text:
In which countries are academic salaries published?
This is a simple question but I am not sure how to find out the answer. Where in the world are the salaries of (senior) academics published and freely available? I found this amazing web page  from Canada. Is it unique?

So far we have learned: (See answers and comments for more details.)

Many US states give full salary details for public university employees.
The province of Ontario in Canada gives full salary details.
Switzerland  gives full salary details (although no URL given yet).
In Denmark you can infer the salary fairly accurately from seniority and job classification.
In Finland (and possibly Norway and Sweden), everyone's basic tax records are public information although you can't access it online.
In Germany salaries for individual professors are secret, but salaries for other researchers can be inferred from public salary tables.
In the UK salaries for individual professors are secret, but salaries for more junior academics can often be inferred from published salary tables.

It would be great to get a fuller picture for Europe. What is the situation in France, for example?

There is one for the state of California, probably also other US states. Can't look it up right now but it should be easy to find.

In most western countries, salaries at publicly-funded institutions are available.

@Bitwise It's not the case in the UK for example. Do you know any European countries where it is the case?

@Jigg: I don't see asking for lists of options listed as off-topic here. Is the "Don't ask" section in the help center out of date?

UW salaries are available at http://www.thenewstribune.com/wa-state-salaries/

I don't know why you ask, but be aware that comparing figures across countries is highly problematic to the point of being useless. Social systems, cost of living, legal restrictions etc differ so much that even double the table salary can mean having less money to spend.

The University of Michigan (my main employer), being a state institution, is required to make faculty salaries publicly available. I'm pretty sure you can get them from the university library, but I'm not sure there's an on-line source. For a few years after the law requiring public access to salaries took effect, the student newspaper, the Michigan Daily, published a complete list of all our salaries (in very small print). After a few years, though, they stopped; apparently people lost interest.

@Raphael I am interested in where individual salaries are published for a number of reasons. It seems there is a divide amongst Western countries on this matter and it would be really interesting to get a full picture. Of course the scientific question is, does it make any difference to who gets paid what and/or the quality of the academics you can attract.

@StephanKolassa I think list questions fall under the "every answer is equally valid" category.

If we are going to keep this list question, and the up votes suggest we like it, should it be community wiki?

In Finland, everyone's basic tax records are public information (name, year of birth, annual salary, annual capital gain). You can go to a local tax office and use their computer terminal to look up e.g. your neighbour's annual salary. The full records are not available online (you need to physically visit a tax office), but some Finnish newspapers publish e.g. lists of the annual income of everyone who earned at least 150 000 e. Such lists do cover some prominent academics (but you cannot tell how much of the total income comes from universities).

@felix I think that is a worthwhile question -- does money equal quality in science? -- but your post unfortunately does not reflect this. I generally share the dislike of list questions even though I feel that this particular "list" can be useful, and it also admits objective answers (unlike many recommendation style lists).

@JukkaSuomela Afaik, the same is true for Norway and Sweden (with few exceptions, such as the royal family).

Edited to emphasize public universities in the US. Illinois publishes faculty salaries for state universities, including my own, but cannot publish salaries for Northwestern or Chicago. Also, salaries in many public universities in the US are also negotiated individually, as in Germany and the UK, but that doesn't make them secret.

In public universities in EU, senior academics get paid based on set salary tables, and not on negotiation (unlike in the US). So while technically you may not know the exact salary of a professor, knowing his status / rank automatically gives his salary with relatively high accuracy.

@Greg This isn't true in the UK or Germany, for example. I mean there is a published salary scale but where you are on it depends on individual negotiation the result of which are not published.

Short answer: Germany. Somewhat.
To explain in more detail, there are four common modes for researchers in Germany:

Unpaid. (Typically PhD students in social sciences. Poor sods.)
Scholarships. ("Stipendiat"; PhD students and post-docs)
Employee of the state. ("Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter"; PhD students, post docs and (rarely) non-professor senior researchers)
Civil servant. ("Beamter"; professors and senior researchers)

The first needs no explanation. The second kind is -- from the perspective of how our system used to work traditionally -- a bit of an abomination with little to no regulation. The amount of the scholarship tends to be similar to the salary employees in similar circumstances get but is, ultimately, for the awarding institution to make up.
Now, for employees and "Beamte", there are well-defined salary tables which anybody can inspect. Be aware that these are gross figures. Depending on your circumstances 30+% won't even see your bank account; you can use the provided calculators to get an idea of the parameters and results (if you know enough German).

PhD students usually get (some percentage of) a TVL E13 position, post-docs can get E14-15 depending on their responsibilities.
Senior researchers with life-long positions usually start at A13 and can move up to A16 in leading positions.
Professors used to get C1-4 but that was changed to W1-3; junior professors (with or without tenure) get W1, full professors W2 or W3 depending on the position.
However, professors are eligible to negotiate for higher salaries

during the hiring process ("Berufungszulagen"),
in case of above average performance ("Leistungszulagen") and
when they get offers from other universities ("Bleibeverhandlungen").

Therefore, the real salaries of professors differ wildly (i.e. by integer factors). These figures are not public, not even in one department.

That's very interesting. So far it seems Germany and the UK are winning the "keep salaries the most secret" competition.  Out of interest, is there not a Freedom of Information law in Germany that people could use to get the salary details of senior academics?

@felix 1) To my knowledge, salaries don't differ from the table figures for non-professor researchers, so you can consider these public (implicitly), at least the gross figures. (Arguably, you have no business knowing a person's religious affiliation, health-care and pension plan of marital status, all of which factor into net figures. At least by German understanding of privacy.)

@felix 2) For professors, I honestly don't know. I'm pretty sure that officials and members of parliament (and even members of department/university councils) can access the figures; if you have a complaint your representatives and/or judges could decide whether your claim has merit without you ever knowing the numbers. This would make sense to me, given my undestanding of German policy and law, but as I said, I don't know for sure.

In austria the situation is quite the same. I did not find any english reference, but here can be seen what the University of Vienna pays to it's employees.

@BDL Thank you. What would you say the biggest "range of mystery" is? What I mean by this is the largest range a salary could be in without your knowing where it falls. In the UK it is more than 150,000 pounds I am told (from 60k up to 200+).

@felix: For professors, I do not know. For me (university assistent, phd student), the salary is a fixed per-hour amount. But the amount of hours per week can vary. For example, I am employed for 25 hours a week, but there members in other workgroups that have a 40 hour job.

Same for the Netherlands. You can look up the salary tables in the Collective Labor Agreement (http://vsnu.nl/CAO/) and infer who earns what. There might be some guessing involved what 'trede' and which 'schaal' a given university employee has exactly, but within a reasonable margin of error, one can see what everyone earns.

(The following answer focuses on France)
Researchers
In France, CNRS researchers (largest governmental research organisation in France) are paid according to the class they belong to (monthly gross salary):

chargé de recherche de 2 ème classe: between 2 200 € and 2 600 €
chargé de recherche de 1 ère classe: between 2 300 € and 3 900 €
directeurs de recherche: between 3 000 € and 6 000 €.

In addition to the base salary researchers get some bonus that can go up to 1275 EUR per year:

Each grade has several levels that determine the remuneration of researchers . The gross monthly salary research managers is between € 3,000 and € 6,100 (assessments in September 2007) . In addition to the base salary directeurs de recherche receive a yearly research bonus ranging from 650 to 1275 EUR (depending on the corps and grade) and , where applicable, family supplements.

Professors
The following two Wikipedia pages contain the salary grid for Maître de conférences and Professeur des universités:

Maître de conférences:

 - Professeur des universités

Research engineers
Gross salary for research engineers working in public institutions:
Ingénieur de recherche de 2ème classe

Début de carrière : 1907,68 euros
Milieu de carrière : 2 546,66 euros
Fin de carrière : 3 301,39 euros

Ingénieur de recherche de 1ère classe

Début de carrière : 2 694,83 euros
Milieu de carrière : 3 398,63 euros
Fin de carrière : 3 801,46 euros

Ingénieur de recherche hors classe

Début de carrière : 3 046,73 euros
Milieu de carrière : 4 079,28 euros
Fin de carrière : 4 458,97 euros

For the sake of comparison, the monthly gross median wage in France is around 1717€, and the average monthly net income is 2128€.

Thank you. Am I right in inferring that you could determine the approximate salaries of all researchers at CNRS from this table or are there some exceptions?   6 000 € seems low for the highest paid professor.

@felix I believe so although I quit France for the USA after my Master. They might get some bonuses, up to 1275 EUR per year from what I read.

Most US states have Freedom of Information Laws that allow for people to request this kind of information of public schools. You will find numerous databases usually run by some sort of local news organization that publishes this data. E.g. The Texas Tribune Goverment Salary Database.
I don't know of a central resource for such things in the US. Public schools are typically run by US states, so the information is very distributed. Also, due to the nature of the laws, the information can be as much as a year old in many cases.

The closest thing I know is http://notable.math.ucdavis.edu/wiki/Public_University_Salaries.

Mack Brown, The University of Texas at Austin,  Head Coach,  $5,266,667 ... wow!

