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Can online recording of work area at home be made a mandatory criterion for passing exams midway through a course?
Right now with the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada I believe most Ontario universities and colleges have their classes online, and my university decided to do that as well. With this in mind, many of our final exams are now being taken online with a camera and microphone recording, a lockdown browser to make sure you cannot access the web, and a proctor watching you over the internet. Before the exam begins, you must do a 360 environment scan of your entire workspace (your entire room, table with nothing on top, your wall and ceiling, etc). Recently my prof made an announcement saying that if a student did not do an environment scan properly, did not have their eye on the screen the entire time, or as long as they felt that a student is cheating, they can reject and invalidate the exam without any proof. Out of curiosity, is this actually allowed?
Another thing that was ridiculous about these online exams is that on the exam information document, it said “if you do not wish to be recorded, you should not take this course.” But this decision of everything going online was made after 3/4th of the term and some profs decided to have online exams a week before the exam weeks, so why do we have to do an online exam when we never had chosen for it to be online? Can I interpret this as "either do the exams online or drop the course, and we will not refund you any tuition"?
I really felt uncomfortable showing my room to people I don’t know, and I think that it violated my privacy. (I live in an off campus residence and my room is the only place where I can make it like an “exam hall”). Is there a place I can complain about this, and will they actually listen?

I wonder how they deal with students needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of an exam? Are they expecting you to not be allowed a bathroom break for two hours straight?

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

Do you know if this has been approved by the legal department at the university?  I can imagine that the requirement to accommodate for students with disabilities (which I strongly suspect Ontario to have) will open a very large can of worms here.  For example, how will blind or deaf students be accommodated?

I am suprised no one mentioned this. If you are sharing your room, the university is forcing you to share your roommate's room as well. I am not sure how “if you do not wish to be recorded, you should not take this course.” would apply to your roommate who possibly have nothing to do with your university.

Is there a lockdown order that forces you to stay at home in your country/region? Otherwise, the university has a reasonable answer in "just take the exam somewhere else, if you do not wish to show us your bedroom".

“they can reject and invalidate the exam without any proof”: would that be considered as a failure or does it simply mean you would have to do it again? Also “have their eye on the screen the entire time” seems difficult to do for an extended period of time. Does it mean you may not use a sheet of paper for writing notes and calculations?

For what it's worth: even before the COVID crisis there the proposed measures such as 360 video and forced screensharing were used during exams for online certifications. Was I super happy that I had to follow this in order to get some IT certifiation? No, but it was either that or simply never get the certification... The students are in the same position: nobody is forcing them to do this.

@fgysinreinstateMonica; legislations differ in that respect, but here in Germany, there's legally a huge difference between university studies up to Master (or other legally required exams) and additional certifications that one may get for whatever reason and with whatever institution. Students are forced to take these exams if they want to excercise their basic right to free choice of profession. In consequence, the law here is extremely picky about potential abuse of power/undue pressure and fair procedure. There are strict requirements on x and y for "if you do x/do not do y, you fail".

... Failiing to provide 360° scans are AFAIK not listed among the valid reasons for failing.

Universities around the world are trying very hard right now to find ways to balance students’ rights to privacy and dignity with difficult practical questions concerning the transition to remote teaching and testing.
Regarding testing, the reality is that cheating is a common occurrence in many places even in normal times when testing is done in the physical presence of and under the supervision of the instructor. There is little doubt that many students will take advantage of a remote testing environment in order to cheat, making the problem potentially much worse. This hurts honest students, hurts the university’s reputation, and devalues grades as a signal containing meaningful information. So, to put it very mildly, it is to everyone’s benefit that cheating be prevented to the extent possible.
All those things considered, if the choice is between a small intrusion on your privacy and closing down the university or cancelling all tests and grades, I think it’s clear that these sorts of anti-cheating measures are simply the best we can do at this moment in time, and you just have to accept this indignity as a necessary (and hopefully temporary) evil.
You can complain, but unless your complaint is accompanied by some solution to the remote testing problem that is so ingenious and innovative that it will make photographing your room unnecessary and prevent cheating at the same time, I wouldn’t expect your complaint to particularly impress anyone. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound harsh but that’s just the way it is.
Anyway, you have my sympathy. Keep in mind your professors are also stressed out and are also called on to do things many of them are uncomfortable with during this difficult time.

Edit: after thinking some more about this issue, I think a much bigger problem with these testing restrictions is that they seem to prohibit students from using the bathroom during the exam. This strikes me as a much bigger deal than the privacy intrusion, as it conflicts with basic human physiological needs, and raises significant issues of fairness and equity (as certain populations of students will find it much harder to comply with such a constraint than others). So if you are thinking of complaining, I would recommend making this the focus of your complaint rather than the privacy intrusion. It wouldn’t necessarily lead to the cancellation of the 360 degree scan requirement, but I can see a decent chance that the professor and/or university might reconsider some of the other somewhat draconian restrictions, as well as their general approach to the whole remote testing issue.
As for who to complain to, you should go through the usual channels for complaints within your institution, whatever those are (the professor, department chair, college, ombudsperson, student union, etc).

Edit 2:
To address a few of the objections to what I wrote that were raised in the comments:

The privacy intrusion is not “small”: perhaps; it depends on your frame of reference, and in ordinary times I’d totally agree. But my point is that these aren’t ordinary times, and standards for what constitutes an acceptable level of privacy intrusion are changing out of necessity. So when I say “small” I really mean “as small as can practically be achieved while still allowing the professor to do their work at a level of effectiveness the professor considers acceptable.”
It’s not clear that the professor was required to use this method of testing. Other professors are doing things differently. I never said the professor is guided by university rules. It’s possible each professor only receives general guidance from their university and has to decide for themselves about specific rules for remote testing. As long as their decision is generally reasonable, the fact that other professors made different decisions is a very weak argument. Although a bit of consistency is a desirable thing, there is no rule that all professors must handle all situations in an identical manner.
Your argument is premised on the assumption that this method of testing can be proved to be the only effective solution to the assessment problem. Please provide proof that this is so. It’s not premised on that assumption at all. There isn’t a scientifically proven, ideal method of testing. Professors have to make real-life decisions about real-life situations and do the best they can based on their intuition and experience. They don’t all have to agree on the best way of doing something, and don’t need to have a rigorous scientific basis for any decision they make. Sometimes they even make wrong decisions. There is room to debate and question each decision, but just saying a decision is illegitimate because the person making it can’t scientifically prove that it’s the best decision is not a valid argument.
I am outraged! So am I. This situation sucks! But instead of complaining, offer workable solutions. Believe it or not, professors also do not want to see anyone’s bedroom, and would be happy to switch to an alternative system if you can simply show them one and convince them that it satisfies the need to maintain a minimum level of integrity and effectiveness in assessing students’ knowledge. Professors are not evil people trying to oppress students. They are just trying to get a job done to the best of their abilities under difficult circumstances.

Sorry but "a small intrusion"? You realize the OP has to show the inside of their bedroom, inside of their own property. They may not be even be living alone; they don't have to . In most countries, even police cannot do, without a warrant, what the university is trying to do

@onurcanbektas if it weren’t for the pandemic I’d totally agree with you. But the standards for what is acceptable have changed out of necessity. Maybe instead of outrage you can offer some practical solutions? Please tell us how you would run a university right now if they put you in charge.

Wow, this answer has proven controversial. Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. I'll leave these two as they summarize the two main viewpoints.

My partner is involved in exactly this kind of thing at a UK university. Anything requiring more than the most basic computer access was immediately thrown out, as it could neither be assumed that the students would have any kind of special hardware at home (as opposed to the university library) and/or any kind of private location. In the end they opted for time limited (48 h) open book style exams and the students can upload their by a variety of methods, down to taking a picture of the paper they have been writing on. They still expect a non-negligible number of exceptions to this.

"All those things considered, if the choice is between a small intrusion on your privacy and closing down the university or cancelling all tests and grades" False dilemma fallacy. As @Marianne013 has already pointed out, this isn't universal and I can confirm it's not taking place at another UK institution. Open book exams are certainly possible and a lot more reasonable.

@AdamWilliams false “false dilemma fallacy” fallacy. See my comment number 3 under “Edit 2”. It doesn’t have to be universal to be something a professor is allowed to do. I’m not saying this is the best solution or even something I myself would advocate for. But if professors are told to figure out a solution for testing their class and this is what OP’s professor decided to do, then, in a context of a deadly pandemic where practically everyone is giving up much more basic freedoms, all I’m saying is that complaining isn’t likely to get you very far, except possibly for the bathroom issue.

@AdamWilliams In support of what DanRomik wrote, it is also important to recognise that not all subjects lend themselves well to the same kinds of testing. If your students are writing philosophical essays cheating is way less of an issue compared to, say, a calculus exam.

We have the same kind of procedure at my university in europe. My advisor put it this way: This online testing is an offer for those who want/need to use it. It is far from ideal, but if you really need to take that exam now, you have the possibility. If it is not so urgent, you can wait until exams can be held at the university, though the time for that will be very dependent from your location. At our university we estimate that we can resume examinations in person at some point during summer. If you are uncomfortable with online exams, you should ask around, when somewhat "normal" exams can be taken again. Unfortunately, there is no other way right now.
Remember that the whole world loses in this pandemic, big time. Students are sadly not exempt from that.

