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Length of Supporting Statement to Faculty Position application
I'm currently applying for one "entry-level" faculty position in the UK (CS). Differently from other applications I have seen, in this one they ask the applicant to address each of the items listed in a "Person Specification" section of the job description.
There are 15 points, ranging from simple yes/no questions ("Do you have a PhD?") to more elaborate ones ("Evidence of Teaching excellence"). I've addressed everything I can think of in my document so far. However it is quite long, 3.5 pages.
My question is: how long is a statement of this nature expected to be? There are no page limits that I have seen. Should I try to shorten it?

I would not refer to what you are writing as a statement. I would say it is a response. Responses should be as long as they need to be, but not longer.
If they have given you a person specification with 15 points, and ask you address every point, then, yes, your response is going to be long. There should be no need to guess on this. They have asked you to be thorough so you should be thorough.
While it is common for companies to use person specifications to ensure they find a proper match for a position it is rare for me to see someone use it in the manner you describe. However, it does not sound crazy, just like they want to really be sure that they are getting all the information they need, and they clearly want to be thorough. In the end, the goal of the person specification is to make sure you eliminate, as early as possible, those people who are very likely to be a poor match for the position/organization. If you can respond appropriately to each point, then you are much more likely to be called for an interview. So don't leave anything out that answers their questions.

+1 for Responses should be as long as they need to be, but not longer.

The UK is moving towards a system in which if you can't/don't respond appropriately to each point you will NOT get an interview.

Thanks, I'll make sure my response is as concise as possible.

In the UK, HR departments are playing an increasing larger role in the hiring process. According to HR departments only applicants that meet all the essential requirements can be considered. If you have an applicant who meets all but one essential requirement and all the desirable requirements and another applicant who meets all the essential requirements and none of the desirable requirements, you must hire the one that meets the essential requirements. If you want to modify the essential requirements and do the search again, you must demonstrate that none of the applicants meet all the essential requirements. You can only hire non-EU applicants if there are no EU applicants that meet all the essential requirements. Further, if any applicant from the redundancy pool can meet all the essential requirements with some additional training (usually under 6 months), then they must be hired over external applicants.
With this in mind, it is absolutely critical that your letter clear address how you meet all the essential requirements and which desirable requirements you meet. You want to provide anything that could be considered evidence to support your application. I would not worry about the statement being too long, although it should not address qualities that are not explicitly mentioned in the job description.

I think it should be okay.. What worries me a bit are the points dedicated to demonstrating "teaching excellence" or "ability to communicate complex ideas". As a lowly Post-Doc, I have just been a TA in the past. I never managed my own course. I don't know what they are expecting from new lecturers, but I guess many other applicants will be in my same situation.


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Which topics to include in a teaching presentation?
I have been shortlisted for a lectureship position. The committee has asked me to present a 10 minutes (!) lecture on teaching game development topics to undergrads. My teaching experience amounts to TA roles during my post-doc and PhD. I am familiar with the topic however at this career stage I have not yet had the opportunity to manage a university course on my onw.
Given the time constraints, what would you (search committee) want to see in one such presentation? The overall course structure? Assessment/project ideas?

I think they want to see how quickly you can dazzle them.  In particular, will your presentation skills be a credit to the department/position or not?  They may also want to determine if you can give/improve upon their standard service offerings (Game devel 101) as well as provide ideas for the next stage (201?).  Short of asking the committee for specifics, I would start by describing a goal between 101 and 201, and follow with a few techniques of how to achieve that goal.  (Disclaimer: I have never auditioned for such a job in academia, only in industry.)

Further, since you have an idea of the audience and goal, I would prepare twenty minutes or more of material (sectioned in ten minute bunches if it makes you more comfortable).  If you can't grab the audience within the first two or three minutes, the remainder won't matter (in my humble opinion).

My content area is biology, and our major biology education research journal recently published a nice overview on this (open-source reference at end). Hopefully the results are relevant for your field as well.

Make sure content is correct
Follow instructions (keep to time limit and topic)
Make the topic relevant (bring in a hot topic from research or news)
Involve the audience (have an activity or "clicker question")
Have teaching slides or use the board

I'd recommend trying to find a course (at the interviewing school or at a similar institution) that has an online syllabus so you can see how much is normally covered in a lecture. Then your first slide can be one that shows how you would cover the day's content, but places your 10 min talk in context. This is helpful if the "fun" part you want to do is in the middle of the imaginary lecture.
Then, pick something from the course that you think you can create an activity about. Can the audience develop something? Vote on an aspect of the code? Work in groups to find three common errors in a short piece of code? (I'm flailing around here, as game design is a mystery).
Build your lecture around that activity. Have the activity near the beginning. Plan on everything taking at least twice as long as you think.
Be enthusiastic.
Congratulations on the invite, and good luck!
Smith, M. K., Wenderoth, M. P., & Tyler, M. (2013). The Teaching Demonstration: What Faculty Expect and How to Prepare for This Aspect of the Job Interview. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(1), 12-18.

I think Adrienne's answer is quite good but I will add a few comments after recently being on the interviewing panel watching about 20 such sample lectures.
The goal is for them to see how well you can teach. Domain knowledge is important but if you cannot deliver it well then you will be a bad teacher...so they want to see how is your delivery.
I think it is unlikely they care about assessment at this stage (though that question could come up after your sample lecture). I believe it is really about seeing how well you can teach.
Adrienne's idea about activities supports the idea of active learning which general results in improved learning than the "stand and deliver" method. So, definitely do that.
The one breaking point I've seen in the past which can push you over the edge (in the good or bad way) is the panel asking themselves "Will our students understand this teacher?" It would help if you knew the level of the undergrads who would take this (first year? fourth year? overall quality of this school's students?) so you can target that level.
Watching other teachers is great but make sure you are watching the teacher which are actually getting the students to learn.
I've seen many colleagues (on the panels) make deciding comments like:

I think she teaches at too high a level, not a good fit
He used examples which were very easy to understand, our students would get that
She adapted very well when the projector failed and could jump to the board and continue the lesson

Understand that those observing you might or might not have a background in the topic. Assuming you will be teaching first year students, pick a concept which would normally be taught, ideally one which is not so easy for all students to understand, and show that you can make it very easy to understand. Activities are a great way to test for understanding.
Good luck!

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Using movie clips in a conference presentation
I'm a drafting a presentation for an upcoming conference. To illustrate some points I'd like to include some clips from well-known scifi movies about VR. Would this be considered "fair use"?
Could said powerpoint file be made available for download (which would include the movie clips I guess) afterwards?

Apart from ethical issues, a practical issue to consider is whether the room will have a sound system, and whether the computer you use for your presentation will be set up to use it.

The concept of fair use differs between different countries and you would need to take care of both your own local laws and the laws of the country in which the presentation is held. This can easily be a mess, and if I were you, I would try to avoid this. But in any case, at least for the download version of the slides, I would leave out the videos.

...and to prepare for the amusingly ubiquitous problem that the sound system will not work even when it is supposed to. Just saying something along the lines of "I'm sure many of you have seen X film, where blah happens – well, this isn't necessarily science fiction any more!"? might help keep the fluidity and continuity of the presentation. If the film clips do not serve an academic purpose, the interruption may not be warranted.

@Moriarty: Which, of course, requires that the part of the audience you don't want to lose has already seen film X. Personally, I find it rather annoying when I'm expected to have watched something in the cinema or on DVD when I usually just wait for one or two years until it turns up on free tv.

@O.R.Mapper Agreed. I rather enjoy it when a speaker slips in a sly reference where those who get it will chuckle quietly and those who don't are none the wiser, but one should not require the audience to have prior knowledge of a "pop culture" reference in order to follow the academic content of the presentation.

@Moriarty: Sure, when it's just a sidenote that doesn't need to be understood. I was rather thinking of movie content that is more "central" to the talk. (As an example, I think the futuristic gesture-based holo-GUI from Minority Report got quite some attention in the HCI community.)

Sound support is not essential as I'd like to talk and be heard over the video. Since the conference in question is CHI, I believe they will have something set up (how are they going to host Psy's concert/talk otherwise?). I am more concerned about their choice of VGA/DVI cables.

Let's just preface this with 'I am not a Lawyer' (I am a Sociologist interested in copyright and piracy).
Fair-Use in the U.S. supports educators using small amounts of copyrighted material for educational purposes, and this includes to peers for conferences and workshops, so long as that material was legally obtained.
Copyright (in the majority of cases) gets invoked at the point of distribution so putting those clips into a .ppt and then sticking it online is not protected as you're now distributing copyrighted material without permission.
I would use the clips live, and then put placeholder images in the slides for the upload. If clips are available from reputable hosting sites like YouTube or Vimeo you can always include a link in the slide. Technically in the U.S. this can be framed as second order copyright infringement under 'inducement' (i.e. you are inducing, or encouraging someone to access copyrighted material illicitly by providing a route to it).
However with all copyright it's a matter of enforcement, and more likely if the material is unlawfully available on a streaming site, the rights-holder will pursue the site, not the linker.

