text:
The right to use one's own name
I have been putting my name on university assignments even though I know it's not advised. Something to do with unconscious biases.
To me it's a moral principle to write my name on my work which is my way of claiming ownership. It's my work and me putting my name claims that. I feel like putting a number instead puts a sort of a distance.
Some professors have expressed slight disapproval but can they (or should they be able to) do more? I'd tell them that if someone in their position cannot be impartial they aren't suitable for their jobs but I can't really say that.

since when do you have a "right" to use your name? Just put the number and move on.

That is too particular to your uni for us to answer anything. Also, which country? That might also help making this be answerable

To clarify: you've been instructed to use some sort of anonymous identifier number on your assignments, rather than your name. However, instead or in addition to this anonymous ID, you are writing your name, and want to know whether you have the right to do this in contrast to the instructions you are given?

"I'd tell them that if someone in their position cannot be impartial they aren't suitable for their jobs" No offence intended, but this is a textbook example of confusing an ideal with reality. I recommend to beware of this confusion - taking ideals rather than reality as premises for your decisions will often lead to situations where you feel to be right rather than get what you want.

"I'd tell them that if someone in their position cannot be impartial they aren't suitable for their jobs but I can't really say that." This is wrong, pretty much everybody is affected by unconscious bias issues. You can look up research on that. It is not a personal problem of specific professors but rather a well known general effect that is addressed by anonymous marking.

"I feel like putting a number instead puts a sort of a distance." - so does grading in the first place. Why not settle for anything less than abolishing grading entirely and have resources distributed by the committee based on their general feeling about the work? All this grading and anonymization really creates extra distance between an author and their work... Point is, you are free to re-publish this assignment under your real name to "claim" it, but there is a good reason blind review practices are widely used.

There is a rule in your university that you don't write your name on assignment but instead some anonymized number. You don't like that rule and choose to break that rule and still put your name on your assignments. Now your question is: can there be consequences for me breaking that rule? What do you expect? Of course there can be consequences for breaking rules. It is the possibility of a sanction that makes a rule a rule. A rule is a set of actions that other are supposed to take or not take plus the implicit or explicit understanding that not doing so will have consequences.
What those sanctions are in your case depends on the local institution. That can range from being invited for a stern talk, to a reduction of your grade, to your work not being graded at all. They may decide that what you did is not worth the hassle of a sanction, but there is no guarantee.
In essence you have chosen a specific form of protest by breaking it: civil disobedience. You break a rule that you believe is unjust and accept the punishment to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of that rule. Choosing this form of protest means that you are willing to bear the consequences of your actions, not that you are protected from those consequences.
There were probably more effective ways of protesting open to you. There is probably a complains procedure. There are probably various committees you could go to. You can talk to the department head. Typically you would first organize multiple students to join you.
Than there is the question whether you are right. It may be helpful to look at the pros and cons for putting your name on an assignment.
The pro You are proud of your work and you feel that putting your name on it is more personal than a number. So the benefit for putting your name on those assignments is the feeling of pride in your own work that you get from putting your name on it. Your feelings are yours and legitimate and real. So that is a real benefit. Moreover, I think you are right that your achievements should be celebrated in some form.
The cons Subconscious bias is real. Remember that teachers are human, and unconscious bias is deeply ingrained in society. It is not something that can be easily overcome, and you can make a valid argument that it is impossible to completely overcome. Educators should take action to reduce their subconscious bias, but grading assignments anonymously will provide an extra layer of protection for students against unconscious bias. It also protects the teachers and the institution against accusations of bias.
So whoever made that rule had to balance your feeling of pride in your work against the protection of the students, the teacher, and the institution. I think they made the right decision by saying the protection is more important.
If you choose a very confrontational way of protesting that decision, then the likely outcome will be that they explain to you why they think they made the right decision, and that will be the end of it. The rule will stand, and if you choose to break it you will be sanctioned. If you choose a more constructive form of protest, then the rule will in all likelihood still be maintained but they may look for alternative ways of celebrating your work.

Concerning uniqueness, there is a certain anonymity in being named Bob Brown.  :-)

Surely the more genuine issue is have a unique_identifier for students, so that (for example!) people with exactly the same name can be distinguished!
And, at least for convenience of computerization and so on, the system for assignment of unique identifiers may need to be done centrally, not by individuals self-assigning a (hoped-to-be unique) identifier. The potential anonymizing aspects are not necessarily connected to this uniqueness issue.
Abstractly, not in any particular system, if you want to add your real-life name, in addition to the unique identifier for the situation, I'd not see an objection.
Concretely, I can imagine that graders might complain that, when you de-anonymize yourself, you create the possibility that they will be accused, by you, of acting prejudicially.

Let's just use ORCiDs instead, yes yes!

I'll guess that you have no basis for a complaint unless you can show some real, tangible, harm that arises from such a regulation and that the harm accrues to you. Your "desire" to behave otherwise has little standing.
No one is using this system to "steal" your work, I assume. Somewhere there is a correspondence between the id number and your name, so your "authorship" is easy to verify.
Such regulations normally have a purpose, in this case attempting to assure, perhaps imperfectly, fair grading. Unless you have a specific claim that this does you harm, you are better to go along.
Also note that no one here has the authority to give you permission to break university (or course) regulations.


text:
Is being a poor writer a serious impediment as a researcher?
Is being a poor writer a serious impediment as a researcher? I mean if you're particularly bad at writing reports and always get bad feedback as a student for your reports, does that mean my research career would never take off?
The question asks whether researchers working in teams are all required to contribute to composing the reports or can you get away with it if you compensate with other skills?

Related: Does writing matter a lot in research?

Not as much as it should be, unfortunately.

+1 For recognizing that you aren't currently an effective writer, and not simply subjecting others to your lack of skills in that particular area.  As Buffy mentions below, writing skills can be learned, so don't give up hope.  Instead, you can start learning how to become a better writer! :)

I'd argue that if you feel you're "bad at writing", maybe the real problem is that your level of understanding of whatever you're trying to convey isn't quite what it should be. Writing is a merciless process that exposes every little weakness you might have at the subject.

Poor communication is a serious impediment in every career, not just academic research.

If you are doing real, substantive research, then I'd say that you have learned how to do much more difficult things than learning how to write decently. Maybe you need to take a few writing classes, find the right resources, and ask for help, and find a tutor. But almost anyone would say doing original research is by far more difficult. So, believe in yourself, and make plans to learn this skill over the next 2 or 3 years.

I second that good writing is important for any career, but I want to clarify that there are always bad writers everywhere. You can do great things without good writing, but good writing can help you do even more great things.

Example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57174581 This text looks like one of those kids wrote it. I could do better.

As far poor communication is limited to the papers writing, is a hindrance that can be circumvented or even overcame. Don't be pessimistic. Use good papers as models and colleagues for confrontation/seeking advice.

It is a problem that research papers are after boilerplate and full of superfluous jargon because the authon doesn't understand his/her own work well enough to use own words.

One thing which I have found helpful is to read a lot of papers and then identify what it is about them which makes some of them more easy and pleasant to read, what is it that is helping them to communicate their points.

Yes, you need to be able to write to be successful in academia, as in many things.
But it is a skill that can be learned. You can take courses and you can practice. And, as with most learning, practice with feedback is the path. It isn't a short path, necessarily, but it is one that you can follow.
Actually, there are courses in both creative writing and technical writing.
You need to write with both precision and clarity and sometimes those are in opposition. But practice (with feedback) helps.

You've really captured the essence of the primary points in a friendly way.  Excellent example of effective writing!

+100: "it is a skill that can be learned. You can take courses and you can practice" - yes, you will not become a brilliant writer, but you will become an effective one with training and discipline.

If one truly cannot write coherently, yes, that is a serious impediment.
Yes, when/if you get negative feedback on your reports, it means that you need to improve the quality of your writing in those reports.
That's it.
But/and one's writing ability is not an immovable object. One can improve, with effort. Effort.

It's not this bad. I can write reasonably well and coherently and am getting better still. The problem is when there is a report with must follow strict rules and improvisation and creativity is frowned upon. I don't approve because that makes some publications extremely dull.

