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Co-authorship for grammatical editing
Can someone who makes some corrections on paper grammatically be considered as a co-author?

Your question represents a fairly typical issue. While this is true what @JonCuster said in his answer, a justification of the contrary appears as an innocent phrase: "All authors discussed the results and co-wrote the paper." in many Nature publications.

No unless it is poetry...

My personal opinion is no, editing at that level is not sufficient.
One can peruse guidelines for your field. Taking Nature as one fairly broad journal, they state:

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it

Editing for grammar does not rise to that level for me. And, I can say that over time I have edited a large number of papers for grammar and usage, and never would have asked for authorship. A separate set of eyes looking solely at word usage, spelling, and sentence clarity, while broadly useful, is not at the heart of the work. (Heck, the journal may suggest edits, but would not ask for authorship.)
Such, shall we say, copy editing is quite different from having deep conversations on how to do something and what it really means. While these sorts of interactions can come up, particularly in the early draft stages, they are not about editing, but about analysis and interpretation, not grammar.

Just for the sake of clarity to OP, when you say "Deep conversations on how to do something and what it means, that is something else entirely). I believe you intend to mean on the intellectual content of the paper as opposed to the writing/communication of the intellectual content.

@GrayLiterature - that is absolutely correct. Often that come up in the context of an initial draft of a paper as the authors are hashing out what they actually did and how to interpret it properly (also often leading to have to do more work to clarify). I will edit to make it clearer.

No, grammatical corrections do not constitute authorship level involvement with the paper. Some other things (in math) that usually don't constitute authorship:

Suggesting an example of some interesting behaviour related to a definition or theorem.
Suggesting a better way to write a proof.
Pointing out small mathematical mistakes and how to fix them (e.g. missing hypotheses, a remark that isn't true but doesn't otherwise affect the results).

Now, it's possible that when you bring up some of these things to the author(s) that that might spark some discussion of how to implement them and if you are carrying out long, complex, mathematical (not grammatical) discussions with the author(s) that would probably merit co-authorship.
As a rule of thumb, to be an author means that you are claiming responsibility for both the main ideas (e.g. statement of the main theorems and the ideas in their proofs) and the wording of the paper (e.g. you're responsible if your co-author plagiarizes something). Maybe your co-author came up with one idea but then you hashed it out and added your own ideas to it.
Just editing for grammar and spelling you would not be taking responsibility if there is any plagiarism nor are you taking responsibility for the correctness of the theorems nor making any claim that any of the ideas in the paper are your own.
The acknowledgements section is the best way to acknowledge people who contributed to the paper but are not at the level of authorship. You might find that it is worth reading some acknowledgement sections of other papers to find out what sorts of things people give acknowledgement for.
For example, here's the acknowledgement section from one of my advisor's recent papers (https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.04966v2)

We thank Philipp Jell for pointing out Remark 1.10, and Trevor Gunn, Jaiung Jun, Yoav Len, Sam Payne and Thor Wittich for their comments on a draft version of this manuscript. The first author was supported by NSF Grant DMS-1529573 and a Simons Foundation Fellowship.

Philipp provided an example (Remark 1.10). I pointed out some typos and commented a bit on the exposition. And I can't say what sorts of comments the others provided but I will guess they would be similar to my own (comments and exposition).


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Are there funding sources for open-access fees for an independent researcher in industry?
Since I finished graduate school (statistics), I have been pursuing research. This is on my own time, separate from my work in industry, and while my company does not interfere with my work, they give no financial support.
I now want to publish a paper in an open-access journal. (I know to look out for predatory OA journals, and the ones I'm considering definitely are not.) However, the open-access fee comes straight from my pocket and is not a trivial amount of money.
What could an independent researcher like me pursue as a funding source to cover the OA fee?
I did find this question, but I am interested in the OA fee in particular, not compensation for the work in general (wonderful as that would be).

I doubt there is much available. Funders like to know that you have some institutional backing that will offer a guarantee that funds are correctly spent. This is hard for an independent to arrange. You may be able to ask for a waiver of fees from some places, however, based just on your status.

Consider looking at OA journals that charge lower fees (e.g. something similar to F1000 for stats). You could also start your own journal (e.g. http://journal.romainbrette.fr/about-this-free-journal/). Of course, each option comes with downsides that the higher costing journals don’t have.

As a formerly independent researcher I have looked into this matter before; regrettably, the answer is disappointing: Funders usually require an affiliation with a research institution. (Yes, it is paradox that 'open science' generates new exclusions, leaving certain segments of science behind; this entrenchment of new inequalities due to open access-movements was recently called 'academic colonialism', though this term may go too far.)
Anyway, there may be an alternative route. So-called transformative agreements between scholarly publishers and (country-level) consortia allow researchers from all institutions covered by the consortia to publish Open Access (OA) for free.
Now if you are well-connected to researchers at research institutions which are eligible for this waiver of OA publishing charges because they are part of the consortia, then you may ask them whether you can "borrow" their institutional affiliation. That way you would be able to publish OA without any costs. This does succeed sometimes - because research institutions also have an interest in inflating their publication statistics.

Pick a cheaper journal
Ask for a discount, such as "PLOS Publication Fee Assistance Program" https://plos.org/publish/fees/
Many new journals are free for a limited time
Use a free repository (usually not peer reviewed)
Ask your colleagues for help.  I have published open access for free more than once because a colleague had a way to get fee wavers.

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Continuing Education PhD
With TA/RA stipends continuing to decrease relative to CoL, I'm wondering if there is any ongoing work to open up more PhDs with a continuing education model? I know some companies basically do this(Raytheon is one of them) where a relevant industry problem is being worked on and selected for PhD which the companies fund(and the person gets payed their standard salary for working on).
Some professors I have talked to resist this idea because they want academic purity but I suspect in the coming years that purity isn't going to be funded any longer.

Your premise is wrong.  This does happen and has happened for a long time.  It does not happen much because companies provide little funding for it.  It's not hard to find a university that will take the money.  Some governments offer matching funds for companies.

This seems to be highly specific to a particular country (USA?). Please be specific about what national context you talk about.

What is TA/RA? What is CoL?

Your monthly stipend vs cost of living. I live in place with 1k rent and a stipend of 1.7k. it's a huge monetary loss to continue a PhD program vs entering into industry.

You might want to be more specific about the field because this question doesn't make any sense in some

(This answer is of course exaggerated, but it does contain a grain of truth.)
If you think carefully about the dynamics from the professors' point of view, then the answer is obvious.
Professors almost always make less money and generally have less research support than people working in industry.  This means, if someone becomes a professor, they are not interested in applied research and don't care that much about money.
Why would a professor agree to advise a student doing applied research?  They don't care about the research, and they don't care enough about the money for that to be an inducement.
From the other side, why would someone doing applied research even bother getting a PhD?  They can do their research without the degree, and if you've proven you can do the research, the diploma isn't really worth anything.
Conclusion: People become monks or starving artists for reasons of their own, and doing a PhD or becoming a professor is no different.  If society doesn't want to fund pure research or general education, then the natural dynamics will push universities towards becoming quasi-monastic institutions.  Remember that, in all the oldest European universities, their first professors were monks who were bound by vows of poverty.
(Note: Adjusted for inflation, my salary as a tenured professor is less than what I made before grad school in technology consulting.  My backup plan had I not gotten a professor job was peace activist, and most definitely not going back into tech.  Obviously I'm not in it for the money.)

There is vested national interest in graduating PhDs but I agree the model will need to change and be forced to conform to applied topics/working professionals. I would probably cut all university funding unless it translated to working systems which were in commerical development but at the same time pay way higher wages for working on these applied topics. Basically pay industry salary.

"I would probably cut all university funding unless it translated to working systems which were in commerical development" - uhh, then you basically don't have universities anymore. I suppose one can argue for this but you're suggesting something far more than a tweak to funding models by suggesting the end of higher education.

You have a university without the fat, exactly what is going to be needed.

@FourierFlux: You are suggesting a technology institute, not a university.  The prototypical subject for a university ought to be philosophy, even if philosophy has now splintered off into many fields.

I don't agree, the institutes I have been to don't really reach the theoretical level to do applied research. If you want to divide the universities into two groups, applied vs not I would be OK with that. All the funding will go to the applied group though, I guarantee it.

This is fundamental not great for science.  The reason NSF exists, the reason the US was top for research and new technology was our investment in theoretical work For example, people spent decades working on optimization methods that couldn't be used because the computational power wasn't available.  It was that work that allowed data science to take off so quickly because all the theory was there.  The difference between universities and industry is this constraint.  Are you hunting to create knowledge or hunting to create something that makes money.

I can't agree on data science, I am in ML and 90% of work is empirical. By that I mean the theory could have not been developed and nothing would have changed. Mainly because theoretical models make so many assumptions which are mostly invalid. This is a general trend in science.