On an unrelated note, your avatar gave me a whack of nostalgia. I always preferred Academician Prokhor Zakharov which is kind of funny considering what I ended up doing.

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Improving conditions of a tenure-track job offer
I have recently been offered a tenure-track position in a very prestigious northern European university. I am currently a lecturer in a smaller UK university but I have six years of experience between my post-docs and appointment as a lecturer.
The level of appointment would be as a an Assistant Professor. Here, I am a "tenured" Senior Lecturer (which should be a bit higher), however being a non-intensive research university, there were an easier set of requirements. I feel more like a glorified post-doc with more teaching responsibilities than a full lecturer (but don't tell them that!). Indeed the level of research support is non-comparable. In the two years I have been here I have not had the possibility of supervising PhD students as there are no resources, beyond a few temporary post-docs I have been able to fund. Which is my main motivation for leaving (and Brexit).
Still, I feel the experience I have accrued should be recognised a bit more. Since the assistant professorship is also something they could be offering to a very good newly minted PhD or an early post-doc.
They say that "almost-always" a five-year tenure-track position results in a promotion to a tenured Associate Position. However my negotiating experience is really low, and coming from a Southern European background, all wages seem astronomical compared to what I was earning as a PhD back home.
My question is: how should I argue my case? Should I be asking for an earlier tenure time? It could be also counter-productive, for example if all my grant applications are rejected. If you have been in a similar situation, what did you ask for?

Do you know anyone at the target university which you could consult with?

Congratulations on your offer! It is not clear to me what you want to negotiate for. A higher salary? A faster tenure clock? More student support? Something else? I feel for any negotiating you should have clear goals, not just a vague feeling that you may "deserve more of something".

With regards to the tenure clock - I understand that in Northern Europe the tenure track should often be understood as a "maximum time" anyway. That is, if you come with more experience, it seems to be not uncommon that you can start the tenure process (much) earlier than your 5-year TT. I would start the discussion with how likely this is.

Thanks @xLeitix. Yes ideally I'd like to have more guarantees on the tenure process (scripta manent, verba volant) or a shorter time. This would quite a change for me as I'd need to learn a new language. I was looking for a nice way to communicate it without sounding too arrogant.

Consider what might happen if you negotiate a shorter than normal tenure period and then come up for tenure without having met the standard.  It is very likely in your interest to have the longer probationary period too improve your tenure case.

I don't think a general answer to this question is possible.  You need to personally consult with someone who knows you and who knows the university (system) you are negotiating with.

@TheWanderer I doubt that they will guarantee you tenure - that would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? The best one can usually hope for is a written document that nails down, as clearly as possible, the tenure requirements, and then you can decide for yourself how fast, or if at all, you will be able to satisfy them.

Maybe it would help if you told us what field you are in.  If you are a lab researcher, maybe it would be good to request some start-up funds.  Perhaps travel funds would be helpful.  Check if there's funding for your future grad students.  Look at the titles of other people at this institution -- see if there are some nuances in their titles.  Also check how burdened you will be with teaching.  I think I have heard of (occasionally) new hires' teaching duties being lightened.  See if you can reach out to a future colleague with some other question, and maybe during the conversation...

... this person will impart some useful information or advice.  Of course, check the benefits package carefully, including retirement benefits.

Your question, "how should I argue my case?" is unanswerable without a statement of what your "case" is. With any job offer, you state what you want, and the other party agrees or disagrees. A vague feeling that you should be "recognised a bit more" doesn't matter. What is it that would make you more likely to take the position, or make it more likely that, given the position, you'd be successful at it? Also: Congratulations!

Given your level of previous expertise, it would indeed be reasonable to ask for appointment at a higher level or a reduced tenure time. Sometimes a university would be able to offer an appointment at something like an associate professor level with a reduced tenure track period (anything from one to three years could be appropriate).
Try to ask someone at this university, maybe the head of the search committee, maybe your (future) head of department or division, or maybe the person you're negotiating with whether a higher-level appointment and/or reduced tenure track time would be possible. Point to your previous achievements and explain in which way they already show what would be required from you in a tenure evaluation (teaching, publications, obtained funding for post-docs, ...).
While it won't hurt asking for it, be prepared that depending on the actual context of this position they might not be able to offer a higher level appointment.

Shorter time to tenure only helps if you actually manage to hit all necessary conditions in the allotted time (assuming a "tenure or out" scenario).

@FábioDias Indeed, it's mostly useful if achievements on previous positions can also be taken into account for the tenure evaluation.

You didn't say what the job market is like Europe in your field. Typically, there is a lot of competition for tenure-track jobs at very prestigious universities. In light of that, my advice is to accept the job graciously (not grudgingly, and not giddily), and work at the university for at least a year before asking for anything better than what you were offered. That's because you might find that colleagues who are better qualified and more accomplished than you received offers with the same terms you've been offered, or perhaps worse terms, in which case you would seem to be unappreciative or worse, unrealistic. Of course, you might find that everybody haggled for better terms, and feel like a sucker, but it's better to err on the side of humility than in the direction of arrogance when starting a new job in academia.

I am not certain this is the right advice. I would guess one's negotiating position is stronger now than it would be in a year...

I'm not an expert on senior hires, but this almost has to be incorrect. The OP is giving up a tenured position to join the tenure track. This is taking a significant risk: the time for negotiation is now, when OP could potentially still say no, and keep his/her current, tenured job.

@AJK Two thoughts: 1) Often senior hires take up more resources, so are held to a higher standard when being considered, and 2) The OP is not currently happy or supported in their current tenured position. Just being tenured does not alone make a job appealing.


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Should I talk about myself while writing a letter of recommendation for a student?
First time writing a letter of recomendation. Never saw one about me. In this case I'm writing a letter for a PhD fellowship for an applicant who has not been my student.
I know this student personally, but we worked together only while writing the proposal.
As the title says, in this particular circumstance (if it matters), should the letter focus entirely on the student, or should I also talk about my research interests and how the student fits within them?

Is the PhD fellowship to work directly with you, or is it a general fellowship?

@NathanS. yes if awarded, that would be the case.

@TheWanderer I'd look at the instructions for the letter. In a case where you will work with the student on a specific project, they might specifically ask for you to discuss why you want to work with the student, or how the project will be beneficial. But, the instructions should specify this. If there aren't adequate instructions you may be able to task.

Only write about yourself if it clarifies why your opinion would be specifically relevant to judge the student.
The reference is about the student, not yourself. Where more information about yourself is required to understand what you wish to say about the student, provide it. Otherwise, leave it out. The recipient will have to make up their mind as to whether you are (for them) a suitable referee or not.

To add to this answer, it is common to say something like "Of the N students I've seen in category M over the last X years as a Y, this student is in the top Z%." That is, it is often useful to establish who you are and who you've interacted with in order to give more weight to your recommendation. (Especially for very top students.)

hmm, I'd stay that 'who' you are usually comes up automatically because its typical to include  a sentence that outlines your set of interactions with a particular student upon which you base your remarks (i.e., participated in upper level UG course I teach, worked on project in my lab, general UG advisor to students, or faculty mentor to student club....).


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Is job experience more valuable than taking more courses?
So I've been offered a job at a company specializing in my field of study. However, one of the things they ask is that I take one less course, so that I can spend more time working for them. This makes me hesitate,  as I feel someone looking at my transcripts may take my less full schedule to be a product of laziness. In your experience (as I am sure my situation is not unique), does this come across the wrong way? It seems like academic institutions in general seem to prefer that you take as many classes as possible. Is real work experience more valuable (to admissions officers, in my case) than just taking more classes?

Are you talking about admission to an undergraduate or graduate program?

Subject matter would be nice to know as it might impact the answer.

What is the nature of the program you're applying to, and what are you planning to do with that degree?  If it's an academia-oriented thing (e.g., research PhD) work experience may not be valued so much, but if it's an MA targeted at people going to get private-sector jobs, work experience may matter more, plus it may help you get a job after grad school.

@earthling Computer Programming

@NateEldredge In my personal situation, it would be undergraduate admission. However, I feel this question is pertinent to any student going through (or preparing to go through) college.

@BrenBarn  A Masters would be the graduate-level equivalent of what I am seeking. I thought a similar thing myself, that if anything, leaving college with a job already under my belt could provide a serious jump-start on getting a job after college. Then again, so could acquiring a degree from a top-notch university, which I may damage my chances of being accepted into.

Unfortunately, questions about undergraduate admissions are off-topic here, and graduate admissions are completely different.  You would probably do better to find somewhere else to ask your question.

If the "job experience provider" would write a good recommendation for you afterwards (surely you must also deserve it), this may matter more.
Unless you skip some very basic course that your future company sees as very useful for your work. For example, if the future company focuses on C++ development, a course with good marks in C++ programming may matter more than work in some company that required HTML/CSS only.
I would say, take that job but think well which course deserves dropping most of all.