The good news is that in academia there are many fewer of these kinds of contexts ("strict rules ... improvisation and creativity is frowned upon"). That sounds more like a corporate or government environment ...

@Peter If you are writing a grant proposal, a job application cover letter, or suchlike, the point is that the reader is looking for specific information and usually will be working under time pressure. Therefore, if the required information is not easy to find it may not be found at all, and if the document contains a lot of irrelevant content the reader may decide simply to reject it rather than spend an excessive amount of time attempting to process it. Use your "improvisation and creativity" for how you carry out the research, not for how you write it up!

No, poor writing as a student is not necessarily an impediment to becoming a good researcher. You will just need to work hard to improve and find a good advisor or fellow researcher to critique your writing.
I think that good writing is linked with good thinking. I have spent a lot of time reading work by non-native English speakers. Sometimes, even if the grammar and word usage is wrong, I can easily tell what the writer is trying to say because their writing is logical and well-organized. I have a colleague whose mother tongue doesn't have articles. He will probably miss some necessary "a"s and put "the"s where they are not needed for the rest of his life, but this is quite easy for any native speaker to clean up since his arguments are always very clear. Writing style is less important than logic and organization and, for students early in their career, this is often the biggest problem. This sometimes has nothing to do with writing style and everything to do with the fact that they don't really have a broad understanding of the research field they are writing about: they include many small irrelevant details and do not make the necessary big picture arguments. Also, they often put no thought into organization and just spill out the ideas in a random order with no links between them.
Of the several graduate students and postdocs I've mentored (~15), almost all started out as what I would call poor writers. They all improved through writing their own papers and going through many drafts with me. I suggest that you find an advisor who you consider to be a reasonably good writer and is willing to go through your papers with you, making specific comments on how you can improve. If your advisor won't help you, see if you can find another researcher willing to help. Talk to other students in the group and find out if they are good at mentoring their students through writing.
Writing is absolutely essential for an academic research career, and after becoming relatively senior you will spend most of your time writing.
If you are a non-native English speaker, you may think you are a poor writer because people correct mistakes in your grammar or word usage. I wouldn't worry too much about this because these things can be superficial. Focus on a logical argument and good organization, and you can probably find a coworker (or pay someone) to fix your English.

On a slightly unrelated note: what gave me away that I am not a native speaker? Specifically I mean, I'm curious what made you reach this conclusion?

@Peter Nothing in your question gave me this idea! The grammar in the question at least seems perfect. It was just a guess based on statistics (probably most people doing science are not native speakers). Even in my department, which is based in a majority English-speaking country, graduate students who are native English speakers in the minority.

It depends what kind of a research team you're on. It will be hard to succeed in an academic (tenure-track) research professorship if you write poorly, because you would always have to find collaborators to help you with grant proposals and research papers; and, there is an expectation that you will be an independent researcher, which will be harder to establish if you always have to co-author grants and papers (for example, the main source of funding for many Canadian STEM researchers is the Discovery Grant program, which is a solo rather than a group submission).
There may be some niches in industry or governmental labs/research groups where you could successfully delegate the writing to someone else. You could also aim for a permanent technical position in a large academic lab, but these positions are (1) rare; (2) often based on "soft money" (i.e. you or your supervisor would have to keep writing successful grants for you to keep your job); (3) less well paid/less prestigious than typical solo-research-professor positions.

It is a serious impediment, but I personally know people who, despite being successful researchers, have immense problems with writing a paragraph of clear text in a grammatically correct english. There are not that many of them though.
Regarding how to deal with that, apart from the obvious solution proposed (improve with effort), another possibility is to find and join a team where you'll be responsible for something you're good at, another person would be responsible for writing, and you'll publish together. This is very situational and does not happen too often, but it exists.

In my personal experience, being unable to write clearly is often a sign of being unable to think clearly, and the muddled thinking may be a more serious issue than the muddled writing.

+1, there are some researchers that are so brilliant in other ways (creativity, technical skill, etc.) that they can be successful by collaborating with others who will do most if not all of the writing. But this cannot solve all issues (especially for documents you must write on your own, e.g., theses, applications, etc.). Also, there are also researchers which are brilliant and great writers, so do not take this as an excuse for writing poorly. :)

In order to be successful in academia, one has to be performant in teaching, research, applications for grants and administrative tasks. If being a poor writer is not a so huge problem if you have to fill a form, this can be a problem:

in teaching, as it will be harder for the students to understand your notes;
in research. One can have the best idea in the world, but it might not be appreciated or even publish if one is not able to present it in an understandable way.
In application for grant (but more generally in any application), as it is difficult to be convincing by writing poorly.

This being said, the good new is that there is always the possibility to improve. Sometimes it is difficult to have criticism on what we wrote ourselves, like the phenomenon where you mentally correct some typos. It can be a good way to read what you wrote as if it was written by your worst enemy and you would like to criticize it as much as possible.
Also, take profit of the feedback you got on your writing.
To answer the last question, contribution of the authors is usually very dependent on the field you work. An understatement is that everybody would prefer to work with a good writer than a bad one.
To conclude, one can have in mind the 5C-rule for writing:

correctness
concision
completeness of the information
clarity
coherence

and each text/report you write should satisfy this.

Why these questions would work better than the 5C rule?

This is from a non-native-speaker, STEM perspective.

It is common for undergraduate/graduate students to be bad at
writing at the beginning.
In countries like Russia and China, an undergraduate or a graduate student often obtains their first good results while they still lack English skill to write them up. Old-generation Russian professors used to write up the results of their students (without being listed as co-authors).
Most of the accomplished researchers have decent writing skills. It might be, of course, selection, but I suspect they just learn. If you are able to make progress in modern science, then you are smart and hence you can learn to write (of course, barring certain medical conditions).
In STEM fields, minimal sufficient level is rather low. It's OK to use simple language and a toolbox of standard expressions, follow a standard template (e. g. "Definition - Example - Lemma - Proof - Theorem - Proof"). The outcome may be dry and not "beautifully written", but if the result is interesting enough, this will not prevent people from reading.
While it is true that there are courses that teach writing (and it's good to take them!), I suspect that, just like generally with languages, most learning happens through osmosis, exposure and practice. As you read many research papers, you will start picking up from them. Also, you will inevitably practice writing up you own results.
No, not all team members have to participate in writing. It suffices
that one member of a team of co-authors writes the text. If someone takes up this task and the result is not satisfactory, the co-authors who are more qualified will edit.
Don't shy away from writing tasks in a team if your writing skills are poor, use this opportunity to practice and learn.

The following assumes that "poor writer" means that you have profound problems in explaining yourself in written manner. If this is the case it is a serious impediment.
Presenting results is almost as important as obtaining them. Especially when trying to get funding or get published in high impact factor journals. I've seen drafts that were almost incomprehensible and required massive editing to carve out the obfuscated but substantial results. Writing up results is a large aspect of academia and I don't think that someone who lacks the ability to present their results in an intelligible manner will prevail on their own. Most of the time, you can find help in some form, so not all is lost, but it is certainly a hurdle that one needs to take.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Is buying lecture notes wrong?
I am a second-year undergraduate student and in autumn I'll be starting my third year and after that there is the final fourth. I've come accross someone's lecture notes on eBay. The same uni. It's several years old so some stuff will have changed. It's not the ones we would receive from the lecturers, it's own work albeit based on lectures contents.
Nothing relevant to the assignments is there, only the theory. I intend to prepare during the summer to jump ahead because I want to pursue more advanced topics so it's not strictly out of laziness. I want to learn faster and I question the level of teaching, they don't care about initiative and ambition and I feel like they're holding me back.
Is there anything wrong with that?

why do you think there might be anything wrong with that?

There exist universities that sell such lecture notes officially.

We were sharing or giving out the notes for free. Perhaps is the buying that does not sound very good :)

This seems to be a version of another Q: how much should I prepare for a class in advance? Should I read the book over the summer? etc... . To me it's a waste of time. Read stuff where you took the prereq but didn't understand a few things, or things where there's no class.

Many textbooks are merely repackaged sets of lecture notes, with exercises.

@Keith McClary raises an interesting point - was this one singular set for sale once only, or had someone made a run of multiple copies ?