This is one of the things we try to teach our students (even applied statisticians like myself). As ML becomes popular, people are using models where the assumptions under which the model were developed are not met. This is a problem because decisions are being made based on models that were not developed for that use; resulting in LOTS of bias/volatility. I believe this is the purpose of the PhD for those in industry, how do we appropriatedly use models with messy real life data. So I disagree with your statement, the theory allows it to be used, lack of understanding results in its misuse.

This is completely wrong, there is basically no theory behind deep learning computer vision and it's widely used in industry, it's literally the only technique that works. Areas like learning theory are mostly put in the garbage now, nobody cares and it doesn't really matter ultimately because at the end of the day everything is empirically driven. Basically theoreticians are kind of irrelevant.

@FourierFlux: And this is why you end up with algorithms that are racist.

Numerical solutions for Naiver Stokes approximations have(and continue to be used) under conditions which existence isn't even clear yet jets aren't crashing. In fact theoretical analysis of Naiver Stokes are mostly irrelevant to industry and everything still works because engineering and science are empirical in nature. Theory has marginal value and will never be able to take on complex problems. Every professor I have talked to both in DL and RL basically agree with this statement - people spend years chasing highly reduced approximations and barely prove something, mostly irrelevant.

I know some programs that do part-time PhDs in this specific scenario.  I don't know if schools with deeper pockets would do this anytime soon though.  Normally, profs will just get contract work to also fund their PhD students and the students will intern there in the summer (and still be able to work on their research project at higher pay).  Also, there are programs like ORISE that you can get paid like a regular gov't employee and get to do research at the same time.  But yes I agree, I think there will need to be more creative ways to help students get liveable wages.

Thanks, on very practical grounds spending 3-4 years on a PhD after masters while letting go of 90k+ salary+ work experience is exceedingly hard to justify unless you want to be a professor. Many PhD students in the US are foreign in part because their alternative wages are so much lower in their home country so universities can basically exploit them.

I agree but that's kind of the point. There really isn't a reason to get a PhD unless you want to be a researcher.   Most industry work ( with some exceptions) won't really pay a PhD that much more than someone with a MS.

There is research in industry

Yes, there is but its not the same type of research.  As aforementioned in comments, it will be focused on a product that can make money (with a few exceptions of course). In academia, you can pursue a topic for the sake of creating knowledge/contributing to the field.

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How are unusual thesis topics looked at?
So at my university, there have been professors who partner with industry, including a sex products company, one which develops devices.
What I'm curious about is how a PhD thesis is looked at which in part involves an area like this? Practically speaking, many skills involving machine design, control theory and perception systems are used so it's not a joke topic but I'm curious if the area itself has a negative impact on career development.

Is this for a PhD in engineering?  I suspect there is not enough information available to give you an answer that is not primarily opinion-based.  But generally speaking it is good for your career if you have vigorous, but not excessive, competition.

This is probably unanswerable without country

For a topic like this, I’d recommend making sure it’s something you’re comfortable having your identity tied to.
On this particular topic, I know folks who have outwardly countercultural identities built up, in which they've made work in this area part of said identity, and others for which they are more mainstream, matter-of-fact about the role of sexuality in everyday lives.
The key thing to avoid would be a topic that made you personally feel awkward/embarrassed about telling people about it (unless you were sure that you wanted to become less embarrassed about it, and practiced braking down your discomfort before becoming committed to it).
With respect to careers, it will likely be limiting in some aspects, but open other doors (and this ties into the identity aspect via asking yourself what you actually want out of life).

Interesting, on a personal level I wouldn't have any problem developing products which target certain demographics(CIS het people) but I suspect the professor and company is more interested in alternative groups which I wouldn't be a good fit for.


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Exploitation of foreign graduate students
During my time in graduate school I have noticed that many foreign graduate students basically view graduate school as a way to get into the US that wouldn't normally exist.
This creates some fundamental problems that professors take advantage of which, in my opinion, means the entire system needs an overhaul.

These students are often desperate and basically would do anything the professor put in front of them, they are deeply afraid of getting kicked out and sent back regardless of professor demands.

Their wage is still higher here than in their home country.

These two issues combine together to create a very exploitative environment that hurts the entire graduate education system, since

It starts to bias graduate schools to prefer foreign students as a source of cheap labor, since only DoD/classified work is restricted to US students.

It reduces the quality of life for graduate students by allowing professors to demand unreasonable things and lets the schools get away with terrible wages.

How can students effectively lobby for changes in this system - like wage increases - when you are viewed as easily replaceable?

This is basically jus a rant.

To find a solution to a problem you need to first understand the basis of it. In general I also notice professors treat US students somewhat better, particularly if they are working on a project that only can use natives but the above problem still exists

Is there such a thing as a project that can only use natives? A NSA collaboration maybe?

I edited your question to try to bring out what I think is a better question.

That said, I'm not sure what the relevance of DOD work is (only relevant for a small number of grad students), and a lot of fed money can only be spent on US citizens/PRs. You mention a wage increase at the (now) end, but I'm not sure how that commensurate with the rest of the problems, how would raising wages fix those problems? They seem orthogonal and I think the question would be better if it focused on those problems unique to intl students.

I'm a US citizen working in a DoD project I definitely have less demands put on me because of it, but plentiful access to high skilled low-wage labor is a problem for US graduate students, particularly native ones. Basically the entire setup has created pressure to select against citizens and exploit foreign students. Foreign students often don't complain because they still feel it's better than where they came from but that doesn't mean really mean anything.

This is not specific to academia.  Why do big companies such as Nike or Apple manufacture their products in developing countries?   In many countries, companies exploit interns.  Some professors even treat their PhD students similar to a personal assistant.    Why do businesses pay below minimum wage? The list goes on and on.  Welcome to the real world!

Sure, the question is - how do you fix it? From the perspective of US citizens a simple thing is capping a percentage on student visa per department. But this still doesn't address the exploitation of the foreign students and making work loads more reasonable.

Maybe this is field dependent, there is one international student in my dept of about 40 students, which is similar across sibling departments.

Interesting, mine is easily 80% foreign, maybe more. I work in EE/CS. The only US graduate students are either continuing education or are working on projects only US citizens can work on(DoE, DoD, etc).

You have to take a broader perspective. I would suggest you to have a read of the work from Borjas (American economist, expert on Labor economics) See how they try to "dismiss" all the studies of Borjas, a well known economist:
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2007/03/borjas_wages_an.html
tl;dr immigration is good because natives are better out ... and the short term negative effects are there only for the immigrants ... which for the vast part are there only for the short term.
It is depressing to see so much brain power defending a self-denial, egoistic attitude.

I think you should edit this question to include less rant and it should be reopened.  The question is clearly within scope.  The answer is also simple:  unionize.

I don't think unions are very effective since ultimately you're working for an individual professor and I have never heard of any type of organized strike taking place on a per-professor basis. I have seen the union used to increase GTA salary marginally(not by much) and it doesn't address individual hours/professor demands which can vary wildly depending upon who you are and what you do. This type of behavior on the part of professors only is viable because of a steady stream of exploitable labor they have access to.

Well, in the Academia world you can still find some decent people:
"Stop exploitation of foreign postdocs in the United States" (from Nature, the mighty, revered and belated publisher )
Although the downvote and the comments you will receive to your question will be rather low quality: you are questioning the patina of excellence that a lot of successful people in academia put on themselves to justify the obvious exploitation they take part, first by suffering it and then by continuing it.
I agree that the solution lies outside the box.

Thanks, I agree. The worst part of this discussion is certain people like to pretend they are the "good guys" for advocating unlimited access to exploitable labor. It's very twisted.

I agree 100%. You don't need to pay attention to your enemies. It's your friends that stab you!


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Is 75% an acceptable failing cutoff?
The dean of our school/program teaches a class and has put in the syllabus that if a student gets below a 75% in her class it is an F and the student will be eliminated from the program. She doesn't round up either so a 74.99% is a 74%, and a D is not a grade she offers; it's an A, B, C or F.
I don't think this is legal and was wondering if anyone else has had this issues or any advice on how to fight her on this.

We cannot answer this question. The only way to know would be to look at your university rules. Is there an ombusman?

"get below 75%" - what is 100%? I assume it's points, not students. If it is points, then it's up to the teacher to define thresholds.

There is however actually getting in contact with them is near impossible, I have been trying. The college handbook states that the grades adhere to the national grading scale, but this professor stated otherwise in the syllabus.

"75%" on its own doesn't mean much. A 75% on this instructor's assessments may indicate a similar level of mastery as a 50% on a different set of assessments - it all depends on how students' work is evaluated.

So your argument is simply that the number 75% feels like a lot for a pass threshold? It doesn't really work like that; it depends on the content of the exercises. If you spell correctly 75% of the words, you shouldn't pass an English test. If 75% of your patients survive, you won't be a good medical doctor.