Also, no longer the UT head coach. Thus the time lag.

@felix: apparently, the highest-paid state employee is a sports coach in many US states. And not only the highest-paid employee at universities, but the highest-paid state employee, period.

I wonder if France or Germany release salary information?  Any French/German speakers able to check?

@felix this pops out for Germany: http://www.w-besoldung.net/forschung/zahlen-zur-w-besoldung/ seems like there are geographical differences.

Here are data for public universities in Minnesota: http://extra.twincities.com/car/salaries/

@felix Salaries of individual professors are not released in Germany. The list Jigg linked to shows the base salary, on top of which is added extra pay (usually somewhere between 10% and 40% of base salary) that is negotiated individually between each professor and the university as part of the hiring process. While the former is public knowledge, the latter is in my experience rarely discussed even among close colleagues.

To add to @ChristianClason's point about Germany: the geographical differences Jigg brings up are due to every Bundesland (roughly like a US state) having the authority to set their W-Besoldung as they wish (within reason). In addition, older professors may still be paid according to C-Besoldung, which is generally more attractive than W. ("W" has been said to stand for "weniger", i.e., "less", although it officially is short for Wissenschaft, or "science & humanities").

The University of Arizona has a full salary database here : http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/index.php/page/university_of_arizona_salary_database

@StephanKolassa: I agree that that's a somewhat shocking situation, but once you know that the highest-paid university sports coaches are making millions of dollars, it's hardly surprising that no other state employee makes more than that.

In Denmark (and probably other countries with similar, highly centralized wage bargaining systems), salaries for faculty at public (i.e., in Denmark, all) universities are determined by a single contract negotiated between unions and the national government. All faculty in Denmark are paid according to the same scheme, which is based on a combination of seniority, job classification (assistant/associate/full), and some smaller fringe benefits. These contracts are public information. Here's the one that applies to my current position. I'm sure you could find similar documents for other countries.

Thank you for this. So in practice, can you get enough information about an academic from public resources to be able to work out their salary?  I mean is their seniority and job classification (in the sense that you refer to) a matter of public record?

Not that I'm aware of on an individual-level, but it would be relatively easy to figure out. It's basically years in job (e.g. years since PhD) + whatever the bonus is they receive for their title. So my salary is "baseline salary for everyone" + "bonus for year two" + "bonus for postdoc". And all those numbers are reported publicly.

@Thomas - There are no merit pay bonuses? So you get paid as much as the freeloader professor who has never written anything in the past ten years?

@RoboKaren In base salary terms, research productivity is irrelevant. But the justification of salaries here is highly related to teaching - everyone teaches the same amount, so they're paid the same amount. If you're research productive (and bring in outside money), you get paid the same but teach less (due to buyouts).

Same for the Netherlands. You can look up the salary tables in the Collective Labor Agreement (vsnu.nl/CAO) and infer who earns what. There might be some guessing involved what 'trede' and which 'schaal' a given university employee has exactly, but within a reasonable margin of error, one can see what everyone earns.

In the UK the UCU has negotiated a single salary spine that ranges from £13,953 to £58,172. Only Professors exceed the top end of the scale so it is possible to make an educated guess at the salary of Lecturers and Readers.
Each university sets their own limits where Lecturers and Readers fall on the salary spine and the exact starting point on the spine is individually negotiated. For example, the Manchester scale has Lecturers between spine points 37 and 44, while the Nottingham scale has Lecturers between 36 and 43. Readers are between 45 and 51 at both Manchester and Nottingham. I am ignoring the spine points between the standard maximum and the super maximum since progression in that region is extremely difficult (and generally results in promotion). Typically, you move one spine point a year so if you know how many years someone has been a Reader/Lecturer, then you can make a very good educated guess at the salary. For all but Lecturers who have been appointed in the past 3 years, you should be able to estimate the salary within +/-10%.

Thank you. It is interesting that you can estimate the salary until they get to be a Professor when all of a sudden you have no idea.

Most (if not all) Australian Universities publish their salaries in their HR pages. A simple search of the university name + salary would bring the correct page straight away. See for example:

Melbourne University
UNSW Australia
Curtin University

Just as a few examples.
Positions and salaries here are also tiered. Academic positions are:

A (1-8) as an Associate Lecturer with an A6 being the lowest tier that someone with a PhD will be employed,
B as a Lecturer (or usually a researcher with a couple of years of experience)
C as Senior Lecturer
D as Associate Professor and
E as Professor

Thank you. I am not sure if I am reading it right but it seems that at the top end  (professor at level E) you can tell exactly what someone is paid? If so, this is the opposite of the UK where you have no idea if a professor is being paid 60k or 200k. Did I read the tables correctly?  Or is there some discretion to pay more than level E to superstars?

"Superstar" professors will typically have individual contracts with each university and these are not made public as the rest of the salaries. Level E applies to all the other professors.

That's very interesting thank you. Do you have an estimate for how many people might be on these individual contracts at one of the leading Australians unis?

As in many other European countries, salaries in Italy are not negotiated individually but are a function of academic rank and seniority.
There is a small variable component that depends on the region where the university is located. The raw tables for my university (Pisa, Tuscany)  are here and here for some newer positions (all these links are in Italian only).
There is an additional bonus for children and family (raw tables for my institution here).
In theory one can compute the salary of each professor from these raw data, if they know their seniority and family status. In practice, the computations are absurdly complicated unless one is a professional bureaucrat. I am a mathematician, and I'd have no idea how to compute my own salary using those tables. :)
You can get a ballpark amount from the tables here, published by an independent union expert. The net monthly salary is in column k, and the gross yearly salary is in the rightmost column.
(Quick legend: T.P. = full time; T.D. = part time; 1^ fascia = full professor; 2^ fascia = associate prof; ricercatore = assistant prof; confermato/ordinario = tenured; non confermato/straordinario = tenure track).

Thank you.  Is it right that an Italian university has no discretion to pay more to a superstar? What if Tao wanted a job? :)

@felix As far as I can tell, it is correct. Italian universities are definitely not competitive for a superstar. :( (and probably not even for the average researcher)

In Switzerland, being a confederation (well, nowadays more like a federal parliamentary republic), there are two levels of universities: federal and state universities. To the best of my knowledge there is no nominative list of individual salaries, as the law in Switzerland typically protects personal data (or at least, tries to).
For the federal level, i.e. the ETH in Zurich and the EPF in Lausanne, the range of first salary is given in a document (in German) available on the federal government's website. The salaries are in the order of (see top of page 8) 148k-270k CHF depending on the type of professorship and other factors that are negotiated individually.
For the state level, there is presumably more disparities between institutions. For example, the university of Lausanne publishes the salaries of the assistant professors (125k) in a document on its website but states that the salaries of full professor is determined individually.
On the subject, this article in the NZZ gives comparative salaries for professors between Switzerland and many other countries.

Thank you. At the federal level, what is the largest range of uncertainty? What I mean, is presumably one can tell from public information what sort of professor someone is.  So knowing only public information, how large a range can there be in salary?

@felix from the linked document the range is about 70k. It probably varies by field, departments, amount of external funding, etc.

Also in Israel, from the website of one university (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev):
http://in.bgu.ac.il/hr/DocLib/Pages/salary_tables/salary-senior-Jan2013.pdf
It's in Hebrew, so you can't understand much of it I guess. To sum it up:

Top right: Professor
Top left: Associate professor
Middle right: Senior lecturer
Middle left: Lecturer
Bottom right: Senior teacher
Bottom left: Teacher

In each table the rightmost column is number of years in the job, and the leftmost column is the total monthly salary amount, in ILS. So if you want to find out how much someone is getting paid, find out his rank and compare with the list.

Thank you for this.  Could you determine the salary of an individual professor from this table?

Yes, read my last sentence.

Thank you. Is someone's rank public information? Also, is this sort of information available for all Israeli universities?

Sure. Just look up their rank in their web page or CVs. They usually state their ranks. I think this information is identical for all universities.

A great resource containing lots of data for European countries is on the European university institute. More detailed information on the academic careers in various countries is on another page of the same site.

I was thinking of the same website, but it seems that the OP is looking for a salary list of individual academics.

@adipro You are right, I mis-interpreted the question at first. Sorry!


text:
What is the legal status of using copyrighted images in academic/conference talks?
I am told that we can use copyrighted images in our lectures to students now as they are for purely educational purposes, as long as we correctly attribute them. That is to say there is no need to ask the permission of the copyright holders.
What is the status of using copyrighted images in conference talks? Does it also count as education?

As pointed out, this will depend on the country in which the talk is given. Let me restrict the question to the US and UK in that case. If anyone knows the situation in another country then it would be great to hear that too of course.
In the UK, the reason why I suggested you could use copyrighted material in lectures without asking permission was http://lti.lse.ac.uk/copyright/copyright-2014.php#education .

Why do you need to use this image in a 20 minute conference talk? Can't you create your own image that conveys across the same concept?

@Alexandros That is certainly possible. However often some images make for a more attractive and/or interesting talk.