It's not clear whether you are thinking of mid-term examinations in a class (like the question is), or about qualifying examinations in a course of study.  It might be far easier to delay the latter by a few months until campus reopens.

Yes, indeed, I am talking about exams at the end of the semester. As far as I can tell, mid-term examinations will require mandatory online tests or a change in examination modus. It's not a pretty situation.

If you don't mind this intrusion on your privacy: where in Europe are you? I know that the concepts of privacy in the context of exams varies, e.g. IIRC in Italy, [oral?] exams are always public (anti-corruption/fair procedure) whereas in Germany, I'm familiar with the student having the right to bring someone else, but without the student agreeing, noone but the examinees, examiners and protocolant can be there.

I'm from Austria. We are pretty succesful right now with containing the pandemic, although a lot of the regulations violate our constitution. So our supreme courts will presumably remove them soon. A lot of what is happening here is in some sort of gray zone.

It is unclear from your post, if you support what your advisor says. You mention his explanation, but this does not include if this should be supported. I see for example the problem that he creates a false dilemma between "privacy" and "doing the exam" excluding all other alternatives that may exist.

I am in the lucky situation that I don't need any exams anymore, but I think this is a valid compromise in the given circumstances. The exams that my advisor holds are really difficult and have usually ~100 participants (3 or 4 times per semester), so the workload (and potential for cheating!) is huge. That excludes many alternative examination formats. The situation sucks hard, so we should all try to leave our comfort zones to make things work as best as we can.

And remember: the examiner does not want to see your catgirl poster either. You can/should remove these things for the duration of the exam. It is also better for you as student to sit in a sterile environment without distractions.

As Dan Romik’s answer suggests, I think it is unlikely you’ll be able to get an individual exception from this policy.
However, you can give polite and respectful feedback explaining that you find it highly intrusive.  That would, I think, be perfectly appropriate.  It’s true that, as other answers say, everyone (including both students and professors) has to make non-ideal compromises to balance privacy against cheating — but I and other academics I’ve discussed these issues with are all accepting a little more risk of cheating as part of the compromise, rather than resorting to measures as strict as the ones you describe.  A full 360º scan is much more intrusive than just requiring a video-call; as a faculty member, I would feel quite uncomfortable enforcing that policy, and equally uncomfortable if I had to provide such a scan of my own bedroom.
An appropriate feedback note could go something like:

Dear XXX,
I’m just writing to give some feedback on the exam workspace verification procedure required for course Sci-101.  While I appreciate that  we all have to accept unusual compromises in the current situation, this procedure will be in practice highly intrusive on our personal privacy.  For many students, the only suitable workspace available will be their own bedroom; others may only have a shared room, or be in other living arrangements that complicate the situation.  Many people may feel quite uncomfortable being required to share a full view of such a space with instructors.
I don’t know whether you’re involved in setting these procedures yourself, or have a channel for feedback to whoever does set them; but either way, I hope that you or they will bear these issues seriously in mind, and consider other less intrusive verification possibilities in future, for the sake of respecting student privacy better.
Yours sincerely, YYY.

Now, what does this achieve? Couldn’t they simply answer with: “The situation doesn’t allow for anything else”, and be done with it?
This depends on what’s happening behind the scenes. “The situation doesn’t allow for anything else” is patently false, since plenty of other instructors/departments are deciding to go with slightly less rigorous but less intrusive procedures, as their preferred compromise. Of course, some people/committees are inflexible and then the feedback falls on deaf ears and achieves nothing. But most decision makers are (in my experience) somewhat open to feedback, and hearing that it did make students uncomfortable may inform the decisions in future.
The case where it might be most useful is if the faculty themselves are somewhat divided: if some instructors argued for this procedure (and won) while others would have preferred a less intrusive option. Student feedback like this would be very useful support for the anti-intrusion camp arguing their case. I can certainly imagine if my department had asked us to impose this kind of check, I would be glad of student feedback to support pushing back against it.

Excellent lette template! I'd add the concern that these points may mean that the exam is void/invalid.

Can you wall off part of your room by hanging a sheet from the ceiling? Then you could only show them the part of your room that you take the exam in. Just an idea.

I'd combine this with @PLL's answer.

Or throw a sheet / tarp whatever over any areas in the room that you don't want them to see (your collection of Hello Kitty dolls, for example -innocent smile-)

I'm looking at this from a germany perspective. Cultural points that are relevant for this question:

We do have keep-away-from-other-people legislation, but not stay-at-home legislation (stay at home would probably be unconstitutional since the risk comes from being close to people rather than from home/not home)
During the last days, we have had some interesting decisions by constitutional courts (both federal and Länder [≈ provinces]) emphasizing that measures taken against Covid-19 must not be harder than needed, and when constitutional rights are affected it is necessary to search for possibilities to keep these rights intact while also keeping Covid-19 safety.
These decisions (well, those that made it prominently into the media) were even  holding up the right to public assembly (under certain Covid-19 safety measures such 20 instead of 100s participants, face masks [!], distance marks, ... or doing the assembly in cars)
privacy is taken quite important over here.

Putting this together, I'm pretty sure that the described exam mode would be considered unnecessarily intrusive.
One example of an exam "mode" that would not require to be all that intrusive (i.e. not require environment scan) would be to conduct the exam orally during a video call. I may add that in my studies, the really important exams were all oral exams.
As for practicality of oral exams: when I had a TA job as PhD student, semster "strength" was about 200 students for the undergrads/Bachelor students, and we had them all for oral exams in their first and again in the second year (plus some more from other fields of study, but they were in the "off-terms" so much less of a logistic problem). (Yes they also had written exams, and they had labwork practica which were graded, too). So maybe I see a kind of "pain" as normal that others would consider utterly impractical.
Or even in person with appropriate safety measures.
Also, over here, schools are closed, but where I am the written final exams* took place as originally scheduled: since no other classes were around, the students could be seated far apart (across many rooms, also many teachers available), desks were disinfected and everyone had to wash their hands (hand disinfectant was provided as well).
*  Gymnasium [≈ high school] has a final exam that is the entrance exam for university and that is done at the same time and with the same questions across all schools

 not do an environment scan properly, [...] as long as they felt that a student is cheating, they can reject and invalidate the exam without any proof.

The accusation that a student cheated is a serious one. The examiner feeling that this is the case is not sufficient.

“if you do not wish to be recorded, you should not take this course.

Whether that is legally possibly in Canada I have no idea. Here in Germany, professors are public officials, and the legal situation is very strict on fair procedure since students don't have a choice but to take the exams prescribed for their studies. So everything that even slightly smells of abuse of power is a big no-no.
Now, recordings of exams are often done, e.g. by having someone who writes protocol - that is not intrusive. I also know that in some cases audio recordings are done in exams but AFAIK that needs permission and I think (though I'm not entirely sure) a student has the right to refuse and then a written protocol is the fall back option.
Any kind of exam protocol is highly sensitive data. I'd therefore expect that it may be the university who do not allow video recordings (in particular if the video meeting is done via services like zoom) because guaranteeing that the recording is safe is too much hassle/risk for them.

did not have their eye on the screen the entire time

Requiring this over 2 hours would probably run foul of screen work safety rules here.

What to do?

I'd go for the least private room possible and I'd go for the "blanket method" of increasing video call privacy.
Consider contacting the student ombudsperson or privacy protection person at your university and hear what they say. That is ultimately far more to the point than the opinions of strangers on the internet.
Whether to contact your professor now or after all marks are given is something strangers in the internet can IMHO not recommend since a good strategy very much depends on you, your professor, and your relationship to the professor.

One thing that I'd say could be said beforehand is: You may express a concern that the exam may turn out to be void due to the highly unusual requirements surrounding the exam, e.g. together with PLL's example letter

In the Netherlands students have started a petition against a this type of examination: https://www.change.org/p/tilburg-university-stop-the-proctoring-exams-at-tilburg-university-and-give-us-alternative-examinations

What is the "blanket method" of increasing video call privacy?

@FedericoPoloni: hang a blanket or bed sheet behind you to have a neutral background (and carefully adjust where the camera points).

I can easily imagine a professor not being satisfied with that, too. What if after your 360 scan a friend comes out of the blanket off-camera to help you?

@FedericoPoloni: it's more for normal video calls, not for the intrusion level of 360° calls (I'd call that painter's blanket method then...). But I think it's easier if that someone uses the door after the 360° call rather than coming from behind the blanket. After all, if someone is to come in, that door will be outside the camera viewing angle after the scan. Whereas the blanket is meant to be inside.

