text:
Should I wait patiently if the professor asked me to wait for a few weeks?
I am in my final year of PhD and submiting thesis in June. I had an interview for a Postdoc position about 2 months ago and gave an on site talk to the lab. The professor asked me to talk to each lab member individually to ask about lab culture, salary and so on. The professor and I then had  another interview and she briefly talked about the project I would be doing. When I asked about when I can know if I can get an offer, she asked me to await for like a month. She told me it's quite positive and very keen on taking me. But she has to think about grants and funding as she will be taking a couple of postdocs. After waiting for one month, she requested to wait for a few more months for her to be certain.
Only a few labs are available in the country I am applying for. So I don't want to apply for other labs and get rejected or rejecting their offer if any.
So should I just wait and see how she will reply before applying more? What is my chance of being accepted? Thanks!

It's perfectly normal (recommended, even) to apply for multiple jobs at the same time.

How did these interviews come to be? Was there a position announced for which you applied?

It was a vacancy when I applied. She told me she's thinking of hiring 2 postdocs. And as I haven't submitted thesis, my starting time in her lab is still quite far from now so she wants to settle almost-expired grants and other candidates.
A few of her lab members hinted that as I an allowed to talk to them, I might have higher chance. Now I am kinda in dilemma ..

To me that renders her statement about funding a bit fishy - it seems quite unlikely that a position gets announced when the funding is not settled yet. Perhaps she sees you as a good candidate, but not a top candidate, and she wants to wait if she can find someone better.

In last email, she said she thinks it would be fine but she wants to be certain. This made me a bit hopeful. I like that lab as they do what I am excited about. I agree I should start looking for other jobs while awaiting her reply.

"she wants to be certain" -> If you were a top candidate for her, she would make sure to hire you fast, so that you're off the market. So I agree that it's a good idea to start looking for other jobs.

she has to think about grants and funding as she will be taking a couple of postdocs. After waiting for one month, she requested to wait for a few more months for her to be certain.

This professor seemingly has no money to hire you. You should look elsewhere, whilst maintaining contact. If she gets money, it seems you are amongst those she'll consider hiring.

That's one option, but not the only one.


text:
Changing mailing and e-mail addresses as corresponding author--which to include?
I finished my undergrad last year and have since been working in the private sector.  I'm about to submit a paper with my senior thesis results.  Two questions about corresponding author information:

I'm listing my current affiliation in the private sector for various reasons.  We are moving offices, and our address will be changing in about 3 months.  Should I use the new mailing address or the old mailing address?  I know it's kind of silly since nobody sends mail anymore, but I'm curious either way.
I will probably be going to grad school in a couple of years, and my private sector e-mail will not be accessible if I leave.  Would it be passé for me to list my @gmail.com address for correspondence to ensure I'm always reachable?

Thanks!

It's worth mentioning that the most important identifier is your name. If you stay in the field, people will be able to find you by just searching your name on . The contact info is really just there as a convenience measure.

@eykanal tell that to John Smith and Wei Chang :)

@eykanal ... and Dave Clarke.

@DaveClarke Ha! Very good point, hopefully people could just add the university name... I see that "Dave Clarke Leuven" does return your page as the first result. There's hope after all!

Unless, of course, the university changes after publication…

As you mentioned, the postal address does not matter - but in any case, I'd lean towards the newer address!
Its definitely OK to do so - I submitted my Masters thesis with my gmail.com account, due to the exact same scenario as outlined by you (currently working, am hoping to go to grad school this fall).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What is the motivation for a graduate student to help to develop a professor's MOOC?
I've seen graduate students act as course developers for their advisor's MOOC or play a key role in helping their advisor with some other endeavour that is not related to research. What is the motivation for them to do this if it does not help them graduate or get publications?

Perhaps they are given an RAship or TAship for developing the course? Perhaps they are interested in finding a teaching position when they graduate?

Why do anything that's not strictly required to graduate? For the experience. Because it sounded like fun. Maybe they're interested in teaching and really excited about the opportunity to develop a curriculum from scratch? Maybe they're excited about the pedagogy behind online courses and want to learn more? Maybe it's a rare opportunity to try something new that most academics don't get to do?
If you only do things that are strictly required to graduate and publish, you'll miss out on a lot of interesting experiences, and you'll be less interesting to a hiring committee than someone who went above and beyond seeking out experiences to develop as a researcher and teacher. The goal with grad school shouldn't be to just publish and graduate. While it is sufficient to just publish and graduate, it's hardly a good way to make the most of your time in grad school. Go for the exciting teaching project. Volunteer to help organize that conference. Apply to that interesting summer school. Get involved in that intriguing research project. If an exciting opportunity comes along, take it. Develop a MOOC instead of TAing yet another semester of calculus (or whatever grad students in your field normally do). That's my philosophy at least, and that's why I would have jumped on an opportunity to develop an MOOC.

On a less lofty note, it's also entirely possible the student is getting paid for working on the MOOC.

... and on an even less lofty note, it is possible that the professor simply made the grad student do it.

I've seen graduate students act as course developers for their advisor's MOOC or play a key role in helping their advisor with some other endeavour that is not related to research.

At least in Europe, where PhD students are employees, the answer is pretty simple - because it is their job, and the professor can and will, in her/his functions as manager of the students, also assign them tasks that are not directly related to their PhD project.
My employment contract in Austria was actually pretty clear about this - nominally, my job consistent of 50% research, 35% teaching, and 15% "others", which boiled down to helping with all sorts of university administrative tasks. For instance, I was once helping with re-writing the programme description of one of our master programmes. Of course this was only nominal, and I would honestly think that in practice, for me, both the research and the "others" parts ate into my time budget for teaching (but I never explicitly tracked this, since neither me, nor my professor, nor the university administration cared as long as things got done).

s/in Europe/in parts of Europe :-)

@SimonW True. However, for academic system purposes, Great Britain does (to me) not really count to Europe, as the system is just so different to Spain, France, Germany, and northern Europe (which are arguably all much more similar).

The UK is still part of Europe, whether you're including it or not.

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


text:
How long should you wait for a professor who's late for class?
I've heard that you should wait 15 minutes for a professor who is late to a class, before leaving.
Some of my classmates have said that the 15 minute rule is only for professors without PhD's, and that you must wait at least 20 (and up to 30) minutes for professors that do have PhD's.
The PhD part seems silly, but after hearing some version of this "rule", or "myth", so many times, I wonder if it has some backing.
Is there any evidence that this was once an actual rule put in place by a university, or academic governing body? Was this ever anything more than a "rule" put it in place by impatient students?

Why wait?
Some classes will fail you after a certain number of absences and others will calculate 5% of your final grade from the percentage of lectures you attended. And it can be a good idea to attend as many classes as possible to show that you are putting forth effort. Professors are much more likely to bump a high D grade to a low C if they see that you have been to every lecture (at least in my experience).
So how long do you wait before the professor should no longer be able to show up and not give the daily "attendance credit" for absent students?
If a class was an hour long, and the professor didn't show up for 55 minutes, it would be common sense to leave by that point. But, at what point do you leave? An evil professor could always wait for 59 minutes before poking his head into the empty classroom and counting everyone as absent.

Why would there be any rules about this at all? Are these classes with mandatory participation? Is that actually something that exists at the graduate level?

Good question Tobias. I've added in the information to my question.

"An evil professor could always wait for 59 minutes before poking his head into the empty classroom and counting everyone as absent." Please, be serious. A professor would get into huge amounts of trouble for skipping their own class and then trying to punish the students for not being there. Stop treating your education as a conspiracy against you.

Some universities have a written rule regarding how long you must wait for compulsory lectures or seminars.

depends on the country. In Italy it is expected that the professor will be 15 min late. In the Netherlands they will call the professor office if he/she is late by more than a couple of minutes.

@Federico In Italy it is not generally expected that the professor will be 15 min late. In some institutions students would give you bad teaching evaluations for such a delay. Moreover in Italy we frequently have classes of two hours or more, where a longer delay has somehow less impact than on a 1 hour long class.

1. If someone doesn't have their PhD, it's very unlikely they're a professor. Professor is an earned honorific. Usually you don't even call an assistant prof a true professor; you wait until they've earned tenure. 2. And you don't wait 15 mins because of clocks being off; you wait because a true professor has expertise you can't get anywhere else. If you don't want to hear what your professor wants to share, you're already in the wrong place. (If someone sticks their head in after 15 to count you absent, well, you didn't class shop very well, did you?)