@FedericoPoloni I appreciate the level of sassiness you've offered, but that is not what I'm asking. I am not the only one having issues with this professor and my question to answer is: "is this legal or acceptable on a general university basis?". My issue is the inconsistent grading policy the dean/teacher of this class feels she is entitled to.  So, please, focus on my questions and not your high expectations of a program you know nothing about.

Let's start from this: What's the typical failure rate of the class?

Out of the 57 students from last class had 3 people fail and more than half of the class had to retake the Final exam to meet the 75% (according to a student who took it last year). This year the teacher is not offering retakes.

At many times and in many places there have been gatekeeper courses in which you need to do well to remain in the program. The legality depends on location, of course, so can't be answered in general. But it is pretty hard to fight a dean successfully. I assume that she is saying, if you can't make this standard you should be doing something different. It might be wise advice, depending on the course.

What level of instruction is this? If it's graduate school, this is quite lenient, as usually you have to score B or better to pass. If it's undergraduate, it might still be legal depending on jurisdiction.

@Confusedandtired unfortunately you didn't add your country but at my university the failure rate for the gatekeeper course was 25% in the really lenient years and 50%+ in stricter ones. That's first year undergrad. So 3 out of 57 doesn't sound too bad. It was 70 out of 180 in my year.

Consider this honest and forthright communication by the Dean. If one can't master at least 75% of a critical course's content, then a student doesn't really have the skills to succeed at the next step. A lot of students score D's in my courses and think that's fine, even if I verbally warn them that's a sign they're not positioned to pass the next course.

I'm not active on this site, got here through the HNQ list, but applying my standards from the site I am active on, there are many things that could be done to improve this question (and thus the quality of the responses you'll get). Firstly, you've asked about legalities, which necessarily depend on your jurisdiction, so you should at least mention your country. Secondly you've given us no reason as to why you think this is (or even should be) illegal. Thirdly, any context you've given as to what 75% means is in the comments and should be in the question. (Cont)

Fourthly, as other commenters have pointed out, you should be more precise about what kind of class this is and what level it is. Also fifth, you make it clear that you think this is something that should be fought, but you've given us no reasons as to why you think so. Anyway, these details are just things that I think would improve the question and likely yield better responses. Do with my suggestions as you will.

Sounds like there’s literally nothing to fight, at least from what you’ve written so far

focus on my questions and not your high expectations of a program you know nothing about. You are right, we know nothing about the program you are studying. This is exactly the reason I vote to close this question.

I don't think this is legal

While laws vary from country to country and even within countries, I highly doubt any country has a law that makes this illegal. As for how much leeway professors have for setting the grading criteria, this depends on factors from the department level all the way up to the university, and possibly accrediting agency, level.

was wondering if anyone else has had this issues

I am not sure I have ever seen this exact grading scheme, but professors do all sorts of stuff. The department I did my undergraduate studies in had limited lab space and therefore made sure the prerequisite classes had the appropriate failure rate.

any advice on how to fight her on this.

I am not sure what there is to fight. If too many students fail (or not enough get As), you might be able to file a complaint. The university will hopefully have a formal procedure in place. Filing a complaint as an individual student will likely have no affect. You will need to demonstrate that the system is unfair.

I don't think this is legal...

There seems to be a general misapprehension among students that there are strict legal or procedural rules on academics in regard to how they assess their courses.  Such beliefs are generally not rooted in any actual training or study of the law, and are far from the legal realities of higher education.  In reality, academics have wide discretion to form the assessment structure and pass-requirements for their courses, within allowable university policies.  The only constraint that is commonly operative on a university lecturer is if the university has chosen to adopt an assessment policy that constrains its own academics.  Such policies are sometimes formulated in order to give consistent assessment structures across the university, or to satisfy the accreditation requirements of an outside body (e.g., for medical students or engineering students).   The university might decide to impose a fixed numerical pass-level at a centralised policy level, but there is no legal requirement for this.
I have practiced as a solicitor in Australia, and I am unaware of any legal rules in any country that would prevent a university lecturer from choosing the assessments and pass-level for a course they are teaching.  The only exception to this would be general laws of contract, if there is some university policy or other representation to the student that disallows a higher pass-level for a course.  Some universities do indeed set policies for their courses that specify constraints on the assessment structure, and in some cases this may preclude a higher pass-level.  It is possible that unreasonable failure rate (too high or too low) might threaten accreditation requirements of outside bodies in the long-term, but that does not make it illegal for university lecturers to set course requirements within the scope of university policy.

...any advice on how to fight her on this.

Unless there is some university policy that prevents her from setting the pass-requirement at 75%, or has some other expectation with respect to the overall pass rate, you will not have much of a basis on which to raise an objection.  But for the sake of argument, let's suppose you fight her on this and you win.  One problem I foresee with this is that the grade-point is an arbitrary scale to begin with, and so your lecturer could simply adjust the difficulty level of her assessments to correspond to any particular pass-requirement that is imposed on her course.  Even if you get your way, and your lecturer is required to drop the pass-requirement to the standard level at 50%, all she has to do to render this change redundant is to now make the assessment items correspondingly more difficult, so that achieving 50% on the new items requires the same level of understanding as achieving 75% on the old items.
Setting this aside, it is generally the case that university lecturers are required to explain any significant aberrations in the outcomes of their courses compared to other courses at the same level.  Universities usually have processes in place to review grade-levels in their courses, and they usually flag any courses that have either an excessive failure rate, or an excessive rate of high-grades.  In such processes it is usual for lecturers and their heads of department to give explanations to the central administration in cases where the grades in their courses are a significant aberration from the norm.  If there is consistent aberration over multiple semesters, with no good reason for this (e.g., if the lecturer is just being much too harsh), then this can sometimes lead to intervention by a head of department.  This would tend to operate in the event of persistent aberrations in course grades from university norms, rather than from an individual student complaint (though student complaints might augment it).
Rather than putting your energy into an administrative battle with a person who is given wide discretion to assess her own class, I would recommend that you put that effort into mastery of the course content, and try your best to get up to the pass requirement.  If this causes you to knuckle down and learn the material to a high standard then you might find that you look back on this as a valuable challenge.

Any requirements would likely come from the accreditation process. Fields that require licensure (engineering, medicine, law) have concrete curriculum and assessment requirements. An example would be this medical school's 28 page long policy. Ultimately, I know cases where too many people failed the bar exam, the law school's accreditation was put on probation, leading to a drop in admission and eventual closure.

@user71659: Good point - I have updated my answer (para 1) to note that university assessment policies are sometimes constructed with a view to meeting outside accreditation requirements.

The dean of our school/program teaches a class that...

Sorry, but I think your time/energy is better spend getting a tutor and working harder, than spending it trying to figure out how to get a D in the class that the dean says s/he won't give.
The only work you should do before getting your final grade is to maybe collect contact information of the other students. At that point, explore your options - until then, study.
There was a prof at my school that always said at the beginning of the semester that he had never had a class that got all A's and wanted that to happen before he retired. The last class he taught he gave everyone an A - regardless of their deserved grade.  Professors can do, and do do, a lot of crazy stuff. Deans are maybe worse.

The professor might be doing the students a favor.
When I was going to school, a D was worse than an F. If you got an F, you could retake the class and have the grade replaced.
If you got a D, it's still not considered a passing grade, and you would still have to retake the class. Then you would get the average of the previous and new grade AND the transcript would show you getting a D in the class.
It seems a bit harsh that failing would result in dropping out of the program though. Are you sure that's what the consequence of failing is? No chance to retry?

What is the point behind these rules? Is there any advantage of a D over an F?

The point is to let students pass without screwing themselves, while making the school some money at the same time.
If it's a core class, then you can survive a failing grade, and simply take the class again (pay for the class again).
If it's not a core class that's not required for you to move forward, then you can take the D and get the credit for the class. For example, I can get a D in Physical Education 101 and still feel fine about it.

I do want to point out that in my school, a D in a CORE CLASS does not count as passing. A D in a non-core class is still counted as a pass. And even then, there is a Pass/Fail mechanic you can use in non-core classes, which either just gives you a pass or fail grade. The credits weigh equally with the average of your gpa.

Your options depend on the university you attend. My recommendation is to talk to your academic advisor and see what they say. They might tell you that it's fair and to do your best or they might raise their eyebrows and help you go over her head. If your school has an ombudsperson, that is another great resource. Their job is to resolve conflict and they are typically very familiar with college policies.
Best of luck!

Seems to me that the issue with the 75% threshold is not that it is too high, but that is implies the assessment is easy. What that means seems the interesting question.
[ When I was student, 70% was graded a "First".]
There are definitely a number of ways of thinking about the purpose of assessments.
For example, having a "hard assessment"  is good way of identifying and separating the top students. Setting it with a low pass mark still gives all students a chance of credit, with the effect of them seeing their low performance relative to the top students.
Having an "easy assessment" with a high pass mark makes it hard to tell apart the good students. It might be good at determining those that have understood the course basics. Where this course is a prerequisite for more advanced courses, that might be much more useful.
So, maybe just ask the Dean what the reasoning is, what objectives of the course are, what is the consequence of a pass/ fail for entering subsequent courses etc.