I understand that your are talking about a college/university exam (as opposed to a high school exam), and that it is a scientific education (e.g. physics, engineering) as opposed to a vocational one (e.g. nursing, lab technician).
Then I would argue that the professor is less than ingenious here, and that the questionable and fraught privacy intrusion could be avoided by altering the exams.
A college degree certifies that you can work "scientifically", which means that you use available information as a base to solve non-trivial problems. This is what your exam should test. It is of course necessary to have some basic rote knowledge, mostly so that one knows how to tackle a problem and where to find relevant information. Making good use of available information is a core requirement for educated work. The typical work of an engineer or programmer is not to sit alone in a room and apply rote knowledge. The typical work is to identify the problem the customer actually has, assemble all available information to find an array of possible solution strategies, choose the most appropriate one for the parameter space and implement it with all the information you can get; typically this is a team effort, so you need social skills as well.
Now in an exam situation we assume the problem is clearly stated, and we want to grade
individuals, so there is often not team work.
But reproducing rote knowledge is not the essence of educated work and testing it should not be the essence of a scientific exam.
This is why we use calculators at math exams these days (if we compute numbers at all), and dictionaries in language education. Yes, you need to be able to perform some calculations in your head, but that it not what constitutes a math education (as opposed to, say, that of a croupier); and yes, you need basic vocabulary to understand a language but an encyclopedic vocabulary is not what constitutes linguistics (while it is of utmost importance to, say, an interpreter).
The professor should devise an exam which either encourages research (e.g. from the internet) or makes it irrelevant because solutions cannot be found online.
The best solution would be to avoid a classic exam which is simply performed online, with all the repercussions. Instead I would ask for a thesis paper which is written offline with whatever means are available, similar to a PhD but less demanding in scope and volume. Of course, just like with a PhD, a student can cheat almost at will and let somebody else write it. This is checked by an oral exam where the student must ask relevant questions about their work. No need to scan the room for that, any conversation e.g. with the actual author of the paper would be noticeable.

This is in principle a fine idea, but it doesn't scale to a large class (or even necessarily even to a medium-sized class). There are several other difficulties with oral exams - they are relatively hard to keep objective, and they may be very stressful for students who aren't used to them.

@BenBolker Considering that almost all European universities have large (200+ students) class oral exams apparently they do scale quite well. As far as objectivity goes, my experience is that it is extremely hard to accurately measure knowledge using written exams since you have no feedback from the student and can only see the random scribbles they make on the paper. During oral exams you can usually figure out what the students knows or doesn't know very quickly and much more thoroughly since follow up questions can be asked.

@BenBolker I do admit that there is a stress factor which shouldn't be underestimated. In my personal experience the biggest problem comes for students that don't actually attend the examinations due to not feeling prepared enough. Once the student is there the stress can be usually easilly handled if the professor is somewhat experienced.

@BenBolker The oral exam is only to verify that the student was the author of the  paper; it could be 5 minutes. Yes, grading papers is more work than correcting --- the other extreme -- multiple choice exams. But I think it's doable. (Political science in Berlin, with thousands of students, was entirely graded based on papers.)

The demand is inherently unreasonable. The situation at hand is not so extraordinary that we must permit rampant abuse.
They are doing this because of the fear of rampant cheating. I have encountered such complaints long ago.
Available solution 1: Open book/open notes/open internet exam. I've had such exams during normal times as important exams on graduation-track courses. They are not undoable. The aren't even all that hard. The answers are going to have to be paragaraph-answers though. That's just the nature of the beast.
Available solution 2: Dump the exams. Everybody has to write term paper. A few minutes of call (don't even need video) per student can be done per paper for the instructor to verify the students know the material in the paper.
Expected counter-argument: some students don't want a term paper that was pulled on them. This brings us to available solution 3: student chooses between video-proctored exam or term paper. But what about the grading instability? Fine. Give credit/no-credit to anybody who asks. It's perfectly reasonable for lots of credit/no-credit to appear due to a major upset of the normal order of things.
This is going to be controversial of its own right: the lockdown browser literally doesn't work at doing the one thing it was built for, and so relying on it is unsound. The only reasonable conclusion is the university didn't try to find out how breakable it really is or not.
I also upvoted the 'take normal exams when the university reopens' answer.

Is this allowed?  At the university level: check the minutes of Senate meetings of your institutions.  The extraordinary measures at my school - which do not include the kind of oversight you describe - had to be approved by Senate.
This monitoring app is meant to solve a real problem: I hear constant and serious rumours of massive cheating.  The administrators are trying to solve a real problem.  I’m glad we don’t use it where I work.
What to do?  In the short term:  your university has also implemented some emergency measures when it comes to late withdrawal or the assignment of numerical or letter grades.  This is mildly helpful - you cannot get credit for a course if you didn’t pass it - but at least it provides one option over taking an exam in the conditions you describe if you are uncomfortable with this surveillance.
Let’s hope this is only a one-time patch.  I would like to believe that most instructors are as uncomfortable with this as students are, but there was very limited time to find a solution with 3 weeks to go in the term.  As an instructor, I will certainly revise my mode of evaluation to avoid the situation you’re in if we have to continue offering courses in remote-teaching mode.


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The status of "Editor assigned" did not change for 4 weeks
I submitted the manuscript to a Springer medical journal. One month later, major revision was suggested. Then I re-submitted the revised form. One day later, the status changed as "editor assigned". Finally, this status did not change for 4 weeks. What does it mean? Has the assessment started yet?
Thanks..

This might be a duplicate, but why the down votes?

I am in the same situation, the status of my revised manuscript after minor revision is "Editor Assigned" for more than 2 months. I would like to know what happened in your case? Appreciate for your kind response in case.

Usually, "editor assigned" means that the paper has no not been yet sent to the review. Once is sent to review you usually have "under review". When the paper was reviewed at the first round, did you have "under review" status?

Sorry, at first review, there was  "under review" status. But now I dont have.

Then it is  most likely still with the editor. Probably, the editor is on vacation.  The editors are active researchers, so they can be busy. You can either patiently wait or you can write a gentle Email to the journal asking about the status of your paper. But be very polite: " My paper was submitted  after  revision on ???. I would like to know what is the status of it." It's better to send such Email not to the editor, but to some journal technical stuff. They will check this for you.

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Graduate Admissions - applying math phd without outside experience
I am currently a senior in a somewhat big state school.
I am going to apply phd next semester for 2018 fall, looking forward to attend top 25.
My gpa is 3.86/4.00.
Havent took GREs, but i think I will do them just fine.
But heres the thing: Whenever I see posts from one who made it into top 25, most of them had at least one REU and had taken a few grad courses.
 None of them I have done, nor will I because next semester will be my last semester.
I am really worried that this lack of experience would make me less competitive for top 25.
How much would this lack of experience (REU or grad courses) make me less competitive for application?
One more question, actually I am going to take seminar class next semester. After first few lectures, each one of us will prepare for presentation about assigned textbook chapters. Does this class count as a research experience?
I know this question could be answered most clearly by my prof. I just want to listen your opinions.
Thanks for your comments in advance.

REUs probably don't matter all that much. Presenting textbook chapters will not count as research experience, although depending on the material it might count as evidence that you can learn advanced material on your own. So definitely get a letter from that prof if you do a good job.
From what little you've said, you're probably only semi-competitive for a top 25 school, and probably not competitive at all for a top ten school even with stellar GREs. But there are a lot of factors in play. For example, not having taken grad-level courses is OK if you have a good undergrad math major. And outstanding letters go a long way.
As far as going to a top 25 school is concerned, people get way too obsessed with rankings. There are about fifty R1 programs in the US, and whether you go to the 20th or the 50th matters a lot less than what kind of work you do once you're there. The ranking is also not a reflection at all of the quality of the education you'll get, it only tells you in a very rough sense about the research quality of the faculty and the average talent level of the students. But the important word there is "rough."

thanks for your answer. The seminar is using the textbook "ideals, varieties , and algorithms" as far as I remember the name correctly. So I guess it will be about algebraic geom and commutative algebra. is it considered as an advanced material?

I've only thumbed through this book, but my impression is that it's upper-divisional/honors-level undergraduate, so a bit beyond a plain-vanilla math major.

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Can I change my master thesis topic and supervisor under following scenario?
I am currently doing my master thesis which as per university regulations should get completed in 6 months. I need to change it.

This depends on the rules at your university, quite possibly some informal rules your department might have, and most likely the personalities of your advisor and others in your department.  How are we supposed to know if your supervisor will be angry?  Can we read their mind?

Do you know that you can get a supervisor for your new topic?

@AndreasBlass Probably I will get the supervisor, as I am trying to find thesis topic in another department.

How excited were you about your current thesis topic before you started working on it?

Additional time is trivial compared to how you manage the relationships with faculty.
Ideally, you would go to your existing advisor, explain your dilemma/issue and he/she would be understanding and recommend that you pursue you new interest with faculty X.  That would allow you to maintain a positive relationship with the existing faculty advisor and avoid him/her communicating erroneously with other faculty.  This process is important to the extent that you wish to maintain a positive disposition of many faculty, not just him/her.  Will you need their recommendations any time in the future?
a
If you have an extremely tenuous relationship with your existing thesis advisor, xtent that you may need recommendations from any faculty for future employment, these steps are critical.  If you feel that your relationship with the existing advisor is weak, you might approach the department chairperson--but only if you are something more than a stranger to him/her.