I don't see anything wrong. If it were answers to exam questions, or even homework, then I'd be concerned. But the notes give you an alternate explanation of many topics and that is very useful (and proper). Books do the same, of course.
It is a fact that not every explanation of a complex topic is equally informative to a student. Having an alternative way of looking at topics can give you insight that you might not get from the lecture alone. It also gives you a way to prepare for an actual lecture beforehand, so that you are more likely to pick up the important points.
The earlier notes can also be a source of questions for the instructor, or for yourself.
But don't use it as an excuse not to attend the lectures, or pay attention. Additionally, since the act of making notes (read: actively and efficiently summarising the important points of a lecture), is, for most people, a very good way to learn, it would most likely be a mistake to buy the notes as a substitute for making your own.

If it were answers to exam questions or even homework, then I'd be concerned Why would you? Homework or exam questions are ultimately just exercises. They should not be secret, and the lecturer should not rely on such a secret (because people who passed the exam last year can share the details)

Also worth noting that someone else's notes may or may not be helpful to you. What is deemed noteworthy and the way notes are recorded can vary greatly from student to student. If you purchase someone else's notes, be mindful that while they may have been perfectly adequate for the original author, your own mileage may vary.

@WoJ Sometimes lecturers reuse exam questions, so buying the exam questions from previous years can be a form of cheating - you should ask the lecturer for permission first, to verify that it's okay, before you study previous years' exam questions.

@nick012000 I have to disagree. Homework and exam questions are public knowledge - from the moment one shard them with 100 or 500 people one cannot expect that they will be secret. There may be copyright concerns (I do not know much about that) but not cheating. We have (in France) books about the exact questions of past exams (you can also download them free) and they won't repeat.

Here in Germany it is very common to buy exam solutions for a small fee (it is even officially encouraged). If your professor/lecturer is so lazy to require to keep solutions secret, they are pretty bad imo and not doing anyone a favor (since solutions will always leak no matter what). Also (at least in math/CS) it is often encouraged to solve homework together. And for lecture notes, many professors give out their notes (sometimes several hundred pages long) for free (digitally)

@WoJ Sure, best practice is not to repeat exam questions - but would you want to be the student that gets accused of cheating because one of their professors did?

@nick012000: this is actually what I was thinking about - if it was me I would not care if someone said that because (at least where I live) the argument that past questions are secret even if delivered to 500 students would not hold water.

There's nothing ethically wrong with using resources outside of class for the purpose of teaching yourself the material. If anything, going beyond what you are given in the course to educate yourself is wonderful and indeed something that is expected at the graduate student level.
Having said that I would just add a few words of advice.

You might want to check that you are getting the best resource for the money you are spending. If you don't want to spend money, there are lecture notes for many undergraduate (and graduate) level courses online for free that you can use. If you do want to spend money, you could also consider buying a book (or you could borrow a book from the library if you don't want to spend money). Are you sure there is material in the lecture notes you can't get another way?
Of course another set of lecture notes not used by the professor will have some differences in emphasis, notation, order of material, and so on. Ultimately you will have to turn in assignments and take exams from your professor, so you may need to translate what you learn from other sources into your professor's notation / way of thinking.
It is a good thing to be ambitious and to supplement your own education. But, generally it's not a good idea to assume your professors are not doing their best to provide a good education; even if you don't see the point in what they are teaching you at the time, as you advance you may see that foundations were being laid for later courses.

The cost was quite honestly symbolic. I read textbooks, books and original publications too. There are mistakes in those notes but that's not a problem because I can spot them as I develop understanding. I never take anyone's word for it anyway, I choose what to believe.

@Peter In that case, sounds great!

@Peter I realize I misread and thought "lecture notes" meant "notes written by a professor" as opposed to "notes taken by a student." I still don't think there's anything wrong (assuming there aren't solutions to homeworks you aren't supposed to have or something), but I would put a bit more weight on the "make sure you are getting the best resource" bullet point. Make sure the person is good, the notes are readable, etc.

To reiterate points made in other answers and comments: no, in terms of learning things (!!!), it is absolutely fine to make use of other peoples' prior work. It would be laughable if we all had to reinvent the wheel, etc.
Yet, yes, there are some forms of academic stuff wherein there are "rules" prohibiting looking at all the stuff out in the world. The most ridiculous type is "it's not ok to use an idea not covered yet in the course".
The latter concept only makes sense if "education" is an exercise in conformity to authority, rather than ... education. It's ridiculous.
Nevertheless, I hear gossip that some people do ridiculous things. Incredible... in a bad way.
EDIT: yes, certainly, as mentioned in comments (and as many people know), there is substantial reason to understand "what implies what", and often a sort of annihilating over-kill is far less enlightening than a more-restricted-means explanation.
In fact, questions which may be extremely awkward from a too-elementary viewpoint that become transparent from a more sophisticated viewpoint are things that I myself like to emphasize to my students in graduate courses. Not everything does yield to a more sophisticated viewpoint, of course. But quite a few of the introduction-to-advanced-math questions are indeed hardly tractable from an elementary viewpoint (and this is visible historically, motivating a great deal of modern math!), but/and become mundane from our contemporary viewpoint (which was motivated by wanting to mundane-ize such questions, hm!).

Regarding "it's not ok to use an idea not covered yet in the course", I think there's a difference between learning about an idea not covered yet in a course and using it for solving assignment problems. The former should of course be completely allowed, but it might be reasonable to put temporary restrictions on the latter if it helps in mastering a specific idea currently being covered. (But this is somewhat beside the point, and +1 for the answer).

Here's a reasonable example of "not ok to use an idea not covered in the course" (in math): if a homework assignment is to prove a special case of Theorem X, with the idea that this homework will serve as ground work for a later lecture that will actually prove Theorem X, then turning in an answer like "this problem is true because it is a special case of Theorem X" is not really doing anyone any good. The key thing is to understand the ideas and to understand your prof's expectations. Anyway I +1-ed this answer, I think the idea is right.

You can always use any method you want but if it hasn't been covedred then you must prove it. If it's an exam and the proof would be too long then it's not usable. But if a specific method is stipulated than using that partucular idea is part of the assignment and you must use it.

I agree with the answers already provided in that there is nothing "wrong" with purchasing the lecture notes, but I would add one question to you in return:
"Is it optimal?"
Your intentions to use it as a supplement rather than a replacement are admirable but you should know that some fields move quite quickly. If it were lecture notes on, say, web technology or some software API, then I would say "Don't waste your money". That's an extreme example because web technology and some software packages move pretty quick and you often want to start your learning with the most up-to-date technology. Even "history" gets updated as new finds are uncovered, although the pace might be slower than technology.
If some of the courses have changed lecturer, or been updated, you might find that ploughing through 2-year-old notes is irrelevant, confusing and a waste of effort. But you should be able to tell quite quickly as long as you're using it as a supplement rather than a replacement.

If it is a verbatim copy of the blackboard, it might be a copyright violation.

Interesting point - the lecturer is writing notes up/slides that contain wording for the physically-present students to learn and remember, with the intention of them writing it down.  Noone would call that copyright violation, so is it the Selling ?

@Criggie IANAL, whether Selling or free, it involves making additional copies. If OP is in  Eritrea, Turkmenistan or San Marino it might be legal, but is it "wrong".

@KeithMcClary: When are the "additional" copies made? The students make notes in the lecture, which is a copy, sure, but they have permission for that (and so not a violation). If they then sell that copy they made in the lecture, no extra copies are made.

@psmears The student received the original presentation of the lecture, not the students' notes. The student's notes are a derived work of which the lecturer and the student are co-authors. The two co-authors must agree to any redistribution of the notes. The exact legal theory is likely different from country to country, but I think the gist would be the same pretty much everywhere.

@psmears (cont.) In France, the student has permission to make and modify copies (the student's notes) for the student's private use, but not to redistribute these copies (unless they were redistributing the lecture presentation itself, which is materially impossible). Selling the notes without the approval of the lecturer, who is a co-author, is a copyright violation. In the US, this would fall under “fair use”: taking notes during a lecture is fair use, but selling the notes isn't.

