as I don't know any thing more than I told him already. For me the matter is therefore hopefully closed.

As the answer says you have to tell the University - if you don't then you are also aiding and abetting cheating while benefiting from cheats.... Once you tell them, they have time to sort a suitable replacement....

Check your university's honor code - in some cases it may impose a duty to report all instances of cheating, i.e. the other student's actions.  If so, if it's later discovered that you knew and did not report, you could be punished.

"as I think it is okay to see last year's exams even if they aren’t officially published". If last year's exams are not officially published, this is also cheating.

How would any competent teacher not assume this was the case after leaving the room during an exam?!?

@Mazura Some schools do not permit a proctor/professor to be in the room during an exam (e.g. University of Michigan).

for why it is cheating, see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55303/why-is-it-unethical-to-share-the-contents-of-an-exam-with-students-who-havent-t

@user71659 Wait, then who keeps an eye on the test-takers?

@AzorAhai Students promise not to cheat by copying and signing a statement every time, and other test takers are to report any suspected cheating.

@user71659: it is understandable that the university is fine with having an examination with no proctor. But forbidding a proctor/professor in the room? What happens if the professor decides to go to the exam room?

@Taladris Starting, ending, time reminders, and announcements are OK. Remaining in the room for purposes of catching cheating is not. The professor will usually sit outside to address questions. Stanford's policy: "The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above."

I should add to the comment from @user71659 that the policy described there is (as far as I know) used by the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, and probably by some other units as well, but definitely not by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.  LS&A students are not required to sign a non-cheating statement for every exam, and LS&A faculty (like me) remain in the classroom during exams.

@KateGregory - How does that link explain how this is cheating? : "+1 ... I'm constantly baffled by the 'tests are secret' mentality here." - and above: "unusual and unreasonable precautions" - pffft, like body cavity searches for cameras? In this day and age how can you ever reuse a test? In that link, I'd replace every instance of "student" with "teacher" to answer this Q and place the blame where IMO it belongs. Locks keep honest people out. Why does Mi Uni disallow? They don't want to upset their paying customers?

I don't understand what all the responses and comments here are about??? If you are okay with being a cheater, don't tell anybody, If you don't want to be a cheater, write an anonymous note to the professor (with a small proof that you know the content of the exam). Problem solved. Why are you guys (including OP; that's really baffling me) treating this like a major moral dilemma or some complex scientific problem?

@Mazura: I think the situation is even more outrageous. The instructor brought a future exam to a class meeting and left it where someone could find it during a break. While the student has to report it, the instructor made a major gaffe here and is not blameless.

@aeismail It's like walking with an expensive phone in a rough area of town. It's unwise, yes, but the crime is still perpetrated by those who steal the phone.

Given how your last sentence is phrased, please do follow up to let us know how this turns out in the end.

(I can't answer yet due to lack of points) The prof must learn of this fact, because by nature of people babbling it will be revealed. Sooner or later. And then you'll need to do the test again. Time lost for everyone.

Please do absolutely edit your answer - if you just accept some answer, one cannot follow your story.

@user71659 When I went to university all past papers were available in the university library. I have no reason to think this was unusual.

@Udank This is not a place for story-writing, even if you're curious.

“For those who say it is also cheating to look at old exams” Ignore them. I could say that a hippo is also a bird, it doesn't make it true.

@pipe: this is a big flaw of this site, since we could learn a lot from a real (not theoretic) solution how this worked out.

@Udank Can't see how, it's just one sample point.

@pipe: that's more data points than the answers here, they just argue by ethics (which is good, but an explanation about what happend in reality is also important).

In a situation in which you would suffer no matter what you do, you can also work to protect yourself.
An anonymous note to the professor that the exam has been compromised and that there are photographs of it circulating comes close to resolving the issue. The person who took the photo likely deserves punishment, of course, so this solution doesn't resolve that. But at least academic integrity is preserved. The professor will need to provide a new exam, of course.
The professor may also announce to the class that there is a problem and ask that whoever sent the anonymous note inform him of their identity. You may have to deal with that.
Also, you may not be the only student struggling with this.
If you are friends with the person who took the photo, you could also confront him/her with a suggestion that they step forward. If they do this before an accusation is made, I would think any punishment would be less than otherwise.

I like this answer very much. Thanks. Right now my plan is to use an anonymous email adress and tell the professor that the exam has probably been leaked. After that it is up to him to deal with it. If he wants my identity i am going to say nothing until this becomes the last Resort (which seems very unlikely, because what can he do?).

@SomeUserPassingBy include a question from the exam as proof

@DonQuiKong: … or just include prints of all photographs.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Do NOT provide prints of all photographs when an email with a question will suffice as proof. Any extra information is just evidence waiting to identify you or the photographer. For example, a printout can be traced back to when and on what machine it was printed (see Machine Identification Code).

Punishment can be meted out by creating a completely different test and administering that.  Those that were going to cheat by studying just that test, will be unprepared for the tweak and will likely do very poorly.  Those that studied the coursework will be un-phased.  Combined with the answer, this teaches some life skills for the cheaters as well.  Win:Win

I agree with the advice offered by Buffy. Moreover, you write:

I feel bad and unethical about seeing it, as it seems to be cheating for me

To emphasize, it doesn't just seem to be cheating, it is cheating: it's not just that you are aware of others cheating, but you yourself have already gained illicit knowledge about questions that will be on the exam. As such, if you take no further action to inform the professor of the situation and simply go and take the exam, you have not just helped others to cheat, but in fact have directly participated in cheating yourself.
So, as far as ethical dilemmas go, this one is a complete no-brainer; you simply have no ethical choice other than to let the professor know about the existence of the photo ahead of the exam. Do it anonymously if you wish, and the question of whether to let the professor know who took the photo is a less obvious one (with both options being pretty reasonable in my opinion), but it looks like you understand perfectly well that taking the exam after what you saw would be unethical and quite likely to get you into serious trouble. I commend you for having a moral compass and the good sense to realize you cannot just sit by idly and pretend this never happened. Good luck! Do consider adding an update to your question later on to let us know how things worked out.

How should this get you into trouble? Everybody who has more than 80% correct answers gets zero points? Your conclusion is of course right, but fear of punishment is not a reliable ethical compass.

@Karl one of the other students who saw the photo can be similarly troubled and tell the professor, mentioning OP's name among others. And I don't understand your last sentence - where did I claim that fear of punishment is an ethical compass?

Some other student might tell the prof that the exam has leaked (so far so good), and then denunciate (without proof or even any knowledge) a few of his colleagues? Really? That'd be as despicable as, hopefully, inconsequential. Unless your university has a Committee of Public Safety. ;-)

@Karl I would hope that an accusation of cheating would be at least investigated; likely OP would be interviewed

Many would see reporting academic misconduct as the right thing to do, not "ratting out". If you see someone steal something and you can recognize or describe them, is reporting the theft "ratting out"?

In addition to ethics, you should also consider what the implications are if you are found out to have told somebody.  What they are, is highly cultural-dependent - if you are unfamiliar with the culture you are in, ask organizations like a student union or add a culture tag. I lived in several countries ("corrupt" ones and countries which were a dictatorship previously involving a Secret Police) where ratting out someone is perceived as much worse than what this student did. (I also know many high school teachers and professors who share the viewpoint that basic solidarity among students dictates not ratting out someone in this situation.) This could make your life bad - in university and also if your future employees would find out about that episode. Unfortunately, ethics and reality are not always the same.
I am not saying you should not tell someone. But find out before what the risks are, how you can protect and be as anonymous as possible.

On the other hand, if corruption is the cultural norm, failing to rat someone out means that you're now participating in the corruption.

I would not go so far to equate "failing to rat someone out" with "participating in corruption" (this may also be culturally dependent), but in principle you are right. However, there are countries where you cannot move forward without bribing etc. - you may or may not participate, but you definitely should think before about what you can lose when not participating.

@DonBranson, in the OP's problem, corruption per se is not involved. Rather, it is involved in developing such cultural norms: if the government (and generally any authority) is corrupt, dobbing anything to them will invariably be viewed as the worst possible behaviour; in fact, as participating in (or siding with) their corruption.

You must tell your professor that you've seen the exam, and explain how.  Although it is understandable that you don't want to reveal who took the photograph, you are ethically obligated to do so.

Why would you have to reveal who took the photo? That's totally unethical, a mean, useless denunciation. Sorry.

@Karl There's nothing mean, the student willingly cheated. He should be ready to accept consequences

@TopinFrassi Nobody has had a chance to cheat. The "crime" has been averted, no harm done. Just the prof has to carry the result of his negligence and draft a new test. And "should be ready to accept consequences"? That's a pointless phrase. It's in the nature of consequences that they come to you without asking for acceptance.

@Karl The "crime" is taking the photo of the test and spreading it around with the intent to cheat. Whether they are successful or not is irrelevant. Robbery and attempted robbery are both crimes too.