The reason for the 15 minutes you have heard might be that in the past 15 minutes were allowed for both students and professors due to the imprecission of public time sources and the time to reach the lecture place. The term is still well known in some countries as an "academic quarter" ("Akademische Viertelstunde"). Sometimes it is still honored, but more in less official meetings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_quarter_(class_timing) The German version of the article says more about the history.
Todays there is no reason for this in regular classes and professors are expected to be on time. See other answers for recommendation what to do when they are late.

Where did you get that thing about "difference between the clock time and the solar time"?

@Sverre I've heard it before, but only the Czech wikipedia mentions it so I have to confirm it somewhere else.

I'd suggest the following: wait 5 or 10 minutes, or whatever length of time seems to you to exceed an ordinary minor delay.  Then call the department office and tell them that the professor has not arrived, and ask what they suggest you should do.
First of all, they may have some information about the professor's whereabouts or his/her likelihood of getting there, or they may be able to try to contact the professor.  Otherwise, if they say you should leave, you have a pretty good defense if the professor should object.  And if they say you should stay, you know that the department will not be on your side if you leave.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

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


text:
When did it become inappropriate for a professor to smoke during lectures?
Sidney Coleman smoked during lectures he gave. Was this universally acceptable behavior at the time? When did smoking during lectures become inappropriate?

It probably still happens somewhere in the world.

I had a famous visiting French professor smoke during his lively lectures ca. 1994. As he tended to walk up to students and sit on the desks next to them, he pretty much smoked into everyone’s face. It had long been illegal at that point, but no one cared.

I fail to understand why this question is off-topic. It asks about "smoking during lectures".

@scaaahu This question really depends on when a specific country approved a law against smoking in public places or workplaces, I'm not sure it can be "universally" answered. In my country it was in 2003.

@scaaahu, I voted to close because it is basically an irrelevant question. If it isn't "allowed" or practiced now, it won't be in the future. I entered college (US) in the 1960s and don't actually remember anyone ever smoking during lecture. Maybe it is just slipping my mind, but I can pretty much guarantee that smoking (or vaping) won't be an issue in the future, even in those places where it is still permitted. It might be appropriate for The Workplace, however.

@MassimoOrtolano The asker  asks about acceptable behavior/ inappropriate, not "illegal". The question may be too broad. But, why off-topic?

@Buffy If it's on-topic on Workplace, it should be on-topic here because it's about lecturing. I know it's considered inappropriate in these days and probably in the future. But, if I understand it correctly, it asks about the past.

@Buffy: By that argument, wouldn’t any historical question be off-topic - such as, what’s the history of qualifying exams? :)

@gnometorule, we still have quals. If we didn't then it would be a purely research question and then, again, off topic. So, that may be yet another reason to close it. Do the research if it is a valid research question. But, I'll admit it wasn't a "bright line" decision. But, I also hope we aren't flooded here with such questions. I value questions with more substance.

@scaaahu Can such a distinction be made in a universal sense? Probably it would be better if the OP specified a country.

@MassimoOrtolano There are actually two questions. If the OP specifies the country (the video indicates it's at Harvard), I think the first question is answerable. I think the second one is hard. As far as I know, smoking is prohibited in public places until recent years in some countries in Asia. I'll leave the close/open issue to the community/mods.

That Sidney Coleman clip says 1975.  Yes, it was perfectly normal at that time.  When I was an undergraduate, one of my professors was a chain smoker.  He smoked in class, he smoked in his office, he smoked when eating at a restaurant.  We students thought nothing of it; many of us had smoker parents or relatives.  I met him again 20 years later, early 1990s.  He still smoked a little, but he would go outside the house to do it.

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


text:
Do big tech companies require on site interviews?
I'm a postdoc in the US, from Europe originally. I plan on applying for research scientist positions at big tech companies in Canada e.g. Google, uber, etc (I want a change from the US).
My problem is that my travel outside of the US is restricted on my current visa. Is it possible to get positions at these companies without doing an onsite interview? Alternatively can I interview for positions at their offices within the US for positions in Canada? Has anyone had a similar issue or have any knowledge that may be helpful.
Thanks!

Generally, yes. But I would imagine you could work something out where you interviewed at the US office and then worked at the Canada office.

Since it is a question about industrial practices, I do not think it is an Academia question, and you may get better answers on other boards with people who work in industry,

Every company will have its own procedures and likely other procedures that represent exceptions to the normal procedures. If a company is interested in you they will probably be able to find a way to make an interview happen. There are a lot of possibilities. Online interviews, via Skype and such, are becoming common at the early stages, at least, if not for final acceptance. Meeting a member of staff at a professional meeting in the US is a possibility.
If they show interest and want an interview discuss your travel restrictions. The problems with US visas and such are well known, especially, I think, in Canada. If they are interested enough then they will probably suggest something.
But at some point in the hiring process, companies like to have you visit your potential work site to meet a lot of people you'd be working with so you can get a sense about one another. They also like to show off the great work environment, especially if they really want you to join. That might be harder to arrange.

My advice is to go ahead.  If you get an invite, bring it up at that time.  They will probably opt for a videoconference, but there may be other options (sorting your visa, interview in other country, whatever).
Don't bother bringing up the issue now.  Never show the hook while the fish is nibbling.  And also, visa makes interview hard is probably a lot smaller issue than visa makes job hard.  For now get them interested in you. Then bring up the issue after they ask you to come to Mountain View.  At least they will be interested in you by that point and looking to move to next step.


text:
What are the benefits and drawbacks of timed online exams?
I have seen several ideas for online exams but one thing that is not fully discussed is what are the advantages and disadvantages of timed exams? This will be helpful to many, especially during these times.

How is this not just opinion based?

You've identified some of the pros and cons of time-limited exams.  Weighing those pros and cons is a judgement call that each instructor should answer for themselves.

The answer is going to be highly dependent on one's discipline and one's pedagogical approach. In English, I would ask essay questions and evaluate them to a higher standard, since students will have sufficient time to find and use sources and quotes. A quantitative field would likely work differently.

@Buffy proving students with more time on online exams could increase the level of cheating. Do you think it is an opinion?

@BrianBorchers can we have a post that lists all these pros and cons so instructors can make a better decision?

@ThomasLee you can edit your question to do that if you'd like.

@BrianBorchers Ok, done

@JonCuster many are doing 1/2 day or more

@JonCuster: I am pretty sure that a time limit in the question refers to, say 1-5 hours and not to "until the instructor dies" or similar.

Ultimately, there must be some time limit, since the results must be submitted to be graded before the end of the course. For many courses in the humanities, the 'exam' is instead a paper to be worked on over a period of time (perhaps a week) and turned in by a given time. I suspect this is not what you are looking for.
Instead, you are asking about an on-line exam given to the full class (or group) of students, where they accomplish the exercise in one sitting of some length. So, what should that length be? Traditional in-class exams are limited by the length of the class period, since some students may have a class directly afterwards. The final exam schedules that I have experienced also allot a fixed time interval, usually several hours. Again, different students with different class schedules may have other exams to get to. At the institutions I attended there were also appeal processes if a student had too many exams scheduled in a given time. For instance, each day in finals week had 3 exam slots, and you did not have to take 3 in a given day - they would move one for you. But each slot was a fixed length to make sure there was time to decompress, eat, do a quick review, and then get to the next exam. It was strictly forbidden for an instructor to go beyond the fixed time.
So, while you may feel that you want to give your students lots of time (just why I don't know - fit the material to a fixed time that one can reasonably expect students to work straight through), they have other demands on their time. By being 'nice' to your students you are in essence being greedy by taking away their time to meet other classes' obligations. Discuss with your registrar. Even in these unusual times, don't be a burden on your students.


text:
What tools can compare all text of submitted assignments semantically after paraphrasing and detect plagiarism?
With advances in AI, it is becoming clear that students are using paraphrasing software/sites (spinbot,  quillbot, rephraser, etc.). I wonder if there are any free tools that can detect semantic similarity for all submitted assignments? I tried several of the available websites and they failed to detect the paraphrased text.

I think you are overly optimistic about the capabilities of AI at the moment - and probably for a long time to come.

@Buffy I’d say you’re pessimistic about what already exists. With GPT-3 you can generate whole essays from scratch, and judging from what I’ve heard on this site, they’re better than the average college essay.

@knzhou Generation seems easier than detection?