An image does not make the talk interesting. The speaker does.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29507/can-images-with-a-noncommercial-use-only-licence-be-used-in-teaching-and-acade

@Alexandros: In some fields, explaining the state of the art/related work is best done by showing screenshots of what others did.

This will depend very much upon jurisdiction and national copyright law. Please can you specify what country you are in? In a general sense, "it's for education" is not a free pass to use copyrighted material.

This is not a duplicate. Federico Poloni's question is about images under a specific CC license, whereas this question ask about copyrighted material.

@SimonW I updated the question and added a link about the "free pass" part. It does seem you have a free pass in the UK at least for lectures.

Unless you expect hungry lawyers to be in the audience, I think the legal status is "Nobody cares."

@JeffE How about when the conference puts your talk online or you put it on your own website?  The audience is then global.

@JeffE: Copyright-related Abmahnungen are a profitable branch of lawyerism, and a quick search turns up this example (article only available in German), where a conference organizer apparently had to pay a fine of 6000€ because some stock photos used in presentation slides made available on the conference organizer's website were not accompanied with proper attribution. ...

... In that particular case, the fine could certainly have been avoided by a little more thoroughness when preparing the slides, and I am not saying that it is a frequent event; I just wouldn't trust that in any semi-public venue (or for anything published online), there are no "hungry lawyers" around who are actively looking for mistakes. I'd be surprised if the same type of "hungry lawyers" - and legal tools to feed them somewhat akin to the "Abmahnung" - couldn't be found in other countries, too.

In Germany:
You are allowed to use copyrighted material for teaching and research (also conference talks) as long as it is not more than 10% of the original work or if it only concerns small works (less than 25 pages) and as long as it is only for a specific audience (one where you can name the participants afterwards). This is regulated by UrhG §52a, although the numbers are determined by several court decisions and not by the law itself.
Presenting images from papers in a scientific and non-profit talk is legal.
What is illegal: To upload the slides of the talk or a video of the presentation to the internet afterwards. This would violate the 'specific audience' clause since everyone could see it.
Do not forget to cite the source of the images. This is always required.

Legal status can vary by country, content and sometimes even - the intended audience.
In many places you are allow to use otherwise copyrighted materials within fair use, e.g a figure from a paper.
For things, which are not directly relevant to talk (e.g. "let's put a nice stock image of a man with a plant") the story may be different.
In any case:

from the practical perspective, you are unlikely to go to jail (or even: getting fined) for showing copyrighted images in an academic talk,
from the legal perspective, unless you are a lawyer (or your country has a very clear law on copyright) you are unlikely to know wether is is legal or not.

Highly relevant:

Can I use images showing up in Google search for my presentation slides without violating any copyright?

Thank you for this. The risk that concerns me more than going to jail is a demand of money from the copyright holder or a threat to my university which then gets me into trouble with them. Wrt the linked question, I think mine has a different focus.

In the US this is legal and is covered under the "Fair Use Act".
Link (archived version).

This is completely unclear to me. First, if you work for a private university is it even non-commercial use? Second, which types of images does this cover? For example, is it fair use to include a funny cartoon or a beautiful picture of a waterfall that simply makes your talk more attractive or interesting but isn't necessary to understand the material?

You are overthinking the situation. Any academic use, whether by a public or a private institution, is treated entirely separately from "commercial use". Even though there are a number of "for profit" colleges, those are not counted as commercial entities for the sake of copyright laws and fair use. As a general rule, what you are including in your presentation should relate to your content. Including a waterfall, for example, simply for aesthetics is a grey area and generally should be avoided....unless you can relate that waterfall back to your topic through an analogy in some way.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Do I always have to discuss conference attendance with advisor?
As a PhD student (in the US), should I always discuss whether I should go to a conference or summer school with my advisor before I apply? Even if

The conference is providing full financial support, and
I am not currently employed as a research assistant (rather teaching assistant) and the conference wouldn't affect that.

I realise it is common courtesy to do so anyway, but is it still OK if I don't?
Please don't answer to tell me what the "rules" are, or with "why don't you want to tell your advisor about it". I'm rather looking for a practical answer.

is it still OK – by what criterion? — Please don't answer to tell me what the "rules" are, or with "why don't you want to tell your advisor about it". I'm rather looking for a practical answer. – Well, there must be a reason why you don’t want to consult with your supervisor (who usually is an  obvious and free source of advice in this situation). This reason is crucial as to whether this is OK by a lot of criteria for OK. How do you expect us to give a practical answer without that information?

Complementing @Wrzlprmft's comment: why are you even considering not asking?

You have an advisor. Part of their role is to give advice. Clarify to yourself why it was not natural to just ask them in one of your normal interactions with them - this may head off worse problems down the road. Your reluctance to not just bring it up would appear to be a symptom of a deeper problem.

You seem to be asking "I realize that it is more courteous not to do X, and I'm not interested in discussing why I want to do X and thus whether doing X is actually a good idea.  Please just tell me whether I can do X, practically speaking."  Okay: yes.

From a purely practical standpoint: Yes, the laws of physics allow you to be a jerk to your advisor, but it's a bad idea.

Practically, no, you don't always have to contact or discuss your advisor. It is possible that your advisor will not end up even knowing. Now, this isn't advisable just because you and your advisor should really be fostering an open and collaborative environment and your advisor might take this as a sign against this. Additionally, if you are submitting work, many would say that it is your advisor's business because they should be able to know most things about your research and career in order to properly advise you.

I don't plan on keeping this away from my advisor -- just telling later if my paper gets accepted etc. My question is just about asking in time of application

In this case, it would still be to your benefit to tell your advisor, because they are likely to have good advice and suggestions that will help you get in.

Let's put it this way: keeping it from your advisor until your paper is accepted looks like you do not trust them or their judgement. Don't you?

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


text:
Who owns the intellectual property for work you do on weekends?
I am an academic at a UK university and have been asked to do some consultancy work for a company who wants to own all the IP for that work. I would only do this work on the weekends.  Would my university have some claim over this IP? My university's written rules only say that the ownership of all inventions will be determined by Section 39 of the Patents Act 1977. This,  on the face of it, seems to suggest they wouldn't have any rights over the IP.
I am reluctant to ask my university until I am clear what the right answer is as their initial reaction to all enquiries is just to say no.
Section 39 Patents Act 1977

(1)  Notwithstanding anything in any rule of law, an invention made by
  an employee shall, as between him and his employer, be taken to belong
  to his employer for the purposes of this Act and all other purposes
  if—
(a)  it was made in the course of the normal duties of the employee or
  in the course of duties falling outside his normal duties, but
  specifically assigned to him, and the circumstances in either case
  were such that an invention might reasonably be expected to result
  from the carrying out of his duties; or
(b)  the invention was made in the course of the duties of the employee
  and, at the time of making the invention, because of the nature of his
  duties and the particular responsibilities arising from the nature of
  his duties he had a special obligation to further the interests of the
  employer’s undertaking.
(2)  Any other invention made by an employee shall, as between him and
  his employer, be taken for those purposes to belong to the employee.
(3)  Where by virtue of this section an invention belongs, as
  between him and his employer, to an employee, nothing done—
(a)  by or on behalf of the employee or any person claiming under him
  for the purposes of pursuing an application for a patent, or
(b)  by any person for the purpose of performing or working the
  invention,
shall be taken to infringe any copyright or design right to which, as
  between him and his employer, his employer is entitled in any model or
  document relating to the invention.

It is usually hard to prove that something was truly done during the weekends or weekdays, the solution for this problem that I have seen in the south of Europe is simply forbid (in the contract) engaging in other contracts/jobs, so that they hire (rent) you in an exclusive way. AFAIK. You are free to choose open licenses on your work, though, like GPL or CC-SA-BY. Thus, the best way to retain the IP on your work is giving it to everybody (which includes you). (Again, AFAIK, in a different context).

@Trylks Our university contracts allow us to do a certain number of days consulting a year.

@Trylks The legislation linked to and quoted in the question is UK legislation. In the UK, it's pretty common for academics to engage as consultants to industry. Indeed, interaction with industry is strongly encouraged from the highest level: it's one of the criteria on which academic departments are judged to determine how much funding they get.

"It's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission" is often a very useful saying in life...except when it relates to things like ownership of intellectual property, copyright, patents, etc. If work is done that isn't worth much, people aren't likely to care. If work is done that turns out to be really valuable, you are much more likely to suddenly find yourself in a stupidly unpleasant position where your work is horribly penalized! Better to sort things out, in writing, when everyone is on good terms (and the prospect of "easy money" is on no one's mind).

I'd say that, if your employer owns output you do on your own time, then something is broken with IP law... only that IP law is indeed broken in many ways, possibly in this one too. But if the result about doing research on your own time is favorable (as in, they don't own it), pay attention that you don't do it with their resources. So, if you are using a laptop your employer issued for private purposes at home, don't use it for your second job, get another computer if you have to. It can spare you some ugly disentangling.

@rumtscho I agree with your sentiment. However reading http://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-challenge-decision-results/o03701.pdf for example I find it hard to guess what a judge would say. It is clearly in the job description of an academic to do research and it is clear that in practice the ideas often come outside of normal working hours.  However, I hope you are right.