@Karl there's harm done in that the professor has to write another exam.

@Karl Many academic honor codes/policies unambiguously require that you report those involved in suspected cheating. Example: "When a student, faculty member or administrator observes a student violation of the code, this person has the duty and responsibility to: obtain the names of the people involved; inform the instructor in whose class the alleged incident took place."

Well, i'm glad to live under a legislation where such denunciatory "honor codes" for students would be null and void. You're welcome to be of a different opinion.

@Karl What country and legislation is that? Note that university honor codes are a civil contractual matter. You agreed to them when you signed up to attend. Don't agree, then you can't come.

@user71659 Germany. Such a clause would be regarded as disproportional and therefore void. What would I gain from being a rat, except face a wave of hate from some fellow students? Just because that prof let confidential stuff lying around? Just so the university can punish one stupid idiot?

@Karl I think it's reasonable of OP to not want to rat out their friend (and reasonable for you to agree). However, it's quite unreasonable of you to think that denouncing the friend is unethical. Note that the friend: 1. snooped without permission in the prof's office; 2. took the photo; 3. spread the photo around to a bunch of other students. This was done over a period of time, showing premeditated intent to cheat and to massively aid others in cheating, thus completely undermining the exam's value as an assessment. That's very serious misconduct most certainly deserving of punishment.

For all who wonder why someone should not tell offenses: It makes you an untrustworthy person. Trust is something which cannot be acquired, paid or bought with merits. When trust is broken, the damage is often irrevocable. There is a reason why treason is considered one of the worst crimes.

@ThorstenS. I find this comment "interesting", to say the least. OP has been put in a lose-lose position. If they tell that the exam is leaked, they are also expected to hand in the leaker. If they do not tell, they abet a massive and serious assessment misconduct. It is interesting to see that several discussions here see the OP as the one in the conundrum whereas it should be the person taking the illicit photograph that should be chastised for their deed. So, if I understand you (and Karl) correctly, either they cover a close-to-criminal behaviour or they are a traitor.

@CaptainEmacs The very reason that the OP asks for guidance is that the course of action is not self-evident. The OP knows that he belongs to the group of students (not to professors!) and telling the cheat breaks trust, but otherwise that it is not ok to cheat for an exam. So the best course of action seems for me to prevent the cheat and not breaking trust. People who lived in a country which have experienced dictatorship know that unquestioning obedience to authority is a bad character trait. [1/2]

Now cheating in an exam is per se something which is not only breaking simply a rule, but violating integrity standards. It is not a live-or-death decision. But, and this is a big but, would you trust to tell someone that you have done something bad who is known that (s)he tells authorities? No? That is the prize for telling authorities: You are considered untrustworthy and you are sowing distrust [2/2].

From an ethical point, the professor should refrain from asking who took pictures of the exam. This has twofold significance. First, it encourages students in similar situations to speak up. Second, he accepts responsibility for the compromised exam and as consequence, nobody is punished. Had OP (and other students) chosen not to share the information, the compromised exam would have been held regularly. Similarly, had the professor taken better precautions, students wouldn't have been able to access the exam. So the information "how" it was compromised can help avoid future situations.

@ThorstenS. I personally agree that OP should not be in the conundrum of having the choice to "trade in" the cheat and be open about the breach at the same time. However, from my experience, cheats would probably not employ equal standards of decency, were the situation reversed. Just the opposite, taking the easy route out, they may try to make someone an accomplice only to give them away at the first sign of trouble. Second, Germany is mentioned where a usual complaint is about lack of "civil courage". When it is actually shown, those people employing it are often left out to dry... cont'd

@ThorstenS cont'd ...and sanctioned for not submitting to "group/herd behaviour".  I have witnessed some appalling instances of that. I can understand that one would be uncomfortable turning in the cheater and I understand that they will want to stay anonymous. But I find it very disquieting that some people here seem to consider a whistleblower more untrustworthy

..than the person creating the breach in the first place. Considering the person wishing to uphold equal and trustworthy conditions and to sanction someone blatantly countervening that as particularly untrustworthy is a reversal of ethics. We are not talking about subverting a nasty, unfair law, unless one thinks that exams are fundamentally evil and should be abolished, but then the fight should be taken to a different level. Arguing "unquestioning obedience to authority" is a red herring. The cheat created an uneven playing field for everyone. Ethical demands on their behalf are misplaced.

@CaptainEmacs This would NOT be whistleblowing the misdeeds of some powerful authority, but denunciation. And, as we are likely talking about an US university, the defendant will not be held responsible in front of an impartial judge or by a jury of equals, but a non-public tribunal, against which he cannot appeal.

@Karl I do agree: "whistleblowing" is not the right term, however: "denunciation" is not the right term either. This was not a harmless act or a rebellion against injustice. The closest analogy I found is the printing of fake currency from stolen plates and distributing it (because marks are a currency of the university). I am surprised about your level of protectiveness towards the perpetrator here. The prof was careless; and I may have had some subversive understanding if the cheater just had pried closer into the exams. But photographing them and distributing this signals criminal energy.

@CaptainEmacs Signals adolescense and a certain amount of stupidity to me. We are talking about college kids here, right? Who probably are breaking laws biweekly, by drinking beer. And hey, taking the photo was likely a panic reaction (how do you remember a large set of exam questions if you haven't properly revised?), and then the slob felt bad and wanted to share.

@CaptainEmacs Point taken, that I'm a bit biased here. ;-) Still, I don't think I'm cherrypicking, and I don't like the idea to bind kids (or anyone) to an "honor code", which they are supposed to follow blindly, or by fear. Kids deserve compassion, adult students that are caught cheating get kicked out of the exam the first time, out of the university the second. To force someones fellows to tell on him, however, is a method common in secluded groups, sects, rocker gangs, socialist parties of all shades, and worse. Law requires you to testify in court, and to be loyal to your employer.

@CaptainEmacs Sorry for answering later, I was busy. First I appreciate your input. One thing you might have overseen: The student did not hold the cheat a secret to gain only advantage for him-/herself (completely possible and happens often), (s)he informed the others to help the group s(he) belongs to. This is a key difference to antisocial behavior....you might balk that this a kind of very bent ethics, but it still is ethics. This is also the reason why it is makes such trouble for the conscience.

@ThorstenS. The fact that it is not purely ego-rational, doesn't make it less criminal. It's effectively analog to vandalism or, more specifically, plunder, where one goes through an unguarded door in a shop and then invites whoever passes to join. Yes, it's "collegiate", namely to the other plunderers. No, it's not ethical. I would agree to see ethics if it had been posted anonymously to all to make clear that the exam had been breached. It'd be subversive, enormously damaging and annoying for the prof, but, yes, I'd agree about the ethics. But just to invite random confidants to join? Nope.

@CaptainEmacs Even if it was a real crime, in my country one makes a crime only by not reporting only listed crimes, especially those that include injuring or killing, endangering the republic, terrorism and war crimes if they already happened. These do NOT include lighter crimes such as stealing, burglary, rape. Then one does commit a crime by not obstructing some more crimes including stealing and such but still it is a limited list of crimes (includes rape, does not include sexual duress). Making similar requirement just for academic cheating is horrible and unethical IMO.

@VladimirF Sorry I may have not made it clear enough: I meant the original cheater having "criminal energy", not OP. Of course, I am aware that OP is between a rock and a hard place. Secondly, when I talk about "criminal energy" of the cheater, I do not mean "crime" in a legal sense. I am talking about the less formal concept of "criminal energy" which is describing a particular type of attitude/indifference to do things with a cavalier or opportunistic attitude towards ethical considerations. I hope it clarifies my comment. In no way I was intending to accuse OP who is really in a bad spot.