@knzhou I don't know just how bad the average college essay is, but GPT3's abilities only stretch to producing text that reads well. The information it contains will have little-to-no basis in reality. It will happily include great detail about people who never existed and events which never happened. It's certainly quite impressive and might produce something that would fool somebody with no knowledge of the field the essay covers, but it's a long way from being able to "generate whole essays" that aren't >90% fictional rambling.

You can try using Sentence-Bert, original paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10084
Github link here: https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers
It is very easy to use since I had used that before and it took me just several minutes learning how to use it.
The usage is fairly simple, you generate embedding for each assignment, and compare the cosine similarity between each pair of assignments embeddings.
Then you can manually look at the ones that have very high cosine similarity.
The Github repository descriptions said: This framework provides an easy method to compute dense vector representations for sentences, paragraphs, and images. The models are based on transformer networks like BERT / RoBERTa / XLM-RoBERTa etc. and achieve state-of-the-art performance in various task. Text is embedding in vector space such that similar text is close and can efficiently be found using cosine similarity.

If you use any automated tools for this, make sure that you have policies in place to handle the inevitable false positives. Just ignoring the problem is unethical. Excessive false negatives are also problematic, but all false positives need a fair method of adjudication.

Although there may be free tools to try to "detect" essays that were written with the help of AI, I would not fully trust them and waste my time trying to find something that helps. Because, eventually, there will be another software that will be able to "fool" your software. This means you will have to find yet another software that can outperform the software that "fooled" your previous software.
AI products can be much better at a specific task than humans. There are so many examples where AI beats people at a task the people are the best at. For example, Google's AI beat the best Go (one of the most complicated board game) player in the world (click here to watch the video).
Eventually most AI models are built in a way that they learn from humans. Initially they perform pretty poorly. They start to slowly get better and better until they reach a point where they can easily outperform humans.
The question is, how can we detect a robot that does (or will do soon) something as well as humans do (or potentially much better than humans)? Therefore, I think the problem should be solved in a different way (not involving another software that does the opposite). Because finding another software may only work temporarily, but not in the long run.

Paper Rater has a robust Artificial Intelligent Plagiarism Detection tool. Please Note: The free tool is suboptimal.
More on Paper Raters Artificial Intelligent Plagiarism Detection here - you can see an example report.

I copied some text from the internet and Paper Rater returned "This paper does not exhibit any signs of plagiarism. Well done!"

Yes, that is the response using the Free Tool.
Using the paid tool, it uses AI to compare text semantically after paraphrasing and detect plagiarism. Another tool of interest, (non-AI) could be https://text-compare.com/.

The paid tool can compare a document with online documents, but I don't think with other assignments.


text:
What are the possible pitfalls of a university employee and a student being roommates? Is it best to avoid this situation?
I have two closely-related questions:
First:

What are the possible pitfalls of a university employee (faculty or staff) and a student at the same university being roommates?

And, in the event that I need to take on a roommate as a faculty or staff member at a university:

Is it best to avoid living with a student and ask, for example, another university employee to share my living space?

This is two separate questions.  The first sentence is one question (what's better?), the second sentence is a totally different question (does it count as discrimination?).  The first question seems subjective and thus does not seem suitable here (it just calls for opinions).  The second question is a question of law, which is off-topic here (and will probably depend on jurisdiction as well).  Would you like to edit your post to clarify what exactly your question is, and to make sure it is suitable for the Stackexchange format?

Voted to close as "Unclear what you're asking". Roommate does not necessarily imply landlord (lessor) vs. tenant (renter) relationship. Please clarify.

@D.W. I remove the 2nd question, but the first should have some facts also.

I think the question needs more clarification.  "Can a faculty be roommates?"  Of course they can -- it's physically possible -- but I doubt whether that's really what you are asking.  Would you like to rephrase?  "Is it better?" -- better in what sense?  That sounds a bit subjective.  Please see http://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask for advice about asking subjective questions and how to pose a good subjective question.

@D.W. what about now?

Voted to reopen. Please let me know if I have maintained the spirit of your question. If you don't like the edit, you can always roll back to a previous version.

Related: Hosting a graduate student on a campus visit

Your question is far too general in its present form to provide a comprehensive answer.  The scope of "university employees" covers ground from the university regent/chancellor/president, right down to TAs/tutors in courses.  Likewise, there are huge variations in scope for university students, from young immature students coming straight out of school, right up to mature students in middle-age or older.  Is it possible to narrow this down?

It would be very strange for a faculty member to live with student roommates (setting aside relatives or romantic partners, which are separate issues).  It would be considered socially unacceptable in the university contexts I'm familiar with, and it would create at least the appearance of conflicts of interest if there was any overlap between the fields.  Even if the students were in a totally different field, it could still be awkward if they socialized a lot with students in the professor's field.  This doesn't mean it would be impossible, but I'd strongly recommend against trying it.  Even in the best case scenario, people would wonder why living with these students was important enough to be worth the negative attention.
As for staff, it depends.  I don't think it would be unusual or problematic for, say, a university IT staff member to share an apartment with some similar-aged grad students.  Postdocs are a gray area: it would of course be inappropriate to live with students they might teach or supervise, but otherwise it's much easier for a postdoc to get away with living with students than a faculty member.

I'm not sure it's inherently that strange; it's mostly the relationships that make it out that way. Presenting it as "I have students for roommates" is a bit odd (and will probably raise some eyebrows), because it implies everyone has equal status. I'm not sure anyone would find it strange for a professor living near campus to rent out a back-house or garage apartment to a student. I agree direct conflicts of interest should be avoided, but would you really find it that strange if a colleague said they rented out their guest bedroom to a student each semester?

Yeah, I guess it depends on the situation.  I think it would look strange if a faculty member got together with a group of students to share a rented house/apartment, but renting out a back-house or garage apartment to a student would feel different.  The latter is more of a landlord-tenant relationship, whereas the former sounds more like it involves shared amenities and socializing together.  (Which is not intrinsically a bad thing, but would lead to gossip and disapproval in the faculty social circles I'm familiar with.)

Yes, it's basically allowed everywhere I know of, but there are plenty of situations where it might get weird. On the non-weird end of the spectrum, I was a researcher and manager at my university when my live-in fiancee decided to go to grad school there in a different department. We even got married the summer between the two years of her master's program. There were no problems and no rules that prevented this. We didn't even need to tell anyone about it.
Now, if she had worked for me or enrolled in a class that I taught, there would have been some people we would have needed to tell to make sure that there was no favoritism for her and that everything was fair for other students or employees. She probably would have had to have a different manager appointed for work if I would have otherwise been her boss, etc. Our living situation wasn't the determining factor, but rather our romantic involvement.
If the staff member isn't romantically involved with the student who is also their roommate, then there's generally no issue. However, if the nature of the relationship changes from roommates to partners, then depending on local rules and the proximity of the staff member's job to the student, someone probably has to be notified at the very least and a management plan created in some cases to deal with it. If the student and the staff member aren't in the same department, then there's usually no need for notification at my university.
E.g. if a psychology student wants to room with an admin in the Geology department, it's fine. If a student wants to rent a room from his English professor, then maybe some departments want to know that. If a Physics student wants to date/marry a Sociology prof they will never take a class from, it's very likely that the university needs to know, and they may try to forbid it. And if a student wants to become involved with their PhD supervisor, the university will definitely get to have a say.
As best I can tell, the rules tend to be about who is romantically involved with whom, not where students choose to find their accommodations.

Could you explain why the university would want to forbid a physics student dating a sociology professor who they'll never have classes from? Why would the uni care? On what grounds would they forbid it if there's no academic contact between the two?

I agree that if the depending person (e.g. student relative to prof) is the landlord, there's no issue. What if it's the other way around? If a professor depends on a student for their accomodation, does this not skrew with their authority in the classroom? (That's probably an unlikely scenario, but the question does not specify.)

@terdon, Northwestern University (PDF) bans relationships between faculty and undergraduates saying: "When undergraduate students are involved, the difference in institutional power and the inherent risk of coercion are so great that no faculty member or coaching staff member shall enter into a romantic, dating, or sexual relationship with a Northwestern undergraduate student, regardless of whether there is a supervisory or evaluative relationship between them."

No. That leads in to favoritism and special exceptions with students plus a whole lot of other liability issues.
They should live with colleagues that they are not the boss of and do not manage or are managed by.

There should be plenty of students at a university that a particular member of staff has no relation with whatsoever.  So I don't agree with your answer.