You are essentially asking legal advice.  I'd strongly suggest you get a lawyer familiar with academic IP law and consult with them, otherwise you may pass up a good opportunity, or really cause significant problems for yourself or the company involved.

First, useful to find out what the general practice at your university has been. Ask or google. Identify consultants or startups that have come out of your uni and ask them. You don't need to say in detail why you're asking.

While it is right that it would be helpful for you to pay, what ought to be a modest sum, to an intellectual property lawyer to check that what you are doing is OK (and hence rely on their indemnity insurance) for reasons that will become clear, hopefully I can say something useful here.
Patent law is UK wide, even though the UK is divided into distinct jurisdictions for most purposes. Other aspects of law are different, eg Scots and English contract law differ on a number of points. I suspect that the differences between the various systems aren't relevant to your problem, but when seeking a lawyer it makes sense to talk to someone from your part of the UK (for these purposes: Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland, are the 3 relevant jurisdictions).
Some UK IP law, for example copyright law, makes the employer the first owner of the IP if it is created by an employee in the course of their employment. The 1977 Act differs from this by creating two possible situations: (1)(a) and (1)(b) above.
39(1)(a) asks three questions:
- is what you are doing a part of your "duties" under your employment contract?
- are they either your "normal duties" or duties "specifically assigned" to you?
- would an invention reasonably be expected to result from carrying out those duties?
These questions mean what they say. Could what you are planning to do in the weekend be fairly said to fall within your duties as an employee? If yes, you need to think very carefully about the other two questions, if no, then they will not fall within s39(1)(a). To answer that first question is something that will depend on what your duties are (for which we would have to examine your written contract of employment or statement of terms of employment and also what you actually do) and also what it is you are proposing to do.
And that is exactly something that you should be talking to a lawyer about, rather than asking here, because it may require a delicate and careful examination of the facts.
s39(1)(b) applies to people with a special obligation to further their employer's interests. In commercial companies this would be likely to include members of the board of directors. For a university it would depend very much on the nature of the post (see above).
Universities in the UK can have very strange contractual arrangements. I worked for a university at one time which permitted me to do paid contract work during my "working hours" (which were not enforced). That may have been unusual but should demonstrate why nothing should be assumed and why it is sensible to talk to a lawyer about it.
Hopefully those remarks will help you take advantage of legal advice more efficiently.

Thank you for this!  I should perhaps have added that my particular job as an academic is completely standard and the same as many thousands of others. That is I lecture, research and do admin. What I would really love to know is how the law interprets the "normal duties" of an academic when it comes to research and innovation. In particular, are inventions made solely out of normal working hours part of your normal duties?

Greater Glasgow Health Board's Application [1996] RPC 207 (registrar in ophthalmology making an invention for the ophthamlmoscope while studying at home - not in the normal course of duties) is probably the closest case. But there's a fair amount of case law and applying it would require some thought - something a lawyer could offer.

To broaden Bill Barth's answer a bit: you definitely need to get an lawyer involved.  You also should make certain that there is date-stamped written communication ensuring that your university's legal/IP staff are aware as well.  This may seem like a pain and may make it harder to get started on anything, but it's much better to get any possible conflicts identified and sorted out now, rather than to find yourself in the middle of a complex and lengthy lawsuit later.
I don't know about the UK, but suspect it to be similarly heterogeneous to the US, where there is an exceedingly large range of differences in the IP rights given in employment agreements at research institutions, both within academia and outside of it.  Some places are very liberal and basically claim nothing that's not "in the direct line of your duties."  Others claim even your dreams and the photos you take at your kids' birthday party (not exaggerating!).  In all cases, however, there is often a wide grey area between de jure and de facto policy, and it's important to get an agreement and understanding written down before you give IP to any second organization.

Assumptions that the UK legal system is just like the US system (or, rather, systems) are rarely true, especially concerning the law around employment.

Assumptions that the various institutions of any country have different de facto standards for how they deal with legal questions in the inevitable grey areas, however, is a statement about human nature that  I will defend to the death. :-)

@jakebeal the rate of variation is very different - in jurisdictions where the general principle is that specific contracts override laws (as in USA) you should expect employment rights to be heterogenous and vary from case to case; and in jurisdictions where generally laws override contracts (as in continental Europe) you should expect employment rights to be very homogenous and to be pretty much equal across the board with variations only in true edge cases.

@Peteris Perhaps I'm being provincial and American, but when I read the excerpt posted in the original question, I see a huge amount of space for dispute: what exactly are "normal duties" or "specifically assigned" or "reasonably expected" or "special obligation"?  There are a lot of opportunities for disagreement, especially in a common-law system like England or (most of) America where precedent plays a major part in resolving legal disputes.  My recommendation stands: make sure there is written agreement establishing positive freedom to operate before proceeding.

@jakebeal Those terms are likely more settled than you think, thanks to decades of judicial consideration; however, that doesn't mean that the settled meaning is what you might think it is, which makes legal advice even more important

@sapi: Exactly.

@jakebeal in a non-common-law system those definitions can't vary between different employers - you look up the FAQ at your country's labor laws agency, and that's what it is, no matter what agreements you have made. If I have a written agreement that explicitly says "everything done outside of working hours is owned by employers" or "all weekends are treated as working hours even if we're not paying for them" then it simply means that these points are null and void, and the usual definitions and laws apply anyway. The agreements need (and can) specify only what isn't covered by existing laws.

@Peteris I'd be interested to see a sample similar to that in the O.P. if you have one.  I've only ever dealt with common law systems myself, so I have a hard time imagining that it's actually possible to write entirely non-ambiguous law using human language.  Like even in your example how does "outside of working hours" apply if you stay late to work vs. you stay late but work on something else vs. you work from home, etc...

For an example, "outside of working hours" is very clear - it's the employers duty to document the working hours even in all the cases you describe, for all kinds of labor rights purposes such as minimum rest periods or overtime pay. The exact same hours apply for other things, and there cannot be an time period that is "working hour" for one purpose and "nonworking hour" for other purposes, and various companies can have varying systems for allocating working schedule only to the limits prescribed by the labor law - it includes multiple options, but no other options for worktime are possible.

That being said, I agree that the case isn't that simple and I cannot provide a simple sample similar to the O.P. For example, any answer to question containing "intellectual property" is most likely wrong; as statements that are correct regarding to copyright pretty much always are not really the same regarding patents and vice versa. My local copyright law states that all copyrighted works created by an employee belong to the employee, except "computer programs created as a result of performing a work assignment" in which case they belong to the employer.

You need to spend a few hundred pounds with a UK IP attorney/solicitor getting some advice about the law in your country. If the weekend contract has any value to it at all, it will be worth finding out from someone who knows the law.

@РСТȢѸФХѾЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢѤЮѦѪѨѬѠѺѮѰѲѴ I think he is also saying, "Don't act on the answers you get from other people on the Internet who may or may not have any legal expertise".

It's not a close vote. It's a warning that needs to be prominent, so I think it's more suitable as an answer than a comment. People on the internet can be naive about legal questions, so I try to get in quickly and make this suggestion. Others who have provided advice about the law which tries to directly answer the question may be exposing themselves to sanction in their country for "practicing law without a license" or other crimes. I try to short-circuit that when I can.

More important than the laws surrounding general IP in your country is the contract you signed with your employer.
The contract must detail exactly what work is to belong to the company. The contract probably specifies a body of work and a timeframe. For example,
The company shall own all works by the employee related to Tree Bullfrogs created from April 1, 2000 to April 1, 2001.

Alternatively,
The company shall own all rights to all works produced during normal business hours.

Most of time the contract will be designed by professionals to supercede general IP laws your country has. However, no contract can give a company to all things you create on your own time, unless specifically agreed upon.
In conclusion, read your contract. Depending on the stakes involved it could make sense to hire a lawyer, but he will also be more concerned with the contract.

My contract is very short and makes no reference to IP. This appears to be standard in UK universities to have short almost contentless contracts. Most of the terms of employment that apply to everyone are on their website. The only relevant part I could find is the part I quoted in the question. That is that ownership of inventions will be covered by Section 39 of the Patents Act 1977.

Hmmm it looks like you will need a lawyer

Not everyone has an employment contract. It may be the norm in the UK, but it's not in the US.

@BillBarth Not having a written employment contract at all is, as far as I know, a uniquely US thing. We have no such concept as being hired "at will" in the UK.