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If you are a GRA are you consider fully funded?
I have nearly completed my Master of Science. Refreshing my Resume. I have been funded as a GRA every semester I was a Master's student – meaning my tuition was waived and I received a month stipend.
Is it the correct terminology to state:

"Was fully funded as a Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) for _________ Institute of
Technology while pursuing his Master of Science."

Is that correct, or is the term "funded" more-so used for PhD students or those that secure guaranteed funding for X number of years. In my case, I essentially kept renewing my GRA positions on a semesterly bases.
Last, should I explicitly mention that my tuition was waived and I received a month stipend, or do employers not care about that.

It sounds to me like you were fully funded, but I do not see why this would be mentioned in your CV.  CVs for industry jobs are off-topic.

Yes. I'm not aware of the term "funded" having a strict or legal definition. If you got paid every semester, then it sounds like you were fully-funded, and it's fine to say this.
As for what employers want, I'm sure this varies widely, but I doubt that being "fully funded" by itself will count for much. If you had to go through a competitive, merit-based process to "win" funding, it might be worth a bullet explaining this achievement.

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


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Confusion in field after CS undergraduate degree
Thank you for hearing me out.
I'm currently enrolled in a CS Undergrad course and will be coming out of it next year. ( 2018 ). One thing straight is I love mathematics. Anyways let's proceed with the actual confusion. I'll be coming out next year. Then what?
These are my options and I'm oscillating between them from a week. ( ..no sleep )

Go forward and get a Master degree on Computer Science specializing on computational neuroscience and vision. ( perceiving systems ). Then a PhD in Computer Vision or Computational Neuroscience, squeezing academic and industry internships. Later on join academia, research.
Go forward and get a Masters in Mathematics, PhD follows. ( in differential topology ). Post Doc work for some years and then join a top University as a faculty, teach, research.
Go forward and with Masters in Mathematics and Physics and then a PhD in String theory, ( as string theory requires a lot of math in particular group theory, category theory, differential and algebraic topology and gauge theory which I'm into and had brief exposure with particle physics as in internship( mostly was writing code and analysis in ROOT (with CERN, remotely) ( C++ ) ). Then join CERN or an University, teach, research.

Alright. Now my skills and knowledge.

Mathematics. I am proficient in engineering math ( linear algebra, calculus I, II, III, ODE, PDE, discrete math, basic statistics and probability ). Also I I have a solid grasp on introductory group theory, algebraic and differential topology, real analysis. Software side, I know Matlab well.
Physics. I know high school physics well. I also had gained knowledge of particle physics during the internship but on an introductory level. That's it.
Computer Science. : I have taken these fundamental courses during my undergrad. ( OS, compiler design, Database, C++/Java/C, Algorithms, Data Structures, basics of automata theory, optimization, computer graphics, electronics ). I am proficient in C/C++, I can manage Java.
Biology/Neuroscience: I know high school biology well. I have taken the Harvardx, MOOC ( Fundamentals of Neuroscience )
Projects and other stuff: Computer Vision: I have worked on AR UI interfaces ( and currently writing a paper on this with my classmates) and currently working on eye tracking. Computer Graphics: I have worked on fluid simulations, multigrid solvers and image synthesis techniques ( PBR ), raytracing. Apart from this I used to code competitively and had gone to zonal ACM-ICPC level but now I have sort of lost the touch of it.

I want to go into academia. ( maybe research R&D departments of companies for a short time just a have a dip into the industry. ) Thank you.

Looks like a shopping question here.

If only the journey from undergrad to tenured prof at a top uni was as easy as this question makes it sound...

@astronat I meant top universities in my country. We don't have tenure as such. It's directly being a central government employee once you clear the interview.

@Coder if it's off topic tell me the best place to ask.

@therewasaduck there isn't a stackexchange for this type of question. It really depends on your own personal goals and motivations. Asking a bunch of strangers on the internet what to do with your life is plainly foolhardy. If you don't know what to do seek out a guidance counselor at your school or find a mentor among the staff that can make more specific suggestions to your area. If you really don't have any focus then try industry for a while. Internships are a great way to get your feet wet while still earning some money to live on.

@therewasaduck hasn't managed to state the question clearly, but I think this question can be significantly edited (probably rewritten), rather than shutting it down. In essence, the OP needs to evaluate entry requirements and skills necessary for a PhD to decide which postgraduate degree to take. That seems like a reasonable question to ask on SE.

You've mentioned postgraduate degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Mathematics & Physics, and PhDs in Computer Vision, Computational Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Mathematics & Physics. I recommend that you study a postgraduate degree which maximises your options onto a PhD. Since you already have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science, that probably means that a postgraduate degree in Mathematics or Mathematics & Physics is the best fit.

won't be my non adequate knowledge of mathematics and physics curb my entry to top graduate courses?

Since you already have an ..., that probably means t... Mathematics & Physics is the best fit. -- I don't agree with your somewhat direct recommendation for a grad. school degree in Math/Phy. A undergrad degree in Comp. Sc. is actually fit for every possible discipline you could imagine for e.g. computational chemistry, computational biology, computational economics, though the majority of them would be applied. But, whether it is a best fit is questionable on various things due to which the question has been shut down as a shoppign question.

@Coder, you've misquoted me: I suggested Mathematics or Mathematics & Physics. A postgraduate degree in Computer Science doesn't seem as beneficial as either Mathematics or Mathematics & Physics. Do you believe Computer Science is better? Or are you quibbling over my use of best, in which case it is worth noting it is preceded by probably means.

@therewasaduck, I don't understand your comment. I recommended postgraduate degree in Mathematics or Mathematics & Physics. Perhaps you meant "would knowledge of mathematics (and possibly physics) rather than further knowledge of computer science preclude entry to a top graduate course in computer science?" Assuming a postgraduate degree in computer science isn't a pre-requisite to a PhD in computer science, then no. Your knowledge of mathematics will be just as valuable (especially for Computer Vision, I can't comment on Computational Neuroscience).


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Should I submit an expression of interest for another position although I still have 1.5 years left in my current contract?
I am a postdoc with slightly more than 1.5 out of 3 years left in my contract. Recently I have received an email about a postdoctoral position in another country, which interests me. The position is not yet formally advertised, but potential candidates are invited to submit a brief expression of interest, and to indicate the date they will be available.
Is it a common practice to submit an expression of interest although I will only be available 1.5 years from now?

How binding is your contract? In many cases, it's understood and accepted that a postdoc will leave early if they get offered a better job.

Is it a common practice to submit an expression of interest although I will only be available 1.5 years from now?

I wouldn't say it is "common practice", simply because it seems relatively pointless. While starting dates for academic jobs are usually flexible, 1.5 years of delay for a postdoc seems like a stretch. Many postdocs are hired on specific projects, and the project in question would be half-over before you even begin. Even for postdocs paid by some sort of fellowship, the start date usually isn't that flexible. Of course this does not stop you from asking, but I would not get my hopes up too high.

There also are times where the solicitation of expressions of interest is in turn used to help secure the funding that would in the end pay for the other position. In which case there may already be a built-in time delay for the next position. If it takes 9 months to get the grant approved, an availability of 18 months from now doesn't look all that bad.

@WillieWong I have never heard of that, but I am willing to be educated. However, if it isn't specifically advertised as such in the call, this would seem slightly insincere to me. If I announce a position, I would expect them to already have funding, right?

That's why the position is not formally announced/advertised. I've certainly seen e-mails that says "We anticipate having funding available for blah. Interested candidates should send a short expression of interest with CV attached. We will contact you again once the actual search had begun." And yeah, sometimes these CVs are collected and shown to the dean to say: Look, these are the calibre of people that we can be hiring if you would only please approve that budget we gave you.

Also, if there is a firm start-date requirement, would they not have advertised it as such directly? The only reasons I can conceive of asking for availability in the announcement are (a) they are in fact somewhat flexible about the start date (b) they want to fill the position right now, so they will weigh availability against quality when they make the decision. It may not hurt to send an e-mail to ask which of the two cases it is. (In the latter, I agree that 1.5 years out is likely too long to wait for the potential employer.)


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Interview question
I have a question regarding an interview at a university. The candidates are asked to prepare a presentation on the topic of 'How will you contribute to the teaching, learning, and research in the computer science department.' I have to make a presentation. I need help regarding what content should be in all three parts. should I include the courses that I can teach in 'teaching contribution'. my current and future research endeavors in 'research contribution' . but I really dnt know what should be in the 'learning contribution' part?

You should get some formal training in the area of teaching and learning so you know how to do this.  A Stack Exchange answer is not sufficient.

I’m only a Master’s student, so I don’t have any firsthand experience with teaching at a tertiary level, but I have done a course on teaching at a secondary (high school) level, and the impression I got from that was that the phrase “teaching and learning” is often used as a single unit.
Presumably, this is because even if you cover all the course material in your teaching, that’s no guarantee that your students actually learned anything!

+1. Teaching isn't about covering the material. The material is already available to the students in all but advanced graduate courses.