Even if they are from in different departments?

We weren't allowed no matter what. Regardless of the departments because a friend-of-a-friend situations. Since this question was posted I've asked around and I'm yet to know anyone personally that has answered yes.


text:
To what extent should a professor give students freedom to do independent research?
During the discussion How/when to become independent in research as a graduate student?, there were one or two professors who not only agreed with the idea of independent research, but also said that they encourage their PhD students to conduct independent research as long as this helps the students to be more mature and successful researchers in their future academic career. I decided to bring this question to the main topic that if you are a professor and allow your students to do independent research:

What do you mean by independent research?
Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?
If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

This question is basically a "polling" question and calls for a list of answers, one from each professor anywhere in the world.  As a result, this question is not suitable for the StackExchange network.  As a guide: ask yourself if the question is such that someone other than you could look at all the possible answers and select one as the correct answer.  If not, this question isn't appropriate here.  If yes, then the question needs to be edited to reflect the evaluation criteria that should be used for selecting the correct answer.

I'll answer, not from the perspective of a professor (I'm not one) but as a student who had advisors who were very generous in that regard:

What do you mean by independent research?

When people say this, they usually mean research that is outside a clear plan of action. For example, in the biomedical sciences, it's somewhat common to turn a particular specific aim of an R01 grant into a PhD student's dissertation. That's a plan. But along the way, the student may be interested in a methodological musing, a side project, a short data analysis task on something interesting that's come up, etc. So basically, I'd take it to mean anything that's outside what you've been tasked to do, or come up with tasking yourself to do, as part of your degree program.

Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?

It probably shouldn't detract from their research topic, but I've never seen any reason why more general topics are a problem. Indeed, if the student is restricting it to their research topic, than why isn't this part of their thesis/dissertation in the first place?

If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

It's good for them to inform you of what they're working on regardless. They may be able to provide support, put in a kind word to an editor, etc. And these people will be writing your letters of recommendation - they should be able to talk about the exciting stuff you do even if it's not directly their project. And they should be informed so they can tell if you're potentially overburdening yourself.

That last point extends to non-research activities too, e.g. if you spend an afternoon each week as a volunteer tutoring economically disadvantaged young girls in math and science, it's helpful to let your advisor know (for the same reasons).

But sometimes advisors or heads of the projects use your outside activity against you in the events that problems occur to the research projects and that is why some students prefer not to talk about their volunteer work or side researches. It has happened that a problem has happened to the project, the researcher is not in charge with that problem, but the professor use his side-academic activity against him just to unethically proof that the problem was that student's fault not the professor's. Even if the student has done all his best and did everything that was his duty in the project.

@Parsa If the problem is legitimately that outside activity was causing a problem for the main project, then I think it's entirely fair to criticize the student. If, as in your suggested example, this is being used to as a "weapon" in an otherwise unhealthy student-advisor relationship, then I'd suggest it's a deeper underlying problem, and hiding the side work will do nothing other than shift the problem to a different aspect of the student. Or blow up spectacularly if the professor finds its being "hidden" (by say, reading your CV...).

@Fomite Thanks, I think making this comment to an answer with adding extra points to other parts of the question will shape a good answer.

At the end of a PhD a student should be able to conduct their own research.  To reach this goal it is helpful to reduce the amount of direction given during the course of a PhD.  When the student starts, some defined goals and guidance can allow the student to make rapid progress.
Students should make unique contributions and understand a broad range of concepts.  For example, producing a PhD thesis just on one tiny component of an analysis is a bad idea.  Students should be allowed to make mistakes, but be prevented from loosing a large amount of time on bad choices.
Within highly competitive research environments one might have to defend a students work with additional members of staff, since students are typically slower than experienced post-docs.
All students are different.  Therefore, the level of guidance needed should be balanced accordingly.
The final mark for the PhD should reflect the ability of the student.

What do you mean by independent research?

Completely independent research implies that one has to define the project and direction, using knowledge of the field of study.  One needs to read journals and join workshops/conferences to determine what has not been studied and can be studied within a reasonable time frame.  Given this, one then writes software/develops an experiment to measure the chosen parameter(s). (There are many holes that a student can fall into along the way). It is a lot easier to carry out independent research as a post-doc or professor, since one builds up knowledge.

Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?

Their PhD is typically on one topic e.g. particle physics. The independent research should happen within the discipline that is being assessed.

If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

PhD theses contain a fraction of a student's work. They do not contain all of the work of a student. For example, one might build a silicon detector for two years and then spend 1.5 years performing a data analysis. The silicon detector work (even if performed independently) may not end up in the thesis. It is very hard for examiners to assess work that is not in the thesis.
(From ~13 yrs of supervising particle physics PhD students.)

"Completely independent research implies that one has a blank sheet of paper." I am not sure what that means, but if it means what I think it does, I disagree. Even independent researchers get all sorts of inspiration from external sources.

I do not get your answer to the third question "if their independent...", please explain more.

xLeitix, the independent researcher needs to find something to work on.  This requires initiative and understanding of the subject area.  "Blank sheet of paper" was just to imply that one needs to find a direction.

Parsa, I know of no examples where material outside the thesis or presented orally during the defence of the thesis was considered when a PhD student was assessed.  For the material to be in the thesis or presented in the defence, it should be on the same topic as the rest of the thesis.

@Parsa: Graduate students in my department are assessed on their complete research profile; the PhD thesis itself is mostly an administrative hurdle.

@JeffE Could you please explain more about "their complete research profile"? What does it consist of? Does it include their research background too or only their PhD?

@Parsa Essentially it's synonymous with their CV and the level of independence/maturity the student displays. Especially for PhD students aiming for academic jobs (almost all students in my area), we try to judge how the student will eventually look on the job market. Nobody on hiring committees reads your thesis.

Let me emphasize that the system described in @JeffE's remarks seems unusual to me. When I received my PhD from a top tier math program we were assessed solely on completing coursework, passing exams, and writing and defending a thesis. The degree requirements were not in any way holistic in the way  that JeffE describes. In fact,  I know of no math PhD program in which they are. Certainly, top students often have other publications beyond their thesis but these are irrelevant to receiving the degree, and the majority of students in math have no publications before PhD.

@OswaldVeblen The actual degree requirements in my department are exactly as you describe.  But we don't want our students to merely pass!

What do you mean by independent research?

Research that leads to a publication without the advisor's name on it, following the standard rules of co-authorship in the student's field.  In other words, precisely the same kind of research they should be doing five years after their PhD.

Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?

As a general rule, every researcher should limit their research to fields where they have sufficient background, experience, intuition, resources, and maturity to make a real contribution.  Students are no exception.
Research by PhD students is usually closely related to their thesis topic, if not directly part of their thesis, but I know of several successful exceptions.

If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

Yes, please.  My job as an advisor is to help students become mature, successful, independent researchers.  That's what a PhD is.  It is significantly easier to do my job when I have all the data.

What do you mean by independent research?

In the context of a PhD student, independent research involves formulating, researching, and suggesting preliminary solutions to a problem independently of the advisor.
I expect the crowning component of any PhD thesis to be this type of "independent research".

Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?

The expectation is only within the broadly-interpreted PhD research topic, although I think it's great if students do research outside of their area (in their free time).

If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

If this work is happening while getting paid as a research assistant and during time that should be rightfully devoted to that assistantship, then I expect to know about the project.  Otherwise, I would like to know about the project or at least that there is another project (and this is the proper etiquette), insomuch as it can affect or stall the student's progress.
Ultimately, however, it all comes down to progress.  A student who is progressing normally towards a degree has much more latitude than a student who is not.

I'm not a professor neither, but a previous grad student who had very loose/inexistent supervision. Here are my thoughts on the subject. I know that loose supervision of PhD students is popular on this site (see the frequently upvoted comment here), but I think caution is necessary. PhD students start grad school with various degrees of maturity and supervision should be tailored to every individual.
Dear professors, PhD students are your Padawans. That is, they should certainly not have to live in your shadow, but they probably do not fully know how to invest their efforts appropriately. Kindly telling them that, if they wish to pursue an academic career focusing the efforts on a subject is the way to go, is going to be valuable. Let them be free to follow your advice or not, but they'll know what to expect.
It also depends on the field I guess, but in mine (metrology/biomechanics), the chances of achieving good research worthy of publication in a good journal on your own are practically nonexistent. Even if they do manage to publish, if it's in several different fields, people will wonder what is their primary field of research, see the discussion on this thread.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying students have to be babysat, they should have to show that they can conduct research independently, that is the point (in my opinion) of pursuing a PhD degree. But if they do so with guidance, they will hopefully be independent and attractive for hiring committees.