@BillBarth Perhaps that is true for US jobs in general, but for pretty much any research-oriented job, there will be some sort of form that you have to sign regarding IP policy as part of accepting employment.  Typically, it involves agreeing to abide by the organization's standard IP practices, with space to note exceptions regarding "pre-existing conditions" of various sorts.  It's easy to overlook in the HR form blizzard but very important.


text:
Is it advisable to contact a professor if I fear failing a graduate-level course?
I am an international master's student in the US. I am currently finishing my last semester of courses.
This semester has been very tough on my personal life because of some family issues. I also had major unexpected technical difficulties with one of the projects which made it practically impossible for me to finish it in time. As a result, my performance in one of the courses suffered in the second half of the semester (I was doing well in the first half). I just had the final exam and I feel that it went badly. I am now scared that I might fail the course and have to come back again in Fall,  especially because that means I have to move back to the city and spend more money on tuition.
I am confident that I would have done much better on the course had my circumstances been different. I am therefore considering contacting the professor to explain my situation in the hopes that he won't give me a failing grade.
So my question is this: is it advisable to contact my professor in this situation? If so, how can I approach the topic? What should I avoid discussing?
Perhaps I should mention, I don't feel very comfortable with him on a personal level, and he has been generally strict with grading guidelines.

Your university may have an official procedure for reporting extenuating circumstances-- I would try to find out about this before contacting the professor directly.

What would you expect the professor to do? Grading is supposed to be fair. Exceptions usually have to follow university rules, too...

Professors do not "give" grades; students earn grades.

You should find out if your university has policies around "incomplete" grades - this might be a path for you to avoid failing a course (though understand that assigning an incomplete grade is often a lot of extra work for the professor, not just you). However, this is very late to be raising these concerns given the final already occurred.

For future reference, such circumstances should be brought to the attention of your superiors as quickly as possible, both the personal and the technical kind. Not long after those circumstances have already had their negative impact and it's time for the final result to be delivered. Not necessarily directly and with full details for the personal problems. Sometimes there are alternate channels you need to go through, but whatever the process, the sooner the better. This goes both in academic and professional realms.

When I read the headline, my immediate impulse was to say "yes, of course" - assuming, that the course is still running and you need advice on how to proceed and come to a good result.
After reading the full question, my answer is a clear "no". I'm located in Germany, but I assume the following thoughts are applicable to the US too:

If you explain your situation to the professor right now, it will feel like you want to influence his objective grading attitude. I would never accept such an attempt and I would in fact be angry just because you told me, I will be influenced. I won't rate you better, but I might even be stricter in cases where I'm unsure whether I should give a point more or less, just to avoid beeing unfair towards the other students.

If the professor would react on your situation, it might even be illegal, it would be definitely unethical. In the worst case, he could be fired. #Everyone has to be treated equally.

Most (all?) universities have defined rules on how to treat sickness, bad personal circumstances, etc. You should check your local regulations and get advice from either other faculty members, students organizations or the responsible university staff. In many cases, there are options to re-do an exam.

You should check the regulations mentioned before, but I would not take any measures before the results are out. After they are published, you could ask the professor on advice on how to proceed and explain your situation afterwards. Maybe there are some options like a second attempt or otherwise.

+1, but some measures could be taken before results are published. The earlier any kind of problem is reported to university services, the more reliable it sounds. Best before the exams, but still better before grades have been published than after it is know that you failed the course.

Sorry, but this is bad advice. There are options, specifically withdrawal or an "Incomplete" grade, which must be undertaken before final grades are submitted. Once a grade is submitted, it can only be changed for extremely limited circumstances, typically a mistake. In the United States, there is generally no option to retake the final, unlike other countries. (In the US, the final tends to be a smaller portion of the overall grade)

Unethical, sure, but illegal? Which laws govern what grades professors give their students? Why are professors not getting sued constantly by failing students (or passing students who feel cheated) based on those laws?

@AlexReinking I have to treat all students equally. I I differentiate my grading because whatsoever, I'll loose any law suit if a student chooses to go to court for it. We had such examples at our university (fortunately not in my department). To avoid this, we have the internal rule that we have to publish all terms and conditions for each exam in the first weeks of each semester and stick to it. But I can not make up a rule like "if someone feels bad after an exam, I can push them up a few points". The only thing I can do is lower the threashold for all.

Obviously a professor should not adjust grades for extenuating circumstances, but there may be legitimate reason to allow the student to withdraw or take an incomplete and do the work over, and either of these options would be better than a failing grade. If your institution has no policies to allow even the consideration of such action, that's a real shame

@R.. of course, and this happens from time to time. My answer only reflected to a previous comment which asked under which circumstances legal issues could occur.
In our institution, it's no problem to send updates for grades, but of course we have to follow a process!

Situations like yours are why I tell all of my advisees and students to adhere to the following suggestion:

Talk to people when you have a problem, not when it becomes a crisis.

If there’s the possibility that something extremely bad could result (and failing a graduate course could certainly qualify), raise the issue before the worst-case scenario comes to fruition. At that point, it may be too late to do anything about the problem.
Unfortunately, you’ve waited until you’ve reached crisis conditions, and at this point, things are entirely out of your hands. You should have expressed concern during the project when things started going wrong. All you can do at this point is beg for mercy, and as the others have mentioned, that puts the instructor in an ethical bind.

The point is, it requires experience to know when you have a problem, or when the problem you are facing with would lead to crisis.

The student was cognizant of having major problems on the project. That's usually a sign that you might want to speak up in this case. But when you're a student, there's almost always a few tipping points that trouble is looming on the horizon.

I am confident that I would have done much better on the course had my circumstances been different.

I don’t have advice on whether you should or should not contact the professor, but you should know that any professor with more than a couple of years’ teaching experience will have heard this same argument from students many times before. Unfortunately this argument is a fallacious one and implies a misunderstanding on the student’s part (or worse, the student dishonestly pretending not to understand) about the meaning of the grade: the course grade is not designed to measure how well you would have done under some hypothetical set of favorable circumstances. It’s only meant to measure how well you actually learned the material, in the real world.
My only advice is that if you do contact the professor to explain the situation and beg for mercy (not the most honorable course of action, but a somewhat reasonable one that has a low but nonzero probability of having an effect of some sort), do not include a statement along the lines of the quote I cited at the beginning. Making such a statement will undermine your case and make it extremely likely that the professor will reply with a standard explanation (the same one as I wrote above) of why the logic of your request is invalid, and refuse to do anything to help you.
I am sorry about the personal difficulties you’ve had, and good luck with your studies.

... and, yes, this is also completely true/correct. It is not the instructor's responsibility to figure out how to induce you to learn the course content... despite your personal circumstances. Yes, I know, at least 10 percent of students in a Calc I course in land-grant Unis in the US will have "personal reasons" for screwing up... and the Uni can make accomodations... but it is NOT the instructor's responsibility to repair anyone's life. Boundaries.

No, it is not advisable to contact your professor in your specific situation. The risk of contacting the professor concerned directly is that it may be seen as seeking preferential treatment by sidestepping the proper channels. At my university (and doubtless most others), there are procedures in place to deal with life events affecting your study progress. Usually, it is best to bring up such situations with a counsellor, study advisor or mentor (the name of the person to go to varies from one university to another) when the problems first arise and not wait until after the final exam. In your case, it is too late for that, but the action taken should be the same: find out what the procedure is and who to speak to, and do so as swiftly as possible. Then follow the advice you are given.
(If you have no idea how to get started, your university should have some sort of student support services you can contact.)

Yes, although to people unschooled in bureaucracy this answer might sound counter-intuitive and inhumane, (in the U.S.) it is the bureacratically correct thing to do. Not in such a perverse way, really, but just that faculty will be bound by any sort of Disabilities Office or X Office to do a certain thing (which hopefully will be reasonable), and will not have to exercise any sort of judgement. Etc.

I do understand your concern. You have put tremendous effort into your growth and don't want to see it sidetracked. I think you need to find another way out.
I suggest you think of it from the Professor's perspective first. You admit you don't have a good relationship with the instructor. That is not working in your favor. If this is a tenured professor, it is working against you.
I suggest you think of your classmates. What makes you think of you were the only student struggling? What makes you think you were the only student who had "major unexpected technical difficulties with one of the projects"? Did you reach out to any of them? Will any of your classmates vouch for you and say that you had it harder than everyone else? If not, then why you think you deserve special treatment? I completed 42-graduate levels in 2-years at my school and never once thought I earned less than a B+, my lowest "failing grade". (MSIA/MBA) I had a miscarriage while working towards my Harvard doctorate and still managed to pass my classes. I know I earned straight-As. (DBA/MPA) Imagine me as one of your classmates. Do you really think your instructor is going to believe your circumstances were so horrible that you couldn't approach him earlier, ask for help for classmates, drop the class, or pass the class? I don't. I would be very angry with him if he did knowing what I went through to pass my classes.
I suggest you think of your future employer or institution. They are going to hire you believing you know something you have failed to master, based on your belief that you failed the test. Is this going to be your life plan, to make excuses-after-the-fact?
I suggest you think of everyone who is going to follow. How far do you want your institution to lower the bar so you can pass? Talk to your professor by all means. Instead of asking to have your grade changed, asked for a second chance. Ask for an incomplete or a Pass/ Fail grade. Ask to be allowed to drop the course. Don't ask him to raise your grade though.
Forgive me if this is harsh. Today is my first day and this is my first answer. I hope this helps, even if it hurts to hear.

Welcome to Academia SE! First, I'm so sorry about what you went through during grad school. I think it does sound a little harsh, because just because you were able to tough it out successfully does not mean everyone should be forced to. (At a school like Harvard, there is generally a lot of room for second chances and working with the student to find a way through, though I would guess there might be stigma against that, perhaps especially at HBS.) I really like your suggestions for a second chance: you've identified there the best possibility for a win/win scenario.