1) some professors "s**t test" their classes by "accidentally" leaving out an exam that students could sneak a peek at. They show up, go over an exam review, and everyone sees that they have an exam in their hand their flipping through. Then prof has to step out for a bit. They might be doing this on purpose. Person steps up, takes a quick pic with smartphone, and is back in seat before prof shows up. Person shares pic with class. Come test day, everyone "studied to the test" .. and blows the test, b/c prof gave a TOTALLY DIFFERENT EXAM.
Prof's do this one of two ways...
a) have a honey pot test that has questions that won't be asked on the real test they'll give you (so folks will study only those honey pot questions, and own't be prepped for the real test)
b) they have wrong answers circled on the honey pot exam, so folks thinking they can just memorize A, B, A, C, D, E for a scantron .. will bomb the test horribly. This lets the prof pretty much ensure they can pick out the cheaters, b/c they will simply compare a student's answers to their fake / wrong test, and if they match up fairly well.. well, it means the student probably cheated some how.
So... just b/c someone got a pic of the test doesn't mean that's the real test, and it could be a honey pot where the professor is testing everyone's academic integrity.
2) My personal feeling about looking up old exams .... we live in an age where knowing how to look up info is just as important as retaining information in your head. If a prof is too lazy to update their test to keep students from just studying a quizlet of their old test and passing with flying colors.. that's the prof's fault.
However, I also feel that asking students that take a test (in the same semester) before you take it is scummy. EG: a prof is teaching back-to-back classes of same kind. Showing up on test day to ask the folks ahead of you what was on the test, and specific answers to the test.. is scummy. A prof not having different tests for same classes in same semester is just lazy, too, though.
3) I have a third notion about cheating after I had to deal with one particular professor in my college career. This prof was giving online quizzes with short timers, but the questions required a lot of time to frame up the math. Basically, you cuold either legitimately answer 1 or 2 of the 5 questions in the time span, or you cuold guess and hope you got more then 1 or 2 right, or .. since the quiz questions were already online .. some folks just started blatantly cheating, b/c that was the only way to successfully get an A or B on the quizzes .. while everyone that was trying to be legit was getting F's.
I confronted the professor about this, b/c a) if my theory about this was true, then he should see an inverse bell curve (high F's, low dip into D/C territory, then rising as cheaters got B/A's). Quizzes are supposed to help people study, so all I wanted him to do was either remove the time limits, or extend them.
What he told me was basically he never even bothered to look at the quizzes. He was using quizzes that someone else setup, but slapped on a short time limit thinking they were just glossary terms / definitions multiple choice, not advanced math.
But, what he felt was the main concern was that people were cheating. I told him that people were cheating, b/c the quizzes forced them to. The quizzes were worth 15% of our grade, so if you bombed the quizzes it was almost guaranteed you'd drop a letter grade. So, folks were cheating to try to even the playing field.
He felt that cheating is still cheating, which I thought was absurd. Cheating to me is when people have a fair advantage and try to stack the deck in their favor. Cheating is NOT cheating to me when it's a last resort measure just to try to get a fair advantage.
I guess my chat with him paid off, b/c he increased the time limits, but sent out an email telling people not to cheat. I felt bad, b/c now I felt like a narc tattling on others cheating, but for good reason (b/c they felt it was their only option).
So, I have a flexible moral constitution. I try not to cheat, b/c the effort you put into tests and school reflects the effort you will put into your career / real life. If a person wants to cheat and skate by, then they will quickly hit glass cielings in the working world as folks realize the person isn't creative, or hard working, and can't do anything without someone's coat tails to ride upon.
But, when the deck is stacked against me, while I myself may not cheat, I will speak up to someone to explain why cheaters are cheating, b/c it's a rebuttal to something being unfair.

'A prof not having different tests for same classes in same semester is just lazy, too, though.' Have you considered that, in many cases, people's work loads make anything else completely impractical? '4 sections; 1 prep' means your work load assumes you can prepare one set of materials for all 4. Given that many academic workloads are insane anyway, your remarks strike me as blatantly unfair. It's reasonable for students to cut corners when they have no better option, but instructors are 'just lazy' if they cut corners their employers tell them to cut. Professors are people, too.

I would be much more concerned about somebody using quizzes without examining their content. Unless the module is the joint responsibility of several people, so that this instructor is not supposed to be responsible for all parts of the assessment, this is completely irresponsible.

The behaviour you narrate under 1) would be highly unethical on the professor's part. In fact, I seem to remember it'd be unlawful in Germany.

Most "cheating" people I know do actually study for a test etc. and are not at all stupid - however, they take every opportunity to get more information. When presented with (the unethical) 1b, they would of course not memoreize A,C,B,D but would compare this exam with their notes - if everything is so blanately wrong, they would soon realize this and find out the real answers. People are not so stupid as you think.

Where in the world do professors live which are so mean as you describe? A good professor should prefer "prevent cheating" over "catch cheaters".

Since you haven't yet sat the exam, and you didn't know that the photo you were looking was the exam, it is not cheating, nor unethical, for you to merely have seen that photo.  The student who took the photo has clearly cheated, but you have not.  However, now that you have seen a photo of this exam, and know it is the upcoming exam, it certainly would be unethical if you sit the exam anyway, without reporting the issue to the university.
The simplest thing to do here is to inform the professor of what happened, so that he/she knows that there is a copy of the exam being circulated.  You could do this anonymously if you want, but I don't think it would be an issue if you reported this without anonymity.  In the latter case, it is likely that you will be asked who showed you the photo.

Send this negligent prof an anonymous note, with details of the exam so he knows you have indeed seen the actual thing. If you know him well enough and trust him to just admit his own error, tell him personally.
But it's not your job to rat on that guy who yielded the temptation to look, and then thought he was nice and shared it.
There might be one dilemma left for you afterwards: If and how to make sure everybody who has seen the photos knows that the prof knows.

Your answer almost sounds like you blame the professor more for being leaving his office unattended than to the student for snooping while the professor was away. Also, if the other students rely on their photo for all of their studying (aka intending to cheat), then it is their own fault if they are unprepared for the actual exam.

Edit out the blame and I'll reverse my downvote.

Reporting those involved may be required by your honor code, so your second paragraph is a violation in itself. Example: "When a student, faculty member or administrator observes a student violation of the code, this person has the duty and responsibility to: obtain the names of the people involved; inform the instructor in whose class the alleged incident took place."

Honestly, it would be best for the the OP and the prof to not let the students know, so that he can catch the students who would cheat by changing the exam. Let their immoral actions bite them in the butt, and the smart ones will learn from it.

@Joshua OP said nothing about breaking and entering. As I understand, the student was in the room, the exam lying on the table, and the prof left. The guy had probably already read half the thing before he realised this was the new exam. Now take out the taking photo part from the story, and it looks a lot different. The prof has carelessly put that student into a stupid dilemma, in which he failed, 200%.

@mbomb007 It might be fair to the guy who took the photos, but all the others? Every single one of them?

@DavidK and Joshua, the photographing student is certainly at fault for taking the photograph, but that does not negate the fact that the prof was clearly negligent. When I have an exam printed out in my office, I take great precautions not to allow students to see it, which include: 1. locking the door whenever I leave the office, even for just a few minutes, and 2. hiding the exam when students are around, and even then thinking very carefully before I leave my office with students there, avoiding such an action if at all possible. Calling the professor "negligent" seems wholly justified.

@Karl Duh. In the same way a drug dealer is punished as well as anyone taking the drugs. Or intent to murder, or anything else. That's how justice systems work. Intent to cheat is as good as cheating. And if I were to go to the Bible as well, lusting is as bad as adultary, and hate as bad as murder.

@DavidK If I understand the OP correctly, the exam was not found in the office but instead brought to a class meeting. The instructor would not be blameless in such a case!

@aeismail I assumed it happened at office hours or something, but I guess the OP wasn't very clear. In any case, I'm not saying that the professor is blameless, just that the student actively taking the photo is far worse than the professor's passive negligence.

@Karl If you do not enforce the rules, you teach the student that the rules don't mean anything in practice. The student will continue their bad behavior, because they get better grades by cheating. If you enforce the rules, the student learns that cheating will get the worse grades or get the expelled, so they stop. WOAH! Seems like enforcing the rules actually works!

@mbomb007: "WOAH!" How do you arrive at the conclusion that enforcing the rules would work? The only lesson you teach the student is "do not tell a student which you don't know your secrets for he could be an asshole". Next time, they will keep the exam for themselves/share it only with their trusted friends.

@Udank And then they cheat at everything and can't keep a job and live an unhappy life because they are unintelligent. You can't control a student, whether you enforce rules or not. But not enforcing the rules has an outcome far worse than enforcing them, because some students won't continue cheating if they are punished, whereas no punishment incentivizes cheating.

@mbomb007: I do not agree with your "cheaters always cheat and are stupid" mentality. I know many intelligent people who study well but if there is an easy opportunity to look at the test, they would do it. (And of course, still study in case that the information is wrong.) However, they do not "cheat at everything", "can't keep a job" and "life an unhappy life because they are unintelligent".

@mbomb007: moreover, do you mean to say that everybody who is not "intelligent" enough for university exams lives an unhappy life (or deserves to live an unhappy life)?

@Udank No. They are unintelligent because they chose to cheat. Not because they cannot pass. Unwise would probably be a better word. Anyways, you're picking at the part that doesn't matter. What matters is that enforcing the rules is the responsibility of the school. They are not responsible for the bad behavior of their students, but they do have a responsibility to set boundaries. Each student is responsible for their own bad decisions when they do not respect the school's boundaries.

@mbomb007: Then I don't see why they should live an unhappy life (or why they cheat again). Anyways, I am still not convinced that this action teaches students not to cheat (instead of not to share the information), at least I don't think the amount of students who learn when ratted out deserves a happy "Woah" or "enforcing the rules actually works". Propably we disagree here.

"...later someone revealed to me that it was the upcoming exam which we’ll take in about three weeks."
If true then the Prof. is not serious at all about the potential for cheating. If you believe that the picture compromises the exam, and you think that the Prof. would think that this would be a huge problem, then you also need to re-assess the reliability of the statement about the paper in the picture being the actual exam.