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Name of section dedicated for explaining subjects that are not 100% related to main subject of thesis
I am not sure this is the place to ask this question.
I am writing my master thesis and I have sections in preliminaries that don't have anything to do with the main topic of thesis but they further explain things mentioned in preliminaries. My advisor is saying that I should delete those sections but I am thinking maybe there is a better approach.
So, my thesis subject is comparing two cryptography protocols and in preliminaries I explained tools that enables us to understand how powerful these tools are (i.e. if this tool breaks this protocol then this protocol is bad!). But I also added some extra information like this tool also breaks this old protocol so it is a powerful tool.
The extra part that my advisor wants to remove is about 5 pages which includes algorithm as well. I am wondering is there a way to explain thing that are not directly related to main subject of thesis but knowing them would be great. Like a specific section in the end of thesis dedicated for this random stuff. Like an appendix or something. But I believe appendix are for long tables or large figures. I am not sure.
The reason I am asking is that maybe deleting a 5 pages single spaced is not a wise approach knowing that I have spent time writing them and learning them was good too.
Any help would be appreciated.

That it took you some time to write these five pages and that you learned writing them, does not seem like a convincing argument to keep the pages in the thesis. A thesis were the student tries to write everything he or she knows or learnt during writing usually makes a bad read. Everything unrelated to the thesis topic should be deleted…

If it helps the reader understand your process or your findings then the material should remain. That being said, an extra five pages of material not clearly related to your central concept may be distracting. Placing this material in its own appendix section sounds like a great idea though you do risk having the reader not realize it exists. So, for the sake of overall clarity, introduce the additional material briefly in your introduction or background sections - perhaps for a paragraph at most - then refer to the appendix section for the remaining details.


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Is it appropriate to contact professors after application submission?
I have applied to PhD programs in engineering in the US. I have been early in applying to most programs (deadlines range from mid-December to mid-January). I have not contacted any professors prior to applying, as I have been told by many that it would largely be a waste of time. Instead I reached out to several grad students and read/skimmed through many recent published papers by faculty. In my statement of purpose, I talked about at least two professors that I thought had interesting topics for research and why they interested me. I tailored this part of the statement for each program.
My question is, is it appropriate to contact faculty post application submission? I would like to say hello, let them know that I have applied and that I would be interested in working with them if I am fortunate enough to get in, and ask them to keep me in mind if they are looking for students.
I thought it might be a good idea to just put myself out there. Who knows? Maybe they'll recognize my name once they start going through applications and give it another good look. But I also do not want to annoy them. I recognize that these professors are busy and that they get many of these emails every day. I want to be considerate of their time too. I also do not want to come across as being arrogant or silly or needy..
What is your expert advice? Would you recommend that I sit tight? With my application already out of my hands, I understand that there is nothing I can do now to improve my chances. But I am always hoping. Thanks in advance for your advice!

@dan1111 at least in my case (applying to applied math programs which are almost all engineering), I contacted a few professors before applying. None ever responded back. This means either (a) my email came off as spam, doubtful, (b) I appear to be a terrible PhD student, hopefully not, or (c) they just don't want to talk to prospective students. For my sake, hopefully it is (c) in which case I'm not surprised Amywhc has been told not to contact them.

After reading some of the other reponses to your questions, I feel I need to give you fair warning that we receive tons of these emails, many of them obviously scripted (e.g., my name is in different font, the area described is irrelevant to me, for female faculty the email starts with "Dear Sir," etc.) My default reaction is to delete. Mind you, this is not to say your email would be like this, I'm just letting you know what you're up against.
The only emails that I try to pay attention to are of two types:
1) There's something obviously strong about you by just quickly scanning your email: You are an undergraduate student from a top school, or your grades are super-strong, or you've done some interesting research, or it's obvious that you've read some paper of mine and have legitimate comments about it.
2) Your subject line reads: "Undeterred prospective student." This is actually at the bottom of my info page for prospective students, which is linked to prominently on my home page. The vast majority of email requests I receive is from students that didn't bother to read it, so when I get an email with that subject I make a point of looking at it.
This is irrespective of when I receive your email; in fact, one could argue that the closer to the review period, the better.

Very interesting method on the subject line.

It is generally ok, and sometimes beneficial, to contact professors before, during, or after the application process. Keep the emails brief and stick to a format. Something along the lines of: "I just finished my application to XXX in engineering program and was wondering if there are any opportunities opening up for a PhD student? I am interested in your project/ publication YYY and would like to explore the tools/ application of the work."
Something that shows you know what they do and that you are looking for a space. It gives you a leg up on getting the best lab space for you and you can figure out if someone has funding for you or not as well. Good luck, and do your research!


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Obvious authorship and “blind” peer peview
Need to publish results of one my research in a journal. Springer’s manuscript guidelines prompt me to make a blinded manuscript containing no author information, but links in the References section (this one and to my images published with explicitly advertized authorship) quickly reveal who the author is.
Should the author
 formally obey the blindness rule and ignore its silliness in the conditions given,
 or replace such references (at least for the peer-review time) with some stuff included directly,
 or what?
Would it be acceptable to hold the paper/preprint accessible by URL (especially with links from third-party sites) during expected peer review?

How can references and credited images unblind a paper? Anyone can cite your papers or (with your permission) use your images.

Possibly something along the lines of: "In previous work [citation with author's names], we did X"

A single point of data, but both times I've read a blinded manuscript and gone "I clearly know who the author is" I've been wrong. One was especially embarrassing as I knew the author who actually wrote the paper.

I have reviewed papers, where some of the references are blinded as well. So that is one way of doing it, and that certainly happens. Sometimes the authors and the journal are more lax. There are pros and cons to blind reviewing, but if a journal chooses to use blind reviewing, then I would prefer it be done consistently. However, if, after carefully reading the materials for the authors, you are still unsure what to do, then you can always contact the editor about this.

Blinding references seems very dubious as it makes it impossible for the referees to check claims about those references. I guess that wouldn't be a problem in cases such as "Widget theory has become an important area of study in recent years [4,16-18,26]" but what are you supposed to do in cases such as "It has been shown that reticulated widgets are no more powerful [12], so we only consider simple widgets here." On the one hand, any widget theorist is going to know what paper [12] is anyway; on the other hand, if it's some obscure paper, the referees will want to check what it really says.

Sure, there is a trade-off. In cases like that the editor has to decide what is more important: maintaining the blind review process or allowing the reviewer to have access to all the reference at the price of revealing the author. My take on that is that there is no use having a policy of blind reviews and only partially enforce it. That is not bad: the reviewers are "only" advising the editor, and you can only expect the advisors to advise on stuff they can see.  So the editor can take that into account, and will have to check that part him or herself when making her or his final decision.

@DavidRicherby I agree with your fact on blinded references. Recently, I received peer review comments from a conference. In our paper, we had blanked ['?'] few of our own recent publications that the present work extends on. The referee was ironic in their comments and said: "the introduction section is written in such a way that the authors seem casual and can be seen from the fact that the references are ignored."

@Coder A citation to [?] looks like you screwed up the LaTeX, which probably explains those comments.


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Is it okay to use same figures in different papers?
Currently, I am writing for two conferences, independent from each other. One paper is a generic one, while the other one is more technical.
However, I would like to use some of figures I have drawn in both of them. Is this ethical or are there any issues doing that?
EDIT: The conference are about advances in IT, electronics engineering and the papers have not been published yet.

Could you specify the field? Different fields of academia treat conference abstracts in very different ways.

@FedericoPoloni added the context.

Conferences mean very different things in different fields.
In some fields (e.g. most of pure mathematics), they are essentially just a venue for presenting/publicising your work to other researchers.  In such fields, conference abstracts are not treated like full publications; there is no strong expectation of originality.  So you can re-use your figures freely between conference talks/abstracts, and re-use figures from journal publications in conference talks/abstracts.
The only thing to worry about, in this case, is that if you re-use material too often, then people who see it multiple times may get bored of it, and think you are being lazy and not producing much new research.  But this is unlikely if you are just re-using one or two figures, provided your talks/abstracts contain substantive other fresh material.
In other fields (e.g. much of computer science), conferences are a publication venue in their own right, on a par with journals.  In such fields, there is an expectation of originality; so you should re-use figures sparingly, and usually explicitly note when you do so.  Essentially, in this case, treat it as you would re-using material between papers.  So it’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially in e.g. a background section, but it won’t count towards the original content that a referee will be looking for.  And the re-use should be noted explicitly and prominently — e.g. “The relationship between fuzzles and woozles is shown in Figure 3 (reprinted from Jones 2014).” — unless possibly the figure is clearly just a very simple and standard illustration of background material.

Thanks for the answer. Since two conference will be in November, how can I note it?

Perhaps e.g. “Figure also used in Other paper title, Jones and Smith, OtherConf 2017”?

If you have two papers, and you have a figure you drew which is suitable for both papers (this might be illustrating a process that is common to both papers, even if the papers are on substantially different aspects of this process), I see no reason to redraw the figure, although you should definitely note that you've reused it. If it's the right figure for both papers, don't waste your time redrawing it.

It is quite nice to reuse 'standard' figures and examples for background material. In particular when it comes to quite messy combinatorial objects, that are known to be defined, but with a tricky definition.