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What can a final year PhD student do to prepare for teaching mathematics at a university level, despite complications due to mental health?
Background:
I'm a third-year PhD student in the UK (where doctorates last a minimum of three years and a maximum of four). I have taught at least one undergraduate tutorial of about 20 students each term since September 2022. Unfortunately, I have schizophrenia, which involves avolition, meaning that some days I cannot get out of bed, much less teach a tutorial; I made about a third of my tutorials in the spring term this year.
I spend a lot of time on Mathematics SE. I have about 47 thousand reputation points. Most of that is from answering questions.
My goal is to be a research-track mathematician. That entails teaching at a university level and supervising projects. I want to stand out, teaching-wise, as a candidate for an academic position in spite of my current (and likely ongoing) mental health.
The Question:
What can a final-year PhD student in mathematics do now, in my situation, to prepare for teaching at university?

"I have schizophrenia, which involves avolition, meaning that some days I cannot get out of bed, much less teach a tutorial; I made about a third of my tutorials in the spring term this year." - I think it's reasonable and important that employers and educational institutions make reasonable accommodations for their employees and students. I do not think that missing work 2/3rds of the time is likely to be considered a reasonable accommodation, it seems like this is an important issue to address with your care team.

Also have a Plan B. Competition for positions, tenure, and research funding can be substantial.

I've retracted my CV and upvoted since my concern was addressed. I did edit the formatting, please don't use quote formatting for stuff that isn't quotes, and a header for one sentence seems a bit overkill.

@BryanKrause What is the alternative, OP not working at all? I agree that many universities will not be able to accommodate this but you make it sound like that's perfectly acceptable. I don't think publicly funded institutions should be able to exclude people with disabilities that only prevent them from doing part of their job (in this case teaching, not research) from tenure track positions. The correct accommodation for OP would be to not have them teach  classes with a regular schedule.

@Peter Others have suggested teaching asynchronous courses as a possibility, but besides that, classes do normally have a regular schedule, and not every institution may even have asynchronous courses. Also, at least from a US perspective since I can't comment on the UK, teaching is where the "money" comes from in math; it's not an optional part of the job from the institution's perspective, it's the entire job.

@BryanKrause My job also has a regular schedule, as in people are expected to be in the office from 9-5 Monday to Friday. And yet when I had mental health issues that prevented me from working for more than half of every given week my employer was not only morally but legally obligated to accommodate me. I understand that not everybody has the luxury of living in a country with sensible worker protection but that doesn't mean we should pretend not having it is normal.

@Peter There is a difference between a job having an ordinary schedule and a job where you are expected to be present regularly for a room full of students that you are solely responsible to educate. You can't expect students to be okay with only having their instructor appear 1/3rd of the time, and can't expect the institution to hire a whole additional person to be available at a moments notice when the planned instructor isn't able to make it.

Is it possible for you to expand on your current situation? What happened when you could not do tutorials? What was the students and university's reaction?

Also, how is your research going? The schedule of a researcher is flexible, especially in mathematics, but there are days when you cannot do any research due to avolition. A positive research output despite your disability would be a good point for you.

You are likely to really struggle with a lecturer role. As others have said, reliably delivering lectures is a core requirement of the role. Unfortunately, as you say, research and lecturing are generally both requirements of higher level academic positions.
Your most realistic route may be looking into research technician/associate type roles, and applying for research fellowships. You may be able to find interesting work on projects other people have funding for, and if you can land a research fellowship you would be able to pursue some of your own research too. For example, the London Mathematical Society has early career research fellowships which specifically limit teaching to a maximum of three hours a week.
Theoretically you could try finding a position where you share a teaching load with another academic, where they handle face time and you handle async stuff like marking, but this may be a hard sell to an institution. You may also be able to supervise individual student projects, as it is likely to be less of an issue to rearrange 1-1 meetings.
Negotiating unusual roles like this will go a lot better if you have made good contacts with a high opinion of your research potential, so you will need to work extra hard at giving people a good impression, communicating clearly about any delays in your work, and producing good work. There is also a lot of stigma about schizophrenia, so you may find it helpful to make sure you appear extra polished and professional when you do interact with people.
Finally, I highly recommend joining UCU (the University and College Union). They will be able to give you advice and support with things like negotiating reasonable accommodations.

I have schizophrenia, which involves avolition, meaning that some days I cannot get out of bed, much less teach a tutorial; I made about a third of my tutorials in the spring term this year.

As Bryan mentions, this is a bit beyond "reasonable accommodations" for a lecturer. Presuming this is unpredictable, it would not be reasonable to have to pull in a colleague to lecture for you on a given day
Thus, if you want to stand out, I would suggest you search for experience teaching online, asynchronous classes. In this setting, you would record lectures, and respond to student work on mostly your own schedule.
I'm not very familiar with UK academia, but the comments tell me the Open University (>100,000 undergraduates) and Birkbeck, Unviersity College London would be the places to look for this sort of job in the UK.
If you can demonstrate you are effective in this context, you can apply to universities that offer intro-level asynchronous courses that you could take the lead on.

The UK has a lot less 'large intro' level courses, due to the much higher level of specialism in UK undergraduates. Courses tend to be targeted at students in a specific degree or department.

It would not be unusual for a uk university to have over dozen intro to calculus courses.

@user1937198 That seems like a lot of courses to me? But I suppose I meant I don't know how frequently asynch courses are offered in the U.K. compared to the U.S.

I think the answer is to work at Open University.

@AlexanderWoo Oh yes, of course

The Open University is a fine institution. I'd be happy to work at a place like that, if they'd have me.

@AzorAhai-him- Its not that many when you view intro to calculus for physics students as separate from intro to calculus for mechanical engineers. And because there aren't the huge courses (as numbers tend to be capped at application), and they are planned ahead, there's less of a need for asynch classes, and they would be controversial, due to the amount of control UK universities have over course choices.

@user1937198 I'm going to be honest, I'm not in math so I'm not totally following your point. Is there a specific improvement you're suggesting? Or just saying that asynch courses are uncommon in the UK? I don't think they only exist as a space issue in the US, but some schools serve different populations with different needs.

Async courses for degrees are very uncommon in the UK outside of the open university, because there's not really any universities other than the open university with a need for them. Theres far less variation in served populations within the UK system,with the open university and birkbeck being the only ones covering anything other than traditional on-site teaching. And students expect to get contact time when they sign up.

Yes, async courses are very uncommon here outside of the Open University. The Open University is a very good suggestion though.

@user1937198 Thanks for clarifying.

Have you considered a research institute?
I don't know how they work in your country, but in some places in Europe they are essentially academic research without the teaching. It may provide better flexibility.

+1 For example, CNRS and Inria in France have annual national competitions for (entirely) research positions where teaching is optional. These positions are then hosted in within universities or research institutes.

@Rammus: that's true and a good advice, but the number of CNRS and INRIA positions is unfortunately very limited.

The way university teaching is typically organized means that getting someone to cover for your lectures isn't really feasible. If you are likely to miss lecturing more than once or twice a term on short notice, a usual lecturing role wouldn't really work out. Note that the core requirement is to deliver the lecture, so if you can get to the point where even on a bad day to can do maybe 2h of work, it becomes much more feasible to arrange things. Your research you can do whenever.
You might find a position specific for asynchronous teaching, but that means restricting yourself to a small fraction of positions overall on an already very harsh job market. If you have the chance to develop substantial online teaching material this could at least give you an advantage if such a position does get advertised.
Finally, you should consider applying for CNRS in France. These are permanent positions awarded purely on research merit. It is common for CNRS fellows to also do some teaching, but this is an extra rather than a core job duty.

It is difficult to "stand out" in anything until you gain experience and so, hard for someone in the early career. In a different field, Venus Williams turned tennis pro at age 14 and was an immediate success. But, she had an immense amount of experience as a junior. Something like 900 wins, IIRC.
As with most other things, one learns best by doing and you suggest that this is your math philosophy also, which is good. And most of us do poorly at the start, though  we probably don't recognize that until later (as I did not, being too rigid initially).
There are books on teaching math at university level, though I've never used any such. Some turned up by an internet search are probably a good place to start.
I think the most important aspect of my own teaching philosophy (40+ years of experience) is that every student that wants to learn can succeed on their own terms. That doesn't mean full marks for everyone, as they need to put in the effort. But nothing in my teaching/grading regimen should stand in their way.
The next most important, IMO, is answering questions with minimal information to get students over a block rather than to give them an answer. But yes, provide channels to answer questions as they arise, even when not face to face.
If your students describe you as "tough, but fair" you are probably doing a good job ("probably", not necessarily).
And, I tried to learn to emulate those professors that I had that I thought  did the best job in driving my own education. I've had a number of mentors along the way, one very important one was even in a different sub-field. I tried to emulate him and the others, though it took a long time to find my own way.
My best guess is that most of us learned to teach in just this way: trying to emulate our mentors and those whose guidance we valued.
This is all independent of health issues, which need to addressed differently, but specifically.
At a minimum, though, you need to assure coverage when you can't be there, for whatever reason. I once (over several years) was involved in a practice called "pair teaching" in which two of us covered the course and were always present for class sessions. One of us would take the lead at any given moment and the other would observe and comment as necessary. Perhaps you could explore that idea though it would require some variation and the assent of the university.