What do you mean by independent research?

To me it means being able to do the following without the supervisor having to give instructions:

see a gap or a boundary in the current knowledge
come up with a plan to try to answer/expand it
ask for/marshal the necessary resources
do the experiments appropriately
know where and how to publish the results.

This is a good point. I would encourage independent research when I'm relatively sure the student is ready for it/ can take care of the immediate business of graduating.

I am not a professor but I would like to offer my views since my PhD was purely research (ie no teaching) and I only attended a 2-day research methodology class during my study.

What do you mean by independent research?

From my view, it refers to whether the individual has the capacity to make independent  contribution to knowledge through original research. The quality of the independent research depends on depth and width of reading and querying   relevant publications and experts on a critical level. Although there are times when knowledge is clear, there are also moments of confusion. Both moments should be given equal priority towards developing original research because they teach, unteach and re-teach us.

Should your students conduct independent research and publication in the field of their PhD/MSc research topic or it can be in any other field of their major and interest?

From my view, the choice of field does not matter. Amabile and Kramer (2011) suggest that if individuals have interest in their work, they are likely to develop the capacity to persevere. Both choice of field requires the implementation of learning and questioning effort until it makes sense. Though, I find that diving into an outside field will require more time and effort.

If their independent research is not in the field near to their PhD research, should they inform you about their other research projects or not?

Yes. There should be open communication on student's research load between the student and supervisor so that they can succeed in their jobs. For example, an experienced mentor is able to advise the student on how to better manage the student's research load, if he or she is informed. Louis and Sutton (1991) suggest that attention and cognitive thinking could suffer when individuals engage in switching activities such as in multitasking.

I added links to the references (hopefully I got them right). If not please edit them. It looks like one is behind a paywall, but that is not a big deal: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/752/link-to-free-pirated-papers-or-official-versions-behind-paywalls.


text:
Access to student records/grades
Is it common practice within colleges/universities to allow all faculty within a division access to all student records within that same division?  (i.e., all Health Science faculty having access to all Health Science student records)
Wouldn't this violate FERPA?

@Omen FERPA

@Omen:  FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974; it provides privacy protections for student information/records, and contains stipulations regarding the dissemination of such information.

Reading FERPA, this clause states that it is appropriate given certain circumstances.

However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;
Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;

These would be closest to those that matched what you asked.
So if, for example, your HS faculty wanted to average everyone's GPA individually, he could potentially do that, as long as he doesn't post all the names in public.

The key phrase here is, "legitimate educational interest."  All faculty, across the board,  cannot have a, "legitimate educational interest" in each student.

I have inquired, and was informed this is the way it is set up.

@JAnderson I'm not saying all faculty do have a legitimate educational interest. I'm saying that those who do, are permitted. If a faculty member wants to do an average GPA for a class, he could potentially look at the names on an Excel sheet (even though IDs is more likely in modern day).

@JAnderson: if you are asking whether it is unacceptable under FERPA for professors to "have access" to a student's information, even if they never actually use that access, you would need to consult with a lawyer about that, because the fine details of the particular situation will be very important.

@JAnderson it may be argued that any professor may be interested in doing statistics on the whole student body, and that could be "legitimate educational interest". If that is enough under the law, consult a lawyer.

FERPA allows for "school officials" to access confidential records when they have a "legitimate educational interest". From the U.S> Deprtment of Education web site:

One of the exceptions to the prior written consent requirement in FERPA allows "school officials," including teachers, within a school to obtain access to personally identifiable information contained in education records provided the school has determined that they have "legitimate educational interest" in the information. Although the term "school official" is not defined in the statute or regulations, this Office generally interprets the term to include parties such as: professors; instructors; administrators; health staff; counselors; attorneys; clerical staff; trustees; members of committees and disciplinary boards; and a contractor, volunteer or other party to whom the school has outsourced institutional services or functions.

So it is not on its face a violation of FERPA for professors to have access to student records.
In practice, many schools impose their own restrictions tighter than FERPA. Sometimes the school describes these restrictions as "FERPA requirements", when they are actually just the (conservative) advice of the school's own lawyers, rather than literal mandates from FERPA.
Due to these local policies, at a particular school, other faculty may not have unrestricted access to a student's grades. You'd have to inquire with a particular institution to find out their internal policies about such things.


text:
Is it appropriate for a TA to say "My Students"?
I am a teaching assistant for the first time this semester. A couple of friends have asked how it is going, and I have used phrases like "some of my students..." or "my students are ..." when telling them my experiences.
I'm not so concerned when talking to my friends, but in an academic setting (ex. talking to another professor) is it appropriate for me to say "my students" when referring to the students in the class which I am TA'ing for?
I'm definitely leaning towards "no", because I am not the one instructing the class, I am just helping instruct the class, but I'd like to get SE's opinion.

I ask myself that all the time; I find myself changing my mind on whether it is most appropriate. Around my friends or other TA/GA's I say "my students", while discussing with the professor in the class I use "our students", while in discussions with other professors on campus I use "the students in my class". While in any social situation, regardless of who I am talking with, I use "my students".

I have used "My students" for the last 18 years. I expect my TAs to use the same expression. If you are helping me teach my class, we are on the same team.  You are not just helping.

Yes, it is perfectly appropriate to refer to students in a class you are TAing as "my students."
You are teaching them; hence, they are your students. It doesn't really matter whether or not you are the primary instructor.

Though if you're talking to another TA of the course, or the instructor, you should say "our students".

@Moriarty I don't think so. Using "my" does not imply that they are exclusively your students, so you can use it when talking to the instructor without making them think you're trying to deny the instructor's role in teaching the class. And when talking to another TA, it may actually be important to say "my students" to make clear that you don't include the other TA's students in the group you're talking about.

@DavidZ When I say "another TA of the course, or the instructor", I should clarify that I mean when (in the given context) your responsibility for them is roughly shared. Sure, if the class is split and one TA looks after half and the other TA looks after half, then "my" is better, as you can emphasize my/your to clarify which subgroup you're talking about. Whichever makes more sense based on the context.

@Moriarty I would more than likely use "the students" when talking to other TAs or the professor of the class. This implies "our" but does not emphasize on ownership.

And if you're worried that the prof would be offended if you refer to "your students", I think that is highly unlikely. I think most profs, if they notice the phrase at all, would take it as a sign that you are serious about your teaching responsibilities.

"My students" is not a possessive. It's "the students whom I am responsible for." As such, it's wholly appropriate.


text:
Difference between computer science MS and MCS
I'm planning to apply for a master in computer science, and I need to choose between a computer science MS - master of science, and a computer science MCS - master of computer science.
I haven't really understood the difference. Is is true that MCS is more "professional" in the sense that it doesn't prepare students for a PhD but it is for who wants to directly work after graduating? Do they both last 2 years?
EDIT: I've also found MSCS: master of science in computer science.
PS: So for example MSCS has the thesis. Does the thesis help you getting hired?

I fear it's all semantics... At our university for instance, the only thing you can get is MSc in CS :)

Every department is different.  You cannot determine from the abbreviation alone whether a masters degree program is course-based/terminal or research-based.

In some countries MCS (2 years) is offered as a 16-years graduation degree, which is equivalent to BS(CS). It is offered specifically for those who have earned a 14-years bachelor degree or sometimes for people coming from other backgrounds, to provide them a fair enough base in computer science.
A computer science MS or MSCS are both similar terms (2 years long), which is an 18-years graduation degree.
Coming to your question:
Is is true that MCS is more "professional" in the sense that it doesn't prepare students for a PhD but it is for who wants to directly work after graduating? Do they both last 2 years?
The answer is: Yes, MCS is like any other professional degree out there. In addition, after having an MCS degree, an MS degree (2 years) is still pursued to get prepared for a PhD degree.
MS degree mostly has a thesis, while MCS, if it has the one that is definitely, we can say the lighter one, since the candidate has not been trained at this level to produce a thesis.
Does the thesis help you getting hired?
This simple most answer is: "It totally depends upon the employer and her demands for a specific position offered".
As I said:"MS degree mostly has a thesis". Well I know people and the universities were they have MS degrees (18 years) but without a thesis. So how do they do this? Mostly they compensate the research credits with additional course work.
I also know places/individuals (internationally) where people with 'MS degrees without a thesis' have also been haired for an explicit research positions (e.g., Research associates, PhD students with RA ships, etc.) in academic institutes for academic research. Where, mostly thesis is a requirement OR in other words a thesis is inevitable to provide a candidate with the required skill set for such positions.
Finally, while considering the above description about the acronyms valid, I would say that a thesis with an MCS degree has an importance similar to to any other professional degree with thesis (i.e., the case when a thesis is also prepared at end of a professional degree in order to fulfill the requirements).
N.B. Some universities also name MCS to a computer science MS degree.

