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What to do if I'm being bullied by students?
I've recently been the subject of bullying by a group of students. I taught a difficult module alongside another module, which was taught by somebody else. The other module was much easier and offered huge amounts of support. Students described having their hands held in this module. One student told me that this module felt like students were being treated as newbies, whereas my module felt like they were being treated as second year students at a Russell Group university. The university where I work is more teaching focused.
Having heard feedback from students, I think that the tasks I set them were quite challenging, and I don't think they were used to it. I'm still adjusting to the level that the students are operating at in this university, and were I to I teach in the module again, I would adjust the level.
However, the main issue is that students posted rude, personal and abusive feedback in the module evaluations and also posted nasty comments on the module forum. I also got nasty emails from some students, and although I passed this up to management, nothing was done and I was left to deal with this alone.
It has affected my self esteem and my confidence as a lecturer. I've always had plenty of good feedback before and I've always felt competent in my role. I don't know if I have any rights in terms of being bullied by students, but one student has just told me that there is a Facebook group where I was being slated and there were really personal comments. The student I spoke to today described it as a bit of a hate group, directed at me. One student even copied an email that I had sent her (a photograph of it) and posted it on a Facebook group. I'm not sure if this contravenes any confidentiality regulations.
Anyway, I just wondered if anyone else had experienced this and if anyone had any advice. I've been teaching for 10 years and I was on the verge of quitting my job, and I don't feel like I can easily face teaching these students again. On a personal level, I see it as an opportunity to develop greater resilience, but I can't help the fact that it really feels undermining and threatening to be in this situation.
Any advice or support would be appreciated.

Get used to students not liking you... grow a thick skin. You're not there to make friends, you're there to be fair and teach a tough subject. You will have many students not like you because your course is challenging. Read the feedback impartially, and see if there is a common theme that needs attention that you can improve upon. Otherwise, disregard it as grumbling students. You'll have a tough career if you take personal offense to every negative grumbling from students, and an even worse career if you try to fight each one.

As a pseudo-side-note, depending on the content of the Facebook group you may have a case with Facebook r.e. targeted attacks.

@SnakeDoc This is not very helpful advice given that the OP may be working in a professional environment where these things cannot so easily be shrugged off. Do you actually know anything about working in UK academia?

@YemonChoi What about the OP's post makes you think this is some sort of professional environment? Student's not liking a tough professor isn't somehow unique to the UK.

In short, the behaviour of your students is not acceptable - no matter how good or bad your teaching was.
If something like this were to happen at my university, I as vice dean for teaching would invite the whole group for a face-to-face meeting and explain to them how adults should solve problems.
In fact, this is something you should aim for, since the problem will persist and affect others as well, since the students' behaviour will not change.
We had good success with early feedback opportunities (not just the end term evaluation), micro-evaluations (anonymous feedback which can be a one-liner) which are discussed with the whole group, an honest open door policy, and with involving student organizations and representatives early on. Some course formats have to be explained to students over and over again... This might be helpful in the future, but won't help for now.
If you are still teaching this course, I'd suggest an intervention (if possible with the help of another neutral professor) where you address the problem in front of the class. If possible, summon an extra meeting which does not take place in your usual teaching room.
For such a setting, I would suggest just asking the students about feedback regarding your lecture, but ask them to follow commonly accepted feedback rules. Afterwards, tell them what you took as the take home message from the feedback.
Afterwards, you should tell them that you prefer direct communication about any issues.
In the best case, they should be ashamed afterwards...

I'm sorry to say this, but - as I see it, I don't think you were bullied.
You got negative (individual) feedback, and perhaps some of the messages were even nasty like you said they were. People may have even complained about you in a Facebook group (which, if I understand correctly, you have not actually read the contents of). That does not constitute bullying.
Remember, you are the person in a position of power relative to these students. You set their grades, you can make demands of them, you decide if they face a module that's easier or harder.
If they had contacted your friends or family to deride you; if they had spread lies about you; if had tried to publicize their derisive comments to as many people as possible on campus; if they had threatened you with some kind of retribution, or been physically violent towards you; etc. - then you might have called it bullying.
It's perfectly legitimate to feel shaken, insulted, hurt, by their behavior; but it seems to have been within the bounds of what you should just tolerate.
So: Bear in mind the positive feedback that you often get; it's an assurance that you can and do teach well, in most situations. Talk about this experience with close friends and colleagues, or your spouse if you have one. In fact, given the severity of what you describe, perhaps you should consult a psychologist, for more personalized advice about how to handle this situation. It seems to have touched a nerve that runs much deeper than the experience with these students.
Edit: Note that even if you don't agree with my point of view, it's a point of view which many may adopt, given the information we have. And if there are many whom you can't convince you were wronged, your justification for any retaliatory action or complaint would be very shaky. Try to turn the tables and see what this scenario sounds like from the students' point of view.

I agree that there's a line between private communications between students and actions that directly engage the OP, but there is also a line between comments in a general-purpose group and the formation of a dedicated group to discuss an individual teacher. It doesn't have to be bullying to be inappropriate behaviour that should (in an ideal world, anyway) be addressed by the university in some form. (Other than that, +1 - there is a real need to objectively consider just how bad the behaviour is, ideally with input from external observers.)

@E.P.: 1. OP did not say there was a Facebook group formed especially for discussing him, he said he had been derided. Actually, he doesn't even quite say that, he says he has been told this is the case. 2. If a students feel there's a problem with a teacher of theirs and form a Facebook group to discuss it, even that would still not be bullying. Had they been coordinating how to get back at him or smear his name in public, that would have been bullying.

OP has been rather unspecific and vague about what exactly people had wrote him, said to him or said about him. I have this feeling that others might characterize what was said as "harsh" or "unfair" but perhaps not inappropriate. 4. Something rather extreme has to happen, in my view, for university authorities to start curtailing student speech; and even it had been inappropriate, it's very unlikely from what OP described that things were as bad as that.

Indeed, I agree there's a high chance that this is unlikely to be bullying. But I'll say it again: it does not have to be bullying to be inappropriate behaviour. And there's a huge range of possible institutional responses that do not entail curtailing speech, starting with a frank chat between a tutor and the students about how to handle adversity in a professional way (particularly if it does turn out to be the case that a dedicated "hate group" (OP's term) has been set up). I'm amazed with your virulent reaction at someone (mostly) agreeing with you, though.

@E.P.: The reaction was due to the suggestion that university authorities may need to be involved. I tend to be touchy about the prospect of exercise of coercive power. Anyway, I agree with your last comment.

einpoklum, is there any reason why you're consistly using the male pronoun for the OP?

@YemonChoi: Sorry, subconscious cultural bias.

OP says she's been teaching for ten years. I'm sure she's encountered her fair share of negative and even nasty feedback and can tell the difference between this and bullying. What's the point in downplaying her experience and her current situation?

@henning: It's the other way around. OP has describ ed events which do not constitute bullying, but is up-playing them to be considered bullying and is considering or is being encouraged to initiate disciplinary procedures against some of her students. She asked what to do in this situation, and I reflected how it comes off and what I believe would be relevant/legitimate.

Hi, I clarified the bullying situation below. Also, colleagues of mine came to me because they were concerned about what students were saying and posting on a university forum about me, and described the situation as being a witch hunt. Other colleagues teaching my module have been supportive and cannot understand why do students are behaving in this way, and have apologized that I am going through this. I am certainly not up playing anything. I'm not new to this game, but I'm new to this behaviour

I didn't feel that it was necessary to outline exactly what students said about me and exactly what they have done. To be honest, I don't really want to relive it or put it in black and white here, but suffice it to say that my experience is real and was not up for evaluation here. I do appreciate the supportive comments that I've received, as well as some of the critical advice. I do not appreciate my experience being questioned, though.