This is not really relevant advice for the question asker's main issue, which is their ability to reliably deliver lectures.

@deee, it was written prior to the latest edit. And the last paragraph gets to reliability from the student's standpoint. Someone would always be there even if the OP is unable. And your answer seems to say the same thing (third paragraph).


text:
An application of the (100/e)% rule applied to postdocs: moving on from an academic career, perhaps
Motivation:
There's a nice rule from mathematics that states that, when making some types of decisions, one can sample the first (100/e)% of the things available to get a feel for what is out there, then take the next option that is better than everything that came before, resulting in one being more likely to reach the best option possible; this is a simplified description.  For a Numberphile video on the topic, see here.
I wonder how this applies to looking for postdoctoral fellowships or to an academic career in general.
My guess is that, since postdocs often require one to have completed a PhD within five years of the application and (100/e)% of five years is approximately 22 months, if one does not get a postdoc offer within that time, perhaps it is time to take action.
About Me:
I aspire to be a mathematician.  I'm halfway through a PhD in group theory, in the UK.  Job prospects are dire.  Teaching below university level does not interest me and yet the majority of jobs out there are teaching roles.  I want a job that requires interesting mathematics.  The other major job type out there is some form of programming.
I'm planning ahead.  If I don't get a postdoc within 22 months of the completion of my PhD, I'm tempted to retrain with a Master's in computer science, and I would still look for postdocs all the while. I will have gotten some form of job, I hope, but I like challenging myself, so perhaps another degree, part-time and online, would be the best option for a lifelong learner like me; I already have a place in mind.
An advantage of this approach: I would stay competitive, should I still want to be an academic.  Another: I would have structured learning in marketable skills.  I know publishing is important for an academic career but I am a pure mathematician and pure mathematicians, on average, publish less often than (other) scientists.
The Question:
What do you think of this plan?  Does it hold water?
Clarification: This is if I have no offers in 22 months.  The sample would then suggest that the next option is best.

Since one starts looking for a postdoc before you are awarded your PhD, 22 months afterwards is a clear sign it isn’t happening. Particularly since the actual timing of the PhD is often flexible. You are worrying about the wrong things.

It's very unclear to me why finding a postdoc is related to the type of decisions you mention. Those are where you see things in order and must choose one before getting to the end of the list and cannot go back to a previous option.

I have added clarification, @DanielHatton.

That's kind of the point, @JonCuster; it probably wouldn't happen,  so I would need to look towards moving on.

I'm a bit confused by what kind of answer you expect. Ime, the decision on when to give up on academic jobs is less about some mathematically optimal search time and more about visa/personal finances/waiting on grant outcomes. I'm not in pure math, but from friends who've transitioned out of it to academia, finding a satisfying non-academic job also takes some time and effort, which should be considered in your timeline.

"I wonder how this applies to looking for postdoctoral fellowships or to an academic career in general." It doesn't. Literally the defining feature of the mathematical situation you describe is that you unilaterally decide which option you choose. The defining feature of applying for postdocs, in contrast, is that other people unilaterally decide whether or not they want to accept you. There is literally zero analogy between the mathematical situation and waiting for N/e months to see if you get a job offer. I would strongly recommend completely forgetting about this line of argument.

"pure mathematicians, on average, publish less often than (other) scientists." Sure, pure mathematicians publish less, but that's in comparison with other scientists. But your competition is limited to pure mathematicians, so you want to publish as many as or more articles than the average pure mathematician (precisely, the ones in your subfield of pure maths).  Do you think you can handle this while studying for another Master? (And of course, the quality of articles matters, but producing good work also takes time)

There are already five answers. I would suggest that future answerers - after deciding that their answer is necessary - focus on the question, which is about how long to move on from getting a postdoc, rather than telling OP which jobs are good for their particular sub-field, which isn't really on topic, even though there are a lot of mathematicians and CSists here.

In the US, at least, you would probably not need a Masters in CS to be employed as a programmer, if that interests you, given your PhD in Math.  Many programming jobs require a technical degree of some sort, not specifically CS, and your Math PhD would certainly qualify.

If anyone's looking for a citation, the referenced rule is commonly called the Secretary Problem, among other names.

The 1/e rule that you are referencing is for a highly idealized model (the so-called secretary problem) involving many assumptions that bear almost no resemblance to your particular real-world scenario. For example, in the secretary problem, the decision-maker wants to optimize a specific parameter: the probability of hiring the absolute best secretary. With this definition of success, hiring only the second-best counts as just as much of a failure as hiring the very worst one. This has always seemed to me as a badly flawed measure of success, even if mathematically the result is elegant and the 1/e rule is a fun thing to talk about at cocktail parties. In real life, anyone hiring a secretary would be pretty happy hiring the second-best one, and similarly I assume you would also be quite happy to end up with the second-best postdoc among all the postdocs you can imagine applying for. This issue alone is a reason to strongly distrust the 1/e rule (And I've described only one among many problems with the analogy you are drawing between the theoretical model and the real-world scenario.)
For this reason, I'd say using the 22 months as your threshold for rejecting an academic career is an example of the fallacy of false precision. You arrived at this threshold through an analogy that doesn't really hold much water, so it's unlikely to be optimal or even close to optimal for the actual problem you are trying to solve. It would be much more sensible to have your choice of threshold be guided by more practical concerns, such as the amount of money you have saved that you can use to support yourself during your postdoc job search.
If you do want to use advanced mathematics to optimize your decision-making, look into the theory of optimal stopping. There is a large literature on this subject, with many results that go well beyond the highly idealized and unrealistic secretary problem. You may find that someone has proved results about models closer to your academic job search scenario, which may inform your decision-making.
Good luck in any case! I hope you fulfill your dream of getting employed as a mathematician, in academia or elsewhere.

Another reason the model is flawed: typically there's one postdoc hiring round per year, so it's not like the OP has 60 continuous months of samples—they have 5 discrete samples. They're also not independent, etc.

In the UK (where the OP indicates he currently is), the postdoc timings are much more ad-hoc than PhD admissions, not neccessarily clustered as you suggest

Even if the model was spot-on, the conclusion still isn't right; the conclusion would be to reject all postdocs offered in the first 22 months and accept the next offer you get that's better than any of those. There's just so many mistakes in the reasoning chain!

The stipulation is that I get no offers in that time frame, @DanielWagner.

@Shaun A mathematician should have no trouble understanding the generalization if that universe obtains: you reject all 0 postdocs offered in that time, and accept the next offer you get in the remaining three years (which is therefore guaranteed to be better than any you've seen so far).

Exactly, @DanielWagner.  I'm using that as a cut-off point in this model.  "The next thing to come along" would, then, be something I make happen; the Master's.

@Shaun I think what DanielWagner is pointing out is that according to your logic you should plan to reject all postdoc offers that you get within the first 22 months of your search. This does not seem to be what you are proposing, which (if I understood correctly) is to accept any postdoc offer that comes in the first 22 months, and to start soliciting offers for other things after 22 months.

The 1/e rule only applies in situations where you have no information about the population before sampling.  Here that is not the case.  By the time you are writing up your PhD, your advisor and other folks around should have a good idea how competitive you are for a postdoc in math.  If you get a couple of opinions that you're not likely to get a postdoc, you really should look at other options immediately.
Furthermore, unless you continue to write good papers, after a year or two without a position, you're not going to be hired for a postdoc.  The limit for 5 years is mostly aimed at preventing people from taking a 3rd postdoc, not to give a new PhD more time to look for a position.  Realistically, you have 2 years, so 1/e is a few months.

The rule also applies to a setting where you want to maximize the probability of getting the best "thing" among the one available. For positions, if you get the second-best option it's surely worth more than zero.

I think it's way to early to formulate a plan that calls for a binary decision 22 months from a future date now unknown.
You seem to be enjoying your doctoral research while learning some programming skills potentially useful outside academics. That should suffice for now. Keep your mind and your options open as you finish your degree and start your postdoc search.