That answer clarifies a lot, it is what I was looking for (not enough rep to up-vote, though). Another thing, this: "Computer Science, M.S." -> is MSCS right?

Yes, these are mostly the same and some times are also used interchangeably. Please remember that, in terms of strict meanings, these terms are more meaningful locally than internationally. A degree issued with a name which is not commonly used, within the country might create some confusion, because being different from what was known. While it's no surprise at international level.

There is unfortunately no one general answer that applies across the board.
For specific degree requirements (so you know what you're going to be learning), you should look up the individual programs.  The only specifically non-professional masters degrees are ones you may get en-route to a Ph.D. (often called an M.A. or an M.Phil.), but even there, there are differences in naming conventions.  Moreover, terminal masters degrees often have the same names but have a "thesis option" or "course option" depending on your career goals.
Luckily, where you go, how you do, and what you learn will matter a lot more than the name of your degree.  At least in the US, nobody will care whether you have a M.S. or M.C.S. or whatever else -- they'll just think of you as having a "master's."

I also care about the preparation.

okay I added a bit more

Many Master's degrees exist that could reasonably be considered "computer science" degrees, and the distinctions between them differ from one university to another.  Thus, you should probably ask someone familiar with the programs that you're considering about the particulars for that scenario.
The best general answer to your question, if there is a general answer to it, is that many of the degrees named simply "Master of Science" require writing a thesis.  For example, compare North Carolina State's Master of Science program with their Master of Computer Science program.  Often the thesis degree is awarded to PhD students who have completed their qualifying exam and coursework, but this also varies from one university to another.
Since writing a thesis is an important distinction for Master's degrees, you may wonder what a thesis is and how it might be viewed by potential employers.  A thesis is a document produced as the result of academic research.  While you will learn more about analyzing academic research, formal writing, and how academia works in your field of study, you will not typically learn more skills that are directly applicable to the profession.  For this reason, you can think of the thesis master's as an "academic" degree and the non-thesis master's as a terminal "professional" degree, but that's also a bit of a simplification.
If you're looking at degrees that start with "Master of Science in" and end with something like "Computer Science," "Computer Networking," or "Software Engineering," then you probably won't have to write a thesis.  These Master of Science names differentiate a degree in science, engineering, or medicine from a degree in English, history, or philosophy, which are Master of Arts degrees.  Often, these are both shortened to just "Master's" degrees.  So instead of a Master of Arts in History, you might simply say that you have a Master's in History.  For example, NCSU has a Master of Science in Computer Networking, which is regularly shortened to Master's in Computer Networking.

Very old post, but I thought I'd chime in, in case my knowledge and research can help someone. In the UK, for example, I believe a Master of Computer Science is, wait for it, an undergraduate master's degree, as opposed to a graduate master’s degree. And 21 terms after matriculation, just like some other master’s degrees, they are elevated to MA status, like the BA. The UK system is complicated as there are also graduate bachelor's degrees. The difference seems to be that bachelors were broader, masters are more specific, and doctorates are beyond a master's in order of specific study and depth.
In the United States, in contrast, the Juris Doctorate used to be called the Bachelor of Laws and was an undergraduate degree. They elevated it to doctoral status based on how much work and study was put in to achieve it, but it is not equivalent to a research doctorate. It is often called a first professional degree, and technically ranks below a master's degree. The de facto master's degree in law in the United States is the Master of Laws, LLM or MLL. Beyond that is the JSD, Doctor of Juridical Science, and in the US, it is equivalent to the PhD. Other American doctorates equivalent to the JSD and PhD (in that they are research doctorates and hold the same prestige) include the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) and Doctor of Engineering (DEng). However, if you read this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_the_University_of_Oxford
you will see that a PhD is one of the lower ranking doctorates, as is the DEng. There is even an MEng that is considered an undergraduate degree, because it has the specific scope of study, but not the depth or rigor of a graduate degree. Another example where the US and UK differ is the MD, or Doctor of Medicine. The MD is the US is a first professional degree, and not a research doctorate, and ranks below the PhD and even a master's (academically). However, in the UK, the MD is one of the highest doctorates attainable. Another high doctorate, the Doctor of Science (DS) ranks very high in the UK and in some universities in Europe the DS and other doctorates or their equivalents are considered higher doctorates for beyond PhD research or in recognition of great contributions to the field of science. The DBA either does not exist in the UK, or is not prevalent, same as the Doctor of Arts (DA). Traditionally, the MBA is a terminal degree and no research degree or other degree in business is more advanced than an MBA, but the US invented the DBA as a PhD equivalent for people who wanted to do research, and there are others, such as the Doctor of Management, called a DM in the US to not confuse it with an MD, although in Europe and New England, an MD can also be referred to as a DM, adding to the confusion.
When it comes to Science and Computer Science, at the master’s level, which is always graduate level in the United States, unlike a doctorate, which can sometimes be professional (MD, JD...) and rank below a research doctorate (PhD, DBA, DS), they are the same level: master's. The difference is that the MCS is a professional master's degree for those wanting careers while an MS is in preparation for a PhD. Often, an MCS requires additional coursework and a project, while an MS student tries to practice research for the PhD. Given this, an MCS is superior to an MS if you do not intend to pursue a PhD. If you do want to pursue a PhD, the MS prepares you for that course of study, however, the MCS teaches you more things, so they both accelerate you, just in different ways.
For US study, if you visit https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html
you will see that there are six levels of education, from lowest to highest (I also give examples): associate (AA, AAS, AS), bachelor (BA, BFA, BS), first professional (JD, MD), master (MCS, MS, MBA), advanced intermediate (Post-Graduate Certificate), and research doctorate (PhD, DBA, DS). Notice how the Doctor of Computer Science is not on that list of research doctorates. However, if you find a program offering a DCS, you assume it is higher than an MCS. More complications if you try to draw relations: some schools offer a JM or MJ, a Master of Jurisprudence. Some might think that is below a JD, but the JD used to be a bachelor's and was elevated to a first professional, which would make the MJ like a bachelor's, but all master's degrees in the US are graduate degrees.... The MJ is considered by some schools as equivalent to the MLL and focuses on learning law for people who are involved in law but are not lawyers. So technically, academically it is higher and a JD (formerly the BLL) BUT does not prepare you for the lawyer profession and does not enable you to pass the bar. In more ancient times, master and doctor were used interchangeably. It seems doctor is used for those who are prepared for the profession or have professional experience whereas a master is used for someone with great knowledge and academic achievement, regardless of professional experience. But then what is a professional master's degree? An example is an MBA and I've heard it be called a second professional degree. Since it is a terminal degree, some people consider it higher than a normal master's degree, and traditionally, there was no DBA, so it was like a doctorate, without the distinction of a doctorate, in that field. So here we see doctor being a distinction, not a higher level of academic study. Think about it this way, a RESEARCH doctorate is a master's degree where you are generally paying to do research at a school instead of being paid to do research. But not everyone wants to be a researcher. Also, in the US, a research doctorate typically requires more course work. So, therefore the Doctor of Computer Science is considered higher than a Master of Computer Science because it requires more coursework but is not considered to be at the same level of a PhD, according to the US Department of Education. So, it is a strange degree that is in between a master's and a research doctorate, according to them. It is the fifth level, according to them: advanced intermediate, a level that offers certificates, diplomas, and even degrees. Why did I go so much in depth and talk about doctorates? Because while a DSC (Doctor of Computer Science) is considered lower than a PhD, for master's level, the amount of coursework is slightly more, and any research done by an MS student is just an introduction into professional research that will be done by a PhD. There is no prestige in MS research, it is just a substitute, and therefore in the US, academically, an MS is equivalent to an MCS. And the name MS is sometimes misleading, as there are schools in the US that offer an MS without requiring a thesis, instead wanting projects or just coursework, making them an American MCS but keeping the traditional MS name. Globally, MS is recognized as higher than an MCS, but in the UK, an MCS (undergrad) is later elevated to MA status after so many terms, and therefore after so many terms and maturing the MCS holder will be considered an MA, which is higher than an MS in the UK. In the US, they hold the same rank academically, but are geared towards different goals, in the same way an MS in Electrical Engineering is for careers in electronics while an MS in Biology is for going into biological research, medicine, or pursue an MD or PhD. I have not seen any DCS in the UK, but it is likely they would not hold any higher ranking than an MA, the same as an MCS. So, the DCS is a bit higher than an MCS, but the difference is considered negligible and in the UK is not recognized, as they would say the MCS matures to MA status, the DCS does not exist, but I assume they would think they just mature faster to an MA level of study. If you read the Wikipedia article, you will see that MA is held to an extremely high level of respect, and only the DD and DCL hold more prestige if the holder only has one degree. I think the only mistake in the Wikipedia article is that the BD (Bachelor of Divinity) is considered higher than the PhD but is not listed in the right place.
Lastly, I have seen DCS programs that require many more units than some PhDs. Some PhDs I have seen require the same if not less credit units than a master's degree but just add research and dissertation, which further emphasizes that doctorates are degrees for those in practice, while a master's degree is solely academic achievement. This contradicts the US Department of Education, as some level 5 degrees are potentially superior to level 6, depending on the school and program. And if you want to be an actual doctor like a medical physician or a lawyer, the JD and MD are superior, but also having a PhD will make you a more knowledgeable and capable professional. Different names, different worth for different things.
To sum it up, if you plan to study and work in the US, the MCS is just as good as an MS, especially if you do not plan to pursue a research doctorate. If you plan to study or work overseas, the MS translates more to what the US graduate program represents. If you want to get a PhD in the US, either should work, but you should check with the school you want to attend. If you plan on getting a doctorate and want international recognition, a PhD or DS is better, but if you stay in the US, a DCS may essentially be the same. Countries are trying to standardize things to match up, but there are still some differences. Last examples, a licentiate in Europe is a master's degree level or higher award to prepare someone for a profession, and sometimes is considered higher than a master's degree (like an MBA) but below a doctorate, depending on the country. Look up "Higher Doctorate" on Wikipedia, and you will see countries like France, Russia, and Germany offering either degrees or distinctions beyond a doctorate. There used to be something called ISCED level 9, but it was removed.
Other sources: Personal research and experience