There are two concerns you must address if you want to reuse a figure: "self-plagiarism" and copyright.
To avoid self-plagiarism, one simply needs to cite their previous work in which the figure was published (because some fields treat conference proceedings as publications, I'm assuming your field does as well.).
Copyright becomes more difficult and would require all of the details such as which venue you initially published in and their specific copyright policy. Here are some possible methods to avoid copyright issues:

Publish the figure first in a venue with generous copyright policy (e.g., PLoS ONE).
Modify the figure so it is different and not an exact copy.
Determine if your reuse falls under "fair use".
Obtain permission from the original publisher to reuse your figure.

I have reused figures in my own journal articles, but my employer does not allow the work to be copyrighted in the US so I only need to worry about self-plagiarism.
For most academics, copyright can be a problem. Your university likely has people who can help you. Personally, I would ask a librarian. For example, the University of Virginia's library has a resource page on how to get permission to reuse a figures.
Also, PLoS ONE discusses this topic more in a blog post on resuse and includes more details on copyright issues.

I expect no journal would ever be stupid enough to risk the bad publicity they'd get if they sued an author for reusing a figure that they drew themself.

@PeterShor sadly, I think you may be too optimistic. Commentary from the Duke library describes a lawsuit over a textbook (different than reuse), but also describes "John Doe" lawsuits where the the defendants are unnamed .

Looking at that commentary, I see no reason to change my mind about my previous comment. The publishers are going after an organization that wants to provide free or cheap textbooks to replace the very expensive ones the publishers print (and they're using borderline cases of copyright infringement in order to do this, because the organization has been careful not to give then any clear cases). They're not going after random journal paper authors. If they did, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot because people would stop submitting papers to their journals.

Conferences are about reaching out and sharing research with peers interested in said research.
If both conferences involve different audiences, seems fine really, and not unethical.
Unless conference organisers specifically demand that paper content be completely original.
At worse, the odd member of the audience will attend both conferences. If your papers are making different points, showing identical figures should not be an issue.


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Using my ethnically misleading name in a field where it's relevant
I'm a white person researching Asian history. Let's say I'm married and have taken my husband's name, which is unambiguously Asian (I'll use "Leung" for the examples). I'm unsure whether I should use my legal name for future publications, continue using my maiden name, or find some other solution. Here are my considerations:
Using my legal name
When people see "Leung" in the list of authors or speakers, they'll expect to see a Chinese person. For me to use this name seems misleading. They might expect a different level of language proficiency and a different personal relation to the subject than I actually have.
My husband is a second generation immigrant and has little interest in Asian history, so my marriage is irrelevant to my academic field.
Using my maiden name
My maiden name is a word that means "White". If I use this name and people find out that my legal name is Leung, they might feel like I'm trying to hide something. I don't have many publications under this name, so there's little benefit to continuing to use it. I also don't particularly identify with it, which is why I changed my name in the first place.
Other options
Many people in my situation seem to use a double name. However, this name would still not be my legal name, and being known as "White Leung" feels like a weird joke.
I could use a different name from my family tree, or some complete pseudonym. But this has both the drawbacks of not being my legal name, and also not being the name I have published under so far.
Is there a consensus on what should be done in this situation? Are there resources for people in a similar situation? Since there are many fields where the ethnic background of researchers is somewhat relevant (sociology, area studies, languages...) this must be a common problem.
Edit: Some commenters have expressed the idea that a researcher's ethnicity doesn't or shouldn't matter to their audience. I disagree. For one thing, researchers educated in Chinese universities often have a very different approach to historical topics than those in the west. One commenter has pointed out that this would not affect me, because my western education is declared in my CV. But even for western people of Chinese descent or origin, they will generally have a different perspective on Chinese history than someone who has no personal connection to the place.

I would say that anyone who makes assumptions about your ethnicity based on your name is jumping to a faulty conclusion, and that is their problem, not yours.  You are not being misleading; rather, they are being stupid.  I think any of the three options are perfectly viable, and it is up to your personal preference.

I don't understand how your name is relevant to your area, and the quality of your work. Anyone who makes assumptions if your ethnicity is Asian, and how your ethnicity affects the quality of your work and your biases without even doing research is the problem, not your name or what your name reminds them of.

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

Whatever you choose, pick an pan-name and stick to it. It does not have to be your legal name. Nothing is more confusing than publishing under several different names. Most academics continue to publish under the same name, even when it has been legally changed. Your future readers and future you writing your CV will be grateful.

I am a native speaking Chinese living in Taiwan. My field is in STEM, not Asian History. However, I have been reading quite a bit in Chinese history as a hobby since I retired in 2009. Still, I do not consider myself as a scholar in Asian History. Please take my answer as only amateur opinions.
You are right in that Chinese generally have a different perspective on Chinese history than someone who has no personal connection to the place. Actually, Chinese have different opinions on many issues in Chinese history among themselves. For example, there are different views on Qin Dynasty and its First Emperor.
If you pay attention to the reference  and source sections of the Wiki page I provided above, you will see  both Chinese names and Western names. Please note that I am saying Chinese/Western names, not Chinese/Western people because I don't know the people with Western names are actually Western or people with Chinese names are actually Chinese.
From this example, I hope you can see that the author name really does not matter. What matters most is the quality of the publication. As a personal opinion, I rather see a good quality paper written by a Westerner than a poor quality paper written by a Chinese on Chinese history.
I understand your concern that the readers of your publication may think you are a Chinese if you use your legal name. I think this might be true when they take the first glance at your publication. But, don't worry. They will soon find out it's written by a well Western-educated author. Your publication will tell them that. When I first read your question, I knew you have received well education in Western world because the way you wrote the question.
Now, I want to directly answer your question. I would use

Firstname White Leung

as the author name because this name accurately reflects your situation. "White" indicates you have Western connection. "Leung" indicates you have Chinese connection. It does not look weird to me at all. There is nothing wrong with telling people who you are.
In conclusion, I think your concern is reasonable given that your field is Asian history (If it's a STEM field, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.). Exactly because of this possible misunderstanding, you need to concentrate on your work to let your research speak for itself and not worry about the name you put on the publication.

Would this be true for an American of Chinese descent who didn't speak Chinese as a native language? Or who might have been adopted and therefore has no childhood experience of Chinese culture?
You do have a personal connection: you married a Chinese man and you are a serious scholar of Asian studies. If it's really true that it's culturally offensive in a way that would be professionally damaging, then use your maiden name or whatever name you feel represents you as you wish to be represented. But this seems a bit overwrought to me. If you identify with Leung, then use Leung, and just deal with the fact that some people might have a problem with it. You're already OK with being a non-Asian Asian studies scholar--what do you say to anyone who objects to that?

I don't think the name would be culturally offensive to readers, just that it would give people a wrong idea of who I am. Some individuals who believe that people of non-Asian heritage should not write about Asian history may even feel tricked. I can make arguments against their position, but not really against the fact that my name is Asian while I'm not.

@pidan_dan It's too bad that this particular forum is populated mostly by people in STEM (myself included) for whom this specific issue is rather unfamiliar territory. But it overlaps a lot with concerns of people who belong to any "locally" marginalized group: You need to choose between presenting yourself as who you feel you are vs. presenting yourself as who others in the profession think you should be. Part of that decision is not just the tolerance of the environment, but your own personal tolerance for handling intolerance of who you are.

Disclaimer: Pure opinion
In the US, people with racial names are more possible to get a lower response rate when applying for jobs compared to people with white names (ref). So, I do think you concern is totally legitimate. But I'd say before tackling this problem, sort out your thoughts and logic first. For example, you made a blanket statement

When people see "Leung" in the list of authors or speakers, they'll
  expect to see a Chinese person. For me to use this name seems
  misleading. They might expect a different level of language
  proficiency and a different personal relation to the subject than I
  actually have.

Then, immediately, you cited your own point of view that totally goes against the generalizing statement:

My husband is a second generation immigrant and has little interest in
  Asian history, so my marriage is irrelevant to my academic field.

First of all, who are these "they?" I'd love to believe that most academic professionals do not share the same traits as the general US employers: we look at CV, we look at the research, we look at your evidence and arguments. The they in your questions are, to be blunt, ignorant or irrational folks that either:

Not directly related to your work, and hence likely an insignificant ripple in your life, or
Extremely deterministic in your career, whom can crush you if they want, but in the same time you probably do not want to work with this person.

Give it some thoughts: who are these "they?" Do you want to live in constant worries because you can't please every ignorant and irrational person? Do you really care if those who consider non-Asians unqualified to study Asian culture value your work or not?
Second, focus on who you are first, not who you should be so that everyone will appreciate. Primarily which name to take on is your choice, and depending on how open you are you may consider your husband's input (I would wager that he does not care.)
Third, check your own bias, quotes like this should be more critically evaluated:

However, this name would still not be my legal name, and being known
  as "White Leung" feels like a weird joke.

Really? Whether a name is legal or not is purely procedural, I can change my name to "Red Fire Extinguisher" legally tomorrow if I want to; don't set up barriers for every one of your decisions. And if you yourself cannot treat your options seriously then you should not expect the same from others.
Basically, it's a dilemma and either one has pros and cons. I'd suggest looking into decision making tools (plenty of them in books like What Color  is my Parachutes?) and lay out all the points and make a decision. Another  way to deal is to randomly decide it, you may have a celebration with your husband and you two can randomly decide. There are web page (like this one) for these purposes, a die or a coin works as well.
My concluding thoughts are that: prioritize who you should care about. You're spending too much attention role playing in too many scenarios. The name itself does not make or break a scholar, invest in doing good quality work and I am sure you will find your collaborators and audiences.