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Selecting the relevant papers for a survey paper I have to write?
I have to write a paper as an assignment for one of the courses that I take in University.
The main outcome of this lecture is having a good final paper in the end. As we are Masters students, the paper that I am going to write resembles more a survey paper in a given topic, rather than a research paper presented by the authors of a specific research.
I have my topic assigned already. I have done my literature search and organized all the papers that I want to use. Unfortunately, at this point I am not that deep into the topic. But, everything I read seems to me like relevant for the topic, and somehow useful.
I have had difficulties with a similar situation before. As I was trying to include as much as possible relevant material to the survey paper, to make is complete. But in the end I was blamed that the paper loses its coherence.
Now I am stuck. In fact I am reluctant, because reading multiple papers, multiple times, writing them and then getting bad remarks does not feel nice.
What criteria should I use to filter my papers all over again, and what approach should I use when writing a survey paper.

You should choose a thesis to defend/discuss and organize the papers around this idea.

The answer may differ from field to field.
First of all ask yourself "What is the central question" or the goal of you paper?
Do you want to give an overview on all aspects of the theory / concept? Or is it more about the central aspect of the theory / concept and extensions / applications are not that interesting? Or something else?
Then think about the story you want to tell. If its about the theory itself you might want to talk about the development of the theory, central aspects, proofs, and maybe some applications or extensions at the end.
If you want to give a general overview, try to create groups, are there some main movements, aspects, fields of application? Where are the links between these things?
Then select your paper according to this "central story".
While writing think about the audience of you paper, which concepts are common knowledge? Which are important to explain? Which depth of information is appropriate?
And, of course, try to get more feedback: Read the feedback of your old paper, then read your paper and try to find the flaws. Ask the person who graded you to give you some advice. Read some paper of your fellow students which got good marks, find out what you like about them.
in short:
1. Identify the central question of your paper
2. Create a structure / central story
3. Think about the audience
4. Fill the structure, create links between your sections.

To add to Frederick's excellent answer, after you have settled on your central question/goal/thesis AND have created at least a rough draft of your paper, use the 'So what?' method. For every section, idea, and paragraph, ask yourself "So what?". Why does this need to be here? What purpose does this serve? would the narrative still flow without this piece? Don't automatically throw it out if you cannot answer the questions immediately, but use this as a way to assess what you have written, find the weak spots, and begin to understand how to improve them. This also helps weed out irrelevant material, so that you can avoid a bloated, incoherent paper.


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Can I suggest certain proofreading software in article review?
The questions that deal with language errors during peer-review
(1
2 to name a few)
typically recommend suggesting the authors seek proofreading help from a person who is proficient in English.
From my experience, it feels that most non-native speakers have no connection to such a person, and so their manuscript will keep the very same errors and get some more.
Luckily, quite a few of the language errors can be eliminated using proofreading software like grammarly or languagetool.
My question is whether it is acceptable to suggest these tools in the review?  How explicit can the recommendation be ("The authors should use proofreading software" vs "I'd suggest the authors to use grammarly.com")?
My apologies for the language errors! :)

Yes.   This is a good suggestion.   I have the same problem in my area.  Unfortunately, it seems that most reviewers have started to ignore writing errors unless these errors make the paper completely unreadable.

As a reviewer, you can only suggest, not insist. A recommendation to use proofreading software is stronger when it comes with personal experience. This is particularly important since general purpose tools do not always work well with technical language. You havee been chosen to be a reviewer because you are deemed to understand the field and obviously, you tried out these tools.
Keep in mind that some institutions are not well funded and asking someone to spend a few hundred dollars on software can be very frustrating to the authors, but it can also allow an author to petition his/her institution for getting tools they need.

The two things I referenced are quite powerful at no cost.  I mean, languagetool is free and open-source, and grammarly has a free tier.  Some people avoid using grammarly because of privacy concerns though.

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Author's last name is misspelled online but not in the PDF. How do I cite the paper?
When checking the 'References' section of my manuscript, I noticed that the last name of one of the authors of one paper has a typo.  Searching for the source of the typo led me to the paper's page on the journal's website which has the very same typo.  From there it propagated through 'Export Citation' to my bibliography.  In the PDF, the last name is spelled correctly.
My question is, should I keep the citation as it is (with the typo), or should I correct the typo?
If that matters, this is the paper in question.  The typo is in the last author's name.

It's better to use the correct name, or at least be consistent. For example, you might have to cite multiple papers involving the same author, and you should use the same name in all of them in the bibliography. In your case the last name as in the PDF should be used, note that the article is from 1990 and predates the online version. This is an error on the journal's website.

Split the difference, and combine elements from both spellings to make a third one. ;-)

@Mentalist, there are citing papers that do not list the misspelled last name among the authors at all :)

I would add a parenthetical note to the citation if the mis-spelling is confusing enough. "(This author's name is mis-spelled as "..." on-line at www.wherever.com)". Also let the author know so they can get the website corrected.

@Mentalist Bu&#382ek is the only reasonable spelling in this digital day and age.

You should use the actual name which appears correctly in the paper. You should also contact the journal so that they can correct this so that people searching for the paper will be able to find it more easily.
That the name is rendered incorrectly on the website of the journal is irrelevant. Perpetuating the mistake that was made during the (presumably automated) process of extracting author information to an electronic database will only add to the confusion. If you wish, you can add an explanatory note to the reference saying something to the effect of "misspelled as 'Buek' in the journal's online catalogue".

I'm not an expert but it seems to me another reason to use the correct name is in the hopes that the journal will correct the web site and then all citations that use the correct name will continue to be correct and helpful, whereas any citations that used the incorrect name could become confusing and require fixing after the fact.

I should be able to find the paper with the information in your citation. Your citation should also be factually correct.
Check whether you can find the paper without problems using the correct name. If you can't and need the misspelled name to find the paper, I would add ("John Smith, misspelled as John Smythe") or similar in the citation.
In case of a Russian author with multiple different transliterations, you might mention and explain this as well.

Well, the article can be referenced via journal-volume-page data which can be followed unambiguously.  Thus, misspelling one author's surname makes little difference (practically). I've never seen similar explanations in bibliographies in physics, so I wanted to choose one spelling.

Are you sure you have it right. It seems to be consistently Buek online over several papers. The name seems to be an Anglicization of V. Bužek, a Slovak name, to avoid the diacritical.
If this is correct you could leave it as is, or list the name as either  Bužek(Buek) or Buek(Bužek), to make it clear.
An online search on "V. Buek, physics" suggests the source of confusion.
I haven't done a deep dive, so it is possible that there are two people here, but the subfield, at least seems to point to one person.

Oh, yes, absolutely, this is a rather big name in quantum optics.  Here's his scholar page https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m2hSZWQAAAAJ&hl=en.  The error is likely from the journal's inability to deal with Unicode properly.

This is not Anglicization of the name Bužek any more than "Gdel" is an Anglicization of Gödel or "Lvy" an Anglicization of Lévy.

All eight papers listed with "V. Buek" on APS' website have "Bužek" in the PDFs. It seems clear that this is just an error on the website.

What are examples of actual Anglicization that removes a whole letter?

@justhalf There actually might be some when you consider eastern european slavic languages that come with a lot of sz/cz combinations (e.g. szczesik) that might be shortened to c in English, e.g. scesik

@justhalf Johan --> John

@arne: this would be probably only in the case someone wants to actually change their legal name. I doubt that someone called Szczesik would willingly "anglicize" their name to scesik. I rather assume that "anglicize" means "get rid of the diacritics" (Frédéric → Frederic, çàùrtlé → caurtle, ...)

AFAIK many old systems cannot handle ž and will simply drop it

Yes, that is just some crappy software dropping characters it cannot render. I frequently encounter this when trying to fill PDF forms with Okular. It drops many characters with diacritics when saving or printing the PDF.

It's not anglicization, but ASCIIicization.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

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Allowing preprints boosts the impact factor – was this argument ever (prominently) made?
Background
The impact factor is a journal metric that rewards citations in the first two years after publication (or five in some flavours).
For better or worse, this metric has some importance and thus there is some incentive for journals to increase it.
Some journals have been accused of artificially inflating it.
If a preprint of a paper was available a considerable time before publication, this increases the chance for citations within the first two years:

The paper can already be cited shortly after publication as related work, corroborating evidence, etc., whereas without a preprint the citing authors would not even have known about the paper in time.
Work sparked by the paper gets a head start to be finished and published within the two-year span.
Authors that would not have access to the paper otherwise can cite the paper.

Thus, allowing preprints has a positive effect on the impact factor of a journal, the only question is how much.
Some other journal metrics are similarly effected, but the impact factor is arguably the most prominent one.
Question
Has the link between allowing preprints and boosting the impact factor (or other journal metrics) ever been prominently made? Alternatively, was it prominently opposed? For example:

Have any journals, editors, or other people in charge stated improving journal metrics as a motivation for allowing preprints?
Have prominent advocates of preprints used this argument?
Is there any evidence that journals allowing preprints benefit from this move in terms of metrics? (Eliminating the effect of other trends and factors of course.)

There is an argument that journals lose citations to preprint servers, which would affect impact factors negatively. (Of course, that may be offset by an increased number of follow-up works appearing within the two-year window, so it doesn't tell us much about the net effect.) That is a post on the official blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, by the way, if that counts as "prominently opposed".