@DharmaJane: I answered based on what you wrote. Your experience is apparently different, but remember your students' experience might be quite different than your own.

Feels pretty important people remember that just because they're students, doesn't make it any more acceptable. If this was your colleagues behaving this way - it 100% would be an HR issue, considered as bullying. The fact they are students, does not lessen that.

@Bilkokuya: Behavior by someone who is under your power, e.g. a student, can and must be tolerated more than behavior by someone who is not. This is part of the responsibility of having power on someone. And this is doubly the case when the offensive behavior is by people who don't have power over you. So, indeed, from colleagues - this could well have been considered at least harrasment and possibly bullying. Not so from students.

@einpoklum Do you actually know about the NSS, the TEF, and so on? Or professional life teaching in a UK university which is so-called "teaching intensive"?

@einpoklum Because if not, then I don't think it's very productive to keep challenging the OP on her diagnosis of her immediate situation, based on your remote reading and general preconceptions.

Capable lecturers, especially if they come from research-heavy institutions, treat students as copies of themselves - assuming maximum competence, enthusiasm, skill and perseverance. But you cannot assume that. If you are lucky, you have 5-10% of students coming close to that level.
But you are a teacher, and you have to serve the grand majority. So, your next task is learning how to teach effectively. Most students react well to being taken seriously.
So, rather than semi-formal evaluations, one thing that works well is getting face-to-face response from students early on about whether the course is too easy, too fast, etc. If they say it is way too difficult, you have a gauge that you are probably too fast. You then may want to slow down. If they say it is "a bit too hard", you are in good shape, because you most likely want to stretch them - make it clear to them, though. Students, again, in my experience, respond well to explanations why the course is not and should not be too easy, as long as they see a reasonable chance to pass it and serious effort on the side of the lecturer to help them achieve the desired level.
The key is and remains: communication. However, it is the face-to-face that matters. Once communication begins to go on behind your back, we get to a more problematic situation.
And so, now to the matter of bullying. This is, unfortunately, a self-reinforcing process. It is doubtful that this can be stopped short of a very serious warning by the university, but I suspect anything short of a direct threat of violence will not mobilise the department to your protection.
One idea is really to block any of these negative messages. You are not likely to be helped by the department. There is almost nothing you can do to stop a collective of students to run their bullying activity against you, once it has taken off. But you can minimise the effect on you. If hate-mail is sent to you, archive it, but do not read it in detail. Do not respond to statements about people having Facebook pages about you. Far too often, these people project their own shortcomings onto whoever made them face them.
The past cohort is pretty much a lost cause. Cut your losses. However, for the new year, adapt your pedagogy, get feedback early and often, even face-to-face. Do not be subservient, but demonstrate that you are interested in students' opinion, even if you may not always be able to follow their requests. Finding the right balance is a learning process on your side. With this, hopefully, this negative experience of yours will soon fade into an indistinct past.

I know you’re trying to be helpful, but most of this answer feels like victim-blaming. OP seems to be asking for support and advice about how to deal with the abuse, not advice about how to teach and communicate better with her students to avoid future abuse, which is most of what your answer contains, and sounds critical and frankly not very supportive. Have you noticed that you don’t even mention the bullying until the fifth paragraph of your answer? And that nowhere do you say (as another answer does) that this abuse is wrong and unacceptable regardless of the level of OP’s teaching?

@DanRomik I know that the word "victim-blaming" is in fashion today. However, I can only talk from my experience and that is that you can change yourself, but not others. Other responses deal with the bullying, so I did not feel it is necessary to replicate their response, but rather add a novel perspective to it. It should be obvious (although in these times every thing seems to have to be spelt out - "Contents may be hot") that bullying is totally unacceptable. Totally. Absolutely. But when you are verbally mugged, and nobody helps you (maybe not even your dept. as some others suggest here).

@DanRomik then, I think the main point is to help OP to find ways to avoid being in such a situation and to deal with it as it is. I think that we have this idea today that somehow every negative interaction can and will be sorted by appealing to a higher authority. The present case is so dire that, if there is such support, the OP can and should use it. However, this is not necessarily the case, and, in any case, prevention is better than cure. Let's face it, the likely reason why OP is in such a position is the fact that students are customers and that the balance of power has completely..

@DanRomik tipped drastically towards accommodating students, whether they are right or not. Such a situation would have been unthinkable when I studied, it was very clear who wielded the power then - it was not the students; but today, the departments are likely to accommodate the students rather than the teachers. No, I am most definitely not victim-blaming, but rather make suggestions to turn students into OP's allies rather than enemies. If you feel the response does not serve OP, I am prepared to delete it. I have done my best to offer a constructive, tested, working solution.

Thanks for the clarifications. Yes, I was not questioning your good intentions but was simply offering my feedback as one reader. It is not for me to say whether you should delete your answer, I’m only one person with an opinion, and can well be wrong about what OP or others will find helpful and what not.

@DanRomik Indeed, I got that - and one should never assume that one's message comes across correctly; unfortunately, the comments tend to vanish, so they do not always help to fine-tune reception of a response. We'll see how the votes go, and decide from there.

Downvoted: The question is about how to deal with bullying. Unless you're suggesting that making students think too hard—even MUCH too hard—turns them into bullies, the first half of this answer is utterly irrelevant.

@JeffE The OP makes clear that they believe there is a link between the challenge of the class and the campaign run against them. I am suggesting is that the lecturer communicate to the class why challenge is necessary. Had the OP not talked about the link, I never would have suggested this response. New lecturers are particularly vulnerable to bad feedback (which here degenerated into collective bullying) from students and need to build up their case bottom-up, since departments nowadays are often not ready to stand behind them. I wonder about OP's opinion on the relevance of this response.

This is good advice. A teacher should not assume the students to be as knowledgeable or as interested as they are. Also in my experience many young teaching assistants seem to do that (including myself once or twice when I was younger) which can end up being frustrating for a majority of the students who are not at that same high level.

@CaptainEmacs  OP does say that have been teaching for 10 years, and had positive reviews at a previous university.  So I don't know that writing about them as a "young lecturer".

@StevenGubkin Good point, I overlooked that. On the other hand, even removing that, my main suggestion, I believe, stands - OP moved to a university with significantly more emphasis on teaching, so the mindset shift required may still be the same. I will edit my response, however, thanks for pointing that out.

@StevenGubkin no one assumes the OP was that one young lecturer. It was just an observation that I think many people who have seen teaching being done at university have made.

I'm not young, but students ( and other people who don't know me well)  tend to estimate that I am in my 20s, where as I am quite a lot older than that. I get asked for ID on a regular basis and I am in my mid to late thirties.

@DharmaJane For some reason, I thought you may have been - I changed this in my response, sorry about my mistake. However, looking young may play a role in lack of respect. The balance of power has been so systematically upset in the UK that, rather than just "defang" academic tyrants, it has now equipped students with unreasonable amount of power. You have my sympathy - I hope my response is nonetheless of any use to you. You can see above it was quite controversial, and I was quite interested to know in whether my response was in any form useful to you.

Ascertain whether your students actually come to you with a student mentality or a customer mentality. Work from there.

I can only answer for the U.S.
Here is a sample excerpt from a Code of Conduct.  This one is from the University of Wisconsin:

Harassment or bullying is language or conduct that is unwelcome and sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive such that it could reasonably be expected to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment, or has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with a person's academic or work performance, or a person's ability to participate in or benefit from the university's programs, services, opportunities, or activities, when viewed through both an objective and subjective standard. This includes harassment or bullying that occurs through electronic means, such as electronic media, the internet, social networks, blogs, cell phones, or text messages.