@Gilles: I agree that, in practice, the notes would be a derived work, made by the student from the lecturer's original presentation - but note that this answer specifically refers to the notes being a verbatim copy of the blackboard, so it's form-shifting rather than a new work. Yes, it absolutely will depend on the local law; I'm referring (as this answer does too) to jurisdictions where "making a copy" is what's restricted - so yes, I'd guess in the US passing on the notes would likely be OK under a similar rationale to the "first sale doctrine". My main point is there's no extra copy!

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


text:
Is Stealing Ideas Common in Academia? Should I be Worried About Potential Theft?
I am attending my first conference this week, and yesterday I attended a poster session and stopped by one that belonged to a lab manager of a lab quite similar to mine. I am also a lab manager, and was pretty excited to meet someone that's more of a "colleague" to me, since most attendees are professors/postdocs/PhD students and I was quite overwhelmed. Due to the nervousness/excitement I got swept away and I talked a bit about an idea I'm currently working on/am hoping to pursue (I didn't delve in TOO deep but I did mention the current question/a bit of the paradigm). I'm now super paranoid about the possibility of it being taken despite the fact that the girl was very friendly (I know this does not matter that much though). I realize that what I did was not the smartest (it was very stupid actually), and I definitely won't be repeating the same mistake again. How should I go about "protecting" my idea, now that I let it out in the open? How wary should I be? I know that this situation might not end up being the biggest deal, but I'd also like to know the prevalence of "idea stealing" for future reference/caution.

Similar questions have been asked often. The answers: Ideas are a dime a dozen. Preliminary work is best protected by publishing early. Primacy is best established by talking about your ideas often and publicly, leaving a record. See e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28398/can-one-publish-ideas-well-before-one-has-evidence-proving-the-ideas-work/ and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97349/can-a-phd-supervisor-take-unpublished-ideas-from-a-students-dissertation/ and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8278/worry-about-stealing-of-research-ideas & many more

@henning yes it does, thank you!!

To supplement the excellent answer and the comment, I would like to add a quote from Howard Aiken: “Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”

Probably you should spend your efforts worrying about other things. Likely, if you have spent time and effort on an idea you are well ahead of anyone who would want to "steal" it. There is some of what you fear that goes on, but ideas can't be "owned". They are free for anyone to develop. And in a "hot" area you can be assured that many of your ideas are shared by others, some of whom are closer to resolution than you are.
Spend you effort on developing the ideas and getting the papers written.
An exactly opposite view, of course, is that talking about your ideas can build a web of collaboration that is both good for its members and also advances scientific knowledge.
Don't waste your mental effort on paranoia. It isn't productive.


text:
Is it Unethical to Work in Two Labs at Once?
I am a post-bac who is looking to gain some more experience doing psych research before applying to PhD programs in the fall. I am currently a lab manager at a cognition lab, but am essentially part-time until the fall due to COVID, so I have a bit of free time that I can dedicate to other things. As such, I went out looking for labs that I can volunteer a few hours at. I found one that piqued my interest, and after reaching out, I landed an interview. However, now I'm sort of worried that my other PI might get a bit upset, even though I'm only looking to volunteer until the end of the summer. I know working under two labs is technically not a taboo, but I don't know if doing something like this would be considered rude/unethical (since I am hired at one position and not the other)...

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

Unless there are real or perceived conflicts of interest there should be no ethical issue here. If the two labs are sufficiently distinct then conflicts are unlikely.
But, to protect yourself, you should let the PIs of both labs know of your work in the other. Don't try to hide it or questions might be raised.

The labs are both developmental psychology labs, but one investigates numerical cognition while the other is more interested in social cognition. Should I let my PI know before or after the interview? Also thank you so much for the response!

Probably before is better. If you get pushback you want to know early.

@user134088 Check also university regulations: some universities may require you to get a formal approval from the department.

I fully agree, but it may be wise to also carefully check for possible breaches of confidentiality. Even without a direct conflict, using information from one lab that is still confidential at that point in time could cause an issue.


text:
Using photos obtained from academic homepages in a research seminar talk
I am preparing a research seminar talk in an academic discipline which I'll give online (with Beamer) at University X.
I like to show images of the people whose ideas have gone into my work. Most of the time I can get images which have been clearly released under some form of Creative Commons License, allowing me to use it provided I attribute the copyright holder. However this is not always possible, and sometimes the only photo I can find of Person Y is on their personal homepage at University Z, where there is no mention of copyright on the image, or whether it may be used by others.

Is one allowed to use the photos found on the personal webpages of people working at academic institutions for non-commercial purposes such as in the slides of a research seminar talk, if there is no explicit mention of copyright or limitations on its use by others?

To avoid dilemmata,I always use attributable images with a permissive copyright and citation to avoid difficulties. If your seminar is non-public, you might use other pictures as per "fair use", unfortunately, today you will never know who will film you or tweet an image of your slides publicly on the web for everybody to see. I guess whether this is acceptable is still legally uncharted territory.

Contact those people by email

To avoid all questions, and in the absence of a clear license, ask the person for permission to use a picture. They might even have a better one that they would prefer be used.
For a deceased person, ask the university, either through their former department head or a university publicity office. If they can't grant you a right to use it, they can possibly put you in contact with someone who holds the rights, such as their estate, for example.
I don't guess anyone would turn you down, and this is simple enough to do.

Only last year I wrote to a very famous person in my field asking whether I could use his photograph from a public web page in a textbook I'm working on.  I sent a sample page showing how it would be used.  Almost instantly I got back a very nice email and a much better photograph.

It's quite possible the person who needs to give permission is neither Y nor Z.

@AnonymousPhysicist  Yes.  In the United States, there's this "right of publicity" which (usually) does belong to Y.  Then there's the copyright on the photo itself, which often belongs to the photographer.  In most cases, Y can give consent that would keep OP out of trouble, though.

In the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, copyright exists as soon as a "creative work" is "fixed in a tangible medium." So, in the United States every modern photograph is covered by copyright. The Creative Commons license is just that, a license to use the work. If there's no mention of a license, then the assumption should be that use is not allowed without prior approval.
Copyright law in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere, includes the doctrine of fair use, which in some cases permits unlicensed use of material under copyright.  The trouble with that is, fair use claims are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis, so one could be sued and even prevail, but have to bear the cost of defending the suit.  The U.S. Copyright Office has a lot more information on fair use.
Your best course, as Buffy has already written, is to contact the person whose image you want to use, and ask.
I guess I should add that images of people who are deceased are a different and messier can of worms.  The decedent's estate likely owns the image.  Images of, e.g. a famous actor, might be owned by a corporation.  I haven't worried about images of people who died before 1920 because there were major changes in U.S. copyright laws that made 1920 an important date, but this isn't legal advice, and I could possibly come to regret not worrying.

Thanks for your answer. The comments about country-specific copyright laws are interesting especially in a post-Covid world where many seminars have moved online, with speaker, audience and "venue" distributed across the globe, making jurisdiction very hard to pin-down. Regarding older content, my understanding was that copyrights generally only last for the life of the creator plus 70 years, after which it enters the public domain, so I'd have thought images of people who died before 1920 would be fine. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer!)

@BarinderBanwait Do note that the creator of a photograph is the photographer, not the subject.  Under the life plus 70 rule, it is entirely possible that a photograph taken before1920 would still be covered by a valid copyright.  It was a change to the copyright law that made important.  The change itself was made in 1976; my original post was incorrect in that respect.

What you say about copyright in the first sentence is true (almost) everywhere, thanks to the Berne Convention, which the vast majority of countries are signatories to. However, I do not think that a doctrine of "fair use" is necessarily accepted internationally, although it is likely pretty universally accepted in the academic world (presuming proper citations, of course).


text:
Undergraduate and Job Reference Letter for PhD Program?
So I did my masters in the UK, but I didn't build any relationships with my professors (I wasn't thinking I would be wanting to do a PhD later on). I only saw my thesis tutor once during my whole dissertation. Now I want to apply to a PhD scholarship, and they ask for reference letters. I am currently employed in my home country and I can get reference letters from my job and from my undergraduate program that as well, I completed in my home country.
I think my chances of being granted with a scholarship decreases because I will not be submitting a reference letter from my Master's degree...
What do you think I should do?

The absence of a reference from your latest academic qualification will raise questions. I think it would be better to get a less than glowing letter than have nothing at all.