As Buffy already suggested, write an anonymous note, but with an additional twist.
Suggest that the professor stays completely silent and informs the class before the (now revised) exam that the exam he "coincidentally left" was a honeytrap.
Advantages:

What before could have been interpreted as neglience on the professor's part is now quite fiendish.
The students will be punished to learn entirely for a honeypot.
The students are not angry that someone was ratting them out, now they are angry for themselves not learning.
The students won't try to cheat this way ever again.

Everyone feels fine. You have done your task of informing the professor, the professor is now not an idiot, but a devilish antagonist and the students are punished for cheating.
The nice thing is that some professors actually are that fiendish, so even if the students cheating read all the answers here in SE, in contrast to the others they cannot identify that someone told the professor.

This is completely silly. If I was tbe professoor, I would have a really bad opinion about you since (a) you want me to be part in such a stupid scheme which helps noone and (b) you tell me how to do my job. Awful.

Did you actually test this version (as a student or prof)? Is seems "academic" to me (ie not working in practise)

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Transfer applicants. Who are they?
Who are transfer applicants?
I was applying for undergraduate program in a university and there I saw a transfer applicants category. I want to know what does that mean?

As an example from the radio, students who go to Northern Virginia Community College and complete 2 years of courses can transfer to the University of Virginia to finish their 4-year degree.

Out of interest, how successful are they? I have this vague idea that switching schools would be frowned on without a really good reason..

@JPJanet It's not that uncommon, and doesn't always happen for some extraordinary reason (for instance, plenty of people go to community college, which is only 2 years, and then graduate and have to transfer to get a bachelor's).

Applicants who have already begun their undergraduate education at another institution and wish to transfer into this one.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
How common is it for tenured professors to retire?
It seems like some professors choose to retire, while others love their job so much they don't stop doing it until they die (or have health issues that make them unable to work).  Which situation is more common?  How common is it for tenured professors to fall into each category?

I don't have statistics, but my impression is that the vast majority retire before they die, rather than the other way around. Of course, some remain active in research even after retiring from their job.

And then there's Professor Binns, the Hogwart's Magical History teacher who didn't notice that he had died, and simply kept on teaching.

You will have to define "retire" more specifically. Retirement is not a binary state, especially for professors. (See e.g. What academic functions does a Professor Emeritus usually serve?)

We have an 80 year old+ emeritus faculty member who until just recently still came into the office every day. Does that count as being retired?

Note in some countries there is a mandatory retirement age, so professors don't have a choice.

Under US law, since 1993, there is no mandatory retirement age for college faculty.  They can keep working as long as they are physically able to work, and many faculty are choosing to work into their 70's and 80's.  See this recent article from Inside Higher Education that gives some statistics:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/02/new-study-shows-difficulty-encouraging-professors-retire

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How credible is an application for a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics from an MSc in Computer Science?
I am currently in the second year of a four year Computer Science MSCi program in the UK.
I would like to know how credible is an application for a PHD in Computational Fluid Dynamics, from an MSCi in Computer Science?
I understand that these courses are usually delivered by engineering, physics, or maths departments, but does the computational aspect stand me in good stead?

If at the moment you didn't take any courses in physics and fluid mechanics yet then I think your chances are close to zero.
However, you mentioned that you still have 2 years to go on your MSc program. In that case you still have 2 years to 'reshape' yourself for such a position. I would approach this endeavor in 3 steps:

Talk to professors with (open) PhD positions in CFD and ask them what courses they think are prerequisite for the positions that they have. Also ask what courses would be desirable/helpful.
Take ALL of the prerequisite courses they mentioned and as many of the desirable ones as possible. Either take them as electives for your current program or just on top of it. This might seem like a lot of work, and it probably is, but if you are serious about the PhD in CFD then this will actually help in your application process, because it shows that you are committed.
In many MSc programs you will have some big project at the end. If that is the case for you as well, make it a CFD project for a professor with PhD projects available. Give it your all and you might be able to 'network' your way into one of his/her positions.

If you have had no basic physics courses, no fluid dynamics/mechanics courses, and no courses in PDEs, you're probably going have a hard time with your application. You might be able to work on things that contribute to solving problems in CFD like linear and non-linear solvers, but your background is lacking when it comes to application for a PhD in an engineering, physics, or mathematics department. You might be better off finding an advisor in a CS program who does interdisciplinary work related to fluids and get in with them. Guys like Ron Fedkiw in CS at UCLA and Martin Berzins at in CS at Utah are Maths PhDs in CS departments working on CFD problems. Working with someone like one of them might give you the time and space to pick up the fluids and PDEs through coursework or reading and working problems while you target some of the more CS-ish problems in their projects.
In the end, it can work out, but I think you'll have a hard time with a frontal assault on an engineering PhD program application. You're going to have to be more targeted in your approach.


text:
What is the difference between the various documents that are part of an application?
I am applying to serveral undergraduate research programs this summer. Each of them ask for certain documents including:

CV
personal statement
statement of interest
cover form
cover letter
research statement
statement of purpose

I understand what a CV is now, but is a cover form the same thing as a cover letter? Can these documents be generic? Is there a difference between statement of interest and statement of purpose? Is there somewhere I can find examples of these so I know what the difference is?

Don't they give additional instructions as to what should be included in each document?

Related: Unclear terms: Statement of Purpose, Academic Statement and Personal Statement

@ff524 They do not. All the say is "submit the following" and then go on to list what documents each require.

I thought I would come back and answer my own question. The cover form was a special form that that program wanted me to fill out, while a cover letter was just that.
The difference between the personal statement, statement of interest, and research statement was miniscule. I just cut out some of my life from the research statement.


text:
How free are you to take mathematics courses as a computer science graduate student?
Does anyone know the restrictions one might face if they are a graduate student in a computer science program (let's say doing theory) and they become interested in taking a course from the mathematics department or become interested in working on mathematics problems? Is this something where you need to full on change departments or is it generally more acceptable?

I think this is highly dependent on your specific program and institute.

Math and computer science are inter-related. I don't think you'd expect a human to calculate a prime with 60K digits, after all. If your area of research covers math, it would probably be advised you understand the math behind it.

Um...if it's a sane department, there should be no barriers at all.  After all, theoretical computer science is mathematics.

I think it really depends on what you work on...if you are doing compilers while studying differential geometry then it can become a problem, but then if you are working on machine learning and studying random matrix theory then I think you have a better chance, so you may want to consider studying things that are close together not far away no matter how appealing it looks to you - just experience as an undergrad who had done analysis while working on a FPGA related project...quite tedious on both ends

This is frequently very easy: the boundary between mathematics and computer science is pretty blurry, especially for the more theoretical side of computer science.  In many universities, you will even find classes that are shared between math and computer science departments.
I suppose that If you are a masters' student, you might run into problems fitting in the classes that you want to take if there are a lot of other program requirements.  For Ph.D. students, however, there are typically less constraints.

It depends somewhat on your advisor, and less on departmental policies. If you can convince your advisor that you need to take some math courses to be more comfortable in your research, its unlikely you would be prevented from doing so by the dept.
Of course, if your advisor wants you to focus on research and not take any additional courses, that may be an issue - but you can still take the class informally (non-credit).


text:
What are the differences between these kinds of articles: original, review, letter, and short communication?
I am interested in knowing, what are the differences between  Original Paper, Review Paper, Letter and Short/ Rapid/ Brief Communication paper?
Thanks to everyone for reading and taking the time for the great responses.

Bear in mind that this will vary heavily between specific journals.

Most respected journals have specific authors instructions which guide you in defining these types of manuscripts. In clinical medicine there are also explicit reporting guidelines: http://www.equator-network.org/

This will vary pretty heavily depending on the journal in question. But generally speaking, in broad strokes:

"Original Paper" - This is a generic term for a full-length, original research finding paper that doesn't fall into another specialized category.
"Review Paper" - This is a paper summarizing the state of research on a topic. These can often be somewhat long, are often but not always by invitation only, and this category can include meta-analysis, but doesn't have to. This may also be the umbrella that commentaries fall under, but again, not always.
"Short/Rapid/Brief Communication" - A shorter version of "Original Paper", whose methods, findings, etc. don't justify a full length paper. They still contain original findings, but are general much more straightforward.
Letters - Possibly even shorter original findings, field reports, single observations, etc. This can also include arguments about previously published papers, which involve either opinion pieces or snippets of contradictory or supporting research.

Note that for Nature, a Brief Communication Arising is not a research paper but usually critical comments on a Nature paper, typically accompanied by a response from the authors of the criticized paper. This is in contrast to a Letter, which is simply a short research paper.

"Original paper" is any research paper not falling into below categories. "Review paper" is that reporting a critical overview of recent articles in the field, can be very long, say, 30-40 journal pages. "Letter" is a short research paper, ca. 4 journal pages. "Communication" is essentially the same as "Letter", sporadically can contain comments (there is a specific genre called "Comments" as well) on some recently published paper in this journal.