A good answer. And, looking at your "user profile", I am (yet again) sorry that the U.S. system does this. As I've said to people before, I'd be entirely willing to be a "representative for my class" (old white guys) if only I had binding decision-making power... (Hope things are good where you are...) Best... -pg

Cactus_partner -  Ivies won't are reluctant to flunk students out because they pride themselves on making excellent admittance decisions. When a student flunks out, that means the entire Interviewing and Selection committee failed. The first thing they tell you is that they don't make mistakes. You are there because you belong. Every other school tells you that you will likely fail. Ivies tell you that the hardest part was proving you are worthy to belong.
Paul Garrett - Harvard is GREAT.  So glad I went!

@KarenM.Rozier Yes, that's my experience, too; and when someone does flunk, they're often readmitted to finish later, and that's why (the undergrad programs, at least) have top graduation rates. (The "they don't make mistakes" part sounds like typical HUbris ;) but they do a lot to create a sense of belonging.) Anyway, I guess your dose of reality is useful if the OP had not been thinking along those lines, but if the OP was already doubting themselves, they should probably skip that part.

The first thing you should always do is discuss with your advisor. They are there to help you. (It doesn’t sound like this professor is your advisor.)
Secondly, as of right now I am only in my second semester in grad school, however, I can say I have generally had difficulty with all the exams. That being said, my grades are fine. Grad school is supposed to be challenging.
Most departments also have rules about dropping a course before you fail it. In my institution, if you fail you are kicked out. You will want to check into this.
My advice is that you speak with your advisor and the professor and explain your family situation. At the end of the day, they are human beings and should be somewhat reasonable.

If there are genuine extenuating circumstances, you could email him and explain the situation and see what he says.
If not, I don't think failing a module is necessary a problem.  My friend is doing a PhD in Mathematics and she failed her module on Group Theory in her MSc and had to re-sit it (I think I remember reading somewhere that Ernst Haeckel failed one of his modules).  However, if you do fail it will be taken that the subject which you failed on is not to your tastes.  So if you fail a cosmology module and then never touch cosmology again, it does not really matter, but if you fail and then apply to a PhD in cosmology, that could raise some eyebrows, even if overall you got a high grade on the degree.  You may not be invited to interview or if you are, they will likely ask you about your result and if there was a reason for failing: this would be the opportunity to mention the extenuating circumstances which contributed to you failing.

I would suggest contacting someone in the administration or faculty (preferably, graduate advisor) who you feel comfortable with and who can mediate the situation. There could be various resolutions to this situation, and an independent person looking at it would be most helpful. They can potentially negotiate something with the professor, etc. I would advise not to try to resolve it with the professor directly. Good luck!

I have never taken graduate level courses, but having had similar problems as an undergraduate, it is very important you speak with a counsellor about any other personal issues which might be bothering you.  In addition if it turns out you fail, it will also be necessary to get counseling on that. I assure you there will be a lot of bad feelings which will come up when you fail a course, especially if you are used to success in the past.

Welcome to academia.SE! I made a few edits to try to focus your answer -- feel free to edit my post with any details you'd like to add or clarify. Also, please note that the question was "should I contact the professor" -- I didn't flag your answer as non-responsive, but be aware that others may do so.

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


text:
My professor told us a previous version of our textbook would be okay, but has now decided that it isn't?
I currently have a class in which at the beginning of the semester, our entire class was told it would be okay to obtain a previous version of the textbook which I did because it was significantly cheaper. However, now that we are further on in the semester, the previous version is leaving out information that the new version contains. Each week, we complete a guided inquiry for this class in which we answer questions about the chapters. The guided inquiry now frequently has questions that answers cannot be found for in the previous edition. Our professor, however, only has the new edition of the text and doesn’t know which questions cannot be found in the previous edition. She decided that a good means of dealing with this would be to give us two attempts on the guided inquiry so that after we complete it the first time, we can reach out to our peers and get the information not found in the textbook.
I personally don’t think that this is fair to either the people with the new edition or the people with the old edition. The people with the old edition will have to rely on others for them to get a good grade, and the people with the new edition will have to devote time to finding the information that their peer needs and sending it to them. Because college students tend to be very busy, I don’t think that either of these is an ideal situation to be in.
However, I am not sure if this is just me being upset over the fact that I now have to spend extra time emailing someone else and waiting and hoping I get the information, or if it is a justifiable argument and I should send her an email to discuss the matter. I also don’t want to seem disrespectful, because I am sure she is just trying to do what she thinks is best as an educator so that we have all the information we need to become successful teachers. I am just not sure how an email from me would be received.
Edit to add: This is an online class so in order to get the pages from someone else, I would have to email and ask them to send me either pictures of their text or pictures of their answer. We only have three chapters left, so I was going to ask if maybe she could just scan those chapters for those of us with the old edition and post them on our class site with the other information because she did this for us at the beginning of the school year when everyone was still waiting to receive their textbook. Also, our university library is closed due to COVID and only providing online resources right now. Another reason that I didn't mention prior to this is that the class had issues finding the current edition of the text, and that was the reason a lot of people got the older version. The newer version at the time wasn't available through Amazon or Chegg and our school bookstore sold out pretty quickly. Also, yes this is an educator preparation class.

Can you not just copy those pages from somebody else?

Why can't the professor provide the answer key?

Is this a class in an education program? A teacher-training program?

My university has an online library portal which also has PDFs for some books. Maybe you can also get the new version there if yours has such a portal as well

Can you borrow a book for a day and copy the parts you are missing? Many university libraries provide their students with access to a scanner.

I see how this case is somewhat problematic in that the materials to be obtained from others are directly and regularly the absolute precondition to fulfilling a part of your grade requirements, and that remote teaching due to covid-19 complicates matters. I'd like to point out, though, that in general, there is nothing wrong with having to get in touch with other students. Establishing contact and asking around to solve certain tasks was seen as a desirable and intentional feature during my own studies, and I'd wager that it is indeed a good preparation for most careers.

Which state are you studying in?

@O.R.Mapper Yeah but that was back in the days when we were deemed responsible for ourselves and our own efforts. Now it's all up to someone else  Nowadays students would rather complain online about "ethics" and "it's not fair" than to employ some really rather simple, practical solutions to what's quite a small problem.

I've been both in situations where I told my students "I've looked at the 1st edition of the text and it's OK to use it" and "I've looked at the 1st edition of the text and it's not OK to use it". It sounds (unless I misunderstand your story) that your professor never looked at the prior edition and just assumed that it would be OK. I hope that "never assume" will be one of the lessons learned in this class by everyone, including your professor.
The professor tried to mitigate their mistake. (Other possible solutions might be to limit the topics of the guided inquiry to the material in the old edition, but that would not be fair to the students who do have the new edition.) Clearly, this creates a huge inconvenience for you (and the other people with the old edition), but also, more importantly, you're missing out on the material that's in the latest edition and is missing in the one you have.
My advice to you is twofold:

You're missing out on gaining the knowledge which is the goal of your being in this class and in school. You're not learning as much as the other students who have access to the current edition. Get hold of the current edition of the text book (buy it new, buy it used, rent it, download it for free from pirate sites, borrow from somebody). It may cost you, but the alternative is that you won't learn in this class whatever you've set out to learn.

Do not say anything to the professor. Nothing good is likely come out of it. The professor already knows that students who have the old text are inconvenienced. You have nothing new to say. The professor sounds very unlikely to change anything again, but also sounds like the type who might retaliate and dng your grade for complaining. If your school conducts course evaluations at the end of the semester, explain there clearly what went wrong.

'Do not say anything to the professor. Nothing good is likely come out of it. If your school conducts course evaluations at the end of the semester, explain there clearly what went wrong.' --> Whatever happened to something like things would be better if we told people (like constructive criticism but not attacking) how we felt instead of talking behind their backs? Also, why should we leave saying how we feel only until the end?

@JohnSmithKyon, the part you left out of your quote seems to address your questions pretty well:  "The professor already knows that students who have the old text are inconvenienced. You have nothing new to say."  There isn't a perfect solution to this situation, and the professor has already taken a course of action, hopefully weighting the pros and cons.  I guess you could take the matter up with a department head or other university authority figure before the evaluations, but they likely have more pressing matters to deal with now.  People make mistakes

The sentence "The professor ... sounds like the type who might retaliate and [ding] your grade for complaining" is ludicrous. Other than the background facts, the only description of the professor is the accommodating "She decided that a good means of dealing with this would be to give us two attempts on the guided inquiry". Where on earth did you get "the type who might retaliate" from that?

A professor who doesn't check whether the old edition of the text contains the assigned material, but assumes it and tells the students that it's OK to use the old edition is incompetent, which is highly correlated to other a-hole moves, such as, unfairly dinging student grades to retaliate for complaining.