@Anyon: I would consider that an answer to my question. (I think that article is making a mountain of what is at worst molehill by its own account, where less than 1% of the citations are affected in the chosen example, but that would not invalidate the respective answer.)

How do citations to preprints count in this? Do they get added to the journal citations? Does it matter for this whether the paper/preprints citing them get updated with the journal reference? Do citations from papers/preprints that appear before the journal publication of the paper being cited count?

@Kvothe I'd encourage you to post that as a standalone question.


text:
Can I predict the fate of my manuscript (from information other than a decision letter)?
On this site we often get questions along the lines of:

I submitted my manuscript to a journal. X happened. Does this indicate that my manuscript is about to be rejected/accepted?

Here X is everything but a final decision letter, for example:

a specific sequence of statuses in the editorial management system,
the duration of a particular stage of the editorial process,
a request for a revision,
some editorial communication.

Is it generally possible to divine the fate of a manuscript from such events? If not, what are some relevant exceptions to consider?
This is half of a canonical Q&A acting as a dedicated duplicate target for a certain type of question whose answers often boil down to the same point. I don’t claim that all the specific questions are without value as they can provide specific insights. However, I think that addressing this problem on a more general level can be helpful as well.

Short answer: take a coin, heads is accepted tails not, toss coin, catch & look. Longer answer:  do this 50 times...

Request for a revision usually means high chance of acceptance, the duration of any stage of the editorial process means nothing at all, as well as "the sequence of statuses" (unless "rejected" is one of them). Some editorial communication means something :-).

Summary
There is no way of deducing the fate of your manuscript with reasonable certainty except a decision letter that says so. In particular, if your manuscript is certain to be rejected, there is no reason for the journal to spend further time on it instead of immediately telling you.
Main Argument
In the vast majority of cases, you can apply the following line of thought:
The point of almost the entire editorial process is to find out whether your manuscript shall be accepted by the journal (or whether it has the potential to be accepted after modifications).
If at any time the editors decide that your manuscript is or is not suitable, the process is over.
At this point, there is no reason to delay informing you about this decision.
In particular, after rejection has been decided, it would be a waste to spend any further resources on this manuscript, such as further reviews or editorial assessment¹.
Therefore if your manuscript has been accepted or rejected, you will get to know this immediately.
From another perspective, you can always ask yourself: If the fate of my manuscript were already certain, would the journal act as it does?
Revisions
Similar thoughts apply to requests for revision.
If the editors think a revision is impossible, they will not invite you to submit a revised version, as this revision would have to be assessed and thus waste resources if it already is clear that the manuscript cannot be accepted.
In fact, journals rather tend to phrase rejections overly strongly to avoid authors engaging in futile rebuttals, resubmissions, etc.
Journals have nothing to gain from hiding a negative assessment between the lines.
For example, if the editors think that acceptance of your manuscript is possible but requires a specific change, it would be foolish not to tell you this, lest you waste journal resources with a submission that does not make this specific change.
On the other hand, if the editors decided that they probably want your manuscript, it would be foolish to scare you away – though the editors may put a strong emphasis on changes they think are possible and necessary.
Exceptions and Similar
You have to judge yourself whether they apply to your case or the information benefits you:

The one thing that needs to happen between the decision and letting you know is the preparation of the decision letter, which particularly includes phrasing the rationale for a rejection or the conditions of a potential acceptance.
In many cases, this is a matter of minutes as it only requires the editor to combine a few canned sentences or the reviews already do a good job at explaining the problems of the manuscript or the changes needed.
But even if the editor spends effort on writing the decision letter, the best time to do this is right after the decision, as they are already focused on your manuscript.
For these reasons, the preparation of the decision letter is a very short stage, and moreover, most editorial systems do not inform you about it anyway.
Still, if you see this stage without any previous peer review, you can be rather certain that you are facing a desk reject.
However, it could also be that the editor wants you to perform certain changes to the manuscript before peer review.
Either way, once your manuscript entered this stage, you will get to know its fate very soon.

Certain events allow you a better estimate of your manuscript’s chances, but never a definite answer (for the aforementioned main argument):
For example, for some journals, making it to peer review is a major hurdle, and if your manuscript passed it, the chances of your manuscript considerably increase.
Similarly, if a manuscript goes from peer review to editorial decision and then back to peer review, this suggests that the reviewers have conflicting opinions about your manuscript, which may be good or bad news, depending on your a priori expectation of acceptance.
Also, there can be other reasons for a return to peer review, such as one of the reviews containing no valuable information at all, or all reviewers stating that they cannot evaluate a crucial part of the manuscript.

The editors or reviewers intentionally delay your manuscript, e.g., because of a grudge against you.
This is hopefully very rare, but even if this happens, you will usually only get to suspect this a posteriori, if at all.
If you suspected this a priori, you probably should not have submitted to that journal in the first place (or vetoed that editor).

¹ If those reviews have a potential of swaying the decision, it was not a decision in the sense of this answer.

If your manuscript goes directly from Submitted to journal to Decision in progress, skipping peer review entirely, then that's a bad sign and implies a desk rejection. There are rare papers that go directly to acceptance (such as the Watson & Crick paper that described the structure of DNA), but they are rare. It's also possible that your paper cannot be reviewed for whatever reason - e.g. if you submitted the wrong figure, corrupted source files, etc.
Aside from this case, there's no way to tell without the decision letter. Certain other events could give you some indication, but any predictive power is very weak, and there will remain a good (>30%) chance that all three decisions are still possible.
Edit: there is one exception to the above. If your editor sends you reviewer comments before a decision, and if those comments are unanimous in their recommendation, then it is highly probable that that recommendation will also be the decision. It's possible in theory that editors will accept a paper that reviewers recommend reject for, or vice versa; but the great bulk of the time they will follow the reviewers' recommendation.

One might add that Watson & Crick's paper was in 1953, almost 70 years ago. I wonder if there are more recent examples.

I think the conclusions of Watson & Crick were already widely known prior to submission. The case is non-typical, as is the action of the editor, as you say.

@lighthousekeeper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/82764/paper-accepted-by-a-journal-without-comments

I've had a short paper accepted without review - but the editor was an expert in the area.


text:
How to deal with inappropriate comments during interviews for academic positions?
My friend told me this story that happened to him a few month ago during an interview for an assistant professor position in a north-american university:

I was on a campus tour as a part of a full-day interview program and was accompanied by two members from the selection committee: the department head and one of the senior professors (in his mid-50's). Everything was normal and they were showing me the facilities each building has etc. Now, we are at the gym and out of nowhere the senior professors tells me while pointing at the climbing wall:

This climbing wall is the best place to watch young girls, I like doing that when I come to the gym.

The department head heard him and shushed him right away. He also told him to lower his voice otherwise someone will hear him and he might get in trouble (or something along this line). Honestly, I didn't know how to react, so I just kept quite and didn't comment. It still bothers me so much that I didn't respond to make him know how inappropriate his comment is.

My question has two parts:

Should he try to reach out to someone at the university (and who is this person?) to let them know what one of their professors who deals daily with female students said?
How should anyone react to such comments given that this person is on the selection committee? I know this might be a Workplace question, but I felt it fits here given these circumstances.

My first thought, honestly, was that this was a bizarre test to see what your friend's reaction would be.

Although the comment was absolutely inappropriate, it wasn't directed toward your friend and had nothing to do with the selection process.
The department chair took notice of the comment in your friend's presence.  We could hope the department chair will have taken appropriate action.
I think that's sufficient, especially since your friend is a candidate for a position.  If your friend believes he or she must do something further, your friend could write to the department chair, saying something like, "I couldn't help but hear Professor X's comment.  Have any students complained about his comments or demeanor?  Should I report his remark, and to whom?"  That puts the department chair on notice that you took notice, didn't like it, and are prepared to go further.

This makes it seem like this was the first occurrence in the head's presence, in which case they handled it appropriately; but my reading of the story makes it seem much more like this is a known behavior that the head attempts to hide ("shushed him right away" rather than being taken aback and/or clarifying, or awkwardly laughing it off). I lean toward agreeing that the asker should ignore this, but I think the way you phrase it minimizes the fact that by doing so the asker is making a moral compromise. The campus is probably filled with many people that did the same thing.

@Turch  The asker is, or was at the time, a visitor with know way of knowing whether this was part of a pattern of behavior.  If hired, he or she will have an opportunity to observe and, if necessary, act from the position of a member of the faculty. If Professor X's behavior is as egregious as you may fear, there will be complaints from the students themselves.  Of course, the asker could act now, and I offered a suggestion.

This comment is clearly inappropriate for a job interview situation, but in this situation the best response is to ignore it or change the subject.
The gym is a public place.  In most locations, there is no right to privacy in public places.  Anyone can watch anybody at the gym.
If you object to "watching young girls," I would point out that this is perfectly normal.  According to Wikipedia, about 10 million people watch episodes of "The Batchelor," which is apparently a show about women of the same age you would see in a college gym.  (I don't have a TV.)  I'm pretty sure nearly all of those 10 million people also deal daily with females, without any difficulty.
The idea that watching certain people will lead to sexual misconduct is wrong and paranoid.