text:
Publication trend (quality vs quantity) after tenure
Are there any studies that measure the change or the lack thereof in the trend of publications produced by a professor after they got tenured? Do recently tenured professors shift from quantity of publications to seeking higher quality publications?
I found the following two related questions but:

Are there studies testing whether academia rewards researchers based on number of publications?
This question is broad in scope and doesn't focus on the element of job security provided by tenure status.

How did you or your advisor’s behavior change after obtaining tenure
This question asks in a broader sense about the change due to tenure, which I guess includes publications too, but the question and the answer do not focus on or even mention publications.

In the wonderful spoof journal Journal of Polymorphous Perversity there was once an article with a title something like "Effect of Tenure on Publication Rate".  The article was blank.

Another related question: Any data for average number of papers per year at different career stages?


text:
Teaching a very small class when the students have very uneven proficiency levels
How should a teacher and student cope with a situation like this.
I've been studying spanish for about a year and enrolled in a successive course. However, the course starts really early and there is only one other student, who should probably be in a more advanced class. The other student has been studying spanish for probably twice as long as me and already knows most of the grammar to be covered during the trimester. Obviously, this puts some stress on me, as I don't feel good about interrupting each exercise asking for translations and slowing the class down. On the other hand, I would definitely be in the right if I did, but that isn't much help.
How can I and the teacher work together to make this situation acceptable for all parties? Honestly at this point I'm thinking about dropping from this trimester and taking the financial hit from tuition fee I will not get back.

You should talk to the teacher and explain your frustrations. It is likely hard for the teacher too, when there are only two students and they are at very different levels. Perhaps you could turn it into an advantage - you know, you get to practice with someone better than yourself.

My solution as a student: skip class and study on my own with books or with youtube videos where I can skip or repeat different parts, optimizing my time.

^I'd possibly recommend this for a large lecture course, but it's probably not the best idea for a class of two, if I understood the OP's situation correctly...

Convince the other student to skip class. They obviously don't need it, you do.

@DavidRicherby But most have more than two students.

@OllieFord Good point. I've edited the title of the question so it properly corresponds to the question itself.

Having been that "advanced student" in a similar situation, I'd like to point out that in such a small class environment, there is really no reason that this shouldn't be an ongoing discussion between all three participants, throughout the duration of the course. Everyone has their own pace. In truth, everyone has their own pace through individual topics.
With a little open communication you can likely resolve this in a manner that is appropriate to the particulars of your context. In my case, I had been worried about the student that I felt was falling behind. I not only didn't worry about going a bit slower in class, but I also invited him to a once-a-week study group between the two of us. I've found that teaching concepts is the best way to cement them myself. The entire experience was quite fulfilling, and I consider the course to be a complete success - even from a purely personal educational perspective.
Your situation will be different, obviously, but the I think the only real answer is consistent, open dialog.

If the course has a specific level e.g. A1, A2, B1, B2... It is none of your problems that a guy who most probably belongs to a higher level is sitting there. You should not feel ashamed for that, and put pressure on yourself. Usually each level has its own learning/teaching goals. Look at the learning goals of your current level. If the other guy is above the learning goals simply make yourself comfortable. Continue with your own pace, because its not you who is in the "wrong place" (although the term wrong place might be misused in here). On the other hand if you are below the learning goals, then simply move one level below, this way you will be in an environment where you will feel more comfortable.
If it were up to me, I would not mind if there is a super-duper guy in the class. I would keep my own flow. I would raise my concerns to the teacher, in addition to that, if I were paying for that course I would "force" the teacher to work the situation out.
In the end of the day, it is your teachers problem to provide the best effort and ensure that she/he taught you. But for that to happen you will have to let the teacher know the situation.

Mostly agreed. If one student is over-qualified, we could wonder why enrolled in this class? Perhaps review, in which case it doesn't matter if the pace is slow. The reviews will still happen. Or perhaps merely to obtain a high grade, in which case it still doesn't matter. Perhaps a required prerequisite, in which case pace still doesn't matter. And perhaps to learn, but the choice of class was a poor one; and pace is the other student's problem. If the OP is in the right class, then OP's pace is the proper one.

There are at least two major false assumptions that many instructors tend to have:

The first false assumption: Most students of most classes are very similar, with very little difference in pre-knowledge and conception. Welcome to actual teaching: You always have a diverse body of students. The bigger your class, the more diverse. Assuming that they are all about the same, and that they just understand what you are saying, is damaging and leads many instructors to just keep talking for hours on end, based on a wrong conception of their audience, and are then satisfied because they set "lecturing" (i.e. talking and illustrating) equal to teaching, leaving most students untouched (unless they are good story tellers, but that's a different topic).
That brings me to false assumption number two: The idea that your teacher must be a complete expert on the topic in order to be helpful to you. It is certainly useful to know a lot about the domain, but no one is perfect. There are always "gaps in knowledge" and understanding. People might argue that an institution has bad quality control if they let non-experts teach students, but domain knowledge (or "hard skills", which in your case is Spanish) is only part of the equation. In order to help people learn more efficiently you need... well... people skills, i.e. soft skills. You need good communication, presentation, project management skills, and you need resourcefulness. Soft skills can be just as, or even more important to your teaching efficiency as domain knowledge (given you have at least a good basic understanding of the subject at hand).

In your particular case, you can help the advanced student by finding better, possibly interactive, material and maybe even letting him help you help others. There is a whole body of research showing evidence of teaching being a very efficient learner tool [1] [2]. If you have the time and motivation, you can even try flipping your classroom entirely. Make sure though that he understands the special role he would play, so he won't feel "out of place". Most of this approach requires you to be a good communicator.
Please consider this article titled "Moving away from teaching and becoming a facilitator of learning" for more information on moving away from archaic models. Don't be afraid to try out something new! "Trial & Error", a general problem solving technique, found in almost every other field, is just not very common in education yet. But if your students are aware of your shortcomings and aware of your "experiments", your attempts of trying out something new, and you are in good communication with the students, you can make the entire experience more valuable than traditional "you talk and they might or might not listen" methods, every single time.