OP can just explain the situation in the course evaluations at the end of the semester (provided there are any) and should encourage classmates to do so. That way, the professor will be held accountable for making sure this mistake doesn't happen the following semester and also circumvents the issue of retaliation - whether the concern is realistic or not. Just don't let this situation affect the other parts of the evaluation - if the professor is a great lecturer but made this one mistake, make that clear. ;)

You've established that the professor knows about the problem and has found a low quality solution.  If you do not have a better solution, I see no point in contacting the professor about it.
Is there a copy available in the library or through the library website?  If so, use that.  If not, ask the librarian if one can be made available.

In addition to the OP asking the librarian themselves, they can try to get as many people in the class as possible to ask the librarian as this will increase the likelihood that the library will see this as an important request. In addition, the OP and other students could ask the professor to ask the library to make many copies available; this will likely have an even greater impact on the library than multiple students asking. Both methods would probably be best. Of course, all requests should be done politely and ideally in such a way so as not to annoy or embarrass the professor.

Along these lines, it could be fair to ask the prof to request a desk copy to leave in a safe shared space (like the department's study room).  Or have her ask the library to order some copies to put in reserve (the short term check out system).

I doubt sending an email is wise. I imagine two cases. First, the instructor is newer and hasn't run into this before. Second, the instructor is experienced.
If the instructor is younger/new, I can almost guarantee that they already realize their error and feel badly enough about it. Many younger instructors make the mistake of thinking they're serving their students by being flexible on editions. With good intentions they sought to lower the cost burden of the class, etc. They should be seeing that this ultimately backfires. This professor is learning (hopefully) the hard way to make it a written-in-stone policy that everyone get the same edition.  They've cobbled together the best solution they can think of, but it's too late to go back. They won't do it again next semester. You don't need to pile on when they're probably already punishing themselves.
If the instructor is experienced, they should already know better. And that probably means they don't care that much. So in this case sending an email won't have any affect anyway.

Surely the instructor has more weight to request that the library obtains copies of the book? The reasons should be obvious.

Sure, but that's a different kind of email than I thought the OP was intending. That said, I may have misread the OP.

Your professor has caused a problem and it is a problem that should never occur. I find it especially egregious in a program designed for future educators. The professor is, right now, a terrible role model for how to manage a class.
The professor should design a class and provide for sufficient materials and instructions for every student to be successful. This includes text book recommendations. The design shouldn't be changed after the course begins and, most especially, it shouldn't be changed in a way that disadvantages some students over others. That is just wrong.
The professor, to behave ethically, needs to either return to the original "agreement" made when students entered the class or provide, in some legal fashion, the necessary additional materials. Anything else is a breach. It shouldn't be on the backs of students to recover from problems caused by the professor.
The professor should teach the course so that the original (first edition) is sufficient or supplement it explicitly with other things that they provide directly.
I don't know what recourse you have. Ideally, a complaint to the department head or dean would be appropriate, but, with the power imbalance here it might not be wise. If the teacher is so inexperienced or callous as to have let this happen, they might not react well to being called on it.
As with many such things, individual action an be dangerous and collective action can, in theory, be more effective. But you have to judge the local situation, including personalities, to decide whether any course of action is feasible.
But, you have been wronged. When you get to be a teacher, I hope you consider other people to be your mentor and others to be those you want to emulate. Good luck.

I disagree with this answer. It seems that the professor was motivated by an attempt to accommodate her students and to save them money. Likely it's an innocent mistake (which did cause real problems for students), which she is already aware of, which doesn't seem to have a good solution at this point, and which she is unlikely to repeat. If you regularly "think outside the box" to try and help students, then occasionally you are going to screw up, and I suspect that this attitude of trying to be helpful might be what a complaint to the dean would end.

It may well be that the second edition ommitted some material that was conytained in the first, rather than merely adding to it. Thus, working from only the first may disadvantage those who have the second edition.

@Tim, that may be, but the problem is one the instructor needs to fix, since they caused it and it is disadvantaging some people.

As I commented on another answer, surely that's down to the instructor, with more clout, to order from library/bookstore - pref. the former. So, what's wrong with suggesting that to said instructor?

Your professor made a significant mistake. Judging by your question, it sounds as if she was attempting to be helpful and accommodating, that this backfired, and that she has realized this and tried to do what she can.
I would complain if (1) you don't think she's realized that this is a serious inconvenience, or (2) you would like to request some alternative form of accommodation. It sounds as if she has realized (1), but if you can think of a practical suggestion for (2) then I would encourage you to suggest it.
You also edited your answer to add:

The newer version at the time wasn't available through Amazon or Chegg and our school bookstore sold out pretty quickly.

It is the responsibility of the bookstore to stock the books required by students. At least in my university, they are provided textbook orders and registration counts months in advance, and hence have no excuse for this sort of thing. (It happens anyway.) In my estimation this is an egregious failure on the bookstore's part, and one which is completely beyond the professor's responsibility.
In your shoes, I would consider complaining about the bookstore to the university administration.

Sorry, no, she didn't "do what she can". She can revert to the original course plan, making the textbook issue moot.

Do you mean requiring the new book? If so, suddenly requiring a new book midsemester is a quite serious imposition. They can cost hundreds of dollars, and students might not be prepared for an unexpected expense. (At my university, it is common for students to work 20++ hours a week, at close to minimum wage, to pay their living expenses.) Perhaps that is the best solution here, but it comes at a cost.

No, I don't mean that at all. I mean teaching the course so that the first edition is sufficient as was originally said to the students. Requiring a re-purchase would not be ethical, I agree.

Oh, I see. Fair point. At minimum, the professor should obtain a copy of the first edition herself and see if this is feasible.

No, that minimum is not sufficient. A change in the course plan should not disadvantage some students. That is pretty bed-rock as a principle.

I'm imagining that any course of action, at all, would disadvantage some of the students. But I could be wrong about this, and if I am then I certainly agree with you.

Wondering how conversant the prof. is with both editions...
The onus is on the prof. to get the library to order 2nd edition copies, and perhaps ensure the bookstore has some in stock.
A suggestion to the prof. on this issue should not alienate anyone. Prof. understands blunder, but working from just one edition disadvantages those with the other. Speak to the prof.

Alternatively, the prof can teach the course in such a way that the edition of the book is irrelevant. There are many ways to do this that don't require that the students have access to two editions.


text:
I am really interested in doing phd, need help for title/topic, please help me
Me having master in communication engineering and degree in computer science, i am really interested in persuing phd to follow my father footstep.
I am interested in:
1) networking
2) image processing
4) Data mining and automization
5) Information technology
Or relevant
What i am good:
1) strong in math
2) strong in computer literature
3) fundamental of programming
4) strong in networking
5) strong in IT

Welcome to Academia SE, but that’s a question that you have to answer yourself or in consultation with a potential supervisor.

Any suggestions

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely for you to finish a PhD if you persue it to follow your father's footsteps.
And persuing a PhD is not buying a car. You cannot just list your interests and your budget, and wait someone to advise you a programme. You must already have a research topic in mind by the time you finish your MSc thesis. Or, you must be able to say that you will not pursue a PhD.
All that being said, I prefer you to pick computer networking.

Can you say why computer networking?

@lighthousekeeper Since he is strong in math and networking. Plain and simple.

I didn't have a topic in mind for years into my program, though I didn't have a Master's degree when I started either. Your "musts" are too strong.

@BillBarth Might be too strong. but not having a master's degree ia an exception to what I've said.   I'm sure that if you had a master's, then you would have already decided on the topic.

@cagirici, I'm not. I watched a number of folks come through our lab starting with a Master's with almost no inkling of a decided topic. Many of those people just knew they wanted to something different than what they had just escaped!


text:
Research with Partisan Implications - Is it worth it?
I have good reason to believe that political party X engages in harmful practice Y more than other political parties.  The numbers stack up, it fits into the theories presented in other papers, and so on.  Content-wise, I believe there is enough for a paper on the topic.
However, I am concerned about the long-term career potential of this, as this would be my first paper (I'm still an undergraduate student) and there are downsides to appearing as a naive partisan hack.  Is such a paper worth pursuing, and if it is, how should I best go about minimizing that potential drawback?

Can you provide a country? I ask because there's a big difference between having partisan implications in some countries (where free speech is more or less assured) verus others (where this type of paper might get you killed).

Sure thing, I added the US tag just now.

Some people like risky approaches and for some it may work as a career-booster. For others, it can be a first and last time. It is never neutral. Generally, unless you are prepared to invest massively into political activism and pursue that vigorously, staying away from politics may be a good idea to maintain objectivity, your freedom for research, and your career.

Building off of @CaptainEmacs 's comment, you could also try to restructure the paper so as to focus on the harmful practice Y more than political party X. Then you can also try to find examples of other political parties that have done Y, further strengthening your hypothesis.

Are there professors you can discuss this with?

Sadly, I think the negative ramifications depend completely on the value of X.