I think I have to disagree, at least a bit.  People on television are being paid to be watched.  Undergraduate women are not, most especially by someone who may have the power of grades over them.  Brown's rule:  You can lust after girls, you can lust after boys, but you can never lust after students.

However, you are absolutely correct that "The idea that watching certain people will lead to sexual misconduct is wrong and paranoid."  Th' thing is, the undergraduate women, and men, "deserve some space."

@BobBrown I personally find it rather creepy, but legally, it's perfectly fine to watch someone when they're in public. If they don't want to be watched they need to go to another place. See: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/247/what-are-the-legal-repercussions-of-taking-a-strangers-picture-in-public

@Allure  Professors should not be creepy.  A few years ago I asked a woman student what her T-shirt said.  (The message was in decorative letters that were hard to read.)  She pointed at her chest and I said, "Well, yeah, but it's hard to read and I can't stare there!"  She laughed.

Legality isn't the only issue.  Lots of things are legal, but also frowned upon by employers and can result in disciplinary action.

There was some research with special glasses to find out where men looked in social situations... obvious result chest, rear.. etc But then they put the glasses on the ladies... And they were all checking out the "lunch-box" of the men... So both sides do it....

@SolarMike There's clearly a difference between "checking out the lunch-box", which you do automatically and without even noticing and climbing a wall to watch people doing sports.

@sgf Funny, I read the comment as the the young women climbing the wall, not the professor.

I'm going to just respond to the easier first half of the question.  If this is in the US, every university has clearly designated "Title IX" officers whose job description is exactly to deal with this kind of complaint.  The name and contact info of the Title IX officers should be easy to find via google.  It seems unlikely to me that this remark will result in any serious action, given the typical response to much more serious allegations, but that office will know whether there have been other complaints and can keep this complaint in mind if there are further complaints in the future.

I do not see how this could be a Title IX violation.  Inappropriate, but not illegal.

If it was part of a larger pattern of comments it could be a title IX violation.  At any rate, that's clearly the most appropriate person to report to if there's a report to be made.

As the top of the post says « north american univerity » then it must be in the US...

@SolarMike: Researcher Discovers Canada, Mexico, And Other Nations Are In North America! Leading Scientists Stunned!!!

@BobJarvis do you think you should include the dependent territories as well?

Interviewing for a job is a special skill. One must ask questions that elicit useful information and ensure that the candidate is talking most of the time, not the interviewer.
Neither thing tends to happen when academics conduct these interviews. They all believe they are fascinating and incredibly good at everything.
The inappropriateness you report is appalling, but it is just another corollary of academics doing all sorts of management chores they are neither trained for nor good at.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


text:
Is it accepted/common to answer factually inaccurate reviewer comments in case of rejection?
I recently got a paper rejected. I do not plan on appealing, I definitely see that some elements of the paper need improvements.
Nevertheless, some of the comments from one reviewer are factually inaccurate.
For example, I cite Paper A, where claim X is made. This reviewer says (repeatedly, in three different comments) that

The author [me] claims X without proof and does not cite a reference

There are also other inaccuracies from the same reviewer.
Would it be appropriate to write to the editor to answer this kind of factually inaccurate statement?

Even though you will not appeal, are you still going to write any response to the reviewers?

Which field was the paper about?

@ÉbeIsaac I appreciate answers also from other fields, to get a broader perspective, but if needed, I'm from engineering.

Being an editor is in my field often volunteer work. The number of articles that need to be processed is often very large. So I suggest you look at this from the position of the editor: is the added workload worth the information (my guess would be: probably not).

@Federico: of course I haven't read your paper.  Do you clearly state that X is claimed in A? Otherwise,  the referee's comment is warranted.

@MartinArgerami I see your point and I will be sure to triple check before doing anything.

What you are suggesting sounds like a very honorable course of action to me. You are simply offering the editor feedback on the quality of service you (and the journal) received from the referee, which they can decide to pay attention to or ignore, at their discretion. Unless your field has some very strange norms of behavior/etiquette that differ markedly than mine (math), I see this as completely acceptable, and, while not exactly common, certainly not unheard of.
The only other advice I would offer is to take care that your feedback to the editor is offered in a professional manner, namely:

Be polite and respectful, and as concise as possible.
Make sure to mention that you are not asking for a re-evaluation of the paper at this time, due to the flaws you see in it yourself that are unrelated to your criticism and that you would like to work on correcting.
Explain that you are offering the feedback in the hope that it may be useful but are not asking for or expecting any action to be taken. When emailing busy people in such cases, I often include in the subject line the parenthetical phrase "(no action necessary)" or "(no reply necessary)".
Finally, make sure that the criticism you are offering is factually sound.

By the way, my answer that rebutting part of the referee's comments is acceptable would not be different if you were in fact interested in having the paper re-evaluated, though of course items 2 and 3 in the list above would then need to be modified accordingly.

Given that you are not expecting any change in the resulting rejection, and that this kind of inaccuracy happens all the time, it would seem inappropriate to contact the editor about this. Even though slightly annoying, it is very normal (at least in some subfields of CS) that some reviewers miss a few details (and, yes, sometimes, a single reference is a detail) and have to be more or less directly corrected in a response to reviewers.
If you still write any response to the reviewers, a simple statement in the answer to the reviewers such as

The claim X is based upon reference #.

should suffice. Leave it to the reviewers to figure that the reference was there all the time and they just didn't notice it. Or leave it to them to imagine it is one of the improvements you introduced and be happy about it. I would not make any further effort highlighting the reviewer's mistake, given that nothing hinges on your proving your paper right if you are not trying to appeal the rejection.
You might want to have a look as to whether you can reword the one sentence with the reference, just in case the respective reviewer could have reasonably interpreted the reference to be something else than the source/proof of claim X. Of course, be careful about this, because it brings the danger of making the sentence misleading to other readers who did not have any trouble interpreting the current version as it was intended to.


text:
Must publicly funded research in the EU be published as open access by law?
I remember reading a while ago that there was a proposal going around in the European Parliament. If I remember correctly, it said that all publicly funded research should be publicly accessible.
Did the proposal pass? Is it in effect? What are the exact requirements? (e.g. "green" vs "gold" open access)

Yes, «all scientific articles in Europe must be freely accessible as of 2020» (emphasis added to the original). Not just those funded by the EU.
This was decided by the EU Council of May 2016 under the presidency of Netherlands. The Council holds legislative power together with the Parliament.
However, it's just a political decision for now. It's not a directive, let alone a regulation, so it's not directly enforced. The Commission is supposed to make legislative proposals to make it happen. This is the actual decision:

AGREES to further promote the mainstreaming of open access to
  scientific publications by continuing to support a transition to
  immediate open access as the default by 2020, using the various models
  possible and in a cost-effective way, without embargoes or with as
  short as possible embargoes, and without financial and legal barriers,
  taking into account the diversity in research systems and disciplines,
  and that open access to scientific publications should be achieved in
  full observance of the principle that no researcher should be
  prevented from publishing; INVITES the Commission, Member States and
  relevant stakeholders, including research funding organisations, to
  catalyse this transition; and STRESSES the importance of clarity in
  scientific publishing agreements.

@NajibIdrissi "must" is from a quotation. The contradiction is not my own doing. :)

@NajibIdrissi but it's supposed to be by 2020. That depends on the Commission. In fact see this article from two days ago: «Smits will present his OA plans this Summer. In this plan for the European Commission he will have to indicate how the EU is going to meet the goal, set by the European ministers, of 100% OA in 2020» https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/05/open-access-negotiators-prepare-for-a-future-without-publishers/

Gold open access is the actual open access, i.e. where you pay the publisher to make it open access.
Green open access is when you or your institution make available an "author's copy" or preprint (usually the camera ready version without the copyright statement).
Green open access satisfies the EU requirements. However some publishers, especially in the case of journals, have an embargo period before which the author's copy cannot be published online in your university's repository. I think this case might require the payment of open access fees if the research was funded by the EU.

Gold open access is the actual open access — No, if anything, diamond open access is "THE" open access, where neither authors nor readers have to pay to use the journal, and the minimal journal expenses are supported by donations and volunteer effort.


text:
What advantages do libraries offer over the internet for doing a literature survey in Mathematics or CS
Currently my literature surveys do not involve trips to the library and I am wondering if I am missing out on something important. What sort of material/knowledge can the library provide that I would miss on google scholar.
Thanks

Perhaps a meeting with a CS librarian, then you'll find out why Google Scholar is not a good tool at all.

Aside from the obvious advantage of having a research librarian on-staff, I find that when in a physical library, I will often make serendipitous discoveries while wandering the stacks in search of that perfect book or article.

@Penguin_Knight: Say what now?  Google Scholar is a fantastic tool!  But like every other tool, it's stupid to rely on it exclusively.

@JeffE, I do respect your comment. I guess it depends on how we evaluate a tool. The librarians I talked to (n=3) all advised against using Google Scholar as if it is a journal database because the different indexing and searching mechanisms. That's where I come from when leaving the comment above. If one wants to, say, see what's going on out there generally, I guess Google Scholar is fine(?).