From your description, this seems apt.  The start page for the Code of Conduct gives contact information for "Community Standards & Student Conduct."
Please, file a complaint.  And check the policies at your institution.  If you find something relevant, cite it in your complaint.  If you don't, propose that something be added.
Next time: when you start seeing some red flags -- if something feels a bit off -- start documenting, and inform the office that promotes healthy and respectful student conduct (or your department, as the case may be) that you're getting a bad feeling and will update them in a week as to whether things are worse, the same or better.  Establishing a line of communication BEFORE things reach crisis point can be helpful.
Why should you file a complaint?  Part of being a good university citizen means providing specific negative feedback about something that is not right, so the university can work continually on improving the study and work environment.
Edit: Additional remarks.

The climate in your university will only become more positive if the members of the university community work together toward that goal.
Find a teaching mentor or an office that provides pedagogy support for teachers.  Spend 5% of your time reading about teaching and observing other teachers and keep a journal about your observations and your reading.  As you gain theoretical knowledge and practical experience your confidence will grow.

The only practical advice here is:  Get used to it.  The system isn't fair and it isn't nice and the University doesn't care.  These things are emotionally crippling and no other career has to put up with this nonsense.  Every semester, you get your evaluations back and 99 of them are glowing, but that one immature, soon-to-drop-out-anyway leaves you profane and false feedback, and your week is ruined.  It's wrong, but it isn't going to change.  So the only thing you can do is work on your reaction to it.  What I have done over the years is to force myself to think about the 99 every time I start dwelling on the 1.  It sort of works.  And alcohol helps too.
Having said that, your situation points up a deep problem in academia.  With sites like Rate-a-Prof and Reddit and GroupMe, the students have a ready venue for their shark-feeds.  The University should exert itself to fight these things.  Student grades (which no one cares about) are somehow protected by FERPA, while faculty ratings are "public record."  And somehow, it's OK with your employer that these teenagers can slander you and your work with impunity.
If someone started up a website called Rate-A-Dean, and let faculty treat the deans like the students treat faculty, you can bet our collective TIAA-Cref accounts that the University would send in armies of lawyers and get the thing shut down with extreme prejudice.
(I just looked at Obu's answer and I'm shocked.  I've never run into an administrator who would take action in such a case.  I'm glad to hear of it, but I think this is rare.  If your admins take up your case, then I think you're very lucky indeed.)
Well, here's another practical thing you can do:  Give informal evaluations early and frequently.  If the students are allowed to vent early on, it tempers their immature behavior when the formal evaluations roll around.  Since they get to vent, there is less urgency to start a Reddit thread for a shark feed.  Since they've already ranted once, they don't feel so much like ranting again.  You can pitch the informal evaluations whether you read them or not.  Their still immature and still unfair, but now you control the channel.

Yes i agree - we faculty : lecturers are a cost to the university, while the students are the source of the money, the phrase “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” comes to mind...

@SolarMike  That's the way they think.  I've pointed out that I teach 700 students per year and each pays $2000 for the privilege.  So I bring in $1.4 million dollars of income each year for the university.  That's more than the football program.  Yet I'm a "cost."

"Give informal evaluations early and frequently" - is probably the most important advice in this response.

-1 "alcohol helps too"

@DanielR.Collins a nice beer at the end of the day or have you done -1 as you think he is alcoholic?

This wasn't about one rude comment in a course evalutation, nor about one difficult student. The situation as described by OP is bullying, online and offline, committed by a group. "Get used to it" is not a helpful answer in this situation, I fear.

@henning It was about the emotional turmoil.  The number of students is irrelevant.  The OP says that she has plenty of good feedback.  So it certainly is a case of many good and few bad.  And "get used to it" is the ONLY thing she can do.  It's not going to stop, no matter how much the rest of us commiserate.   Another factor is that the world perceives that the lecturer has power while the students are powerless.  (If they only knew!) They won't believe that the lecturer is bullied.

I downvoted this answer for two reasons. First, alcohol is of no help in this situation: it could be a palliative, but doesn't solve the problem (and I'm quite a good drinker). Second, your answer is more of a rant and it's totally focussed on the US system (FERPA?), but there is no indication that the OP is from the US.

@MassimoOrtolano  The central problem is the emotional turmoil.  A palliative is exactly the thing called for.  You can only control your own actions, not the actions of others.  Suggestions on how to control the actions of the students are the unhelpful ones.  But thanks for explaining.

I do think that alcohol in fun situations is quite different from being used as a palliative. The latter is actually dangerous, it should not be recommended in a response. One can suggest sports, yoga, or other similar activity, but alcohol is seriously bad advice. Maybe the responder has a good self-discipline, but there are enough people for whom beginning to drown sorrow in alcohol this is a slippery slope. I would remove this from the response.

@MassimoOrtolano OP all but confirms that they're in the UK. I agree that the US-centered rant on FERPA is rather off the mark.

@E.P.  It's not a "rant of FERPA".  The point was the inconsistency.  For some reason, my ratings of students are regarded as private, but the students' ratings of me are "public record."  I was for FERPA when it came out.  I'm now allowed to hang up on irate, helicopter parents.  To characterize my comment as a "rant on FERPA" is just an admission that you didn't read my comment thoughtfully.

The point is that those matters change, often significantly, from country to country, and particularly between the US and Europe. Your point may well be true in the US and it may even hold in the UK, but the fact that you're explicitly talking about a different situation than the OP's indicates that you don't know the standing of those issues in the UK and does huge damage to the usefulness and on-topicness of this answer. I was explaining my downvote as a courtesy to you, since the answer has valuable additions, but if you really can't see those distinctions then I have nothing else to add.

@E.P.  The details might be different, but the situations are the same.  The students are trashing the prof on a public forum.  The university will probably do nothing.  In the US it's "FERPA" vs. "public record," but it doesn't matter what you call it.  You have a distinction without a difference.

TBH, I think your answer is too general to apply to OP's case specifically. You do make several good points though. I'm glad there's no rate-a-prof where I live and work. @SolarMike: In many countries, student contribution to university income is not terribly significant. In my alma mater it was under 10% of the general budget.

@einpoklum you bring up a good point about how student contribution to university income, and hence the importance of "customer satisfaction", varies between countries. In the UK, which is where I infer the OP is working, student fees can make up a large amount of what a department brings in to the university, and universities are increasingly reliant on the income from those fees

@einpoklum some teaching establishments are 100% student funded, and some of us work in those so we see the pressure of students comments much more directly than you do - the « it’s ok I’ll ignore it » option you have is not an option for those who are 100% funded....

There are three issues here:

Student comments on feedback forms
Abusive language in direct communication
Comments on a facebook group.

There is little last on of these unless the language would meet some definition of Hate Speech: i.e. comments were based on your race, gender, sexual orientation or other protected characteristic. In which case it would be a police matter.
On the first of these - student feedback is useful where it comments on the teaching it self in a constructive way that can be used to change the teaching. Thus our office filters out purely person feedback before it is pass on to us: comments on dress sense, personal manner, appearance, sex, race etc are not constructive and cause only harm. The filtering was felt necessary because such comments disproportionately affected women and lecturers from minority groups. However, comments that do address teaching in an actionable way, even if they do so with potentially offensive language, are left in.
For the direct communications I would start by giving the student a warning - tell them that such impolite communication is unprofessional and potentially harassing and that you will address their concerns if they phrase them in a polite and constructive manner. Point our that if they did this to their boss at work, they'd find themselves in trouble very quickly. If they ignore this
report them to the HoD/Head tutor with evidence. If you receive no response, particularly if this happens repeatedly I'd talk to your union rep (you are in the union right?).