Original research articles are detailed studies reporting original research conducted by the author. They include hypothesis, background study, methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a discussion of possible implications.
Review articles give an overview of existing literature in a field, often identifying specific problems or issues and analysing information from available published work on the topic with a balanced perspective. Review articles can be of three types, broadly speaking: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.
Short communications are usually a concise format used to report significant improvements to existing methods, a new practical application, or a new tool or resource. These need to be reported quickly as the need to communicate such findings is very high.
Letters are usually short and flexible articles that express readers' opinion on previously published articles, or provide evidence to support/oppose an existing viewpoint.

Downvoter: why?

Original papers are extracted from researches that are innovative
enough and have new and important achievements.
All of d etails are given in these papers. They also have high scientific
value.

Original artical is under good headings ,all headings that must be present in every original paper but review sometime have some heading missed like materials and methods but not always happen this ,the main difference is  that study is rational , different areas result collecting together .The size of review artical is longer than original one.the short communication have not headings properly but all aspects are clear properly it is much comprehensive.

I recommend you to expand your answer and provide some references... typically authors instructions of journals provide clear guidance on this issue.

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


text:
Understanding a proposed schedule of a journal special issue
For my first time I submitted a manuscript to a journal special issue months ago. The special issue had a proposed schedule as follows:

Submission deadline: 1st date
Papers reviewed: 2nd date
Revised papers reviewed and accepted : 3rd date
Notifications to authors: 4th date
Publication: Approximate date

A- If it is supposed to send a revision on the (3rd date), does it mean that review comments/scores will be delivered at the (2nd date)? In my case I didn't get review comments even after many days of the (2nd date).
B- The (3th date) mentions "Revised papers reviewed and accepted". Does it mean papers are accepted for granted after the first review round and need only a revision? I thought that usually there are 2 review rounds before final decision.

What the different dates imply would seem to be the following.
1st date: you need to have your complete manuscript submitted by this date
2nd date: Reviewers must have provided their reviews by this date
3rd date: between the 2nd date and the third date you need to revise the paper and possibly have another round of reviews if necessary. This deadline thus includes work you the editor and you and possibly additional reviewers. The manuscript should be sent in so that an editor can evaluate it and possibly find it acceptable. This this deadline probably involves a lot less time for you than just the time difference from 2 to 3 implies.
4th date: You will hear about the fate of your paper by this date at the latest.
5th date: the publication is expected to be out in printed form or assembled on the web (depends on what is seen as the final product)
So the time line may seem straight forwards but particularly date 3 is possibly preceded by a lot of work from more persons than you. I am sure an editor will want everyone to on the toes fo that stage so as not to unnecessarily delay the process.

Thanks Peter I think it will happen probably that way. Actually what made me doubtful is the fact that there's only 1 month between the 2nd and 3rd date.

Special issue production schedules are often very hazy and subject to slippage and change.  The basic problem is that they are typically trying to combine two things that don't fit together neatly: a fixed production schedule and the unknown timings and iterations of a typical journal review process.  Reviewers have to be recruited, reviews come back late, authors ask for extensions, more revisions are needed, etc. In my experience, if they stick to within a couple months of the intended schedule, they're doing quite well.


text:
Does the Portuguese higher education system follow Humboldt's model?
According to the other question on Academia SE, the Polish higher education system closely resembles the German one:

Which country or countries inspired the post-communism Polish higher education system?

Polish higher education follows Humboldt's model so does German education. I personally hate Humboldt's model as it is a time-hog in the case of undergraduate and masters levels.
Does the Portuguese higher education system follow Humbolt's model?
If No, which model do they follow?

The answer to the other question mentions the Balogna Process as a codification of Humbolt's model, and Portugal is a signatory thereof. So, the answer would appear to be "yes" for Portugal and most of Europe. Is this the sort of answer you had in mind, or am I missing something?

@cag51, actually, I am trying to understand if moving from Poland/Germany to Portugal will be able to offer me a different kind of higher education experience as I am fed up with these two countries.

I am sorry to hear that OP hates the Humboldt model, as its focus on character development defined academia, with its great successes, in the past. If one did not like it, in olden times, academia would not have been one's target anyway and one probably would have more chosen a vocational route. Today, OP will be pleased to know (me less so), it is increasingly eroded and is moving towards a more practical model focusing on concrete employability skills. OP should probably also have a look at the Anglo-Saxon model and countries which support it if it would better suit OP's requirements.

Can you give some examples of what exactly  you consider a waste of time?

@cbeleitesunhappywithSX, Okay. The problem with the model is: teachers throw some books to the students and tell students to learn by themselves. Lectures are totally useless as they are unintelligible and full of either formal math symbolic notations or badly designed without considering student-psychology. Asking questions is considered as a Taboo and disturbance in the classroom.

Yes, Portugal's basic education system does follow Humboldt's model. In university, it mostly depends on the institution you choose to study on. I don't know what kind of degree you're thinking about pursuing, but investigate the various universities that offer that degree and it's culture / philosophy.

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


text:
How to differentiate between good information and bad information?
Suppose, I am writing a research paper on an old controversial topic. I need to interview some old people and need to read some memoirs.
Now, the problem is: the people whom I interview, may be biased, and the part of the memoir may consists of lies.
How can I detect a credible source in this particular case?

How do your collegues do this?

This looks like it's about the content of your research, specifically, research methods in "history of some-science". So I would consider it off-topic here.


text:
What is the difference in research culture between a University of X and a X University of Technology?
In various parts of Europe (even in Israel) I see that there are two types of universities:

University of 'X'
'X' University of Technology

where X is the name of a city.
The main difference I discovered is: #2 offers more jobs in the industry, but #1 offers more research opportunity.
Do they follow different types of cultures in terms of teaching and research? Do they follow different quality standards?

I think there are no standard differences or rules about the names of HE institutes like this.

Note that in the specific case you link, they're not two separate institutions. The first link is the University of Lisbon, the second is the school of engineering, which is also part of the University of Lisbon.

As usual, asking about "the EU" is too broad, this varies considerably by country.

Historically speaking, it's possible there would have been differences between what the universities researched or were built to research and thus were given different names. However, research directions and capabilities change over time and I don't think it's possible to draw such distinctions based on name alone these days. Research "quality" or "standards" can also be somewhat subjective, and will definitely vary from country to country.


text:
How can I spot fake/scam international conferences?
One technique my professor said is that fake/scam conferences are 1-3 days of programs, while the real ones are at least 4 days and more.
Another technique is to check if they advertise accommodation facilities on their webpage.
Another technique is to check if they list many conferences on one website.
What other techniques can I use to spot fake/scam conferences?

Some criteria may be very field-specific. In my field, applied maths, it's perfectly normal to have conferences that last 3 days or less and conferences that make suggestions for or even provide accommodation.

@Theoretician, I updated tag.

@Roland, I updated tag.

Who's on the committee? Are there other people that you know and respect and who go there/submit there/are reviewers? Do they know that they are on the PC? Etc.

Even in computer science, there are highly reputable conferences that are of short duration or that offer good deals for accommodation (which they get by booking blocks of rooms).

The criteria you mention are unfortunately going to cut off many valid conferences and workshops as well.
It seems to me you are interested in filtering out the bad conferences. This requires a tremendous amount of work or a lot of experience. If you have time, you can spend it in a more meaningful way and if you do not have the experience try to stand on the shoulders of some "giants".
As a first step, think about why conferences exist. It is for people to meet and discuss/show their results. But the conference is only a venue. If you receive a personal invitation to attend a conference, from the conference organizers, an invitation that flatters you and is connected to a specific work of yours, something that makes you think "this conference really want me to participate there" you can be 100% sure that the conference is a scam. Because the focus is on you, while serious conferences try to put the accent on the "exchange ideas with good peers" part, not on the "we give you a good venue to present your results". It boils down to reading "the intentions of the conference organizers".
As a second step it is best for you to focus on some reliable conference (for example the one attended by your advisor, or the very local ones) ... once you start to know the names of your relevant peers, you will see that the reliable conferences are the one where 50% or more of your peers shows up.
This may filter out some very interesting and new conference ... but since the goal of a conference is to have interactions with your peers, pick them accordingly to what you want to discuss with the people presenting something (as a non-exhaustive list of things worthwhile to discuss in person are things like your results, their results, new approaches, future career jumps, finding someone presenting data relevant for your research).
In short: a conference must be of your interest to attend. If you are no one in science and you receive a personal invitations to present your results at a conference, that is a 100% scam.