Great post! For Spanish, one such experiment I'd recommend would be the Michel Thomas Method. Michel Thomas is dead, so I'm not sure how much you'd find on Youtube, but there is plenty of sample material from his method on peer to peer networks.

First remember: it's your class as well as the other student's (assuming that you have enrolled in the class with due regard to any prerequisites or other conditions that were specified).  Therefore you have just as much right to be instructed at an appropriate level as he/she does.  It's easy to feel stupid when you ask a question that may be obvious to the other, but try not to be overwhelmed by this feeling: as I always impress upon my (mathematics) students, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
A possible suggestion: ask the teacher if he/she would permit the other student to teach you some of the material during class, with the teacher observing.  This could be of real benefit to the other student too: attempting to teach a subject is possibly the best way to find out whether or not one really understands it, and in such a situation the teacher may very well notice some things that the student doesn't completely understand, and by explaining them improve his/her learning too.  Moreover, if the other student is learning the language with the intent of teaching it in the future, the sooner they start practising, the better for them!

This is a hard situation to be in. I was in the same situation, different language, not all that long ago. It was a tiny class and although I had progressed through each of the preceeding levels with acceptable marks there was a student in the class who already knew 8+ other languages and whose career was based around learning and using languages. Compared to that me, who had never learned a language before in my life, and there was a huge disparity.
How to handle this really depends on a couple of factors.
One of those factors is the instructor. The instructors for the course I was in were nice and sympathetic but, ultimately, unable or unwilling to reign in the advanced student. Without instructor support in such a small class situation you will have difficulty making any changes in what is happening.
That leads to another factor... What are you willing to do about this? I spent an exhaustive semester trying to 'catch up' to this student so I wouldn't constantly feel like I was being left behind. This is tempting for a lot of students in this situation. "I will work harder! And this will make things better!" The problem is that this depends on your other time commitments(can you afford to spend an additional _ hours every day on this language), your aptitude for learning languages(some people are just slower at learning certain topics than others), your other base knowledge(if you don't remember what a conjugated adverb is then you'll have another layer of learning on top of what you are currently learning), and, frankly, your own frustration level with the course and subject material.
I don't normally say things like this but I think Wolfgang Kuehne's answer is unhelpful at best. Learning a language in a class should be a collaborative effort among students guided by their instructors. I'm iffy about the decisions to have super tiny language-learning courses (my situation became untenable once the course size dropped to 3 students) because when you run into this situation there's no buffer. Things would, I image, be very different in your situation if there was a range of other students in the course with a range of other skills. But as a student there is only so many times you can 'risk' saying something in another language to be immediately, and always, corrected by another student in the course. If there is no give and take, if there is never a time when you are correcting and the other is learning(and vice versa) then it pushes the corrected student into an unfortunate position.
Ultimately, and this may or may not be what you want to hear, I finished off the semester(it was needed to graduate on time) and I dropped the language(which I was planning on taking throughout my student career). Additionally I was put off both on the language itself and the process of learning languages in general. Having been in your situation, and maybe projecting a bit based on my own experiences; if your instructor is unwilling to go to bat for you and make sure things stay at an appropriate level, the other student is not dominating the learning time and you are not left feeling like the 'stupid one' in the class then, if you can, you should drop the class.
You have done nothing wrong. The other student, probably, has also done nothing overtly wrong(though good golly can they seem like jerks in this situation). But it's not going to be a great learning environment for you and, if that's the case, you'll get more benefit by using your time in a less frustrating environment.

I see you point, but I was trying to point out to VoY to first double-check the "environment". If VoY is at the right place then there is no point in feeling uncomfortable. I also think that it boils down to self-confidence. Boy, if I were the one that is "right" I would not give a single damn if those who know better in the course judge me.

@WolfgangKuehne: fair points. I'm probably going to far in the opposite direction because this hits fairly close to home. Whether or not there is a point to feel uncomfortable(or whether an outsider would think you are appropriate in feeling uncomfortable) doesn't help much in this situation. If you have a strong language speaker in a language learning class with a very small environment - it's an uncomfortable place to be. No one wants to feel stupid and it's easy to get near constant negative feedback in such an environment.

I ended up dropping the class and got part of my tuition fee back as credit I can use for another class next semester.

I've been the "better student" (an advanced beginner) in a language group (French) where the other two parties were a native speaker, and another student (a rank beginner).
The better student tries to teach something to the worse student, and the teacher corrects one or the other, or both, if there is a mistake made.
Or the teacher teaches something to the better student, who passes it along (perhaps in watered down form) to the other student.
When you have one teacher and two students, it's not really a class, but more like a tutorial, that allows for a lot more "one on one" or "one on two" work.
In a workplace, it would be like a boss acting as "team leader" with two subordinates, instead of as a "department head" with 5-10 "reports."


text:
How do I ask whether I am going to be an author on a proposed research project?
I am a PhD Student in Australia and I have been asked to help out a research team in my lab on a grant related research project. I have a fair bit of knowledge in the area they are looking in too. I am 'close' with all members involved (two are my supervisors and one is a postdoc in my building).
All signals are going my way indicate an enthusiasm regarding including me - however, I am also aware that the project may be time consuming for me. If I do get involved, I want to ensure I will be author on any papers that are released.
Would it be a naive question to explicitly ask one of the members whether I would be an author on any papers before committing myself to research?

Ask ( better in person and in quiet tune). The earlier the better. This is a commitment. You do not want to feel like a loser at the end.

What's wrong with "Will I be an author of this paper?"?

Just to clarify (since it is ARC season in Australia) were you asked to contribute to a project or to the preparation of the proposal for the project that is related to the grant?

It is not an ARC grant - but I was also not asked to help with the proposal document.

Early. There is a fair number of questions here, because people had different expectations.

Would it be a naive question to explicitly ask one of the members whether I would be an author on any papers before committing myself to research?

No. Ask about your possible contribution to the project and conditions (authorship, conference presentations, extra funding etc).
It's your time and expertise, so you have full right to ask what is the expected return. Asking for it does not mean that you lack passion - you just make professional arrangements.
BTW: When it comes to authorship, it is great to make such arrangements by e-mail or anything leaving a written trace. I never had any issue with it, but I know a few first-hand stories in which people were moved first->middle or even denied authorship. So, better safe (and safe in an non intrusive way) than sorry.

Cheers for the input. When I hear back about clear starting dates for research, I will send an email confirming authorship/funding deals to whomever I am in closest point of contact with on the project. It does feel a little early at this stage.

Can you give an example for such e-mail? I have no idea how such email looks like. I am always uncomfortable and worried of being impolite in my emails...

@EnthusiasticStudent Depends on your relation and the style of communication with your (prospective) PI. Mine last was something in the line of "It is an interesting project, which I would like to join. What is my expected contribution and how would I benefit academically (authorship? conferences?) and financially (is there a budget for it?)?". Even if you are really interested in the project, don't be afraid of asking. Asking does not equal demanding.

Just to add to Piotr's answer -- I notice in your question that you are considering asking one of the members in the new collaboration about how authorship will be determined.
By all means, ask this particular member. However, unless this member has some sort of authority over all the other co-workers in the proposed collaboration, don't be surprised if other members have a different view on how the authorship list on any given future paper should be formed.
Re-iterating Piotr's point -- get this point answered early.
My suggestion -- ensure everyone is engaged in this discussion early, so that dissenting views can be discussed and a policy set in place before the first research paper is written.
There's no need to feel embarrassed about sorting this out now. Other members are likely to want to have this cleared up early as well. A polite email -- naturally indicating your enthusiasm for getting involved -- is easily written, along with a bald question like "How is the authorship list going to be arranged for papers arising from this project?".

Another way to go about it is to have a conversation about the project and expectations. Meet with them to find out what the project is, and offer your particular contributions. There is nothing wrong to ask during this conversation if this work is going to go toward a paper, or simply suggest writing a paper.
For example, they have a problem they can't solve. You are pretty sure that you can solve it. Be proactive and suggest explicitly your involvement - I can develop code that solves the problem, and will write up in a paper. You will run the experiments, and write that section of the paper. Where are we submitting?
Then you can follow up in the email to express your excitement about the project, and summarize roles and responsibilities.

This sounds like a great opportunity for you to diversify you graduate experiences. Developing your professional network is very important to your career's success.
You are wise to clarify expectations early on:

Do you want to join this collaboration?
How much time will be involved?
Is your advisor ok with this time investment?
What do you have to gain? coauthorship? on multiple papers?