I moved to the UK from a different country and got some really harsh evaluations in my first year, even though I also had quite some teaching experience before that. The level of students (especially at a teaching-oriented university) is unfortunately not very high.
I am disappointed about the management though. Did you mean professors or people outside your department? In my experience, nothing good comes from outside the department... One thing I would recommend is to discuss this with your colleagues (at the same level as you). They might have similar experiences and might even have suggestions for how to handle this. I think it is not unusual to get bad evaluations in your first year.
I assume that your teaching evaluations go onto your record and that you are therefore worried about them, especially as you may still be on probation. The good thing is that you have time to recover, and you will be able to show a positive trend over the years. Anyway, the most important thing to realize is that it is not you - it is the students. If you adapt (dumb things down enough where possible) your evaluations WILL improve. It is sad that this is necessary, but given the level of students that are accepted to many universities, it seems to be the only way.
Also, these students will move on soon enough and you will be able to make a better impression on the next batch. Having said this, the behaviour of this batch really is unacceptable. Do the students have personal tutors that you could contact?

One of the silver linings of these cases is that you can be confident that, over time, these students will rotate out of the university and you will still be there.  For that reason, I wouldn't concern yourself too much with whether or not the nasty comments you received on your teaching constitute "bullying", and I wouldn't bother pursuing a complaint within the department.  Just treat it as a learning experience and bear in mind that some university students act in ways that are immature and unprofessional.  When they are older and are experiencing the difficulties of the workforce themselves, I would expect that they will look back on this and feel ashamed of their behaviour.
If it were me, I would just ignore the sniping --- students like this are immature adolescents, and grown-up professionals don't concern ourselves with the catty social media sniping of adolescents.  To any mature reader, social media posts like this will reflect poorly on them, but not on you.  I suspect that your department probably did nothing because they understand this reality, and they figure they can let this one slide.  Unless you have seen indications to the contrary, I wouldn't take this to mean that they don't support you; assume that they have confidence in your teaching unless they tell you otherwise.
Most importantly, don't let this bad experience shatter your confidence in your teaching.  It sounds like you probably didn't calibrate the course to quite the right level of difficulty, and students got the shits with that and lashed out in an immature way --- it happens.  Over time you will learn to pitch your course at a level that is challenging enough, but with adequate support so that the students do not feel lost and angry.  Departments expect that lecturers may sometimes have a bad semester where teaching doesn't go as planned, especially if they are new to a course.  Over time you will gain the experience to command a classroom well, engage your students at a correct level, and have better teaching experiences.

If you are working in an institution where you are assessed based on your student feedback, you have two choices.

You can leave and get a job where you will be supported and developed by your employer.
You can make your course so easy that even the dumbest students get B's and spend way over your paid time to hold their hands (when they want it, rather than in office hours). But over time the students will get dumber and you will lose the will to live.

So, I would recommend looking for a new job, probably outside of academia.

I guess your answer is well intentioned, but perhaps it's been downvoted because some people found it glib? (FWIW I didn't downvote or upvote it)

Perhaps that is what they think, it is based on solid experience.

Well said.  This is exactly the choices I am facing.  My institution (foreign university operating in China) make decisions on performance assessments and contract renewals based on student evaluations.   I will come back and post more when I am finally gone.


text:
Tips and tricks for presentation demo for academic job interview
I am working on different research projects. I was asked to give research demo on an on-campus interview. I am thinking of the two following strategies:
First is to give overview of the projects I worked on (one or 2 slides), and then present in detail one of my latest published papers.
Another one is to give a overview of papers for each project with not going in depth.
I am wondering about the best way to impress the research committee. I am working in very hot areas in computer science. If there is any presentation/demos to share, I would be very thankful

Good to avoid too many typoze on slides...

Probably either is fine provided that teaching isn't a big part of the job.

Think about your audience! I think that's your biggest challenge. E.g. your post doesn't even specify what kind of job you are applying for. How are we supposed to know? Always put yourself into the shoes off your audience. The rest will follow... Good luck!

A word of caution: In my experience, candidates who try too hard to impress, or appear to oversell their work, inevitably end up irking a few senior faculty members.

Your strategies are probably fine, but they both seem focused on the past. What you have already done. Don't neglect the future. What are you working on now that shows promise? And, for some situations, how you can possibly include others, faculty and grad students, into a research program. Think about the job as a whole and the university department as a whole.

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As a freshman BME interested in graduate school and academia, where do I begin?
I'm a current freshman biomedical engineering major going into my second semester, and am interested in graduate school and possibly a career in research (however, not a set decision, and could change).
One thing that bothers me is that I don't really have a specific question or focus that I would like to work on. I have contacted a variety of professors, a couple of whom responded positively to me starting out in their labs, in various BME-related fields. I am entirely not sure that their fields are ones that I would like to specialize in later on; I decided on who to contact out of broad interest alone. In the case that I later decide to focus on a somewhat different field (say in sophomore or junior year), does it matter that my first research experiences were in a separate one?
Also, would non-research based industry summer internships help my grad school application in any way? What about informal research project/competition teams on campus (eg. iGEM)?
I'm somewhat lost right now on what exactly to do.

Please don't vandalise your post (it's useless and it would be restored anyway). If you need it, you can flag to have it disassociated from your profile. See https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/96732/300001

When you're a new undergraduate, you can't make real statements about what you want to study. It's simply too soon. Saying you want to work in [field] doesn't carry much weight if you have no idea what working in [field] is actually like.
At this point, don't worry too much about what kind of research you're doing. Just do something, anything, and figure out what you like. If you end up doing research in many different fields before deciding on something, that's fine - most other people do the same.

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European fellowships for neuroscience or anatomy?
I'm not sure this kind of question is appropriate here, but if not here, probably nowhere else.
I'm interested to know if there is a) any mailing list for jobs in neuroscience or anatomy (apart from the computer vision and machine learning mailing lists), specially of computational nature. Also, b) is there any agency in Europe/US that supports and grants postdoctoral fellowships in these areas? (like Marie Curie actions or Humboldt Fellowships). I'm a mathematician who is willing to switch to these areas, and with a research team, I'm planning to apply fr this kind of fellowships.
One example I found is European Respiratory Society offering some Marie Curie postdoc fellowships, just to give you an idea what I'm talking about in b).
http://www.ersnet.org/ers-funding/fellowships/post-doc/eu-co-funded-respire-2.html
Thanks in advance!

A primary mailing list for computational neuroscience, which includes jobs all around the world (many in Europe) is
http://www.neuroinf.org/mailman/listinfo/comp-neuro
That would also be a better place to ask your more specific question about fellowships, etc. There are many such opportunities in Europe, but your question is not specific enough right now. If you ask on the comp-neuro mailing list, you should say more about your current position, location, and experience. Have you published anything? What research topics have you been studying? At what institution? This will help people focus their answers to help you more. You can also start by looking up the major European institutions that are strong in comp neuro (of which there are many, and there are lists all over the internet) and see if they sponsor any programs directly.
On a related note, as a mathematical neuroscientist myself, I think you will find the neuroscience area much more intellectually stimulating than anatomy. Computational anatomy is, in many ways, a more limited set of topics. A lot of it involves image processing and 3D reconstruction, which are already included as possible sub-areas within neuroscience. So you could always get into that sub-area of anatomy later anyway.

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Giving back to alma mater
What is the usual expectation of a student by an alma mater? Usually students quit after becoming a part of the alumni association. The contacts are by and large severed a few months after leaving a school.
What are some ways in which one can give something back to alma mater? Is monetary support the best way? One can also be a point of contact to current students. Are there other ways of giving back to our teachers and institutions?