This is tricky. It takes some background knowledge and experience to spot "scam" conferences. You also have to decide what you mean by "fake/scam". There are plenty of sketchy, poor quality conferences that are not, strictly speaking, fake. They exist. (Some) People show up to them. Talks are given etc... But they are not considered quality and they exist to make money, not serve as a forum for scientific discussion.
There are probably straight up fake conferences out there, but I think (correct me if I am wrong) you are more interested in those "predatory" conferences that technically happen but are a waste of time and money.
I usually use a few checkpoints to decide if a conference is sketchy:

How does the website look? This is basic internet safety 101. On its own it's not very specific but don't ignore obvious warning signs.
How were you invited? Is there a flowery, dripping email practically begging you to present your paradigm shifting (not) research for a generously reduced registration fee?
Is it affiliated with a legitimate organization? Think a university or a professional society. Predatory conferences are usually put on by questionable companies that host a rotating selection of conferences in a huge variety of unrelated fields.
Do the presentations/schedule make sense? Or are there a dozen different talks on barely related topics? This can be a sign that the conference is just looking to fill out a day with whoever will pay to present.
Does the committee look reasonable?
Are they proudly advertising proof of attendance? This is a freebie. Often these conferences are geared towards those who want pad resumes or show academic activity without regard for quality.

There should be enough obviously reputable conferences ranging from major events hosted by national or international organizations to small local meetings hosted by chapters of professional societies or universities that you should never really need to spend time evaluating a questionable conference.

There exist reputable conferences that provide proofs of attendance. I'm not sure why, but I suspect some employers might request them to confirm their employees didn't leisure around all week.

I don't doubt that there are many reputable conferences that could/would provide proof if needed. I still count this as a red flag. On its own it's nothing, taken with several other points and it could mean something.


text:
Is it possible for a person to stay as a full-time research faculty as long as the person is physically and mentally fit?
Is it possible for a person to stay at a public research institution as a full-time research faculty member as long as the person is physically and mentally fit?
If so, tertiary institutions in which country offer such an advantage?

What do you mean by "forever?" Do you mean "until retirement?"

@MoisheKohan, Until physically and mentally fit, until death.

“physically and mentally fit” is not the same as “death”…. Moreover it is clear that people working at a public research institution are “faculty”?  Think of a hospital for instance.

the edit does not improve things.  “forever” is certainly not same as “physically and mentally fit”.  Presumably you mean until the person is no longer physically and mentally fit.  What does “physically and mentally fit” means anyways?  Who decides?

I'm guessing that the intent is until retirement. And IIRC, lots of places in Europe have mandatory retirement ages. But is the question really whether there is something like tenure that can only be cancelled for serious cause.

@Buffy, what about the USA?

@user366312, a tenured faculty member in US is "safe" until retirement (which has no fixed date, generally). A research faculty member might be tenured or on a fixed-term renewal contract, perhaps 4 years, perhaps longer.

sorry I simply don’t get what you don’t get.  Ask a professor if they are still fit to continue, and they will likely answer yes well after an administrator would have answered no.  so who decides is crucial.  Indeed I can certainly think of some professors who were unfit by any definition except their own, and stayed on.

In principle, for the last 20-30 years, this can be possible in the U.S.
Prior to some date (which I don't recall...), there were mandatory retirement ages, I think state-wise or institution-wise, throughout the U.S. This affected several people I knew. But, after that point, there was no mandatory retirement.
Still, yes, physical or mental incapacity is a thing all of us will face, eventually. Moderate physical incapacity is not surprising, and need not toooo severaly impact teaching and work. Mental deterioration is a more volatile issue, and less easy to self-diagnose, apparently. In my experience,  some senior faculty who'd become unable to talk coherently about calculus had to be repeatedly "counseled" to retire. It wasn't that they were hanging on for the money, but, rather, that they absolutely did not realize that they were incoherent. Dementia is a real thing.
On a tangent, in the U.S., I do know some very good mathematicians who "voluntarily" retire, not because they're "done" doing math, but because they want to open up positions for younger people.


text:
How can a person do further academic research if their PhD degree is old?
There is a certain rule that if your PhD degree is more than 6–7 years old, you cannot apply for a postdoc position.
Suppose a physically and mentally 100% fit 70-year-old person obtained his PhD degree in 1996 from Southeast Asia. He then worked as a teacher in two tertiary public institutions for 21 years, and he is now retired from public service.
Now he wants to get involved in academic research again in the EU.
How can he do that? Can he get paid for the research?

I presume that a significant part of the question is meant to be "how can they get paid for such work?"? Visas? Can you clarify?

It would help to specify / link to that "rule". I have not heard anything like this in Austria, Sweden, or Switzerland. That said, being beyond the legal retirement age at the time of application may raise completely different employment-related issues.

If you want to get paid, you need to find the payer first. Thus, this becomes a shopping question.

The help center urges to ask only practical questions based on actual problems you face. I somewhat doubt that is the case here.

In the USA, one could not discriminate based on age in the hiring process. That said, a 21-year time period without research output will count against them, whether they were 50 or 70 years old - they would likely be at a disadvantage relative to other applicants to a job posting.

For all the people doubting the 7-8 years requirements: please note that it is written in the Official guidelines for MSCA Postdoc, therefore this requirement has already or will trickle down to any postdoc offer in Europe:
https://rea.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-06/Guide%20for%20applicants_MSCA%20PF%202023%20rev%202.1%20.pdf (page 8. oh the irony ... )

To the OP: based on your questions over the last three years, I share @BryanKrause's doubt that this question is "based on actual problems you face". At least, the example that you have chosen to illustrate the question does not fit with the information you have volunteered on previous questions.

@YemonChoi, are you stalking me?

There are places where post-docs are reserved for recent graduates and aren't open to older, more experienced, people. There are exceptions, I suspect, but it would be a hard case to make.
If you can't get a regular position at some university, there is the possibility that you could teach as an adjunct (low pay, few benefits) but use the contact to get yourself involved with the full-time faculty and connect to their research.
I've known people to do this in the US, but, for them, money wasn't an object, since they had regular positions. But they used the adjunct relationship just as I suggest and were considered part of the community. Not a lot of people like this, but a few.
But, being retired, you may be secure enough financially to make something like this work.

In the German system the closest thing to an adjunct would be a Lehrauftrag. However, I don't know if that would be the best way if you are interested in research.

I think the 'getting paid' part is close to impossible. At age 70 in the EU the general assumption is that you are retired. Getting any regular paid work contract will be very difficult and come with legal hurdles.
If you care more about getting involved with research this sounds a lot more feasible. As a start lectures and advanced seminars are usually open to the public (sometime you can get a kind of 'no-degree student id' that lets you attend these). This allows you to learn about the current research and get to know the professors. From there you can try to get involved in some joint research projects if you can convince the professors you have something useful to contribute.

I've not seen the 6-7 years after PhD to say you can never get funded. That time limit usually applies for certain fellowships or certain grants/funding sources, and even then there is usually simply a different level of funding to apply for rather than prohibiting getting any funding.
But still, post-docs that's are funded by the University/professor's grants usually wouldn't have this limit. There may also be a limit that you can't be on a temporary contract (i.e. already being a post-doc) for more than X years at the same place/country.
I would double-check the wording of the limit, at the very least it's not a common limit so there are likely other places you could do a post-doc that would not have that limit. However, you may need to move further away to do so.
Your best chance is simply to reach out to people who are interested in working with you. Maybe they can give you a "different" job title to avoid the limits or they would know of other schemes you could apply for.

"Post-doc means a researcher who was awarded their Ph.D. or its foreign counterpart no more than 7 years before the date of starting the mobility. The period may be extended by the period of maternity and parental leave, long-term illness (more than 90 days), care for a family member (more than 90 days), pre-attestation preparation and military service. If the selected person has not obtained a Ph.D."
Just one of the hundred formulations of the same concept present in 99% of european PostDoc announcmenets in the past 5 years
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/53311

@EarlGrey That must be a field specific thing. I've never seen such a statement in any post-doc announcement in my field.

@TimRias We are talking about Europe, right? Since the guidelines for MSCA postdoc ask for something similar:
"MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to postdoctoral researchers from all over the world, with a maximum of 8 years of research experience after their PhD."
the field specific thing is in your field and most,likely the same requirement will appear in the next few years.
MSCA rules: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/worldwide/australia-nz/news/msca-postdoctoral-fellowships-2023-six-steps-prepare-your-application

Page 8 of the official European definition of Psotdoc requirements for MSCA felowhisps: https://rea.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-06/Guide%20for%20applicants_MSCA%20PF%202023%20rev%202.1%20.pdf

@EarlGrey Grants (like MSCA) come with a variety of requirements on mimimal and maximal experience. (Note that until recently MSCA did not have a maximum experience cap). What is rare (in any field I am familiar with) is for advertised post-doc positions come with an experience cap.

@TimRias even outside EU but in Europe, maximal experience requirements for post-doc are extremely common, see this sum-up for Swiss programs : https://www.epfl.ch/campus/associations/list/polydoc/page-150985-en-html/page-151013-en-html/page-151022-en-html/ (simply look for the words "up to").
Your experience is just some anedoctal points. There is a systematic process acting at the "personel management level" of organizing the R&D proccess (please note: I do not agree with this bureaucratization process and its consequences, but it is there and being blind to it will be painful).