Will there be bad things written in a recommendation letter for your masters? Or is the worst thing which could happen is that your tutor would write that they didn't see you much due to X (where X is not your fault), and thus provide a cautious assessment?
If if is the latter, I agree with Spark's answer that it is good to have such a letter. People will read it, they will understand that they should not give it too much weight after reading it, and they will also see that you have nothing to hide, and nothing bad happened during your master.
You should really only not have a letter from your last qualification step if you expect it to be negative. Not having such a letter will raise questions and tend to count against you.


text:
Where can I find resources on how to be a good supervisor?
I am a relatively new tenured professor. My responsibilities increase gradually, and this year I have started supervising students' thesis: a bachelor thesis and a master thesis. (This is in Europe, so master thesis is not PhD-lite).
Somehow it feels like I am expected to already know how to be a supervisor. There are no resources anywhere that I can find. The training I received at the start of my tenure focused exclusively on classroom teaching, and my PhD/postdoc only prepared me to be a researcher, not a supervisor. Of course, I already know more or less what a supervisor does - after all, I have been supervised through many academic endeavors myself and I was able to observe. I also have experienced colleagues who have supervised students for years that I can observe or to whom I can ask advice.
But I don't think that this is "good enough". There are certainly some skills that I can improve, some issues that I can plan ahead for, etc, that I haven't noticed while I was myself supervised: after all, I was busy with my own project at the time, I was not learning how to supervise. I'm also sure that there are some things that were done / should have been done by my former supervisors that I can't have noticed (e.g. how to set an agenda and stick to it for a meeting, how to adapt to roadblocks, etc). Moreover, like everyone, my own experience is unique, and the students I'm going to supervise are not me: what do I do if a student loses a relative, becomes discouraged, or on the contrary outperforms everything I've expected, needs more guidance than I can provide, needs a less hands-on supervision, needs career advice about a career I've never thought about...???
I realize that this is a huge task, so I am certainly not asking for a full answer right now - knowing stackexchange's reputation, such a question would probably get closed immediately for being too wide without concern for whether the question would actually be helpful to myself and, I hope, many other people. Anyway. I will instead ask for resources on supervisory skills: books, websites, classes, etc. What have you found that helped you become a good supervisor?

You seem to have the right attitude about it. Flexibility, for example. I think you'll do fine.

Have you checked whether your university provides any relevant staff training courses? At the universities I've seen in Europe, this would be pretty standard.

I won't give a formal answer, since it isn't what you specifically ask for, but I think your colleagues are your best resource. The department coffee lounge (now zoomed, I guess) is a good place to ask and get advice. Not all of the advice will be good, of course, so filter it.

@lighthousekeeper I have checked and I did not find any resources, no. French universities are drastically underfunded.

I've never checked, but the EUA Council for Doctoral Education should have some guidelines and resources (may need membership).

@user134438 Could also be that they have courses, but are just poor with communicating the information about them. Definitely worth checking with your department/division head or a trusted colleague.

Try to find a mentor amongst the more senior staff.

https://www.aspirealliance.org/equity-in-action-pd-series

In my experience, it comes down to caring about your work, and by extension any students following you.  If you care, that means you will strive for competency in your chosen subjects and help students achieve their potential.  Also, every student is different.  So you need to 'customize' your care accordingly.   Lastly, search this forum for horror stories about supervision.  I'm sure you will have a list of things not to do as a supervisor; e.g., 'my supervisor doesn't know anything about research, what do I do?'

There are three sources that I would look into.

Internal: you got a PhD and had fellow students share their experiences. What worked for you? What didn't? Advising is a very personal process so I think it's wise to make it your own.

Departmental: what are the advising norms in your department? Do you have a department mentor, or does the university offer workshops to new faculty? If so - attend them. They are invaluable for you to understand how your university perceives the advisory role, which may be different from place to place.

External resources: there are several online resources, I personally found this piece by The Professor is In here useful; this Science article is also very useful. TL;DR: be consistent, honest (for better and worse), supportive and attentive.

Good luck!

I agree with consistent and honest. In most cases a "Spark" of understanding and kindness also does not go amiss. In very rare cases, strictness is necessary, but better not to onboard students who need this in the first place.

1 and 2 can perpetuate bad practices.

Well, since OP's advisor has produced at least one student who's managed to secure a tenure track faculty position, then they're doing something right. Also note that I specifically mention that you should look at what didn't work as well as what worked.

Congratulations on a relatively recent permanent academic position. This all sounds... very familiar. While I actually had to attend a mandatory "PhD supervisor training", the whole thing lasted for maybe an hour. Yet in my first year I ended up supervising a MSc (by coursework as opposed to by research) project, a MSc intern, a BSc inter, a postdoc, and starting with a second postdoc now (for various reasons, no PhD students as such). I was also expected to get involved in many other things I've never done before (mainly grant writing) and I sorely missed all the watercooler wisdom I couldn't get due to WFH and the pandemic.
It was a mixed success: while I think I handled an intern dealing with an extremely painful and difficult personal situation as well as I could have, I am currently categorically refusing to even consider supervising that person in the future as I fear I may not be able to do right by them if something like that happens again. (And I'm still trying to decide if this makes me a bad person or a bad supervisor.) However, my MSc student recently let me know that when considering job applications after working with me, they realised what excites them the most is research and are looking into PhD programmes. I have not stopped bragging yet :)
The sources I would recommend are very similar but slightly different to what Spark is suggesting:

Are you still in touch with any of your former colleagues from your PhD?
I did this by chance rather than planned, but I had a reunion with my PhD-mates just before the pandemic hit and I started the new post. We did a bit of reminiscing, but we also ended up discussing our PhDs and supervision and how that influenced our careers after our PhDs. A lot of "my supervisor did this and that had this effect", and "my supervisor never did that and it took me a couple of years to realise it on my own".

I relentlessly ask for help and advice. Very politely and never insisting that I deserve somebody's attention straight away. Don't rely on any one person's help, but by all means, do ask for it (and take opportunities when they're offered).
Do your best, try to improve, but if you get stuck, don't postpone asking for guidance. That is, in the end, what I was hoping for from my students, so I just got over myself and followed my own advice.
Try to talk to colleagues with different supervision styles and research styles from yours if possible. A curious thing I noticed is that despite the fact that I am very much a "beginner" in my new role, people are suddenly wary of giving me advice. I found that what helps is making it crystal clear that I am asking for advice - a datapoint - to help me reach a decision, but the decision itself is still mine and I take full responsibility of it.
Involve a third person in the meetings to help, or to moderate, if you still can not make it work.

Do your own research into supervision, look for materials, learn from them. As you say, your education so far prepared you to do research. From the looks of it, your main area of expertise is not pedagogy, but you should have the skills to tackle a new area, even it if is quite removed from what you know.
To be fair, starting with full-blown research texts and literature would have been too much for me. The best and most accessible resource I found was this Vlog by the Dean of Graduate Research at Flinders University (no affiliation). The Dean is an absolutely amazing and intense Professor who worked and supervised students all around the world. While most of the Vlogs (counting over 250 30min videos at this point) are aimed at PhD students, some are also specifically made for early career researchers, the topics presented are meticulously researched and presented through supporting literature rather than personal experience, and they're fantastic.
Spend 30 minutes to an hour every week (day?) learning about supervision. Watch some videos, read some papers, read academia.se. Check out the training offered by your University, even if scoffed on by your colleagues, and decide for yourself how useful they are.

In the end, I think you are already doing the most important thing: caring, considering the right questions, and trying to find the answers.

Tara Brabazon and the Office of Graduate Research at Flinders Universities have very good resources on PhD supervision. See for example Why do students change supervisors?.
Also ALLEA the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities.
There are journals like Accountability in Research with interesting papers on academic issues.