Why are you concerned about expectations?  After you get your parchment, your school no longer has anything to give to you.
What you give is purely from your own generosity -- because you feel by giving back to the school, others will benefit.  You give because you feel it is the right thing to do.  You give because you want the school to purchase that lab upgrade.  You give because you want to fund this research because you think it's important.
"Expectations" from an alma mater are not only irrelevant, but it is wrong to think that you owe them something.  You paid tuition, they gave you your parchment.  That deal is orthogonal to "donations" and post-grad support of alma mater.

while this is entirely true, i'd like to point out that a donation's value is not purely subjective - donations by graduates is a factor in university ranking, which definitely plays a role in job offers, networking, etc. So while you are 99% correct, there is some benefit for the donor in return

I wouldn't say it's always wrong to think you owe your alma mater something (not legally, of course, but morally).  At some universities with charitable traditions and large endowments, you get considerably more than your tuition pays for, because you are supported by the generosity of past students.  There's a well-established social expectation to return the favor by donating if you are well off later in life, and all the students are aware of this.  It's tantamount to still owing your alma mater something, and this seems reasonable and fair to me.

Aside from the more obvious choice of making donations of money (for which there is practically no upper bound, and the entire expenditure may not be as transparent as you'd like it to be), there can be an equally valuable way of helping your alma mater: Your time.
It may be as simple as giving a graduation speech (for the more famous/successful alums who have good oratory skills), or as sustained as acting as mentors for a group of freshmen who'd share your career interests. With regard to the latter, you can make a visible, personal impact in multiple careers, which might be more satisfying and help create a stronger alumni network in the long run.

Also meeting/interviewing prospective students, although that's more for undergrad than graduate level.

+1 Based on my understanding, the amount of time you contribute to the university by participating in activities and events also count toward the university's "engagement score"

The customs about alumni associations depend very strongly on the country: alumni donations in US institutions (for example) contributes in part to their funding, while in France it ranges from nonexistant (for small institutions) to negligible.
However, one role of alumni associations which has not been detailed in the other answers is the role it can play in network building. By participating in the alumni association, you may get good networking opportunities, and also help the younger/less connected members of the association. I'll also point out that participation does not need to take the form of checks or wire transfer: you can play an active role in other important ways, such as organizing and hosting events, helping maintain a newsletter or website, act as a representative in your field/industry/community, etc.

Some ways in which our Alumni association "gives back".

Donating money to create and sustain a fund for kids who join our school but don't have the finances to pay the fees easily.
Many alumni paid to get our school a new school bus.
We set up a fund to give the teachers health insurance (which the school earlier didn't provide)
Long service awards to teachers.
Rolling trophies for exceptional students.
Creating an association to mentor students when they have queries about the future career path they could choose.
Spreading word via social networking websites and helping out if any teacher/student needs urgent help of any kind.

Other activities:
* Road-races, basketball tournaments and other sports to remain in touch with each other and with the existing school students.
* Organizing for reunions both in our country and abroad, for alumni who ended up abroad.
Update: In general, there are no expectations. But if you do want to help the school for having given you knowledge, then it's necessary to stay in touch to know what problems they face and how you and the alumni can help solve it. If staying in touch is difficult, a regular monetary donation always helps.

Your answer, though good in principle, is not related to giving back to a university, which is what the OP referred to.

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How much more does a recommendation letter from alumni help in PhD admissions?
Imagine a case where I wish to apply for MIT. I happened to work with a young assistant professor who finished her PhD in MIT. How much will her good words weigh in recommending me to MIT PhD program?
I am asking this because I am facing a choice in asking for recommendations:

A recommendation letter from a more experienced full professor OR
One from a young assistant professor who just came back from MIT?

I understand that what matters most is whether the professor knows me well or not. But for them two, I think they understand me roughly the same.

@Damien oh the thing is that I have already had two other references from 2 professors who even know me better. So only one slot left...

@perfectionm1ng well once you aquired both you can still choose which one to send in, right? probably doesn't hurt to send in 4 instead of 3 anyway.

Oh? I heard that the letters would not come to me, they would directly be sent to the school from the professor. I heard that most of the professors would prefer not to disclose the contents to the students.

@T.F.  also, say if a school requires only 3 and states that "please do not send in anything that is extra to our requirements", I suppose it to be bad to violate the limit...

@perfectionm1ng, ok thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't that familiar with the american system.

@T.F. It's a school-by-school thing, and in some cases even department by department.

I disagree with Damien's answer for the specific case of your question. A graduate of the department, who knows you very well and can write a good letter of recommendation, is worth just as much as the "big name," because she is familiar with the department as it is currently operating, and would be able to place your work in context of people also known in the department. So, for the specific case of applying to a school that is someone else's alma mater, I would say go for it, with a caveat.
That caveat is that if a person is not able of writing a good letter of recommendation, then you shouldn't use it. A bad letter will not help you at all. If you have a career services office or academic counselor who can help you sort through which letters are most suitable for graduate school applications, that will help you make the decision.

But AFAIK the recommendation letters will not come to my eyes. I heard that most of the professors would prefer to send the letter out directly to the schools that I apply for. Is that true?

You would ask your letter writers to send a copy to the career center/advisor. The advisor reviews them, and makes recommendations on how to use them, without violating confidentiality.


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NSF grant proposals after earning PhD
I am a fresh mathematics Ph.D who has begun a three year postdoc at University X. I applied for an NSF postdoctoral grant last year with University Y (with Y not equal to X) and did not get it. This year I want to re-apply. I like where I am and so I am planning to apply for the NSF with a mentor at University X. I have two questions.

Are there examples of a postdoc at an institution being awarded an NSF grant to stay at that institution (before their postdoc runs out)?
Are there any particular pitfalls I could find in applying at an institution that is already planning on paying me for three years? That is, if the NSF funds me then the job market "lost" a job in the sense that my postdoc position won't be replaced by my institution.

my postdoc position won't be replaced by my institution — Why not?

You should clarify what you mean by "NSF grant."  Do you mean MSPRF (there are other ways for postdocs to be supported by NSF grants).

@Ben Webster: Yes I meant the MSPRF.

Are there examples of a postdoc at an institution being awarded an NSF grant to stay at that institution (before their postdoc runs out)?

Yes, it does happen.

Are there any particular pitfalls I could find in applying at an institution that is already planning on paying me for three years? That is, if the NSF funds me then the job market "lost" a job in the sense that my postdoc position won't be replaced by my institution.

Assuming you are talking about the MSPRF program, it can be combined with your postdoc at University X.  One common pattern is to use the NSF postdoc half-time for the remaining two years of your current postdoc (to reduce teaching) and then full-time for one more year after that.  This is called the Research Instructorship option in the MSPRF instructions.
Combining NSF postdocs with university postdocs is very common in mathematics, so you shouldn't worry that it will be viewed as strange or problematic.  The only case I'm aware of in which the job market clearly "loses a job" is that if you are offered an NSF postdoc and do not accept it, then the position disappears for that year (there is no waiting list of backup candidates).  So if you decide it's not what you want before the awards are made, you should withdraw your application.

I'm curious; can you name any actual examples?  I know from the solicitation that that this is possible, but can't think of any instances where it happened, and it's not easy to extract the info from the NSF website.  My sense is it's much less common than people already in graduate school getting the graduate fellowships.

I am curious about examples too. Everything Anonymous Mathematician wrote gels with what I know, just that the usual pattern is someone (a graduating student) is awarded the grant and then the host institution kicks in an extra year worth of funding along the way to make a three year postdoc.

@BenWebster: I just checked the first ten of the recent awards listed on the MSPRF web page (it's not clear to me how they are ordered) and compared them with the math genealogy site.  Seven started their NSF postdocs the year they graduated, and three a year later.  According to the online CVs of those three, Dean Baskin was at Northwestern already and has stayed there, Steven Sivek was at Harvard and stayed another year before continuing the fellowship at Princeton, and Noah Giansiracusa was at Zurich and moved to Berkeley to take up the NSF fellowship.

That's a small sample size, but useful to know.