This completely misses the point. This isn't about other people's ignorance or irrationality. The OP is concerned about giving the appearance of appropriating a Chinese identity as a white woman. This is a valid concern, but it seems to me that although she isn't "really" Asian, she does "really" have an Asian name, so it's a matter of her own personal comfort.

@ElizabethHenning, thanks for pointing that out, I definitely would have missed the point to some extend as this is about identity and I cannot be 100% empathetic. Yet from the question her own personal comfort was centralized at how people see her as a legitimate Asian culture scholar, and my response wanted to point out that perhaps it does not matter as much as she thinks. Some white female is into Asian culture (to a point that she studies it) and got married to an Asian and decided to use his last name is just nothing that surprising to me... perhaps that's why I am not a culture scholar.

Is "racial names" a thing?

@Kimball, I took the same wording from the reference link. So it has been used. I have no input on its legitimacy or validity.

I have no doubts about what I want my legal name to be outside academia. I'm asking specifically about the context of my field of study, where even the most reasonable people will notice whether a person does or does not have an Asian background. The notion that non-Asians can't do (good) Asian studies is a really fringe opinion and not my main concern.

A consideration would be to abbreviate your last name(s).

Jane Smith becomes Jane S.
Jane Leung becomes Jane L.
Jane Smith-Leung becomes Jane S.L.

At the end of the day, perception is reality, given that you know the possible results, picking one or the other would have other effects, the decision (and its effects) are up to you.

Or "Jane Smith L.," I have a colleague who abbreviates her name like that.


text:
I have an (UK) ordinary degree in mechanical engineering. Is it worth the paper it's printed on?
I've had absolutely no luck with job hunting. After months of applications, I've only gotten two interviews (both last year, before the pandemic), and the jobs I got interviews for weren't even vaguely engineering jobs (one was just CAD doodling, the other was basically tier 3 customer service)
I understand most people have honours degrees, so the fact that I can't say I have a 2.1 or whatever is an obvious red flag.
Is there any future down this path? Is this really such a huge red flag for employers that there's nothing I can realisitically do to make myself employable in my field? Is there even a grad programme that would take me so that there's a chance I could get a degree that doesn't seem so worthless?

This is about the UK job market and has nothing to do with academia.

At the present time (COVID-19 outbreak), you should feel lucky that you do have job offers, and not just one but two of them.

@scaaahu I didn't get offered either job, and those were months before COVID hit. I haven't had a call or email from an employer (other than a couple who bothered to let me know I didn't make the cut) this year. I was unclear.

Okay, my misunderstanding. Still, it's normal that you can't find any job at present.. Just stay patient and healthy, wait until the storm passes.

The problem is, I've been applying for jobs since August last year, long before things fell apart.

A degree may very well be worth the paper it's printed on (i.e id led to a lot of knowledge) but useless in the job market. In many fields, academic positions are rare and phd degrees useless in Industry. Also many profs see university education not as something that prepares you for industry but to give you a lot of knowledge.

It sounds like you're under the impression that fancy degree = job. That is incorrect. Fancy degree is nice and all but it's only the first cut. You will need to back your degree up with actual job search skills as well as technical skills.
For the former, this isn't the right Stack Exchange (use The Workplace). Read up on all the CV-writing, cover-letter writing, interviewing techniques, etc, that are necessary to get hired. Also be sure to make use of your alma mater's career center, if they have one. They'll have not just job listings, they will usually have counselors who will help polish your CV.
For the latter, I hope you didn't slack off during the degree because there's no substitute for it. If the interviewer asks, "here are two vectors, what is their sum?" you need to be able to answer because if you can't, then the rest of your CV is called into question. Make sure you know the basic coursework, and if you can keep up-to-date with the latest news in the field, even better.
Job searches are not easy. Unfortunately, you'll have to help yourself, because society doesn't owe you a job and nobody else will be able to help you pass the interview. On the other hand, they can be done: after 8 months I'm pretty sure many of your cohort will have found a job, and if they can do it, you can too.

I think the point is that an "ordinary" degree isn't a fancy degree. Normally degrees in the UK are Honor's degrees, graded 1st class, 2.1 class , 2.2 class, 3rd class. I'd say 95%, of degrees are honors degrees, about 2/3 are 1st or 2.1 .  An ordinary degree is when honors are not awarded. There are several reasons a degree might be "ordinary", but one is that your grades weren't good enought for honors.

@IanSudbery there are more people in the UK who don't have a degree than there are people who do, so I'd say an ordinary degree is still a fancy degree.

I'd guess the user is worried that where a degree is a requirement for a job, the recruiter would not treat having an "oridanary" as having a degree.

I sift and interview candidates in a related engineering field. We've started receiving CVs with names and any reference to age (or gender) redacted. This often including university names. Ostensibly this is to reduce unconscious bias, but it does remove much of the relevant information on which to sift. I wouldn't be surprised if we started redacting grades too. They're not always present and I'm not sure I'd spot the difference between a BSc (Hons) and an ordinary degree at sift unless it was spelled out to me clearly as 'third class'. To be honest, we mainly use a degree as a quick filter for academic aptitude. We don't exclude anyone without, but they have to work much harder to evidence from work experience that they meet the bar.
I'm generally recruiting for a pool rather than a role so I'm not often looking for a single best candidate, but a set of people that would add to the team. Ultimately I want to get the best of the set, but it's not quite as dog-eat-dog as only choosing those with first class degrees - experience, demeaner and how well they would fit in have as much to play once you've proved you can attain a degree.
It's a difficult environment right now with COVID-19, but keep at it:

Apply for jobs at larger firms - they're more likely to be recruiting for more than just the one role. You don't then need to be top-dog, just in the set.
If you interview well and get offered something that doesn't feel like a perfect fit, take it. It's always easier to find a job when you've already got one - internal opportunities to move sideways or upwards; less pressure to find something quickly. It always looks better on your CV having had a job, than having nothing. If someone has been out of work for some time, I always question 'why?'. You will build up experience whatever you do. Go pick fruit and veg in our farm fields if it comes to it - you'll get a Good Samaritan story to tell at interview if nothing else.
Ultimately, your degree is worth the paper it's written on, but it's simply a ticket into the game. The knowledge you gained from the degree in your technical specialism, and the knowledge of how to learn is much more valuable. Your 'ticket' in the form of your certificate proves that.
Make the most of your time while under 'lockdown': tidy up your CV; research companies you want to apply to once the economy kicks back in (I assume many, like us, have paused recruitment for now); volunteer to help other locally (great for a 'personal statement'); take some (free) online courses (e.g. Coursera) to continue to learn and build your skills.

Good luck.

Keep going, Keep going, Keep going...
Some of my friends got jobs within days of graduating, others 18 months later (like me).
Widen your scope, many fields need or use engineers and some surprising opportunities exist, you might find a school will be interested as you have design skills, drawing skills, mathematics skills etc One friend got as job in an insurance company working on evaluating risk - you have to understand the processes and equipment in use to evaluate risk...
So, chin up, all I can say is "tough times" but you do have skills.
And I graduated with a degree in engineering so I know the fight.


text:
How do you add two independent master's degrees to your name?
Assuming you add one master's degree (Master of Science) like that:
FirstName LastName, M.Sc.

What is a proper way to add two independent1 master's degrees (both Master of Science)? Do you just add them both to the end?
FirstName LastName, M.Sc., M.Sc.

1 independent: Different universities, different fields, 2x 120 ECTS = 240 ECTS in total. Not the result of a double degree program.

Just to be clear, I am not looking for recommendations, if or when I should decorate my name with academic degrees. I do not even plan to do it on a regular basis. Even in my country, you don't do it very often. But if there is this one single time in my whole life where I should do it, then I want to do it right. That's all I am asking for: Are there rules or good/best practices on how to do it with two M.Sc. degrees.
Example situation: If you get mentioned on someone else's thesis as an examiner or as a supervisor the names will be decorated with degrees. A german doctor with three doctoral degress can either be Dr. Dr. Dr. FirstName LastName or Dr. mult. FirstName LastName. This example shows two possible rules:

You can stack titles/degrees. Just add as much as you have. That's from where I derived FirstName LastName, M.Sc., M.Sc..
You can condense - at least multiple doctoral - degrees by adding mult. to the mention of one single title/degree. I have never seen this in combination with other degrees.

This might be countty specific. Have you searched the Internet for it? Iam kinda surprised if there exist no legal requirements in your country.

@user111388, I doubt that many countries have legal requirements for academic titles.

@Buffy: That's to me strange. Isn't there fear of misrepresentation if anyone can mention their titles in any way? Do you know if at least the fact the one can not use "any title they feel like" is legally required in many countries?

@user111388 I found some discussions on the internet, but most of them tend to become discussions about if you should add academic degrees to your name and not how to do it.