There is an online course "Supervising Doctoral Studies" https://www.epigeum.com/courses/research/supervising-doctoral-studies/ which can be purchased.  Usually it is purchased by a whole university, not a particular faculty member.  I did the course.  You might find it useful if you have absolutely no idea what you are doing.
Read your university's policies for the degree programs of students you are supervising.  No external training program can prepare you for your university's weird rules.
If your university does not have internal training in supervision, you could ask administration to fund it.  They really should have it.


text:
Is it acceptable to reject my PhD offer after accepting it?
At the start of the year, I applied to five PhD in AI programmes at top UK universities. With the help of a supervisor, I received an offer from one of the universities and was rejected by three universities. Having not heard anything from the final university, I accepted my offer. In June, I was rejected by the fourth university, which I suspect hasn't even looked at my application—I believe they had reached their shortlisting quota before getting to my application.
I am supposed to start my PhD in September, but I have just received an interview invitation from the fourth university because someone has dropped out of the programme.
Is it acceptable to reject my PhD offer after accepting it for another PhD offer? Both universities have strong reputations, and both supervisors have been pleasant. The main advantages of the fourth university are that it's in London, where many large tech companies operate (potential for collaboration), and it's close to home, which means less travelling—I hate travelling. If it is not acceptable to reject my PhD offer, how should I turn down the interview with the other supervisor?

Does this answer your question? Rejecting a PhD offer after having accepted it. Advice?

Normally yes, you can do this, though if you have signed a legal contract or have accepted things of value, then it might be complicated. But an acceptance isn't normally considered a legal contract.
But this is why universities keep waiting lists and why you got an offer in the first place.
If you decide not to switch, just tell the other supervisor that you've already accepted another offer, so sorry.
And if you decide to switch start the communication with the accepted offer's university ASAP to allow your slot to be refilled.


text:
First round interview - tenure track
I have applied to several tenure track positions and I have gotten a couple of emails saying that I passed the initial round of review and that my application will now undergo a more detailed review as they will shortlist participants for screening interviews. So, I’m trying to prepare for those interviews (even if it is still not sure I’ll be interviewed). My question is, how much time are you usually given to prepare for the screening interviews? I mean, are you usually given a couple of days, a week, 2 weeks? This is my first time applying to tenure track positions, so  I have no idea what to expect and I can’t seem to find an answer for this question.

The answer is that it can vary considerably.
Between being told that you're invited for a first-round interview, and the actual interview itself, it could be a matter of multiple weeks, or just days.
Some hiring committees will tell you the names of the people who will be interviewing you (meaning that there's more "preparation" you can do, since you can look up those interviewers and their publications), and some of them will not. Some of them will give you an example question or a list of questions that would be worth preparing, but most of them will not.
Some of them will give you a minute or two at the beginning to introduce yourself, so this is something for which you can prepare regardless! Some of them won't ask you to do that though.
Here's some things you can do to prepare for your interview:

If there's a tenured or tenure-track faculty member (or even someone who has done similar interviews in the past even if they were not successful) in your field with whom you're fairly close, you can ask them for advice about what the experience will be like. You might gain more valuable information that way than by asking here, since we don't know your specific field of study, and an answer for a political science department won't necessarily be valuable if you're applying to a mathematics department.
Take a look at the research output of the department to which you applied.
Take a look at the courses that the department offers, and think about which ones you might be able to teach.
If they don't tell you the names of the interviewers (you could also ask the chair of the hiring committee for that information, but if they don't offer it to you themselves you might not get it this way, and you might just prefer to be more passive about such things) you can do a bit of guesswork to figure out the most likely people on the hiring committee: the chair of the hiring committee whose name is usually on the job ads or in the correspondence with you, the chair of the department (if not already the chair of the hiring committee), some professors who work in the specific field or the most closely related field to the one for which the position was advertised, and often there will also be someone from outside the department but in the same faculty (for example if you're applying to a biology department they might have a chemistry professor there). In Canada, you might have an equity and inclusion officer at the interview, or a Vice President Research (or similar) if you're applying for a position associated with a Canada Research Chair award. You can take a look at the research of these potential committee members, and think about what questions they might ask and how you may want to answer them.
Read over your application materials! Review what you wrote in your proposal, especially if you're submitting slightly different applications to different universities depending on each university's focus.

For the interview day, just relax. There's really not much you can do to prepare for the initial stage interviews other than what I've written above. I'd recommend to have (if available) a big screen open on your computer if it's an online interview or phone interview, and have your research proposal and CV open in case they ask questions about it, and perhaps also the faculty profiles and publications lists of the potential members of the hiring committee, since this may help you connect your answers about research questions to things that they know. Likewise you can keep open a list of the department's course offerings in case they ask you about what courses you can teach.
Finally, to prepare more, you can look at some of the questions that we at Academia.SE recommended to a hiring committee member, for what to ask applicants like yourself! The suggestions are meant to be reflective of what is typically asked at such interviews: What questions should I ask as a candidate during an interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position?

Thank you so much for your detailed response! Yes, I’m starting to see the whole process varies greatly. Even within the same department (e.g I wasn’t expecting these emails saying that I passed first round, no interviews yet but maybe in the near future). And yes I’ve noticed some universities have a list of sample questions and others don’t.  So, I guess it’s preparing the best I can with the information I can gather from that department and university and try to relax that day. The whole process is so stressful though. Again, thank you very much!

I'd also suggest that you take a look at the institution's website and familiarize yourself with the institution and the surrounding community.  The most embarrassing thing I've ever seen in a first-round interview was when the candidate assumed that my institution was located in another city 75 miles away from its actual location.


text:
Is it unethical to accidentally benefit from online material in a take-home exam?
Many years ago, as an undergraduate, I was taking a physics class which had a peculiar exam arrangement: on Tuesday, the professor gave us a take-home portion of the exam which would be submitted on Thursday, but on Thursday, there would also be an in-class portion of the exam with a different set of problems.
In my case, I remember working out the solution to a difficult problem on the take-home exam throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. I had a solution, but I was unsure whether it was correct. Some equations didn't seem to make sense. At the same time, I was also preparing myself for the exam on Thursday. As usual, I read the textbook, but I also was in the habit of consulting other websites to help me whenever the textbook wasn't enough.
While doing this, I accidentally stumbled upon a Wikipedia article which explained the solution of a similar problem to the one I was working on in the take-home exam. It was not the same problem, but the general method used was sufficiently similar so that I immediately realized that my approach to the problem on the take-home exam was probably correct.
Perhaps the most ethical thing to do at the time was to stop consulting the Wikipedia article immediately. I have to confess that I didn't do this exactly: I couldn't help but glance at it a few more times. Coming across that article made me confident in my approach to the take-home problem, and it drove me to scrutinize my previously written solution more deeply. This led me to discover a simple algebraic mistake which I had made in my own solution, after which my solution made sense and was surely correct. In the end, I never copied anything directly from the Wikipedia article, but I cannot deny that reading it helped me realize my own mistakes.
On Thursday I handed in my work on the take-home portion, and did well in the in-class portion as well. I never told the professor about the incident. Internally, I reasoned to myself that when I came across the Wikipedia article I was not trying to cheat on the take-home, but simply preparing for the in-class exam.
Years afterwards, however, I started to have doubts over what I did was completely ethical. I did not exactly cheat - in the sense of copying solutions from the Internet - but I was indeed "inspired" to become confident in my existing solution because of something I found on the Internet.
Was what I did dishonest? Unethical? Did it rise to the level of cheating that should have been disclosed to the professor? Or was it just a fortunate accident, the product of an odd exam arrangement?
(Note that the professor did not have a clear policy on consulting materials other than the official textbook from Tuesday-Thursday during the take home portion of the exam. While it was generally considered cheating to search out solutions on the Internet for specific problems on a take-home exam, I did not consider it unethical to look up online resources when studying a course and preparing for an in-class exam. In this case, I was doing the latter and accidentally stumbled upon material which was more similar to the former. The fact that there was a take home exam occuring right before an in-class exam resulted in a gray area.)

"the professor did not have a clear policy"  then your question does not have a clear answer.  Exam rules are the professor's responsibility.  Community opinion is not relevant.

I might add to the last comment that the question doesn't have a clear objective answer without an objective or explicit ethics policy.  You are welcome to be as ethical as you would like to be: my advice would be to allow the past to inform future behavior, including what goals you set (e.g. to perform a certain calculation from first principles, or even to know what first principles are), but not to mull over it.

It is astonishing how much people differ when it comes to righteousness and honesty.

The professor made a tactical error.  By having the take home portion before the in-class portion, he forced everyone into the same position you were in.   They had to study for the in-class exam, so they had to have access to course materials during the time they were supposed to be working the take-home test.  You don't have to feel guilty about being put in such a position.  The in-class test should have been first.