Google Scholar isn't a good tool for systematic searches or anything, but that doesn't make it useless. It might only have 85% of the things you want to read, but it's easily the fastest way to find that 85% when you have a title...

I almost forgot what the library is. I can find everything online either by google or by surfing different digital libraries.

In addition to the generalist databases Scopus and Web of Knowledge, maths has two other excellent online tools: Zentralblatt and Mathscinet (the latter containing also short article reviews). So, Google Scholar is far, far from being the only resource available. CS is probably a different kettle of fish, since most material is in conferences, but there are other subject-specific databases (DBLP for instance).

Almost none.
I recently wrote a research survey, while on sabbatical at an institution without a physical library, but with extensive electronic subscriptions.
I never missed having physical library access, even for papers dating back to the 1840s.  (In fact, the historical literature was more likely to be freely available than papers from the 1980s.)  Occasionally I had to use my home university's VPN to get access to a different subset of the electronic literature, and there were one or two books that I had to download via bittor—sorry, that I had to borrow from colleagues down the hall.  Yeah, that's it.

I strongly concur, with some exceptions. Positive: journal volumes are no longer checked out, needing to be recalled and waited-upon a week or two. One doesn't need to stand at the photocopier... The negative: missing pieces are conference proceedings appearing as one-off books, that very often require physical access. MathSciNet is better than Google Scholar, for my purposes, though it is imperfect.

I'd have said that my "trips to the library" are usually electronic rather than physical. However, sometimes (rare, but happens) physical trips allow to search (electronic) databases that are accessible only from few computers there (and not via VPN).

My situation is different from JeffE's. I had been looking for a couple of old CS books (in automata and switching circuit theory) published in 1960's. I finally found them in an institue library. According to the librarian there, the two books I wanted to borrow had not been checked out for at least two decades.
This is just me. My research area is not very active. I wanted to find info about what was done in those books which were not cited in modern literatures. I knew the existence of the books because I saw them when I was a graduate student in 1970's.
If your research area is modern and active, I guess you don't need to go to the library. Internet would be good enough. By the way, my personal experience is that Google is sometimes better than Google Scholar.
A side note. My feeling of reading books in the library is different from staring at the computer screen.

Don't assume that a library is a building. Libraries provide the funding and infrastructure that lets you access online journals and databases, just as they used to provide you with hardcopies and card catalogs. If you think that Google scholar provides the same degree of access you are sorely mistaken. And no, I am not a librarian, but I am very grateful that I have access to a good library.
Now, the question of whether libraries should be forced to pay for access to journals is another question.

Most things can be found online, that's for sure. But the main problem is that we tend to stay in "our neighbourhood" because of that: we can only find what we are looking for while searching online resources.
If in another field researchers use a different wording for the same objects, we will never know because it is very hard to browse a large amount of papers very quickly online.
The interest of going in a library is that it is possible to crawl very quickly amongst dozens of papers from other fields, just looking for "oh, this curve looks just like mine" or "wow, but I know this equation". This way, with luck and persistence, it is possible to find new connections and/or new way of thinking about a problem.

The interest of going in a library is that it is possible to crawl very quickly amongst dozens of papers from other fields Can you elaborate?  Whenever I physically go to the library (fairly often), I almost never venture outside my field.  I am much more likely to find things from other fields with online searches.

@Kimball It is really about being proactive looking in other fields. For instance, if you work in game theory, you may crawl entire collections of microeconomy journals. It is far more efficient to do it by hand than downloading and browsing pdfs. At least I find it more efficient.

Library may allow you to access generally online resources behind the paywall.
In other words, while using printed material instead of online resources does not bring much benefit, some online resources (like scientific journals) are often paid, and you may need a library computer to get access to them. This is one of the reasons why you still may need to go to the library.
Of course, this is university dependent.

The advantages really depend on:

your skills with search engines,
the talent of your librarian.

The  fact that you are only mentioning Google Scholar may suggest that you may extend your skills to other media. One single person is often affected by biases in his search. A librarian, who has experience, knows a lot of sources (some not public), has experience with many tools and more importantly, can reformulate a question with less domain-related biaises.

A good library has subscriptions.  Even though I am retired and 500 miles away from my universities's library buildings, these subscriptions are invaluable.  (I can access them by Internet, of course.)
So: unless you intend to pirate everything you need, your library will be invaluable to you, too.

Physical sources are more trustful; you can check the authenticity of the information they hold since the author is always named, and so is the house of publication. All what is needed for the entire reference is shown at the beginning of the physical work; whereas, the electronic source is usually not authentic; the author can be unnamed, the house and the year of publication can be dropped, etc. additionally, reading a printed material is safer for the reader's eyes and nerves than reading on screen; the latter is evidently harmful.


text:
Alternative ways to use lecture time when only one quarter of the students can attend?
In the upcoming semester, we are going to organise and hold a beginner’s lecture with some peculiar restrictions (due to the COVID-19 crisis):

We can use a lecture hall at two 90-minute slots per week (on consecutive days), which is the time normally allotted to lectures in this course.

We can only admit fifty of roughly two-hundred students to the lecture hall at the same time. We expect that by the middle of the semester, half of those students will be gone (as they will have realised that they chose the wrong field of study). Attendance will rotate biweekly and later weekly.

Whatever happens in the lecture hall can be recorded and shared as a video with the rest of the students afterwards. Live streaming and taking live questions from remote viewers will not be possible.

Exercise sessions will happen in regular small groups.

We can use an existing video lecture on the topic.

The lecture features a considerable amount of experiments, many of which are more instructive live than on video. However, these experiments take up less than one quarter of the total time.

We are currently considering three options on how to hold this lecture:

Perform a regular lecture in the lecture hall, record it, and distribute it.

Use the existing (or a new) online lecture. Use the attendance session to perform a Q&A session for those who attend (similar to a flipped classroom).

Use an online lecture. Use the attendance sessions in the lecture hall to show and discuss selected experiments. Use the remaining time to hold a Q&A session (as above). Repeat each attendance session four times.

My question is: Is there any other reasonable option that we are missing?
This question is not about which option (listed or new) is better in our situation. This is also not about the pros and cons of the listed options. We are aware that this depends on a lot of further factors, which we have to consider these and make a decision ourselves. The point of asking is that we really consider all the options.
I am aware of the question: Efficient use of the class time when all lectures are already on Youtube.
However, the situation is somewhat different since the attendance time is longer and there appear to be no separate exercise sessions.

Just a note on culture: In the US, any lecture that regularly lost half its students would be considered such a failure that it would never be offered again - in part because no student would be willing to take the risk of studying that subject.

@AlexanderWoo: In the US, studying costs a considerable amount of money, usually has a selective admission; students are considered (to some extent) customers, and do not choose a field when starting to study. In Germany (where this happens) and in this field, studying is essentially free to everybody with basic education requirements and this is one way for universities (and students) to find out who is really suited for studying the subject (see e.g., this answer of mine). Ironically, most of the students who quit do so because of other lectures in that programme.

Regarding the culture issue: France looks similar to Germany - in my M2 year where we had to pick M courses out of N we were encouraged by the teachers to try out the first few lectures of as many of the N as feasible before choosing which to settle on.

@AlexanderWoo: I disagree with this take, at my US institution it is normal for students to sign up for significantly more credits than they actually plan on taking, to 1. reserve a spot in classes with limited enrollment, and 2. To allow them to "feel out" classes before committing to a certain number of them for the semester. Especially for electives which sound (and are) very fun, but which end up requiring a large amount of work, a 50% drop rate before the official drop date is not unheard of.

Consider both the "lecture" and lab (small section) times together in any solution along with the online stuff. You may be able to find more options if you think about it as one thing.

@AlexanderWoo: Also disagree from the U.S. community college STEM perspective, where the majority of students can't do 8th grade algebra. The loss rate in many courses throughout the system is 50%, with a total 20% graduation rate on average.

Regardless of your admissions policies or funding model, if you have a 50% drop rate you should be very concerned about what is happening in your classroom.

I would offer an answer which actually works under the assumption that your restriction may not be as hard as you think (should be a comment, but too long).

Live streaming is possible! I can't see under what circumstances it is not possible to do live streaming. Bring a laptop to the lecture (you probably do that anyway) and point the webcam to where you are lecturing and do live-streaming with some platform of your choice (in addition to the recording of the lecture). It's very simple to do, the quality will probably be much worse than the official recording, but some students will still appreciate the live stream (especially if they can watch a high quality recording afterwards).

What is the benefit for students? The students have to rewatch 3 hours of lecture per week! That's a lot of stuff and a lot of time lonely in front of a screen. If they attended a live lecture it's more engaging. If they did not get something in the live stream (e.g. due to low video or audio quality), the can specifically jump to the time in the lecture which is huge time-saver.

Interaction is possible! Create a chat room for the lecture and include a chat window in the live-stream. (You may use a chat where the students may choose to anonymous to lower the bar for questions.) This is also beneficial for student who are present: What can happen is that students ask questions in the chat and other students chime in and answer the question before the lecturer even notice the question.