Here are some other examples of friends of mine who spent a year as a postdoc, then got the NSF postdoc to continue at the same place [details not guaranteed]: Spencer Dowdall (UIUC), Ben Linowitz (Michigan), Keerthi Madapusi Pera (Harvard), Johanna Mangahas (Brown), Brent Werness (U. Washington). These are all from the last two years.


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In which sections of a paper can I find literature reviews?
I would like to practice writing lit review from reading other papers and looking at the style of writing. Where usually are the review sections found in papers? Is it the "Introduction" Section, for example?

Literature review or "literature review"? Your question is potentially mixing the two together. Most articles have review of literature in the introduction and possibly in discussion as well, but by no means they need to be exhaustive. A type of articles is called "literature review," which is really all about reviewing literature based on some predetermined research question. For the latter, you can just search title for key words "literature review."

it does sound like the OP is referring to the former kind (the related work section of a paper)

If you can't find it, then you probably shouldn't try to write one.

It's often in Section 2 (but not always).  Your best bet is to find the page with the most bracketed numbers, like [1], [2] etc., and that will probably be the lit review.

The portion of a paper where previous literature is summarized and elucidated upon is also known as (but not restricted to)

Literature Review
Background
Related Work
Previous Work etc.

In my brief life as a graduate student, I have heard of multiple strategies to write a literature review. I will describe one such path which I personally utilize (in part, because this is what my previous adviser always trained me to do)

The Annotated Bibliography Approach

What is an annotated bibliography?
This is perhaps the best advice to start writing one. Note that I am also affiliated to Cornell University but this has nothing to do with my affiliation.
Example:
Assume that I am writing a paper for CHI 2014. My area is in privacy and surveillance. I want to look at the relationship between manual location sharing and privacy concerns.
I look at all the related papers I have read in the area and realize that their are four major categories that could evolve from this reading and still be relevant to the writing of this paper.
So, in a draft, I write down:
Literature Review
  Privacy Frameworks

  Location Based System Research

  Privacy Measurement Scales

  Privacy Aware Design

Then, under each category I start writing the references (in the style of your area ; in my area its in the ACM style) of the relevant papers and a couple of lines about each paper which explains the main contributino of the paper. For instance:
  Location Based Systems Usage

Janne Lindqvist, Justin Cranshaw, Jason Wiese, Jason Hong, and John
  Zimmerman. 2011. I'm the mayor of my house: examining why people use
  foursquare - a social-driven location sharing application. In
  Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
  Systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2409-2418.
  DOI=10.1145/1978942.1979295 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1978942.1979295

This exploratory paper examines why people use foursquare, a manual location sharing application. It determines three major reasons why people do so - to gain points and compete with friends, to track their location as a form of a diary and to earn discounts and special offers from business venues that they visit. Emerging social norms and online identity management are also briefly alluded to in the discussion section of this paper.
Now, once you have all your relevant papers written up in this format, your annotated bibliography and by extension, your literature review is almost done. You copy the references to their rightful place at the end of the paper (References or Bibliography section)
Then, the final step is to simply integrate the few lines that you have written about each paper in to coherent paragraphs and voila, you have a very passable first draft of your literature review.
I hope this made a little sense of how you go about writing one. I can understand that writing a literature review for the first time can feel like a very daunting task.


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MS degree after a PhD in physics
I got my PhD in quantum gravity 2 years ago, not from a top university, publishing only 1 paper, no conferences. Couldn't get a post doc, and it has been 2 years struggling in the job market, teaching part time here and there.
I am thinking seriously about getting an MS degree in something that can open job chances for me because all jobs outside academia I looked at required certain skills I do not have, or knowledge never needed during my PhD, all my work was very formal.
My questions are:

Would graduate schools/ master committees accept me being with a PhD? (I expect to pay my own tuition for that MS of course.) Do I have any chance?
Of course I am not planning to do MS in physics. How about geophysics MS programs? engineering MS programs? Scientific writing MS programs? MBA programs?

I am still evaluating my options for what career path I should pursue, but I just want to know if it is acceptable to do an MS after PhD or I will be rejected right away. (I would hate and regret my PhD if I will be rejected because of it.)

You might ask the specific school you might be interested in; the vetting process is a two way street. They want information about you and should be open to you asking information of them. Most will post the department chairs information on the department web site, so give them a quick email and ask.

Why are so worried about applying for a MSc program. Why don't you check the market, seek the majors that you are interested in and are fruitful, then apply for. You may be accepted or not. Nothing seems you miss at all.

As someone who got a BA in physics and a MS in geophysics, it would be incredibly redundant for you to get a full MS. Taking 2-3 Geophysics classes (seismology, solid earth geophysics, applied geophysics) would suffice, and perhaps even oil/data companies wouldn't even care. You can apply for geophysics jobs with your PhD in physics; I had job offers without ever taking a geology class !

@Neo why do not you sum it up and post your comment as an answer?

I'd recommend looking at the job market and seeing what jobs sound appealing to you. Next go to Coursera, Youtube, etc. and see if you like the subject by watching a few online classes. If you think you can adequately self learn the subject then that is the best option. Employers might look at the PhD -> MS like you are a professional student that lacks direction (plus it's a boatload of money). You want your resume to say, I have a PhD in physics which means I'm smart and I self taught myself all this stuff you require for this job because I am self motivated. It shows independence; if you need to learn something new on the job, they know you can do it, because you have done it before. Don't waste time getting an MS.
There are two exceptions to this, and it may apply here. (1) If in your new field of study you can't adequately learn the vast majority of the material without the infrastructure provided by University lab facilities containing tons of expensive equipment, then it would be reasonable to pursue the masters. (2) An MBA program that is all about networking, pretty much requires face to face interactions, although an MBA is usually thought to be best pursued after having some industry work experience.
The answer to your question, however, is yes, you can definitely get into the Masters programs. For most private schools masters programs are cash cows that fund the university. They let in all students they think are good enough to succeed in their program. The bigger question is whether it's a good idea for you to make this career move.

Yes, you can.
I have personally seen people start and complete an MBA after receiving a PhD in astrophysics. It is certainly possible to study a master degree after a PhD.
If you want to be more rounded, for example, relating physics to the business world, this could certainly help your job prospects, especially in industry.

@StrugglerinLife My answer is the same as this one. I have met at least two managers who have PhD in my industry career life. One has PhD in physics and an MBA. One has PhD in math, then MS in computer science and an MBA after he became a  business executive. Good luck with your MS application!

In general, it's easier to get into a Master's program from a PhD than into a PhD program from a Master's.
Most admissions committees are looking at how your highest level of achievement compares with the level of their program. Unless you are applying to MIT or someplace like that, your PhD "trumps" most Master's programs.
The minimum GPA for most PhD programs is 3.3. For Master's, usually 3.0 (or lower). You're strongly "qualified."
Certainly, you should be very competitive with someone coming into a Master's program from a Bachelor's degree, again, with the possible exception of someone with a 3.8-4.0 from Harvard, Yale, or MIT.


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How to find the ISI-indexed papers for a specific institution?
I am interested in finding the ISI-indexed papers for a given institition X. This would be any ISI-indexed paper where one or more authors are affiliated with X. Is this doable and are there any guidelines for how to do this?

If your institution has access to ISI's Web of Knowledge, you can search for papers based on affiliation alone.  For most institutions this will return many, many listings, so be forewarned.  I have used affiliation/address fields in combination with other search terms successfully in the past.

The easiest way would be to do a Web of Science search using the 'Address' field, with the university name or institution name as query. This will most likely return lots of results, and you will maybe need to go through them manually to do some quality checking. You can also refine search results by 'Countries/Territories' to filter irrelevant results (e.g. similarly named institutions in different countries). You can also use the 'Address' field to search for individual department names while also including city and country for some good results.
You can ofcourse do similar searches in Scopus etc. as well, but if you are specifically after ISI-indexed papers you should use Web of Science (maybe even restricting yourself to only the Web of Science Core Collection database).