"Take home exam" is an oxymoron. Any "exam" which is not done in controlled conditions isn't worth calling an exam. (The take home task may be very useful as a learning activity, but that isn't the same thing as an exam!)

Often take home exams are administered at an educational stage where students progress from having relatively little academic responsibility to an enormous amount of it (when they start teaching.)  A take-home exam could either be interpreted as a sign of good faith in this transformation, or of trust in the student, or possibly as a kind of meta-test of the student's "academic accountability" (i.e. the ability of the student to prove to interested parties that the exam was self-administered without cheating.)

@AnonymousPhysicist and TLDR, I agree that there might be no "objective" answer to the situation. Because it was a small college, the classes were small and the specific policies on collaboration and consulting outside material were informal and implicit. Even in-class exams were often not proctored. Students were expected to just "know" what was honest and what was not. But for some reason what happened during this exam keeps coming up and bothering my conscience once in a while, even though it has been almost a decade since it happened.

@B.Goddard I agree that the professor's choice to hold the take home before the in-class exam was the wrong one. It put all of us in this weird situation. It should have been reversed.

The way I read it is that you are concerned because you learned something on the internet. That seems absurd to me (which confirms @Alchimista's comment).

@alephzero: I've had good take-home exams. They need novel problems to work so you can't possibly look up the solutions.

Wait, I thought the whole point of take-home exams was that - just as in non-exam situations, everything is fair game except letting someone else actively do it for you

The point of going to school is to acquire knowledge and develop understanding. It might be called "take-home exam", but it's effectively just homework. What you did was (1) research/study for the real exam, and (2) you stumbled upon an example of a different problem that helped with your understanding, and prompted you to correct an algebraic mistake (the most irrelevant thing imaginable). Maybe the grade you got also accounts for your interest in the subject and your research skills - did you ever think of that? It's absolutely absurd to be concerned about this years later.

BTW, TLDR wrote "I might add to the last comment that the question doesn't have a clear objective answer without an objective or explicit ethics policy" - and if there was an explicit policy, and an objective (i.e. formal) answer, the key question that would come up is: is it form over substance? I second the "allow the past to inform future behavior" advice.

I see no ethical issue here. You were a student taking reasonable steps to inform yourself of something - unless you were subsequently elected head of the student union and called upon your fellow students to ransack the union building.

Exams that make you memorize something are not of much value as you will forget 99% of what you have studied unless repeated by use.  Knowing how to solve the problem with references is OK if the questions are challenging enough. Knowing where to find reference info to solve problems is part of your continued education.

I suggest that you don't lose a lot of sleep over something that happened several years ago. While you may have crossed a line, your description suggests it wasn't a bright line. Assuming your description is honest, you started out (probably) appropriately looking for alternate explanations of the material, not solutions to the problem at hand. But, rather than the internet it might just as well have been a different textbook.
But if it bothers you, then, assuming you are an academic, make sure that your own students get more explicit advice about what is and is not permitted.
It would have been better, of course, if you had pointed out the situation to the professor. But let the past be the past. Make the future better than the past if you are able.

make sure that your own students get explicit advice about what is and is not permitted. Also, make sure that there is some logic to your decisions about what is and is not permitted, as opposed to you setting up Kafkaesque trapdoors for your students to fall through.

@DanielHatton: I would presume that searching out solutions on the internet would only apply to a nearly exact duplicate. Something that would allow one to give the correct answer without understanding it.

It’s not unethical to accidentally benefit from anything, since the fact of such a thing happening is, as the word suggests, accidental. You didn’t mean to cheat, and it was the professor’s idiosyncratic testing policy that set up the perfect storm of circumstances that caused this “accident” to happen: note that the combination of a take-home exam and an in-class exam, and the way the two exams were scheduled, created a period of several days during which you were not allowed to search online for solutions to a specific set of problems, but during which you were allowed, and in fact incentivized, to look up general material related to the course. Hmm, I wonder what could go wrong with such an arrangement...?
TL;DR: no.

A take-home test is not, as a more formal test or exam would be, strictly a test of knowledge.
It tests the synthesis of your knowledge and resourcefulness in a fixed time frame, in all respects no different than an essay.
Anyone who gave a test of that nature should expect the student to make use of all available resources and only plagiarism to be unethical.

Actually I question whether a "formal" test is a test of knowledge. Most are tests of fairly short term memory. A take-home test can get much deeper but it needs a different structure than a "formal" test to do so.

Echoing @Buffy's remarks, but also paraphrasing/amplifying:
You were acting in good faith. That's the primary point. So don't worry about it.
Next: any system that tries to make rules to inhibit using more sources, looking around, comparing textbooks, etc., is seriously misguided. Yes, in my own earlier experiences, kids could get in trouble for reading ahead in their books! Could get in trouble for using ideas/methods from other sources!
In mathematics, and apparently in computer science, there is the idea that one should at least attempt to re-solve many basic, iconic issues for oneself, before seeing the highly refined iconic solution. Up to a point, if one has the time, obviously it's good to engage and appreciate the non-triviality before seeing a presumably masterful resolution.
"However", a person looking (e.g.) at math in a non-school-work setting, possibly skimming through various textbooks "for fun" (pre-internet!?!), could inadvertently see the iconic solution/discussion before being asked the iconic question in coursework. This happened to me a few times. My memory was good enough that I could more-or-less reproduce the iconic argument. I do not know what the grader thought.
Currently, in the grad-level math courses I teach, up front I emphasize that all the questions I'll ask them on homework and exams are important and iconic, and have been asked and discussed many times before. And while some engagement and reflection prior to seeing what other people have done is surely useful, there is a point of diminishing returns. And, rather than have people embrace crappy versions of iconic discussions, I do attempt to put on-line discussions that I at-least-currently think are better quality, if not perfect.
A thing that did not occur to me as a kid (and it was a different situation, internet-wise) was to explicitly acknowledge sources. This should have been emphasized then, but it was harder to "search" for things. Certainly this point must be made clearly nowadays.

You make good points. The problem that I was attempting to solve indeed turned out to be a variation on an "iconic" problem - one that was discussed and solved in many textbooks (but not in the textbook used in the class). So it was unsurprising that a similar problem showed up immediately when I visited the Wikipedia article on the topic.

Excellent points about the "idea" in math and CS. IME there is also a cultural difference in how lower level courses handle the material. In a grad class or upper-division undergraduate course, the instructor is looking for some level of independent exploration or creativity, even if minor. In a lower-division or high school course, the instructor is looking for specific mastery of specific curriculum items. In Calculus 1, students are expected to memorize a ton of 1700's-era formulas and use them. There's no room for squeezing in a neat, state-of-the-art formula one found in a journal.

I would say that it's generally understood that on a take-home test you can use some external literature.
Typically with a take-home exam that takes a day or more, the expectation is that:

Open-book: you're allowed to use the handbook for the course, as well as your lecture notes, and any recorded lectures and so forth.
Extra literature: is allowed, although not necessary.
No collaboration: you're not supposed to share your answers with, or receive answers from, other students.
Your own work: don't ask other people, even people outside the course, for the solutions.
Based on reasoning and application of what you've learned, not recalling facts. The problems may be harder and more diffuse than what you would get on an on-site closed-book exam.

There is probably some anecdotal exam that breaks each of these assumptions. As a teacher you'd do well to be explicit with your rules and expectations.
Using external literature to be inspired, to learn something that is helpful in the exam: fine. Adding a reference in your answers to where you found this useful literature: excellent. Rooting out an answer list on the internet: not okay.

Yes, the goal is to verify understanding of the material. If you gained that understanding as part of researching third-party sources, even if that happened during the exam, this is still in bounds. What would be wrong would be replacing understanding with regurgitation for convenience.

Unethical?

Given what the professor had directed you to do, I'd say no. I would even be of two minds regarding the unethicality of consulting a textbook during a take-home-only exam.

Was what I did dishonest?

You were not maximally forthcoming - by your own standard. I guess that's what's bugging you, morally. By your professor's standard you were just fine.

Did it rise to the level of cheating that should have been disclosed to the professor?