Others gave you general advice. Adding the following:

Traditionally the telecommunications industry has some need for people who know their way around abstract algebra. Yes, you need to pick a number of other things (and do a bit more programming). I do need to warn you that my impression is "dated" at best (at 2008 I realized myself that my head is too deeply inside a teacher's hat that industry is not for me, but you are younger than I was at the time).
You are in grad school, so you are ideally placed to see what the current trends are. See what other grad students at your university are doing to learn how the land lies!! Many companies acknowledge that a math PhD is prime evidence of your ability to use your brain. When I was in grad school, here's what I saw: a complex analyst hired by AT&T, a model theorist hired by GM, a differential geometer moving into the defence industry after a quick programming stint in telecomm. Transitions I have seen later (leaving out my many connections to telecomm, because that is potentially distorted by my personal history): a number theorist + a coding theorist launching careers in actuarial science, another number theorist (who went to UK for a grad degree) becoming a quant, a cryptographer working for military (no surprise, really). I don't know where the traffic is nowadays. My point really is that your fellow grad students will do quite a bit of legwork for you (as will you for the benefit of grad students junior to yourself).

A further reason I'm downplaying telcomm a bit is that nowadays IoT is one of the big drivers, and I simply have no idea what kind of math they need. Of course, the physical layer is still based on older ideas, possibly needing to be adapted to a different realm.

Generally speaking, you don't need retraining for programming.  Your programming experience is already more than enough to get and do an entry level programming job.  Remember that the vast majority of programming jobs are about moving the names displayed on this site 5 pixels to the left, or adding another option to "Flag", not anything that requires serious knowledge of data structures or algorithms or compilers or cryptography.  Indeed, anything that really requires knowledge of computer science is hard, and anything hard is expensive and prone to failure, which means industry tends to stay away from it.
Now, if you want to do interesting computer science, then the Masters is useful, but your interests would lead you into areas of computer science where jobs are almost as scarce as in pure mathematics.

@bob - research in CS doesn't really help either; plenty of CS is far away from software engineering.  One doesn't need a CS degree to learn software engineering - some on the job training will do for someone who has basic programming skill and aptitude.

So the vast majority of programming jobs, as you describe them, are pretty much lost to ChatGPT. Maybe CS knowledge would provide some job protection, at least temporarily?

This answer confuses me, though I agree that an additional masters isn't helpful unless this person wants to go into the more data science/machine learning type route. There are tons more jobs in cryptography-related work than research type jobs in math, at least if you're are a citizen of a country with a robust military hacking division like the US and UK. Maybe you don't consider that "interesting computer science", but perhaps that should at least be made clear?

Counting traditional tenure-track jobs at PhD granting departments as research-type jobs, the number of cryptography related jobs in the national security establishment is quite small compared to all pure mathematics jobs, or even to jobs in algebra/number theory/combinatorics

@AlexanderWoo That sounds plausible, though the NSA has 30k employees or so total (obviously distributed between different jobs, and on a cursory search). More precisely the supply/demand ratio must surely be much better for laborers if you fulfill the citizenship requirements. There are also contractors who hire in that space. I've just never heard of anyone having a particular problem landing that kind of job out of a PhD if they were willing to take one.

I agree with the general point that if the OP wants to find a typical job in programming, the master's degree in CS is not necessary (and perhaps not even helpful)... but it seems like this isn't really answering the question?

The OP has a Master's in mathematics and is halfway through a PhD. They are not looking for an entry-level programming job. There are a gazillion jobs in so-called "applied mathematics" where companies are looking for someone who can both write good programming code and solve mathematics problem. If the OP can learn to write good code then they will be sought after by recruiters and they'll have no problem finding an interesting job in that field, because the vast majority of applicants either suck at math or suck at writing good code.


text:
How much help with coursework is acceptable?
If a university student is set coursework, this is generally a very uncontrolled method of assessment. Lots of different sources can be used to draw knowledge from and often if it's a technical exercise and not a research one citations are explicitly stated as not required.
My question is thus, where would the line be drawn regarding the amount of help that a student gets with their assignment before it becomes plagiarism?
A few examples:

Asking for help solving a question online.
Asking for help from an expert in their field.
Collaborating with other students on the course.

Don't forget that the purpose of setting assignments is not to get answers. It is to get an education - to learn something from the exercise. While you can learn a bit from reading other people's solutions, that isn't an efficient way to gain insight.

Background
For university course work, I approach this question not from the perspective of where the questions are directed. I approach it instead from the point of when the questions are asked and how they are phrased.
Problem Solving
The first stage of a solving a problem is to define the problem. The goal is to have a statement or statements, a picture, and all of the parameters to the problem in one place. The idea here is to be able to "put the book away", where "the book" is the defining source of the problem.
The second stage of solving a problem is to gather information. The goal is to collect values that are as yet undefined but otherwise anticipated to be part of the solution. This is the point where additional insights are added to the definition. Indeed, in some sense, the second step often runs in parallel with the first step.
The third stage of solving a problem is to propose solutions. This is the brainstorming step. The goal is to reach a point where the statement is made "I am convinced that I can solve this problem completely" or, alternatively, "I am convinced that this problem cannot be solved as stated". This step is where assumptions are stated. This is where equations are proposed. This is where guesses are made and leaps of insight are taken. Any proposed approach that does not violate laws or ethics or standards or rules or regulations is permitted. Approaches that are fundamentally incorrect or improper are to be avoided.
Sometimes, a problem statement is in itself so direct that we combine the first three steps. We have no need to reconsider the problem statement, gather any other information, or indeed brainstorm on potential assumptions. The solution to the problem is essentially that we are to do one thing and one thing only.
The final stage is to evaluate an answer. The goal is to take the best proposed approach and complete it. Here is where the calculators are finally allowed to come out. Here is where the format and layout requirements for the report are dusted off and put in to practice.
Asking Questions
The first two stages should be done with copious back-and-forth dialog and questions. The only way to solve the actual problem at hand is to be certain that you understand the problem at hand completely before you start to work on it. Whether you ask for help from the course instructor (preferred) or an expert on-line or your peers does not matter. Your goal when you ask questions is to fill in the gaps in your understanding to reach the point where you know that you understand the problem statement completely. The type of questions that you ask at this point are framed accordingly. Basically ... Do I really understand what this problem is saying and what information I have to try to address it?
The third step (proposing solutions) can be done within a team environment, especially when it involves brainstorming or debating the viability of different assumptions. What should not be done at this point is to ask questions about whether a proposed solution is or is not correct. Rather, questions should be framed about whether the proposed solution "makes sense" given the system at hand, the information at hand, and the assumptions made. Again, whether you ask the course instructor (preferred), an expert, or your peers is not relevant. However, understand at this point, the best answer to the question about whether a proposed solution "makes sense" generally comes first and foremost from the course instructor, it generally comes last if at all from your peers in the course.
The last step of problem solving is typically to be done straight up. This means, sit down and do what you are supposed to do to complete the proposed solution. Do not ask questions, just do it. As needed, consult additional references for the proper methods to just do it.
Team Work versus Group Work
I must conclude with a few comments about team work versus group work in a university environment. This is especially with regard to the question about plagiarism.
Team work is the effort taken by students together to do the first three steps in problem solving. Teams get together early, analyze the problem statement and the information given, debate the pros and cons of various approaches, and ask questions of the instructor, experts, and their peers. Then, all team members go home and do the work on their own. Because each student is fully responsible for their own efforts to "just do it", no one has plagiarized anyone in the case of team work.
Group work is the effort taken by students to collect "the right answers" to problems. Groups start with everyone going home to "do" the problem by themselves. Groups end by everyone getting together to compare answers and collect only the best answers to submit. Because all students put answers from the group in as their own effort, everyone has truly plagiarized everyone else in this case.
Team work is to be encouraged and applauded. Group work is to be shunned and duly penalized. I might give an extreme example of three students submitting an answer to the same problem from a course assignment. Each student in a team of three students deserves full credit for their distinctly different answers to the problem. By comparison, each student in a group of three students deserves to have their common grade cut by 1/3 for submitting clearly identical answers to the problem.
The other aspects of plagiarism involve lessons on how to cite sources of information adequately and properly. The lessons are an entire treatise to themselves.

This addresses my question excellently. Obviously, to me at least, getting someone else to, for example, do the calculations for you and give you an answer would be wrong but stuff along the lines of "would X method work" or "what am I doing wrong by using Y method" constitute parts of your first three stages

It depends. Some teachers want all the work to be that of the student and disallow any assistance. Some allow assistance only from teacher or TA (to control amount of help). Some have liberal allowance for collaboration.
Just ask the teacher what is allowed.
I would just be rather strict with yourself.  Like don't call it "help" when you are just copying.

Aye, there would be no point copying. I'm more thinking along the lines of "this is what I've done so far but I've hit a brick wall, what could I consider as a next step"

You need to get permission before using assistance. The teacher may not allow it.

Fair enough, was just curious as to what accepted practise is. If it's relevant, I'm mostly concerned with the UK

"Accepted practice" is completely up to your professor. What I allow and what is permitted to you can be completely different. I'm not your professor. It would be a serious strategic error to claim that "it is ok because the internet says so" to your professor if s/he has a different standard.


text:
How to cite scientific laws
There are several laws that many people know verbatim and could quote off of the top of their heads. Take Gay Lussac's (The Pressure) Law for instance:

The pressure of a gas of fixed mass and fixed volume,is directly proportional to the gas's absolute temperature.