I have to add: All this above is based on a lecture I held last semester. The benefits have be reported by the students exactly as I described them. The chat worked out perfectly! Student where pretty active there - they did not only ask questions and answer them, but also posted memes they created for the lecture. I was impressed.

Why could live streaming be a problem? I don't know. I would be very surprised if there would be no internet connection (I used our eduroam and this worked fine for streaming in HD).

What about privacy? My university does not offer a streaming server and I would have to use a commercial streaming service. I don't an issue here: The only one recorded would be lecturer, the students in the lecture hall will not be on the video and it should be the case that even the audio of students would not be part of the recording. The chat if both anonymous and also optional. The only thing I could imagine is that some bureaucrat would say that this is forbidden. Frankly, I didn't ask for permission and if somebody would argue I would simply state that this is needed for my concept and I would gladly change to a similar service which is offered by the university.

Other issues? Low quality video was not a big issue. On some days I had problems and had to use a bad webcam (just 720p, weird colors), but no complaints. (Btw. I had lecture note prepared and distributed in advance and I also included in the live stream; so the students knew what I was talking about even if the video was no that great). Bad audio was bigger problem! The mic of the laptop was way too bad and students complained. I ended up using the mic of the lecture hall through the speakers of the lecture hall (which was already an improvement) and recorded this with an external USB mic.

A comment: I used youtube for streaming - in case you are interested: This is how it looked https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn9kJUL7lfuWXXxX-o6O9Og

On Interaction: Delegate (to someone in the room) the role of relaying chat room questions to you. (There's enough going on, you don't need the additional burden of monitoring the chat room.)

@user2768 That's an interesting idea (I did not have this option since there was nobody else in the room…). I have the feeling, that this may be harmful to the open discussion/chat feeling, but I may be wrong…

As you mention, other students chime in and answer...question[s], those that aren't answered could be asked. I suppose you don't need an individual, the class can be made responsible. (I'm unsure whether encouraging students to use chat during a lecture is a good idea or a distraction.)


text:
Is it acceptable to put programming code as proof in paper?
I used statistical language R to fit probability distribution to acquired data. Instead of doing it by hand I relied on code. I wrote something like "probability density function was computed using programming language R (for more details see appendix A)". And appendix A has exact code to compute this. I also put reference to R package documentation. Is it bad to rely external tools for proof?

What do papers in your target journal usually do? Do that.

I don't see how R will proof you anything. It might do statistical calculations for you, and if those are used in your paper I'd append the code in the appendix (if there is room).

IMO programs proves nothing, as programs can have bugs which mimic "correct" answers. Alternatively, the (subliminal) desire of the author to have a program produce "correct" answers can cause the author to write a program which produces the "correct" answer, irregardless of the "correctness" of the paper.

From what I can guess about the context, I would avoid putting the code in your paper unless:

the code is really short (say no more than half a column);
the code is interesting in itself;
and you know that your average reader understands the language R.

Otherwise, it would probably better to omit the code altogether and write, in a note, something like:

To those interested, the authors can provide the R code employed to compute the probability density functions described in this work.

You're probably right. 2 and 3 are false in my case.

Rather than "can provide", though, point to a URL where the code is already up....

It's very common to include code when code was used. That being said, it's not clear whether you should think of this as "proof" of something in a rigorous mathematical sense, or whether is constitutes evidence in your argument. How accepted this is will depend on the community you are trying to convince.

I do think of this as exact proof that PDF is correctly chosen. Because this language is open source, anyone can see what I did in a few sentences of code. This constitutes proof as much as saying according to Theorem so and so. I just do not want to clutter paper with excessive statements. And I think that no one does that among my peers - that's why I asked.

@pusheax, how can it be exact proof if it was done with floating-point arithmetic in R? At best it approximates the PDF numerically.

exact proof that it's the best fit among several chosen distributions. But I see your point about FP arithmetic. I could have a case with two PDFs being close to data but I had not.

It is fine to put it in your appendix / supplemental info, but it's not really necessary.  Computing something as simple as a PDF should be easy for anyone.  It's along the lines of including your work to convert from atomic units to Joules.  However, enough people have forgotten to normalize correctly so there's nothing bad about including it.

You can put the source code in the appendix but it is not necessary.
1). For it to really matter that there is code in the appendix the read would need to have a basic understanding of programming to at least get the general idea.Other wise as soon as they see something like randomCode = NSString.format"string here"; they are so lost they'll skip over it.
2).If the length of the code is short and doesn't take up much space then even if the reader doesn't understand it you could use it as a "Hey this is the code" and not take up too much space for something the reader may have no understanding of. If the code is lengthy and takes up too much room (this is all dependent of the overall length of all of the other content) then even if the reader is a code junkie it's just too much.
3). You could post the code or at least parts of it and then explain what it actually means for example "This algorithm above is what takes all of the students grades and compiles them from a numeric value into a letter grade.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


text:
Comma before end quote in bibliography
Why is it correct to use comma after paper title and before end quote?
For example:
[X] A. Author, "Paper title ," Journal, vol. X, no. XX, pp. XXX-XXX, Year XXXX.
It seems natural to use it after end quote.

The answer is: "when the style guide tells you to use it."

As @aeismail suggests, "it is all about style." But both are "equally correct".

As others have indicated, style guidelines have to be followed, regardless of whether the reasoning behind the rules is clear. However, this particular example often varies by geographic region. American English grammar always places periods and commas inside quotation marks, while British English grammar is "conditional" - that is, they include periods and commas inside quotes only if it is part of the quotation, not the larger sentence. This site has an example and a more detailed explanation.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/quotation-marks-with-periods-and-commas
Thus, it's possible that the style guide is based on American English grammar, while you have a different frame of reference and convention.


text:
How to disclose in a review of an edited book that one was offered a chapter?
Some time ago, I attended a conference. The organizers later compiled an edited book with the revised presentations of the conference. I was also offered to contribute a chapter. But after the sending the organizers a first draft, I had to turn down the offer as I did not have the time to make the revisions and additions they asked for.
Currently, I am writing an omnibus review about the same topic for a journal and I also would like to discuss the meanwhile published proceedings of the conference. Although I think the edited book has some very good points, I also would have to express severe criticism about some other points especially in the introduction by the organizers.
Therefore, I would like to know:
How do I disclose the best in the review that I have participated at the conference and was offered a chapter? Should I add a footnote or a paragraph? Wouldn't that even raise distrust?
To make things more complicated: There is already a well-meaning  review of the book by the 2nd supervisor of one of the contributors who has not disclosed his link in any way.

I would suggest that you do not need a disclaimer in this particular case: the bottom line is that you did not contribute to the book. If you had participated, it would be a clear-cut case… yours is more complicated, but the fact remains that none of the text of the book was written by you!
Another way to see it: a disclaimer would not raise distrust, but it would certainly add confusion (or at least, not add any clarity). You'd have to explain concisely your situation, stating the facts. You could come up with something like “The author of this review was asked to participate in the book, but had to decline due to time constraints”.
Finally, if you want to be sure to do the right thing: ask the journal editor! You then make it his call, since it's his journal. He's the best person to ask, really…

The above answer says it all.
But between the lines there is a more subtle concern. You are worried you will annoy the organisers and that they will get mad and say that f***r was right there and drank our free coffee and now he is badmouthing us!
Make very sure that your criticisms cannot construed as a personal attack. Stick to generalities and technical points.


text:
How to learn commenting on graphs and tables the right way?
I have attended many presentation where the presenter will show a graph/table in one of his/her slides, but they struggle to explain the semantics of the graph/table/results.
I think there is much more hidden in graphs/tables than young scientists can tell. Is there a way to improve this skill.
My adviser is also very strict on this, so I would like to know how to form sentences which really explain well what is being presented in the slide.
I believe a good point to start is explaining the axis and what they represent, and then comment on results. But how to improve this.

One problem people often have when presenting data in graphs and tables is that they often include data that is not relevant. For talks (formal or informal) I really like the process of starting with an empty graph of just the axes and explaining what the axes are and the limits and what they mean. Sometimes I then like to show idealized data from competing hypotheses so people can know what to expect without the added difficulties associated with understanding real, and potentially noisy, data.
Once people understand what the axes mean, I add data to the plot. Ideally, I start with a single data point and explain exactly what the data point means. I then add additional data points from the same "condition", possibly one at a time if they are discrete or all at once if there is some meaningful function that describes them. Once the first set of data is presented, I add on the second set. Sometimes it is helpful to remove or grey out the first set of data while you are introducing the second set of data so people can focus on just what is new. Once the second set of data is explained, bring back the first set and talk about the relationship between the two sets. This should ideally be moved to a new figure or panel to highlight the differences and similarities you want the listener to focus on.
If there is more "hidden" in figures and tables, that means it is too complicated for a talk. In manuscripts space is at a premium and you often have to have figures that tell multiple stories. In these cases the text still needs to walk you through the figure step-by-step and introduce each piece of information in the order in which you want the reader to look at it.