You're implicitly assuming your a no-good low-down sinner. Stop that.
Anyway, no. Also, if you had told your professor about this, I'm pretty certain he would have said something like "Well, you lucked out, that's life." Or maybe even "The fact that you noticed the problem were related and one was applicable to the other is an indication you have good command of the subject matter."

Or was it just a fortunate accident, the product of an odd exam arrangement?

This.
But moreover - you're giving too much weight to what an exam means. It is not a fatal moral trial by the gods to determine your true nature or anything like that. Think about it more like a lottery where your skills bias the odds... I know that might sound a bit extreme, but you should really let this extreme view balance the other extreme. The exam grade is just a number, it's not paid for in blood and there isn't a one-true-grade for people.

+1: "Think about it more like a lottery where your skills bias the odds" - given that exam markers are human and fallible, I think this is actually quite a reasonable way to look at it. A similar way of looking at it might be that the variance in the mark you get for your exam script can be quite high (marking is not always that consistent), but your skills can give you some say over the mean. (From that perspective, someone marking your work is arguably then sampling from a Gaussian around the "real" mark.)

"your" ≠ "you're"

@StuartGolodetz: I actually wanted to suggest introducing a roll-of-dice component to people's grades in a course I was TAing, to emphasize this point.

Probabilistic events whose outcome we can bias with skills/training is a great way to look at nearly everything in life, really.

The More I Practice The Luckier I Get

The exam had no clear policy, so formally you did nothing wrong.
More in detail:

I also was in the habit of consulting other websites to help me
whenever the textbook wasn't enough.

You were consulting other sources because you felt the textbook was not enough. It all boils down to that. It is perfectly fine, as long as the reason was "the textbook was not enough".
It is very different than "consulting other sources to find the solution to my take-home exam".
If you did it because of that, you at least learned the skill "how to retrieve information" although it was not a skill you were supposed nor required to develop during that specific course. So instead of doubting the morality of your exams' attitude, you should question the degree you pursued :) !

If you found how to solve the problem it is all ok. I see the problem only if someone else did the work for you. Why is that? The exam is there to prepare you for your future job and problems that you would face at your work.
Your boss will not tell you: please solve this but don't look at Wikipedia, do not use Google or some other textbooks. Your boss will just want the problem solved. You proved that you know how to find the solution if you don't know, and that is all there it is to it.

"The exam is there to prepare you for your future job" I think a Pandora vase has been opened here, I do not question you but I question this attitude to university ...

Thanks for the comment :)
I agree that there are always exceptions. Some people with a lot of money will spend money just to learn new things in Uni. But for most people it is just an investment, so they take student loan because they think that the degree will help them earn more money in the future. Anyways, I upvoted your answer as it is what I agree with. My answer was supposed to be a comment but I don't have enough reputation for that yet.


text:
What is the difference between “FachHochschule” and “Universität/Technische Universität”, especially for master degrees?
I want to enter Germany for my master's and want to do Job there. I don't want to do a Ph.D. I am having a hard time choosing between FH and TU. My main goal is to do Job after my master's so which type of Institution I should choose. I have heard FH helps to give practical exposure according to Industry (mine is IT) and TU gives deep and thorough Knowledge(Bookish knowledge) about the same. Please help me out I will be applying for the Winter semester this year.

You are basically right, though also universities (especially technical universities) usually have some partners and projects in industry. The general perception among Germans is that a university degree is higher than a FH degree, but in theory they are equivalent. Your choice is, however, up to you alone - do what fits better with your learning style (unless you want to stay in academia, then you should probably go to university - though even this is not a must). Keep an eye at different universities/FH's, as they might differ as well in their teaching style and programs.

@Mark I believe your comment should be an answer.

Does this answer your question? What is the difference between “Hochschule” and “Universität/Technische Universität”, especially for master degrees?


text:
Professor creating math Youtube channel?
I am wondering if anyone can offer any advice: I currently am an adjunct and teach a bunch of undergrad math classes, like Calc, ODE, etc.
What I want to do is to create a YouTube channel and show people how to do Calc, ODE, and other undergrad math topics. I want this channel to be for personal gain and not affiliated with my university. I would create the channel completely separate from my university, using a personal account only.
My question: is there anything potentially unethical about this? Can I create (public) math content on YouTube that is similar to the content that I am teaching? Any advice is helpful.

I believe this is not an ethical issue, but rather a legal one. Make sure to consult your university's legal department or if you are hesitant about approaching them directly, an outside legal professional or possibly a trusted colleague. If your videos are going to feature ads or something like that, it might be a problem, so make sure you're safe

You only need to take care you don't abuse copyright material. The rules are very similar to other forms of publishing.

This is a great idea, and at my university people would generally be delighted if you create a public math resource of this type.
In terms of ethics, I don’t see a problem as long as you don’t start making the web materials a required source for your own students, since that would put you in a conflict of interest.
Also, if you use university-owned equipment in creating the online materials, in some cultures this could be deemed ethically problematic, so you might want to check with your department how they would feel about it, or take care to create a full separation between the time and resources you dedicate to your teaching job and the resources you use for the YouTube channel.
Other than that, as I said I think it’s an awesome initiative. Maybe the biggest concern I can think of is that if you become too successful as a famous YouTuber, people around you will get jealous. That’s not an ethical problem but maybe a practical one to think about...
Anyway, good luck with it!

I am curious what the conflict of interest would be in making the web materials a required source, assuming they are freely available. How is it different from using a book you wrote for your own class? In fact, in this case the creator does not even directly profit from using their created resource in their class.

@GoodDeeds OP wrote that they’d be doing it “for personal gain”. So it sounds like there will be some profit, or expectation of profit, in it. Even if the profit doesn’t come directly from the students that’s still a conflict of interest (possibly a minor one, but still) and raises ethical issues. For example, it would create a situation in which OP might be financially incentivized to prefer to use the web materials as a primary source over a department-recommended textbook, even if they know the textbook is a better quality source that would be pedagogically more useful to the students.

Thanks, that makes sense, though I suppose this is also true for writing your own book or other study material.

(Also if the content is free but requires students to watch ads to access that’s another issue some people could reasonably find fault with.)

In regards to using university equipment, I'd worry less about ethics and more about legal problems. Doing so without permission can be seen as embezzlement and can get you fired and sued for damages. So in particular if there is any intent to profit, I'd always get permission in writing first.


text:
How to respond an email for postdoc process
I live in Iraq and my postdoc application for a Dutch position has been accepted. Now, the PI has sent me an email:

Dear XXX,
Ms YYY (in Cc) and Ms ZZZ will now start the procedure of your
appointment. Please let us know from which date you can be available.
Note that it may take about two months to arrange your residence
permit.
Kind regards,

I have ambiguity about the sentence:

which date you can be available?

Does she mean the date on which I can start the job (for example as soon as my visa gets ready) or she means the day on which I will be available for HR calls? (for example tomorrow)
Thank you.

It's fine to email the professor to clarify, if you aren't sure (and not just about hiring-related matters).

My read on it is what date you can start, particularly since the next sentence is about how long it could take to get a residence permit in place (needed to start).

I would interpret this as: which date is it possible for you to come to the Netherlands to start the job.
But I think the best approach is to give a slightly more details on when you are available for what.  You could say "I'm available to discuss any issues around setting up on the job on X and Y days, between Z and W hours.  I'll be ready to move to the Netherlands whenever my permit is ready/any time after April 12/let me get back to you in a week or two with a precise date."

Also, you're communicating with dutch people, don't be afraid to be direct and not superfluous in wording things. Respectful but direct.


text:
Plagiarism in a taught course
I am a Phd student. I've been cited for plagiarism on my taught course. Will this appear on my transcript? And will this have implications for securing a teaching career after my PhD?

You don't even disclose your country. How should we know the regulations of your university? Why don't you ask there?

@user111388, the UK tag is present, actually.

What do you mean "cited for plagiarism on my taught course"? Do you mean you were taking a taught module at the same time as completing a PhD?

@Buffy: Ah okay, didn't see that. But I still believe it should be mentioned in the question - I don't see the question making sense otherwise.

@Michael Nkrumah  I am not able to understand the phrase "my taught course" so please edit it a bit.  Are you the instructor, the person who designed the course, a student in the course?