Which is the wording that is used in many textbooks and on Wikipedia. However, in many instances, this included, it can be difficult to locate the original paper where the law was defined due to the passage of time. A similar example of this could be Pythagoras' Theorum:

The square of the hypoteneuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

So my question is thus, how should one go about citing these definitions? Should we just assume that everyone is aware of their provenance due to them being universally understood laws in academic circles and thus they can stand on their own axiomically?
If it's relevant, my university conforms to their own variant of Harvard referencing.

If you expect all of your readers know Pythagoras's Theorem, then you need not cite it.  If not, give a page-number reference to a textbook that discusses it.  (No need to find the original enunciation, which was presumably not Pythagoras himself anyway.)

Common knowledge doesn't need to be cited. The threshold for what counts as "common" varies: My rule of thumb for a scientific publication is that if it is taught in the intro lectures of your discipline, it's common knowledge. I sometimes mention Planck's law at the start of a Methods section, and don't give a citation. Exceptions are of course if your paper is about the history of the law itself, or a related topic, in which case you would be interested in specific historical formulations and usage contexts anyway and should cite a source. (Or for example in the pedagogy of physics, if you want to compare textbook formulations - cite them.) Another case is if you use something that's common knowledge in a different discipline. I find this to be the case with statistical and machine learning techniques which a reader in my (geosciences) area might not be familiar with, but which would need no citation in a statistics paper. In this case, I found a widely used textbook to cite (with "e.g." before the reference).
References have a purpose. You can ask yourself: Who is my reader, and would they either know this or recognize it as background knowledge that they can look up in standard basic references? Pythagoras theorem - taught to every teen in the country, so needs no cite.
For a class paper, you should probably ask the instructor about where the limit for cite-worthy lies. I've found that "what was taught in THIS class and its immediate predecessors" is usually considered common knowledge. If you want to cite something, a standard textbook will do.

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Is there some generally academic accepted categorization of subject areas and subject categories?
My question in the title is general.  To help you understand why I'm asking the general question, I'll add ... the SJR (SCImago Journal) ranking is based on the SCOPUS database.  In both the Web of Science and SJR journal ranking, they categorize "Information Systems" under "Computer Science".  I'm personally interested if there are some other major academic search engine, that categorizes "Information Systems", somewhere other than "Computer Science"?
However, to answer my question, please answer the general question, since that applies to many more SE users.

There are library classification systems like the Dewey Decimal system and the Library of Congress system which attempt to categorize fields of study.

@Nate: thx!  I also found the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) Web URL, however, I don't know if the CCS is generally academic accepted (or perhaps there is a better one).

A friend who is a librarian reports that Dewey Decimal is falling out of use, assuming I understood correctly.

Australia and New Zealand rely upon the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC).  This standard comprises of Type of Activity (TOA); Fields of Research (FOR); and Socio-economic Objective (SEO).
You would be most interested in the Fields of Research code specifications.  In the FOR code, Division 08 Information and Computing Sciences includes group 0806 Information Systems which is specified here: http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/21AF3378B57615E7CA25741800047563?opendocument
Sources:

http://www.arc.gov.au/applicants/codes.htm#ANZSRC
Industry experience

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Difference between "Referee-reviewed articles" and "Referee-reviewed conference contributions"?
I'm a new PhD student.  The specific demands on me are for me to agree to do the following, during my PhD:

Publish two Referee-reviewed articles and
Publish four Referee-reviewed conference contributions

I completely understand what is 2.
However, I'm not sure what is 1. (but is not 2.).
So my only question is, what is the difference between 1. and 2.?
Thanks!!!  Todd

Typically, "article" refers to a journal publication, while "conference contribution" would refer to conference papers.

After your answer, I read a bunch of old emails, which are all consistent with your correct answer!!!


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I'm pursing my Masters Degree in India, how can I apply for Doctors degree in Japan?
I have pursued my Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering from NIT Puducherry. I thought to do my Master degree in Japan, but due to improper planning, I couldn't achieve it. I'm currently pursuing my Master's Degree(in my first year) in IIT Roorkee, in the Department of Earthquake Engineering.
Please help me out with that, how can I at least do my Doctor's from Japan in Earthquake Engineering.

Procedure to applying for Doctor's in Japan?
Details regarding Cost of living and Culture in Japan?
Any other details like exams required for applying for courses and Scholarships?

Please focus on one question, and choose one which is in the profile of this site. For example, we do not answer shopping questions. Have you contacted any university or laboratory inquiring about the doctoral programs?

@Greg I'm sorry, I'm new to this community. I have done a little research on Universities while I was thinking about my master, but not on Doctoral programs. I'll sure do that thanks.

Also, let’s address the elephant in the room: due to COVID, many foreign students (even the ones who were already accepted to universities), could not secure a visa and could not enter to Japan. No one knows how this will work out in the near future.