Ask a librarian at Institution X. You would probably get your answer in a few minutes or maybe in at most 24 hours.


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How to account for publication bias?
I am doing a literature review in the medical field, which is as many other fields heavily impacted by publication bias. Is there any standard way to account for it?
When am I e.g. allowed to say that treatment X successfully treat condition Y, despite the fact that a certain amount of studies may have been left unpublished as they did not show statistically significant "positive" results, i.e. that those unpublished studies did not successfully show that treatment X does treat condition Y?
Or shall I just ignore it?

I don't know the medical conventions, but it seems to me that you should never write something that you're not reasonably convinced is true. In your situation, rather than saying "treatment X successfully treats condition Y", I'd rather say "the published literature indicates that treatment X successfully treats condition Y." You could replace "indicates" with "suggests" or whatever word best indicates what you actually believe.

Interesting question. Unfortunately, to account for any bias properly, you would need at least a guesstimate of its size, which is impossible to acquire.

First, you should note the difference between checking for evidence of publication bias and correcting for it. To know that there are patterns in the data that indicates publication bias means that you will be able to temper the discussion of your results, and maybe suggest potential weaknessess in the study, even if it is not possible to correct for biases.
There exists a number of methods that can be used to identify publication bias. A simple graphical funnel plot of effect size vs. sample size is maybe the easiest to apply. The idea here is that the scatter around the true effect size should be symmetric and with expanding variance at smaller sample sizes ("trumpet-shaped"). Publication bias can lead to underreporting of non-significant studies with smaller sample sizes, which would result in a skewed pattern in the funnel plot. Another method to test for publication bias is a regression between standardized effects and precision ('Egger's method') or rank-correlation methods. You can get an overview of these methods and others in e.g. Macaskill et al. (2001) and Thornton & Lee (2000).
Accounting/correcting for publication bias is trickier, and I have no personal experiance in using these methods. However, I know that one method that is used in medical research is to only include pre-registred studies in the meta-analysis. If this is possible depends on your topic though. You can also use simulations and parametric methods to basically try to recreate the complete (unknown) dataset, and in this way account for the publication bias (one example of this is Givens et al. 1997)

This is a very good question. Unfortunately, I don't think that there is (or can be) a "standard" answer. Consider: if you found 10 papers finding a strong treatment effect of X on Y, you a priori have no way of knowing whether these 10 studies were all studies on the X-Y relationship... or whether there were 20 studies, 10 of which were published, while 10 others showed no relationship and ended up in a file drawer... or whether in fact there were 100 studies, 90 of which repose peacefully in file drawers all over the world.
That said, there are a few standard ways of at least investigating the structure of published effects, among them the funnel plot. However, the funnel plot and similar methods will usually only be good for investigating publication bias, not for accounting for it. And I would argue, as per the previous paragraph, that if you try to account for publication bias in any quantitative way, you need to be extremely careful not to overstate your certainty in this accounting, given the uncertainty about inputs into your accounting.
Anyway, while a question like this is certainly on-topic here, you may actually get more answers at CrossValidated, although a quick search didn't turn up a lot. You may want to consider posting an analogous question there. Two potentially enlightening questions are here and here, the last of which has a very good answer pointing to a book, from which I'll quote just one sentence: "Good meta-analyses endeavour to obtain unpublished studies."
EDIT: finally, you may want to check out and/or contact the Bias Methods Group of the Cochrane Collaboration, especially this list of references.

In general, it may be a question in statistics rather than 'academia'. E.g. by looking at the distribution of p-values you may have an educated guess about acceptance distribution.
See this Economist article for description of the problem and this post/paper on the distribution of p-values in psychology (in short: too many just a bit below .05).

As mentioned above, there are a number of statistical methods available. The funnel plot is probably the oldest, but it has its "issues" (Lau, J., et al (2006). BMJ (Clinical Research Ed), 333(7568), 597–600)
An interesting, newer method is Ioannidis's test for excess significance (Ioannidis, J. P. A., & Trikalinos, T. A. (2007). Clinical Trials (London, England), 4(3), 245–253).
However, all these techniques amount to "statistical divining rods", telling you whether the results seem too good to be true.
If you really want to determine whether publication bias is present, you need to know (a) the results (not just the existence) of unpublished studies and (b) whether the results in the published literature have undergone "statistical alchemy" and, if so, what the true "unspun" results are.
Since you say you're working in medicine, you have a unique opportunity, at least if you're working with drugs. You can use FDA drug approval packages, as I have in my own work. you may find these papers of interest:
Turner, E. H., Matthews, A. M., Linardatos, E., Tell, R. A., & Rosenthal, R. (2008). Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its influence on apparent efficacy. The New England Journal of Medicine, 358(3), 252–260. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa065779
Turner, E. H., Knoepflmacher, D., & Shapley, L. (2012). Publication Bias in Antipsychotic Trials: An Analysis of Efficacy Comparing the Published Literature to the US Food and Drug Administration Database. PLoS Medicine, 9(3), e1001189. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001189
Turner, E. H. (2013a). How to access and process FDA drug approval packages for use in research. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed), 347(oct14 2), f5992–f5992. doi:10.1136/bmj.f5992
Hope this helps.


text:
Can you get a PhD based on work or life experience?
Is there any possibility that I could be awarded a Ph.D. degree based on my work or life experience and good educational background?
Can you guide me to any institution offering such Ph.D.s?

Short answer: Not from a reputable institution.

Not unless your life experience includes several years of cutting-edge research. And even then it would be difficult to get.

If you are rich or famous and adding your name to a roster would benefit an institution, you sure can get an honorary degree by donating a large sum to an institution and asking for one and maybe they will bend the rules for you and your cash donation.

Just to be clear: You do mean awarded a PhD, rather than accepted onto a PhD programme, don't you?

I have seen this referred to as an "extra muros" PhD, but institutions that grant them are rare. Columbia University used to but recently stopped.

@TomW I thought the question meant accepted onto. Maybe iqbal's first language isn't English or something

There is the honorary doctorate but I don't think that's what you meant.

Ph.D.s and other academic titles and degrees awarded for "work experience", "life experience" and so on are products of diploma mills. You pay a lot of money (thousands of USD) for a piece of paper that is completely worthless.
Employers know these worthless "titles". Such a "Ph.D." will not help you get a better job, and it will in particular not help you in an academic career. Instead, using such a "degree" in an application will brand you as naive at best or a fraud at worst.
Depending on your jurisdiction, using a "degree" "awarded" by a non-accredited institution, as these diploma mills usually are, may be illegal.
Nobody here will direct you to an institution that engages in such practices.

Ideally your answer would be correct.  But in the real world, some people have used such diplomas to further their careers.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Callahan  We can say that she was naive or a fraud but "she continued to draw a six-figure DHS salary".

@emory: The full quote from Wikipedia is "she continued to draw a six-figure DHS salary until her resignation on March 26, 2004." And Wikipedia doesn't list any occupation after that. It seems like this episode ended her public career. As it should.

She "earned" more than $100,000 June 2003-March 2004 for doing absolutely nothing.  As a juror, I would be hesitant to convict for fraud.  Did she misrepresent or did her employer - the government - fail due diligence? Apparently the government does not want to find out.  This "worthless paper" got her some easy money and is a keep out of jail card.  It was very worthwhile to her.  Your answer represents what I hope the world to be, but in reality the OP might find diploma mill paper to be a worthwhile investment.

I thought many prestigious universities awarded degrees for lifetime experience?  For example, Harvard (http://www.harvard.edu/honorary-degrees) and Yale (http://secretary.yale.edu/governance/honorary-degrees).  It seems more notable for a university to not award honorary degrees.