@EarlGrey Looking at the the most recent advertisements for post-docs in the Netherlands (https://www.academictransfer.com/en/jobs/?vacancy_type=scientific&q=&function_types=2&order=&page=1) I see only one that makes any requirement on the recency of the PhD. Maximal experience caps for post-docs are not nearly as ubiquitous as you arrogantly claim.

@TimRias you are comparing peanuts (some tens of positions open, and this in one of the most research oriented countries in EU) with programs that covers hundreds if not thousands of post doc positions (MSCA alone provides about 1000 postdoc fellowship per year).
I am not interested in discussing anedoctes, I know of a couple of people being hired as full professor in universities in Europe while not having neither the experience nor a PhD title, I leave discussing the external to 3-sigma event discussion to finance , rare disease and climatology professionals, thanks.

@EarlGrey All the "evidence" you have provided is for fellowships and grants, not advertised post-doc positions. At least a gave something which can be assumed to be a statistically representative sample. Maybe your experience is not as representative as you think.

@TimRias who cares about my experience? we are discussing a general theme, and general is determined by the statistics of it. You provided 10s of cases, I provided you 1000s. The largest PD funder in the Netherlands is NWO. Their program Veni/VIdi provides about 200 Postdocs per year. Guess what?
The Veni round 2023 is open [...] obtained their PhD a maximum of three years before 01.01.23
The Vidi is open [...] their PhD no more than 8 years bf 1.10.23
The Vici is open [...] their PhD no more than 15 years bf 1.03.2023
https://www.nwo.nl/en/researchprogrammes/nwo-talent-programme/faq

@EarlGrey Again those a grants (which all have some early career development goal) not advertised postdoc positions. You so far have provided exactly a case of an advertised post-doc position that had a maximum experience limit.

@Timrias these "non relevant grants with career development goals" are the backbones of research in all EU countries, contributing a percentage ranging from 30% to 60% of the yearly postdoc position assigned in EU and they are also the blueprint for all the Postdoc positions that will be opened by the various universities&research centers: according to the management "business-crap" language, every postdoc position is for "highly skilled PhDs", no one is hiring "normal" PhDs.
Do not rely on past informations to predict future decisions. It does not work like that in politics ...

Yes he can, but not the direct way.
Such an experienced person can be a great advisor or consultant.
Such a person may be lucky enough to get a guest position in some university (unpaid, but with access to library and all the infrastructure).
I think that this person need to invest a remarkable amount of time in marketing themselves as a possible supporter of PhD/Master student (even as a private tutor), and then they will get possibly some network of contacts (1 to 10% of PhDs will be at least assistant professors in the 5 years after graduation ... ). By the age of 80 this person may have some of his previous contact in a soild, stable academic position: then he/she can discuss about contributing to a research project.


text:
Why do computer science students working in computational biology domain need to give biological validation for their prediction?
I am in my 3rd year of PhD. I am doing my PhD on Computational Biology, with a background of purely Computer Science. Since I am under pressure to publish 4 more journal papers, apart from my review, I am always in a hurry to do the same. What I have noticed for this field is that if I predict something, I need to provide biological validation for my result. Why so? Is biological validation not the work of biologists? How can a computer science student provide biological validation for his/her prediction? Isn't our job just to predict? Why do the journals want biological validation for the results? I did a prediction job, where I predicted some proteins to do a particular function. I communicated it to the Molecular BioSystems Journal. They rejected it saying I have no biological validation. If biologists are the one with the final say, then what point do we have in working in this domain? Whatever we predict would be questioned.

You need to show that your method works. Once you can show that it is good (and how good it is), people will start trusting your predictions.

"How can a computer science student provide biological validation for his/her prediction?": By collaborating with biologists?

@MassimoOrtolano due to problem of who gets the first authorship, and in whose thesis the paper goes, collaboration can't be done...

@Davidmh say I have used SVM for prediction. Here, how am I supposed to show it is good or how good is it? Just by accuracy?

@Rishika That's a problem of your university or PhD program. A journal cannot and should not care about university rules and about whose thesis the paper goes.

@MassimoOrtolano so you are saying all bioinformaticians collaborate with biologists?

Probably not, as not all theoretical physicists collaborate with experimental ones: maybe you just chose the wrong venue, and it's that particular journal that requires also a joint experimental validation. But if that it's their editorial policy, you can't expect them to change it because you can't collaborate with biologists. But whatever the policy, you should expect that anything you predict will be questioned, sooner or later, because the purpose of models is to represent the reality.

The typical way of validating a prediction if you cannot generate experimental data yourself is to use existing (published) data from the literature.

Apart from @CapeCode 's idea, the question is legit. It is normally possible to make a prediction (e.g. gravitation waves) while still being far from experimental confirmation. However, I suspect your venues may have been the wrong ones (or you were unlucky with the reviewers).

You are not a "computer science student". If you are writing for an audience of computational biologists, you are a computational biologist.

The differences in cultures has been nicely described in the following book: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo16744390.html     Note that biological validation does not always necessitate experiments, e.g.: demonstration of a significant (but modest) increase in re-identification of known biology contained in annotation databases.

this post was cited in: https://www.biostars.org/p/284021/

I am always in a hurry to do the same. What I have noticed for this
  field is that if I predict something, I need to provide biological
  validation for my result. Why so?

Because this is how one knows if your results are correct and useful. A prediction is nothing if it hasn't been evaluated. The field is littered with predictions that turn out to be nonsense, only hold up under very narrow circumstances, etc.

Is biological validation not the work of biologists?

No more than it would be if a biologist said "I just developed this algorithm, proving it's correct is the work of a computer scientist."
Beyond that, there's no reason for them to do so. "I've made an arbitrary prediction, anyone want to validate it?" is going to be met with a resounding "No" - the biologists have their own work to do.

How can a computer science student provide biological validation for
  his/her prediction? Isn't our job just to predict?

No, it's your job to provide useful results. Validated predictions are useful. Just predictions are not.
As people have noted, there are a number of ways to validate a prediction. Existing data, or even simulated data based on known biological patterns, might be sufficient. If no such data exists, it's time to find a collaborator.

Why do the journals want biological validation for the results?

Because anything else is just speculation.

I did a prediction job, where I predicted some proteins to do a
  particular function. I communicated it to the Molecular BioSystems
  Journal. They rejected it saying I have no biological validation. If
  biologists are the one with the final say, then what point do we have
  in working in this domain? Whatever we predict would be questioned.

Do you know that it was rejected by a biologist? There's a number of computer scientists I know who would have rejected such a paper for having no biological validation. Beyond that, your "point" in working in the field is to generate those predictions and evaluate their correctness. The latter part is also an aspect of good computational biology.

Biological validation doesn't necessarily mean that you need to do experiments to verify the computational results. There are many computational papers published without any accompanying experimental results (of course it would be fantastic if you can, either by yourself or in collaboration with experimentalists.) The real question here is whether you provide a biological context in which to put and assess your work. No matter whether your work is experimental or quantitative, you need to demonstrate that you understand the previous work done on the biological system that you are trying to study: what has been discovered, what are the interesting questions, how do your results build on/confirm/disprove previous work etc. You need to demonstrate that your work is relevant to the biologists working in the field in the sense that it attempts to address the relevant biological questions (or asks a new question that despite its importance has never been considered) and provide unique insight that is difficult if not impossible to obtain from experiments. Biologists are not interested in theory/computation for its own sake, and the failure to connect such work to the experimental reality is one of the biggest stumbling block for people with a "hard science" background working in biology.

Always look at the literature,
If you are doing thermodynamics work, the biological validation will probably come from isothermal titration calorimetry studies. One can get entropy, enthalpy, and Gibbs Free Energy from that alone.
If you are doing protein folding work, the validation will probably come from some form of either fast protein liquid chromatography (FPLC) or High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with the main difference being that FPLC appears to be more often used for analysis, purification, and extraction from a complicated matrix, while HPLC is for analysis. The critical difference of either case is the choice of column which is for extraction of hyrophilic/hydrophobic proteins, or specific proteins which are usually retrieved by affinity chromatography binding antigens or antibodies to a column. Another technique is to clone a  polyhistadine tag into the a protein from the extracted DNA via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to exponentially increase the original concentration of DNA. Critical segments must then be spliced with endonucleases and transcribed/translated into proteins. These proteins will have the polyhistidine tag which will bind to nickle in the column and everything else washes out.
If you are doing ensemble work of the functions of whole protein families, then please pick a family of proteins that you would like to study such as the heat shock proteins (HSPs), receptor tyrosinase proteins, histone proteins, efflux pumps, etc. The biological validation for this informatics work using comes from     microarray experiments, running lots of proteins on an electrophoresis gel to determine their size, or even mass spectrometry which tells a researcher the those of a protein.
If your research does not match up with the literature, it does not necessarily mean that you are wrong. For example, in the nightshade plant, antifreeze proteins were only found in the plant in the months of November and December, but not in September and October, if I remember correctly. That means that temperature drop induced the formation of the antifreeze proteins only when it was really cold. After the cold season, the proteins are probably just destroyed completely.
Here is a little information about how temperature influences the existence of antifreeze proteins in the plant Nightshade:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1014062714786
The whole protein network of a plant can change in response to chemical stress, heat stress, species differences in a family of plants, age, species differences, or competitive parisitosis. I expect the same to be true for animals, where especially solution is very important. Is the solution fully acqueous, with phosphate buffered saline, blood serum, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, etc?
If you want to ask scientists questions about the matter, check out ResearchGate. It has high marks from lots prominent reporting groups.
https://www.researchgate.net/

In addition, you can do more than just predictive biological work. You can create computational models which align with existing biological work.