I'm afraid that you are being a bit naïve if you think that a 2-year Master gives you lots of time to properly plan for an application to study in Japan. In fact, 2 years is a very, very short amount of time. It is possible to apply, but please understand that you have a tremendous amount of work ahead of you (if you want to be successful), especially because you seem to have not done much research on the matter up until now.
Because your questions are too broad, I'm only going to reply to each of them as simple and short as possible. Even so, this is going to be a long answer.
1. Application as a self-supported student
First off, if you have enough money to pay full tuition fees and study in Japan as a self-supported student, then all you have to do is to check the universities' websites, they all have English websites and plenty of information about how to apply for their doctoral programs (including tuition fee info). In most cases, you will need to apply one year in advance (that is, just as you are starting your second year of master studies in India).
Note that competition for positions in the top "former imperial universities" is absolutely fierce (University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Tohoku University, Kyushu University, Hokkaido University, Osaka University, Nagoya University). Unless you have excellent grades from your undergraduate and master programs, you will have some difficulty getting accepted in any of these top universities. It's not impossible to be accepted with average grades (for example Tohoku might be less competitive), but please do not think it will be by any means easy. Search for universities that offer doctoral programs completely in English, because it is impossible for you to master academic-level Japanese in just 2 years.
It would be also be wise for you to check webpages of polytechnic universities (basically any university that includes the word "Technology" in its name, such as Tokyo University of Technology).
2. Application for Government Scholarships
Please check the official website of MEXT and JASSO for information on Scholarships for foreign students, and how to apply for them. You can get started with these two websites:
JASSO Website - Scholarships for Study in Japan
MEXT Website - Study in Japan
Depending on the scholarship, you might need to apply one year or even 1.5 years in advance, so perhaps you are starting to realize how little time you actually have to prepare properly. There's going to be lots and lots of application forms, and you will need to get several certificates to prove your grades, etc.
Some scholarships such as MEXT Scholarship (by Embassy recommendation) will even ask you to do a personal interview at the embassy, and do two exams, one in high-level English, and another of high-level Japanese (comparable to JLPT N1 level). The results of the Japanese exam are only used to select between candidates who otherwise have the same score in the other tests and interview, so you don't need to score high on the Japanese exam. However, you will need to score extremely high on the English exam, and some embassies might ask you to do other exams, such as Math.
For most scholarships, if you get accepted you will be allowed to spend one year in a Japanese university as a "research student", which is a name used for people who are not officially registered in any program (i.e., neither undergraduate, master or doctoral), but are still allowed to use the premises of the university to prepare for the entrance exams. During that "research student" year, you have no ability to apply for any student discounts (university students have a 50% discount on public transportation, for example). While you are a research student, you will need to be as absolutely diligent as possible to study for the entrance exams every single day, and also learn as much Japanese as possible. If you think you are going to have an easy time and that you can do lots of sightseeing and party a lot and enjoy yourself, think again, because the exams are usually very tough and if you get lazy and start to procrastinate, there is no way you will pass them successfully and then your visa will expire and you will have to leave Japan. Please take the exams as seriously as possible, they must be your absolute priority at all times.
The number of Japanese universities that conduct entrance exams in English is relatively low, so that is the first thing you need to confirm in advance with each university, either by checking their website or sending an email to the Foreign Student office of each university. Besides the exams, you will have to do an interview with 3-5 professors about your research proposal in order to get accepted. Each professor can normally accept no more than 1-3 foreign doctoral students (depending on the size of the university), so you might be facing quite a lot of competition from other foreign students.
Once you finally pass the entrance exams and the interview, you will be officially admitted as a doctoral student instead of a mere "research student", and you can apply for student discounts and tuition fee waivers. Even then, you cannot lower your guard: every year you will need to write a report to prove to the scholarship providers that you are getting excellent grades in all classes, otherwise you will lose your scholarship and visa.
3. Job prospects after getting the Doctoral Degree
3.1 Academia
Unless you have a very high level of Japanese ability (Academic Japanese in the field of Engineering is actually at a higher level than JLPT N1), you will probably not get a position in academia in Japan. The number of academic positions available for non-Japanese speakers is incredibly small, and they are mainly intended for people who already have established careers abroad, and have accumulated lots of experience, publications, prizes and patents abroad. Either your research is extremely amazing, or you need to be incredibly lucky to get one of these positions (connections are everything in life).
3.2 Private Companies
Unlike academia, you may have some better chances getting hired with private companies, but please be aware that it's not an easy task, and in order to be successful you should be practicing your job interview and application skills during your 3-year Doctor course. If you wait until the last minute to prepare for job interviews, it is very unlikely that you will be successful. The secret to being successful in Japan is: prepare, prepare, PREPARE! And do your best to master engineering terms in Japanese (and academic Japanese in general), even now during your Master period. If you have 5 years of solid language training before you apply for jobs, you might be able to get something reasonable. Almost no Japanese company has any use for an earthquake engineer that can only speak English. You need to have other skills that can be of use to them.
Another important thing: the cultural attitudes of Japanese people are completely different than those in India. In Japan, devoting your time to the company is often more important than your own family (there are companies which do value family time and adopt a work-life balance principle, but they are relatively few and many people compete for such jobs). Depending on the time of the year, if you are working for major construction and engineering companies in a major Japanese city such as Tokyo, it is not rare for employees to do between 10-14 hours of work per day, and to work weekends and holidays. Many foreign students realize they cannot handle the pressure and end up returning to their countries, feeling bitter and frustrated. If you want less work hours, you will have to move to a small city or a more rural area, but then your salary and work conditions will also be much lower.
Beware of the so-called "black companies" which are notorious for deceiving applicants with false claims of good work conditions and then proceed to treat you like hell. There is some information about them online, but perhaps it is best to ask Japanese colleagues about such unlawful companies.
4. Life in Japan
4.1. Budget
The minimum amount of money per month necessary for surviving in Tokyo and Osaka is around 120-150.000 yen (150 thousand yen). This covers rent for a microscopic room (15-20 square meters) with a toilet and shower, water, internet, gas, electricity, transportation fees, and food. This amount of money is also what most scholarships offer, and it is very low. With just 120.000 yen, you will have to manage your monthly budget very carefully if you don't want to starve to death or become homeless. In a smaller city, you should be able to manage with 100.000 yen. If you cannot afford this much money per month (or find a scholarship that pays this much), you should not come to Japan. Don't expect to be sightseeing that much with this amount of money, travelling is very expensive! Use your money wisely. Don't forget about university tuition fees. Some scholarships such as MEXT can waive your tuition fees completely.
4.2 Language and Culture
This is perhaps the most difficult part of coming to Japan. Many, many foreigners come to Japan with enormous fantasies and illusions that have nothing to do with reality. They fantasize that they will be able to enjoy all sorts of cool things, cool technology and gadgets, and other rights and perks, while thinking that Japanese society is just going to accept them as they are, without needing to change anything about themselves and their cultural habits. They do not realize that in order to enjoy all of these cool things, perks and rights, there is an enormous list of duties, responsibilities and sacrifices that need to be made.
Do not naively assume that you can live in Japan in the same way as you live in India. Foreigners are expected to be extremely punctual at all times, they must not throw parties in their homes (the walls are thin, and your neighbors can hear every single thing you do!), and they must separate garbage diligently, and they must not damage anything in their rooms, or hang posters, etc. You might argue that there is a portion of Japanese citizens who are irresponsible and don't do any of these things. That is true, but if you are expecting Japanese society to accept you, you must be better and more reliable than the average Japanese, otherwise you will be kicked out of your rented room (and out of the country!) in no time.
If you are coming to Japan, you must come with the attitude that you must adapt to their culture. To be clear, you don't need to change every single cultural habit you have, but nobody is going to extend a red carpet on your arrival and treat you nicely unless you go a long way towards mastering their language and the key aspects of their cultural behaviors, especially punctuality and dedication to work and self-improvement, and dedication to helping your fellow students, coworkers and the company as a whole. In a number of large Japanese companies, most decisions are not made at meetings, but rather in informal gatherings at restaurants or bars where people can loosen up and speak more freely. The meetings are mostly used as performances just to confirm what was already decided at the drinking parties. Meetings are not the place to challenge the decisions of your supervisor or your boss. If you think that there is something that needs to be changed or could be done better, wait patiently until the meeting is over, and quietly chat with a trusted co-worker or send a polite email to your supervisor, suggesting a different way how things could be done. Then let the co-worker/supervisor go behind the scenes in order to try to get some consensus around your idea. Don't automatically expect it to be accepted, and don't expect to get any credit or recognition for your idea, especially if your supervisor had to do all of the convincing work to get it adopted. That's how life is there, and if you continue contributing, and learning the language better, over time you will probably have increasing opportunities to make a difference and get some recognition.
If you manage to connect with the Indian community that is already living in Japan, you might be able to find some job through their connections, and maybe get by without having to change your cultural habits, but then you might also lose access to some good-paying jobs, and you might also have a harder time mastering the language, and you will also feel very isolated from the rest of society as a whole. It's something that you will have to consider deeply once you arrive here. Remember that Japanese employers deeply value those employees who can interact well with Japanese customers. If you can speak the language well and understand well their polite cultural norms, and have proven yourself to be reliable, diligent and responsible, then that's how you can get the best-paid jobs. Otherwise, you risk ending up in poorly-paid jobs that will stress you and drain your life away, little by little.
Good luck, and work/study hard.

Thanks a lot, sir, it was quite informative and valuable.

Phd programs in STEM generally do not require any Japanese skills, and have no course work. In fact, universities have special courses from beginner level (mostly packed with master and phd students), which is also part of most sponsored programs, too.

This is an amazing answer! I wish it were attached to a better question. We don't normally encourage duplicate answers, but in this case, please feel free to copy anything from this answer into other japan-tagged questions. If you'd be interested in contributing to a canonical question along the lines of "So you want to do a PhD in Japan", please let us know; East Asian Academia is one place where this site tends to get more questions than answers.

Thank you for all of the above comments. I will consider applying for a canonical question in the future, but due to current work commitments, it will take a while. Hopefully, this answer will be enough to satisfy most inquiries for the time being.


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Do authors publish how they calculate/results of their reliability tests?
I am in political science.
I was a research assistant and contributed to a project as a coder, but not much else. I wasn't too impressed with the project, I coded stuff but there was no way this would have any reliability.
The project was eventually published in a highly regarded journal and the Krippendorff's Alpha is very high, like 0.85+ high, which seems unlikely to me. I am just wondering, do the editors/peer reviewers ask how is this stuff calculated or just take the results in the face value?
Or can I contact the journal to ask them, because there is no way what I coded and what the other person did has that level of agreement.

There is no universal here. Some reviewers are more diligent than others. Some authors are more forthcoming than others. Don't try to generalize too much from one paper.

I don’t understand the situation. It looks like you are an author of a published paper ("the results are out on a highly regarded journal"). So you should know whether you published how the results were calculated and if the editor/reviewer asked for it. I especially don’t see why you would want to actively approach the journal about this.

@MisterMiyagi I was not an author. I was an assistant in project X and worked at project Y as a second coder. Just that. Did not write anything, just received the "training" and went on coding, and sent the results. During that time, I became familiar with the project and realised that the whole structure was problematic scientifically. However, I thought well, this would be reflected in results but results look amazing, especially the reliability and validity, so high. Hence my curiosity, how they share it or do journals expect the process to be shared? Or do they just report the number?

Editors and peer reviewers do not have the capacity to judge every calculation in a paper. Their role is typically to judge things at a higher level; did you ask a good question, did you select the appropriate variables to include in the model?
Scientific publishing is still built on a lot of trust that authors are not lying or making things up.
Each journal sets its own standards for what sort of data and code should be shared. The paper may have a statement to the effect of "Data are available (in the Supplementary Material/on Zenodo)." If it doesn't, the data are not publicly accessible. I am not in political science, but I get the sense that they are lagging behind in data- and code-sharing this way.
It seems like you haven't seen your co-rater's codes. That's fine, of course, but consider that you and them may have been more reliable than you realized. I have sat through many presentations and remember thinking "I'm surprised that's as reliable as it is."
Do not approach the journal unless you have solid evidence of falsification, i.e., you got the data from the project, and calculated reliability yourself.

Yes, editors/peer reviewers ask how this stuff is calculated.

You should not contact the editor or the journal. If you have serious doubts, you should express them clearly to the authors and suggest that x result is unreliable for y and z.

Forget it otherwise.

okay, so the authors submitted some sort of code alignment csv or something when submitting their article?

It depends on the journal. Some journals have specific guidelines requiring the authors to submit data and replication code; others don't. Some referees will check this; some will not.