@user111388, I think that if there is no intent to defraud, then it is benign. Medical degrees may be a bit different. But few (in the US) would object if I suddenly start calling myself Buffy, MS of the Universe. A few laughs, perhaps. I think Germany is quite strict about titles along with other countries in the German academic tradition. But it is fraud that is a crime, not the listing of titles.

@Wetenschaap: Wow, that sounds pretty weird to my ears! I wonder if you confer yourself the professor (or, as Buffy, the MS of the universe title) title, move to my country, use the title because you earned it in your country and get the social privileges associated to it.

I would suggest that you specify if you are interested in the German/Austrian practice or in the rest-of-the-world practice, since they are quite different. Please add also a country tag if relevant.

@FedericoPoloni I added the europe tag as I am referring to the european master's degree. But I really hope that it does not matter much. I am hoping for an international consensus.

@Thomas I don't think there is an international consensus at all.

@Wetenschaap the MSc, BA, MA, BSc, drs., ir., and mr. titles are also protected under Dutch law.

@Wetenschaap See: https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stb-2017-390.html (i.e. this was was changed only a couple of years ago.)

In Germany I have often seen multiple titles in death notices in the newspaper, but I have never paid attention to the particulars of formatting. It's certainly not uncommon.

Unless you are in a place that regulates academic titles, you can do pretty much as you please. But you could qualify each with the specific field or university if you feel the need to list both.

FirstName LastName, M.Sc.(Basket Weaving), M.Sc.(Basket Burning)

Distinguishing by university, rather than field will probably confuse people, thinking you have two masters in the same field. Qualifying with both is probably too unwieldy.

You don't. Even in academic circles, writing "John Smith, MS, MS" just looks silly and pompous. Instead, simply write "John Smith, MS." In the same way, you would not ask people to call you "doctor doctor" if you had two PhDs, nor would you write "MS, BS, BA" if you did a dual degree in college but subsequently got a master's.
You may want "credit" for your two different degrees, but this is not the purpose of the initials. Rather, you can list both degrees separately on your resume, or describe yourself in a bio as having "two master's degrees."
Granted, this answer is from a US perspective; it is possible that this would look less silly to members of other cultures.

I come from a culture where it would be the normal thing to state both titles. However, in academic circles, you would most likely (unless in social/law science) mention neither title. Therefore, I am confused about the "even in academic cicles"at the start of the answer- is it really the case that in the US, you use titles more in academia than in industry/private life?

By "academic circles," I meant only that we know what these letters mean, and value them. But no, post-nominals are rarely used in daily life -- a formal e-mail signature block is the only example that comes to mind.

@user111388 sounds a lot like Austria.

I never bothered with "MS" even when I was teaching; I couldn't have been teaching without that master's.  I didn't use a post-nominal degree until I earned the Ph.D. and then only in the academic setting or when consulting.

There are some indications that one could use MMSc to designate a double 'master of science'-degre.
Here is an example of a profile who calls himself Dr. ... MMSc.
As for the rationale behind that, I may cite this Wikipedia section on representing plurals in acronyms:

In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate plural words: for example, the Spanish EE.UU., for Estados Unidos ('United States'). This old convention is still followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for "Saints", pp. for the Latin plural of "pages", paginae, or MSS for "manuscripts".

This approach of pluralizing acronyms is quite common with academic titles in German, e.g. DDr. for "Doktor Doktor", or MMag. for "Magister Magister". Thus, MMSc would serve as an analogy.
Interestingly, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMSC does state that the acronym may refer to "Double Master of Science, an academic degree". And if you google around, you find some examples of such usages.

I've never heard of this before, but it is very intuitive and I think it is a great solution.


text:
My advisor used my research idea and wrote a paper with another student, what should I do?
I had an idea of using a specific type of data in a specific research area (sorry, I realize this sounds vague). No one has used this type of data in this area before. I shared the idea with my advisor. Recently I noticed the advisor and another student published a paper based on my idea. I think it is not fair. What do I do?
Edit: Thank you all for the comments and answers.
To clarify a couple of things: it wasn't just a fleeting conversation or group brainstorming. I came up with the idea myself, did initial work, and shared it with the advisor. I would expect to be at least told they wanted to work on this even if they were to conduct an independent analysis. I do not think the time frame and other factors would allow forgetting where the idea came from. The group works on several topics and my idea was more like a side line project. There is a lot of publications coming from these main topics, so it's not like this specific paper would be crucial for future funding.
I think the worst in the whole situation is that now I distrust my advisor.

Are you a part of the group at this point? I will note that, frankly, ideas are easy, doing the experiment/analysis/writing is the hard part.

It is hard to say without details. But you can always just ask the advisor.

Yes and it makes the situation awkward. Of course I realize they designed the study and did the work, but they did not come up with the idea themselves.
If I were comfortable asking the advisor, I would not be asking here.

I add to @JonCuster great comment that, organizing funds in a research group may also be of concern of a leading professor and how he may use human resource to keep his financial resources up. Having this view, there may be many brilliant ideas in a group, however, it is important to make teams who can work on the idea and make outputs in a short amount of time. Some students have great ideas but they may need some years to reach them. Some senior ones may make outputs in a short period of time. I call all these, research project management which are all better organized by team leaders.

I disagree with JonCuster, but if s/he doesn't feel uncomfortable excluding you from the project, you shouldn't feel uncomfortable talking about the situation with her/him.

Related: Is it okay to work on colleagues' ideas after they leave academia?

@JonCuster If ideas are easy why didn't the advisor come up with his own idea. I find that after some time in the same field advisors get stale, and can't come up with new ideas if they don't slightly change field/topic.

It's not clear whether you are still in the same research group. I suspect not, or you would have been aware that another person in the group was doing the work and paper. While it is morally questionable to use someone else's idea without asking them to be involved, there's nothing you can do in the sense of 'getting it fixed'.
But it may be worthwhile sending an email that is not accusing. The adviser may have felt that you were fully occupied, or that the project was too easy for you but was a good training project for a student, or simply forgotten about the conversation or any number of other reasons. An email like:
Dear Prof X - I saw your recent paper Y. As you may remember from our discussion (approximate time frame), I am interested in this idea and the paper looks very similar to what we discussed. I am disappointed not to be involved in the implementation so far and would like to participate in any future work coming out of this paper.

Ideas come up all the time in any variety of ways, often in passing in conversations about other things. There is a huge difference between a 'it would be cool to do...' and 'after this project is done I will do...'. I have absolutely no problem with anybody going off to work on some idea that came up in a conversation. That is what those conversations are for.

I agree that I am always passing on ideas etc, but if I was in a research group where I was involved in the conversation about an idea, I would expect to be asked if I wanted to participate in the research coming out of the idea. After all, it's clear I am interested.

sure thing, but it depends on the time frame. If the professor turned to the other student and said 'go do that', that is one thing. If, six months later, the professor has some vague recollection of the idea (not the actual conversation), that is a different situation all together. There really aren't enough details in the original question to know, other than the OP feels wronged. Again I've always been happy to let others work on ideas, since there are plenty to go around.

fair enough, i have made the draft email milder


text:
From an undergrad school of Math to a grad school of Computing just to learn Computable Analysis — What are the consequences?
I am Park Shinhwan (박신환) from Korea University. I am a senior undergraduate student.
First, I have to mention that the topic of the undergrad school I'm in is not exactly Mathematics. It was Mathematics (수학과) until 2017, but just after I entered the school, its name changed to Data Computational Science (데이터계산과학전공). Though I don't think there had been much of a difference. It was just some lectures that heavily relies on programming languages such as C, Python, SAS, MATLAB, and Java were added.
Second, I have to mention that I am on a double major curriculums. The secondary major is Electronic & Informational Engineering (전자및정보공학과).
As the title suggests, I have been interested in Computable Analysis since some months ago. Though I had wanted to enter a grad school of Mathematics, I concerned that most grad schools of Mathematics wouldn't teach about Computable Analysis.
But there was a gleam. Apparantly KAIST's grad school of Computing has a lab about Complexity and Computation of real numbers, and their professor researches about Computable Analysis! That means I definitely should enter this grad school.
Still, I have a concern. It looks like the topic of the lab has a gap from the mainstream topics of the grad school itself, and a grad student of the lab agreed so.
So what would be the consequences after I enter the grad school? I definitely will be dedicated to the lab, but should I take the lectures about mainstream topics anyway?
You can see the lectures of the undergrad school I'm in here, the lectures of the secondary major here, and the lectures of the grad school here.

Computable Analysis as a subject sits on the border of mathematics and computer science, and correspondingly, you can find researchers from this area in either kind of department. There is not much correlation between whether a given researcher works on the more CS or on the more math aspects of computable analysis and what department they are found in. Either kind of grad school will have courses which are helpful in becoming an expert in computable analysis, and others that aren't. As such I would not put much weight on whether a department is CS or math in figuring out whether it is the right place for you to pursue computable analysis as a subject.
As computable analysis is a rather niche subject, you'll only find it in select places. In Korea, KAIST is indeed the place to go for it. If you do want to do computable analysis at a math department, you could eg go to Japan instead. A source for who is active in this area, you can consult
http://cca-net.de/members.php
although this list is not that terribly up-to-date.