I would not do this in your case, for the following reasons:

As an undergraduate, you almost certainly lack the skills to do top-notch research.  That's not to say it's impossible, but there's a reason a PhD researcher takes many more years of much harder courses.  The work I did as an undergrad, even one project I won an award for, looks pretty naive to me now.  Therefore, putting out partisan research now is very risky; a lot more so than when you're more confident your research can withstand scrutiny.
Related to number 1, if your research suggests one party is doing something better than another, it may be disproportionally harmful if your results come about due to poor methodology.  As others have said, both national and local media loves to pick up this sort of research, and it isn't always critically evaluated.
Even if you were able to find a full professor who was willing to work with you on this idea, and get it into a professional journal instead of publishing somewhere that accepts undergraduate work, the professor is facing a very different set of risks than you.  Their career may already be established, particularly if they're tenured, so they're risking a lot less by publishing controversial research than you are.

Instead I would suggest two alternate approaches:

Shelve the idea and work on it after you've advanced into graduate school, or even beyond, when you're better able to do defensible research and/or are more secure in your research career.
Refocus the research to be non-partisan.  Focus on "harmful practice Y", for example, and leave drawing any partisan implications to the reader.

It's good you're having research ideas as an undergraduate, so don't be discourage by this.  It's easy to get excited about research ideas, particularly early in your research training, and feel like it's the only good idea you'll ever have.  In reality you'll have lots of research ideas, and most of them will almost certainly be better than your first.

If you'd like your thoughts and opinions to be directly connected to yourself as a person and follow you as a mark of the understanding you hold for others to openly judge based on their own beliefs, then write a paper with your name attached. Then your writing will be associated with you as your own assessment of the situation at the time.
However, if you're willing to sacrifice any benefit (or harm) that may come with the reprecussions of such an action, there are platforms where you can publish "open letters" anonymously such as http://www.opnlttr.com/about
The advantage here is that you can gather your thoughts, assemble them, and make your case without needing to worry that your words will haunt you for ever afterwards and close opportunities that would otherwise be available.

-1: the OP is asking about publishing research, and presumably in a professional/academic setting. This answer does not address the question as to how to do that and what the possible repercussions may be.

The question was: "Is such a paper worth pursuing, and if it is, how should I best go about minimizing that potential drawback?" I provided an answer which addressed the second half of the question. If the research itself is important enough to publish, then it should be published. But if the OP wants to avoid type-casting themselves then anonymously publishing it solves that. You can disagree, but I think my answer provided value.


text:
Is there a bias in top tier PhD admissions at top tier universities to favor those with undergraduate degrees from other top tier universities?
Out of 9 applications to graduate schools ranked in the top 25 according to US News, I was accepted to only one PhD program in Electrical Engineering, and just barely (see note below). According to my GPA, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and previous relevant research/industry experience I thought that I had a much better chance of being accepted to these programs. The only thing that I can see that sets me apart from many of my peers is that my undergraduate alma mater is pretty obscure (barely top 200 R2 university).
Here's some extra information about my application in case something else here sticks out:
Undergraduate Majors - Dual Computer Science & Electrical Engineering
Undergraduate GPA - 3.97
Research/Industry Experience - Two summer internships at NASA resulting in two conference publications. Four years as a professional Electrical Engineer doing R&D for a defense contractor which resulted in two more conference publications.
GRE - 166 Quantitative, 159 Verbal, 5.0 Writing
Maybe these schools are just monumentally difficult to be accepted into? I'm curious if anyone here has some insider insights.
Note: The reason I say just barely is because, after not hearing back from most schools, and being rejected outright from 3, I called the one I was most interested in going to and told them if they still had me on their list of viable candidates and were willing to make me an offer that I would accept. I received an offer letter the next day, two weeks before the deadline. I received rejections from the remaining schools not long thereafter.
July 2023 Update: Took nearly 7 years but I  successfully defended my dissertation yesterday!

The only thing that I can see that sets me apart from many of my peers is that my undergraduate alma mater is pretty obscure, what about your 4 years in industry?

I guess I worded that poorly. I meant negatively sets me apart, although I guess it's possible that some reviewers may see the 4 years in industry as a negative.

I think it's not a "bias", but an appreciation for the palpable fact that there is a significant advantage possible from studying in one of the best departments. Oppositely, often there are innate limitations in what can happen in a much-less-notable department. So, statistically, it is entirely reasonable for admissions committees to have expectations based on reputation and past experience. "Bias" suggests to me something irrational or prejudicial, and I don't think that's happening much.

See also: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-the-us-particularly

"Maybe these schools are just monumentally difficult to be accepted into?" - that, too. The two explanations you propose are not mutually exclusive.

You don't mention anything about your letters of recommendation, which makes me suspect you aren't valuing them correctly in your assessment of your chances.  The reputation of your letter writers will be far more important to the admissions committee than the reputation of your school.

@StrongBad I don't think he is a borderline student. A closer match would be: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26791/how-handicapped-am-i-in-graduate-admissions-if-i-graduated-from-a-lower-tier-uni

Excuse my short answer: absolutely.
Obviously, a school with a good, or even a great name, will give a candidate a big boost in his/her application. This is a rational decision: the recruiting committee wants to minimize any risks and they don't have much time to delve seriously into the history of each candidate. So if you graduated from a top school with excellent credentials you will have an edge over those with equal credentials but lesser perceived schools.
Good references from colleagues of faculty in the department you're applying to, and good ties with your school are also strong factors for admission.

I went to grad school at MIT. Almost all of the students did their undergraduate work at MIT, Stanford, UCB, or other top tier schools.

Old comment, but if you go to a big name university, you'll probably get letters of recommendation from big name researchers. The kind that would give a strong factor for admission and may have ties to other big name researchers at the top tier school you're targeting. I.e. top tier universities for undergrad make top tier recommendations easier to obtain.

It's simply impossible for two very different schools to offer equivalent classes and equivalent grades.  Classes at better schools tend to be much more rigorous and it's harder to get an A at them.  So of course if you have applicants with similar classes and GPA from different schools, the one from the stronger school is going to be the stronger applicant.  Now this is certainly somewhat unfair for the very best students from weaker schools because they didn't have the opportunity to do better than an A, but it's still sensible behavior on the part of admissions committees to pick someone they know to be strong rather than take a risk on someone who might or might not be strong.  It can be very hard for students from weaker schools to quickly adjust to the rigor of graduate classes.
Fortunately, the Ph.D. Is not the final step of one's career.  Very strong students from weaker schools often get into a slightly less good graduate school than they deserve, but then they can excel at that school and get a better next job.  So long as you get into one good school (which you did!) you'll have the opportunity to excel and prove that you deserved to be accepted at the others.

Noah, I believe you and I went to a school where it was quite easy to get A's :). (I agree with the general thrust of your answer, just replace A's with strong recommendations when coming from a school with massive grade inflation.)

I've actually come around to the viewpoint that much of "grade inflation" isn't low standards but instead lots of strong students.  I stand by the claim that it's harder to get an A at top schools than at a 200th ranked one.  (Which isn't to say that there aren't real significant differences in grading standards among the top schools.  Just that those differences aren't relevant to the question.)

You are probably right about 200th ranked; I was thinking about the difference between 1-5 and 20-40. I see that the OP lists his school as barely top 200, so your answer is more relevant.

Congrats on getting accepted!
There are a lot of variables here, so it isn't just where you went to undergrad, but that is definitely something admissions look at. Why wouldn't they? There is likely a correlation with going to a great undergrad, doing well, and then being successful in grad school.
Top schools get the top applicants from around the world. I can't imagine how difficult it is to compare such great applicants in any meaningful way. All else being equal, where the student went for undergrad could very well be the deciding factor. It is also a measurement that certainly anyone reviewing applicants knows a fair amount about.
There is also a lot of info we don't know about you (e.g., what you wrote in your letter, what your letters of rec said, etc.)
Again, congrats on getting admitted!

Thanks you! I spoke to professors at the schools before applying and most of them echoed what you've said. It's certainly possible that I wasn't as convincing in my SOP as I had hoped! There aren't any well known professors teaching at my undergraduate but I did research for the chair of the CS department and was able to get recommendations from him, the EE department chair, the Senior Scientist that I worked with at NASA, and the Chief Scientist I worked with in industry. Although I can't be sure what they said.

In my last year in graduate school, I sat on the admissions committee for our program - and realized that there are a wide variety of considerations that go into admissions decisions that have very little to do with what applicants think matters.  They included: geographical distribution of students (not just those from the immediate region), whether an applicant was genuinely applying to the Ph.D. (we had a highly regarded, specialized M.A. program, and the last years had seen repeated examples of students claiming to want to get their Ph.Ds but dropping out once they had the coveted M.A.), whether the areas graduate students were planning on focusing on reflected the faculty balance (otherwise, a few faculty would have many Ph.D. students, and many faculty would have few), what kinds of financial aid packages we could offer to how many students, and so forth.
I do remember one case we had that is pertinent to you, though: two students (both women), one of whom was a top performer at a not so good school, the other of whom was a less good performer at a top school. In virtually all other relevant aspects, the two applicants were nearly identical.  We opted to offer admission to the former - and not to the latter.  So graduating from a "not so good" institution may not have been the relevant factor in your case at all.  There are numerous elements to these decisions, many of which you as an applicant don't see and can't control.