I have the feeling that this answers misses two things. (1) It's perfectly possible to be awarded a PhD based on previous research. You do need to demonstrate you have done substantial research work and to have published or publishable material (not merely vague “life experiences”) but it does exist, it's legit and it can actually help an academic career (i.e. people who have worked in industry or as researcher for a long time but need a PhD to meet the formal requirements for a professorship), especially in applied disciplines like engineering or design.

(2) Having a PhD is not necessarily well regarded as such by employers so the gap between what you regard as a legitimate PhD and less prestigious ones (all the way down to fraudulent diploma mills) is probably not as wide as you wish it were. You can find many people who did a perfectly good PhD and did not profit for it but also some who were able to parlay a questionable one into a prestigious career.

@Relaxed: (1) The Q mentions "life experience and good educational background" - nothing about research. (2) Whether the Ph.D. is well regarded or not will vary by culture, industry and region. What I'd argue is usually not welcomed by employers is outright fraud. Which a "Ph.D." awarded by a diploma mill usually is.

@StephenKolassa Maybe, but I still feel all this ought to be mentioned to make this answer comprehensive. That's all.

Many universities award honorary degrees, such as a honorary doctorate. These are not PhDs, but might still be relevant to your question. I have often seen these types of degrees being awarded to people that have contributed a lot to a scientific field from outside of academia (but sometimes for far less, also see this wiki-section on controversies over honorary titles), usually for work that has been connected to the awarding university. Since they are awarded for many different types of contributions, the formal criteria for when to award them is also relatively vague. In all cases I know of, they are also awarded based on external nominations, and not self-nomination. Finally, recipients should usually not use the PhD or Dr titles. An honorary doctorate definately do not carry the same academic weight as a PhD, but can sometimes still be valuable, especially if they are from a reputable institution. As an example, this page provides further information on how the title of honorary doctor is used in Sweden (in this case at Uppsala University).
Also note that besides "legitimate" honorary degrees from reputable universities, some fraudulent insititutions or diploma mills also use the same title for their degrees.

Honorary doctorates are rare enough that this is a bit of a cart-before-the-horse situation. If you're reputable enough to be awarded an honorary doctorate, you're almost certainly reputable enough that earning one isn't very important. It's a very nice recognition, yes, but if you're being considered for one you've already arrived.

I was under the impression that most people awarded honorary doctorates had a PhD already, albeit in a different but related field.

@kleineg, I think it depends on the field: so that e.g. many D. Litt. recipients will be successful authors (J.K. Rowling has six at the last count, although her highest studied degree is a B.A.), whereas probably nearly all D. Math. recipients will have a Ph.D. in maths.

@chmullig I agree that a honorary doctorate is mostly an after-the-fact thing, and it seldom serves as an important addition to the CV. In my experience, they are often given to non-PhDs, but this might be field and country dependent.

In the UK, there is such a thing as a "PhD by publication/portfolio/published work". This requires firstly that your "work or life experience" has generated novel work of academic value comparable to that of a doctoral thesis. Depending on subject, this might mean publications in academic journals, or non-academic publication of research you've done in industry. If you're in an artsy subject, then sometimes you can get a PhD by publication of literature, fine art, architecture, and so on, that meets the institution's criteria of making a substantial contribution to the field.
It may additionally require substantial new work to review and tie together your existing published work, or at least to put it in the correct context.
This doesn't seem to be so much of a thing in the USA. That might be because the USA doesn't take the same view as the UK that the sole qualification for a PhD is a satisfactory thesis. US universities typically have other requirements in their doctoral programs, passing certain courses and whatnot, that are considered part of the qualifying criteria. They might be disinclined to let you skip that part. Or it might just be that US institutions don't consider it a worthwhile use of their time...
So, your options depend primarily on what country you're interested in, you'll have to check out the situation wherever you are in the world. If you have done work of the right kind and sufficient value, and can work with a university in the UK, then just search "PhD by publication" to find examples of institutions that offer them. Many but not all reputable institutions do.
Unless you count on the one hand honorary doctorates, or on the other hand worthless qualifications from unaccredited diploma mills, nowhere can you get a PhD for "life experience". PhDs are for doing research, they aren't an assessment of your educational background, and certainly are not for having interesting or educational things happen to you ;-)

Do you know examples of well-known academics who have gotten a PhD this way?

@Kimball Ludwig Wittgenstein? Similarly, in France, it's possible to be awarded a PhD based on previous publications and I have an acquaintance who go a PhD from a prestigious Dutch institution in a few months. She had worked on the topic for ~10 years and had written a lot of material before, but not as a candidate within that school's PhD program.

@Kimball: no, I don't know any examples. Wittgensten didn't use a specific "PhD by publication" route of the kind I'm talking about, it's just that the rules were such that nothing barred him from submitting as a doctoral thesis a work he'd published that just so happened to be acceptable. So the effect was the same, but I don't think Cambridge offers that routinely, they just "dealt with" his case as necessary to appoint him a fellow.

Someone who plans all along to be an academic very likely wouldn't even consider this route, there'd have to be some reason that at the point where they could have enrolled in a typical PhD program, they instead did research in a different way. If an example exists of a noted academic whose PhD is by a specific program of this kind, it'd probably be someone who switched careers, or who like Wittgenstein never graduated for personal reasons despite doing good work.

Not as such... at least from a reputable university.  I have known a few people to gain a PhD without having to do a full PhD program.  However, these people have undertaken a sufficient body of work themselves that, with some additional work, would qualify for a PhD.  The people I am thinking of are all 50+, and have had long-term jobs in their field of study.  They have already been working alongside academics in the Universities during their career, often contributing to research being produced.  They have also had to attend some classes, put together a thesis (which itself requires significant work), do their PhD defence, and any other course requirements.  This process still takes years.
On a side note, I would wonder why you want a PhD without putting in the work. Part of the PhD experience is the joy (and at times pitfalls) of conducting your own research.

There are exceptional people who achieve a PhD by publication at a younger age than that. E.g. Ramanujan was only 29.

I do know one chap who, being interested in a certain piece of technology that he uses at work, approached an academic at a reputable university and asked whether he could do research on it.  The academic agreed and the last time I spoke to the chap he had been working on his PhD for three years, whilst carrying on his job, and it was going well.  That is a case where work experience and original research were very close but the PhD, if granted, will still have been earned with original research.
A PhD is not like a master's degree - that is just a statement that the person in question has mastered a subject and could, in principle, be awarded simply by examination.  In my opinion mastering a subject is undervalued in the academic community but that is another matter.  A PhD should be awarded for original research only, but how and where you do that research should be open to flexibility, as in the case of my acquaintance.

This sounds similar to how I got my master's. I explained the methodoly as being "Action Research".

A Ph.D. is not awarded for just knowing a certain body of knowledge or taking a specific number of courses.  You must perform and document original research and defend it.  Also, a Ph.D. is not lost if one does not continue doing research (although one's reputation as a scholar might be lost). Because of ethical conduct (plagiarism, falsification of data), a very small number of Ph.D.s have been revoked. I believe this can be done only by the University that originally awarded it.  Anyone else can just fire or shame the miscreant.

How does this answer the question?

I think the first two sentences are meant as an answer, but the rest seems to be a comment on PyroTiger's answer, and should be posted as such.

In my experience, you won't get a Ph.D. degree with just work experience. You need to contribute to the community by producing journal articles and research papers. So as long as you have significantly contributed to the academic or social environment and the university recognizes your talent, yes you can get a Ph.D. on successful review of your publication.
Note: Ph.D. award is given for your contribution alone, not as a company or as a team.

Can you please give an example of where this is true?  This does not fit with my experience with reputable American institutions...

@jakebeal http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/looks-good-on-paper/416988.article Most of the results for "PhD by publication" are UK oriented, so maybe this is not a reputable route in the US.