This is a very important skill to master, and a pertinent question. You are correct to first start with the description of the axes (also ensure that axis labels are legible on the slide!); this orientates the audience and will help them understand the results.
To follow on from this, I could share a couple of tips from my experience. First, make sure you understand how the slide fits in to the context of the whole presentation - what is the story you are telling? Then, ask yourself what the key point is you would like the audience to take from this slide (you can maybe get away with 2-3 points). This will guide the formatting of the figure itself, and the animation surrounding on the slides - for instance I find it useful to annotate the figure on the slide as I describe the result (for example putting a red circle around an interesting feature of the plot).
My last tip would be that the importance of practising the presentation by actually speaking it out loud (not just in your head!) cannot be understated. This is a sure way to identify areas where you are not entirely sure what to say, then you can make some more notes or write down key phrases to help you in the actual presentation.


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What's the difference between German TV-L and TVöD pay scales?
We've had a number of questions that ask about the details of German TV-L payment scales, which are common for PhD students.
I've noticed that some institutes use the TVöD payment scales for their employees. After looking things up a bit, to me TVöD seems to be very much like TV-L.
So my question is: What's the core difference between TV-L and TVöD?

This is one of the wrinkles of the federal structure of the German education (and research) system. Since the universities are run by the federal states, they are covered by the TV-L (Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst der Länder, payment agreement for the public sector of the states), while institutes run directly by the federal government (e.g., the Max-Planck institutes) are covered by the TVöD (Tarifvertrag öffentlicher Dienst, payment agreement of the public sector). (Before 2006, this was the umbrella agreement for (almost) every public sector position, but then the states split off from the negotations; after the TVöD was successfully negotiated, they did not (could not?) rejoin and negotiated their own version based on the TVöD agreement.)
The differences are minor to the point where they should not be relevant in practice; in particular, the difference in pay scales within the TV-L for the different states is larger than the difference to those within the TVöD. The only possible point is that they are different agreements and therefore negotiated independently (with the same union, though), so a new round of negotiations might be completed earlier for one than the other.


text:
Most number of co-authors in a single paper?
Previous research
I've tried to find the answer to this question looking at the list of "Questions that may already have your answer" as I typed in the question, with no luck.
Question
What are some, say five, examples of publications with the highest recorded number of co-authors ever published, and in each of these how many co-authors were involved?

From Quora, an article about the LHC with apparently more than 3000 co-authors http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037026931200857X

Likely, any article covering a huge group project in fields such as astronomy, genome sequencing, or physics, that is impossible to do in a single lab or a small number of partner labs.

Are we ready for a paper where the list of authors is longer than the paper itself?

@Compass I'm glad to see the authors on that paper did something sensible and went with alphabetical order.

@GEdgar Two already exist: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/ and its followup: http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1985.61.1.298?journalCode=pms

@GEdgar and another http://www.improbable.com/airchives/classical/articles/peanut_butter_rotation.html ;o)

This is really laughable, and one of the reasons why academic research reputation did nothing but deteriorating in the past decades. Coauthors must have produced results presented in the paper and be accountable for them. Adding any "collaborator", means that now on you have to add Steve Jobs / Bill Gates / Linus Torvalos to the list if you used a MAC/ windows/linux.

@SeF , well, for better or for worse. These days God is cited a lot less than back in the days of Newton

Also @GEdgar, how on earth do you search for this material.

A good survey can be found in this article.  In short: within approximately the last 5 years, large international collaborations have started to exceed 1000 authors per paper.  The largest authorship papers are all LHC papers at present (with 3000+ authors), but other collaborations, particularly in biomedicine, may top that in the future.


text:
Does using complex mathematical notation detract the reader from a paper?
I'm currently writing a paper on analysing miRNA targeting in animals. It's principally a statistical analysis involving many graphs.
However, to explain the creation of one of the graphs, I've resorted to using set theory notation, as this, to me, seemed the most efficient way of explaining how the graph was produced.
However, this may potentially have some issues:
1) Will the use of terminology that is outside the theme of papers in this field detract from the description? Such that few people who read this paper will understand set theory and therefore many will not understand the mathematical notation? The description, I hasten to add, will be a tenth of the length when using set theory notation.
2) Evidently, concepts should always be written as clearly as possible, but where is the line formed between explaining concepts in words, as opposed to mathematical notation? Why would one choose one way over another?
3) Should you make assumption of the mathematical understanding of a person reading the paper?

Is this within scope for this site ? maybe on [math.SE] or even the new [matheducators.se] site ?

'concepts should always be written as clearly as possible', this is a decision you have to make.  If it takes many paragraphs to explain in words your concept, vs 2 lines of math that is clear to anyone who understands your notation, i would go with the math

@Suresh: This question is relevant across many academic disciplines, and is therefore very much on-topic.

@Suresh I disagree on your choice of the math site. If any, this is on-topic on Mathoverflow, since it belongs to "the sorts of questions you come across when you're writing or reading articles or graduate level books." OTOH, it has nothing to do with education, in my view.

I wonder what "set theory notation" means here.

http://www.rapidtables.com/math/symbols/Set_Symbols.htm

@Federico: I don't think MO is the right place since the question is about writing a biology paper, not a math paper. Anyway, if you ask it on MO, the answer will surely be "Yes, use set theory notation. Why not? Everyone knows it." :-)

Can't you write a brief explanation and add a footnote along the lines "see addendum 3 for details"?

@NateEldredge Nowhere in the MO description is it written that it caters only to people writing math articles. :) In any case, I agree that Academia is the best match for this question in the current Stack Exchange structure.

As someone who's been trying to read compsci papers for several months now, it'd definitely help if some of them weren't so "cryptic" (I don't have any mathematical background), but I wouldn't like them to disappear :). Thanks @MarkRamotowski

An author should always be careful when using mathematical notation that is "outside the theme of papers in this field," especially if the papers typically have little math notation. I have personally found that running into a cryptic (at first glance) equation makes me put the brakes on and engage some deeper thought to decipher what's trying to be said. Oftentimes, the notation is required, or at least useful, but when I end up thinking, "Couldn't they have just said 'such-and-such' in plain English'", I get a bit cranky.
Sometimes, though, you do need the space savings to stay within page limits, so if you really will shave off 90% of the space, and you need that space to fit in something else that is key to the paper, AND in your best judgement that the audience won't be derailed by the notation, you might be OK. Otherwise, because you have stated that you can describe it clearly in words, you should consider perhaps rewriting that description to be more concise and precise, rather than potentially obfuscating the details of your graph production.

+1 for 'I get a bit cranky' (and for the content of your answer).

So far, I'm missing the option of giving the 110% version of set notation plus explanation in plain English. That way, readers familiar with the set notation can skip the written explanation, and others can either skip the formula or learn what it means from your explanation.
(As you think whether you should give the long explanation, I assume that there are no particular length restrictions.)
I may add that I (chemist/chemometrician) was actually taught that a formula should preferrably be accompanied by a plain text explanation of the idea behind this formula.

Is that not overkill, saying the same thing twice in two different ways?

@MarkRamotowski: IMHO no, at least not unless the topic of the paper (and journal) is not deep inside stats but rather explaining the statistical methods used for a particular application problem. A supervisor once told me: Part of the art of writing good scientific papers is making it easy for the reader to understand what is going on. That would be in favor of the plain English version for an application paper. I'd like to add: I think it equally important to report what exactly was calculated. That is often more easily done by giving the formula (text explanation often leaves ambiguity).

@cbeleites well said, both the answer and the comment.

How about presenting the Set Theory notation after "This is best explained with Set Theory. If you are not comfortable with Set Theory, an alternate explanation is available in Appendix C." Do you have room to do it that way? The appendix entry could be prefaced with "Not everyone in this field is familiar, or comfortable with, Set Theory notation, so I will explain it here in prose:"

@PhilPerry: Sure, why not. But if going for an appendix (or supplementary) I'd put the mathematical details there, not the generally expressed explanation: the appendix is for more specialized stuff, the main paper for the general which I'd here suspect to be the explanation.

@cbeleites, since the mathematical details are probably not of primary interest to a reader, at least on the first read-through, that's why I suggested putting the short and sweet Set Theory in the main paper, and saving the lengthy prose explanation for a supplement. I personally would find it silly to put a lengthy explanation in the main paper, and putting just a few lines of math in the supplement. If that's the custom for a particular field; do it that way.

By and large, I would say avoid using non-standard presentation techniques in your paper. This includes using non-trivial mathematical notation in a field that generally does not use maths.
Consider that simply by choosing your way of presenting your techniques / results you (a) already lose most casual readers of your paper (i.e., those that don't have to study your paper for some reason, but were just interested in its content), and (b) presumably significantly increase the chance of your paper being falsely rejected by a reviewer who was inexperienced in the used notation, and hence misunderstood some details. Of course, this is not supposed to happen in an ideal world, but we don't necessarily live in such a world.
That being said, I should add that (especially for lower-ranked venues), the opposite of (b) may also happen - you may get a reviewer who does not fully understand your notation, but decides that it looks "sciency" enough and hence accepts the paper (even though, maybe, the content was actually weak). I have certainly seen paper submissions that tried to ride the train of camouflaging weak content with complex notation.

+1 for "paper submissions that tried to ride the train of camouflaging weak content with complex notation"