Also, check out Bioillumensence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET). It can experimentally be used to determine if two porteins come close enough to interact by observing a color change where about two flourescent proteins are tagged to a protein which is cloned together in a living cell.
Gersting, Søren W., Amelie S. Lotz-Havla, and Ania C. Muntau. "Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer: An Emerging Tool for the Detection of Protein–Protein Interaction in Living Cells." Functional Genomics: Methods and Protocols (2012): 253-263.

How does this answer the OP's question at all?

It totally does. I explained experimental techniques which validate computational approaches. The questioner is obviously overwhlemed with the task of understanding how his work is related to biological techniques. So I gave him a summary of methods, something that you did not do.

I think this answer goes too far into the details of specific experiments, etc. If they aren't working specifically on these questions, these details aren't much more useful than just saying "Look at the literature" alone.


text:
Getting article type information [New Result / Confirmatory Result / Contradictory Result] from bioRxiv
The bioRxiv advanced search form lets one find articles by their type. Following are the three types:

New Result
Confirmatory Result
Contradictory Result

An RSS feed is also available here:
http://biorxiv.org/content/alertsrss
But I could not find any field in the entries for 'article type'. Is there a programmatic way of querying this information that I am missing ?
I could scrape the specific article page itself for this info. But that would not be too efficient. If anyone knows an API / RSS way of obtaining this information and shares it, it might be very useful.

Looking at the few XML in bioRxiv's RSS feeds, it looks like the information that you are looking for simply is not included in their schema at present.  Thus, I would say that your only options are:

Screen-scraping
Asking for them to upgrade their feeds


text:
What qualities are organizing committees looking for in a reference letter for a summer school?
How would you write a reference letter for someone who is applying to a summer school intended for Ph.D. students/postdocs? The summer school only lasts for 3 days up to a week and I am curious as to what qualities and traits the organizing committee is looking for in participants. Do the participants have to be able to think very fast, for example?
What skills are sufficient to be able to participate in a summer school successfully? I am writing a reference letter for someone who is relatively new to a field and is interested in doing research on topics relevant to the summer school. The student has more or less the prerequisite knowledge needed for this summer school if that's worth mentioning. Also, the student is seeking for funding so I want to be serious about this letter.
From where I'm from, there weren't many opportunities for summer schools so I would appreciate your suggestions.
Thanks!

I once served as secretary for a summer school like this.  I wasn't directly involved with reviewing applications (this was the scientific organizer's job), but from conversations with him, my understanding was that the recommendation letter was intended mainly to verify that the student is a real person, is genuinely working in the field, and is at an appropriate level to gain something from the summer school.  Other than that, admission was not competitive (something like 90% of applications were accepted) since we didn't have any particular space constraints.
I believe there were a few "junk" applications from people who were not grad students, or were in unrelated fields, or otherwise didn't seem likely to benefit from the summer school.  Some may have been confused about the summer school's target audience, or were cranks, or were not in the field but were trying to use the summer school as a way to get a visa to our country.  The recommendation letter served to filter out these applications.
(We also had some travel funding available, but it wasn't competitive either.   The funding came from our government and would only let us fund our country's citizens and residents, so we essentially just divided the available money equally among all eligible participants.)
So I would say the letter should include:

Obvious stuff: student's name, your name, institution, fact that you are the student's advisor (helps if the institution is well known, and/or if you are known to be working in this field).
Brief description of what the student is working on (e.g. thesis topic).
Explanation of why the student is interested in the summer school.  If it is not obvious, explain how the topic of the summer school will be relevant to their research.  If there are specific connections, mention them.  ("One approach to Student's problem involves reticulated splines, so he/she is particularly interested in Professor Foobar's lecture at the summer school."  "Student has been recently studying Professor Barqux's papers on cromulent blobs.")
How far along is the student (just started in the program, several years in, about to graduate?).
Do you believe the student is adequately prepared for the summer school, in terms of background knowledge?  If your program offers basic courses in the relevant field or subfield, has the student successfully completed them?  Give some assurance that the lectures won't be way over his/her head.
If you think the student is especially strong and their work is particularly promising, you could say so.  But I don't think the organizers are looking for a detailed account of the student's academic strengths and weaknesses, or comparisons with other students.


text:
How should a student with no research background write a research proposal?
I am applying for Master's degree and I am being asked to make a research proposal. I am having some trouble with this since I don't have any research experience at all. The University I attended was a "No Thesis" University and there are no advisors for research there.
I have thought about wanting to do my research about Multiculturalism in Japan: how it is denied, how they say they are a homogeneous society and how this affects international minorities living there.
However... that's as far as I have gotten, I don't know how to continue.

Sounds like you are actually a long way along, as you have quite a nice, crisp question. Have a look at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~matt/proposal.html for ideas on how to flesh it out. Or perhaps there's a similar page more closely related to your field. (Found via Google.)

I don't know how to continue.

Well, there's a lot to do, actually. For example, you can structure your research proposal in the following sections (other points can be added):

Introduction and background information. Here you should clearly state the goal(s) of your research and give supporting information. For example, since you claim that multiculturalism is denied in Japan, in this first section you shall report this claim and provide supporting references; then, you shall explain that this phenomenon is not well studied and why it would be a good thing to investigate it.
Methodology. How do you plan to carry out your research? Anonymous questionnaires? Interviewing people? What kind of questions do you want to ask? How do you choose the population sample? How do you plan to carry out the interviews or distribute the questionnaires? Especially, whatever methodology you choose, explain clearly why the chosen methodology is suitable for reaching the goals of your research.
Data analysis. Here you have to describe in which way you plan to analyze the data you have collected.
Schedule. Subdivide your research in different tasks and describe the time allotted to each one (Gantt charts are common these days).
Scientific outcome. Original research is typically published on journals and presented at conferences. Can you name a journal and/or a conference suitable for your research topic? Can you think of other possible outcomes? For example, if the subject of your investigation constitute a social issue, can you think of writing a recommendation suggesting ways to improve the situation?
Possible issues. Describe what can go wrong in your plans and how you intend to mitigate possible problems (e.g. people not answering to questionnaires).
Resources and costs. Every kind of research needs money and resources. For example, if you plan to realize an online questionnaire you might need to hire a developer. So, try to figure out what can be the amount of money needed to make your research and write down a small budget.

Edit: I've added a couple of points. That said, good luck!


text:
Research on active learning in mathematics tutorial/practice classes
In the country where I live, university students studying mathematics usually attend lectures, consultation with their lecturers (if they have questions relating to material taught) and tutorial/practice classes.
Years ago there was a change in the way tutorials are run. Now students work  in groups of 2-4 in front of white boards and the tutor walks around and checks and comments on the solutions written by students (on the white boards). (Previously the students would have asked questions and the tutor would have solved problems on a white board).
The change was implemented on the basis of some research that suggested possibly greater learning benefits for the students. Is anyone familiar or can give a reference to this research article/s?
I'd be interested in how tutorial in mathematics are run in other countries.
The benefit of the above practice class is that student is `forced' to participate. Or at least one student from each group since there are always students who either don't attend or simply stand and contribute very little to the group discussion (even though they are encouraged to take turns and help each other understand this does not necessarily work).
It is also hard to tell how much this helps an average student learn things. Have there been any studies on this?

There is a vast literature on Active Learning. A simple search will turn up a lot. The idea isn't new, actually.

Have a look at flipped learning and TBL - team based learning too

Mathematics Educators version of this question

I agree with Buffy, there are hundreds of high quality studies supporting this change.  In my discipline, it's often discussed in the form of "Studio Physics."

We are discussing now in our place whether to implement this completely absurd method. Students must study, that's it. Period.

In a german university where I go to, (also studying math) we have two tutorials. In one we have an exercise sheet that we work through during the course of  a bit less than 2 hours and the solutions get presented at the end by the lecturer.We also have tutorials where we go to to recieve our homework and a lecturer, you or your classmates present the solutions.

We used to have a similar tutorial setup wherein the class, divided into groups of 3-4, were given a common problem set to solve. These usually happened for classes in probability or statistics. The professor would take doubts at any time and the whole atmosphere was a healthy-competitive blend between the groups.