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Why don't I see publications criticising other publications?
This is about technology research specifically.
Often when reading a publication I'll be thinking to myself: "Yeah, you've got that thing, but what about this and that limitation you brush off and this and that assumption which seems pretty poorly justified?" After starting my PhD I got pretty shocked just how common that seems to be.
The only critiques of other publications I ever see are either in literature review sections of papers suggesting alternative methods, or mentioned in surveys. In either case those tend to be not very in-depth.
Why is this the case? It seems to me like something that would be pretty damaging to research in general, as then you see a lot of papers with built-in assumptions and limitations propagated by their predecessors.

2-3 decades ago a professor use to publish few research articles in his entire career now I have seen people publishing 10s of articles during PhD. The quality of published article is getting low day by day. There is are multiple reasons but most important reason in my opinion is Publish or perish culture imposed on academia.

In some fields, it seems to be common practice to make tons of papers out of a single idea, i.e. copy the introduction and background and add another different special case to discuss every time. If this is good or not is up to discussion of course, but I don't think that a definite answer in the style of this page can be given on that question. You could try to do some research into publication pressure, publication indices, etc., there is lots of information and critique about that available on the web.

Alice: I see also a lack of criticism inside science organizations. Bob: You mean it is faked? Alice: Yeah, if somebody argues not against a position it is staged. Chuck: Come down. For me Academia looks healthy and the publication system works. Alice: Because you are profit from it. Chuck: Perhaps we should define first what staged is. If somebody isn't publishing anything this can be called fake. Bob: I didn't get the point. Chuck: If you see something published, it's science, even if contradictions are missing. Alice: You mean, if have to criticize by writing my own papers? Chuck: Sure.

Citations could be seen as some form of judgment about the quality of a publication and the absence of citations as some form of critique (or disinterest).

@Trilarion not a very good one imo - there's all sorts of reasons one paper could have fewer citations than another, and I think poor quality is reasonably far down the list

Maybe that's field-dependent, but I see that a lot in political science. A major way to bolster the "relevance" of a publication is to situate it within a debate. Bonus points if you criticize "conventional wisdom". So I'm not.sure about the premise of this question.

Please ask only one question per post.  Are you asking "Why aren't there more papers that criticize other papers?" (as the title says) or are you asking "Why is it so common for papers to have limitations and shortcomings that they often don't acknowledge?" (as the body suggests).  Please pick one, and edit the question accordingly.

Actually there is a lot of published criticism on papers of different fields. See for instance PubPeer.

Having written such an article myself: they do exist, but getting the balance between constructive criticism and pure negativity right is tricky. Articles that cite our paper also often uncritically cite the paper we are refuting.

The complaint about "publish or perish" is naive. "Publish or perish" dates back to the 1920s, and peaked in the 1970s. The notion that this is something new reflects a lack of historic awareness. Criticisms are far more common today than they were in the mythical good old days, which were all about  your (white male non-Jewish) friends in the field.

Not every trivial or obvious limitation must be discussed in a paper.

"Publish or perish" has been enshrined in the academia with the advent of for-profit journals in the '70s, which have perverted the incentive structure in the industry. We can all thank Maxwell and Pergamon for that, and the inability of academics to handle a printing press. Here is a good account of how the change materialized and persists to this day: "Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?"

Such criticisms are common in journals like Nature and PNAS. They're often not called "papers" -- PNAS calls them "Letters", Science calls them "Technical Comments", and Nature calls them "Brief Communications Arising" -- but they do get a significant degree of pre-publication scrutiny and often are peer reviewed. Some examples from the past few weeks:

Is “choline and geranate” an ionic liquid or deep eutectic solvent system? (PNAS)
Tagging the musical beat: Neural entrainment or event-related potentials? (PNAS)
Comment on “Predicting reaction performance in C–N cross-coupling using machine learning” (Science)
Comment on “The earliest modern humans outside Africa” (Science)
Assumptions for emergent constraints (Nature)
Emergent constraints on climate sensitivity (Nature)
Climate constraint reflects forced signal (Nature)

Other journals also have systems for responses, though most are not as organized about it.
So the premise is not quite right -- criticisms of high-profile papers are not unusual -- but it's true that the vast majority of papers don't get formal critiques like this -- even though the vast majority of papers probably do have something that could be criticized.
That's part of the reason. Very few papers are completely above reproach (except for my own, of course). If I was to send a critical letter about every issue I see in every paper I read, I'd spend my time doing nothing else, and the journals would be filled with my letters to the editor with no room for new articles.
And we're all adults here. It's expected that scientists read papers critically; that's part of our job. That means we all find things to criticize. Finding a problem in a published paper isn't a shocking, scandalous thing. It's like a toll collector breaking a $20 bill, a minor technical part of your job. It would be condescending of me to assume that I'm the only person who noticed the issues in question, and that it's up to me to save my colleagues from their stupidity and ignorance.
Finally, when I do respond to publications that need criticizing, I rarely phrase my responses that way. For example, several years ago I read an interesting paper in my field that, I thought, made a significant error in its assumptions. To show that, I repeated some of their experiments, adding in the missing controls, and then extended the work to show where the corrected observations led. I didn't publish as a criticism of the previous work (which was from researchers who I know and admire and who have done a lot of great stuff). I published it as a paper that can stand on its own, noting the previous work in passing but not making a big deal of the mistake. Hopefully, if I ever make a mistake (unlikely!) my colleagues will correct me in the same way. Science is hard, and it shouldn't be like a hockey goalie, where every time you make a mistake a buzzer goes off and thirty thousand people yell at you.

This answer is quite optimistic in some regards and seems to assume that spotting problems while reading publications is easy as well as redoing experiments to verify scientific claims one way or the other isn't a waste of time. However, in the spirit of the answer I will refrain from writing my own answer criticizing this answer. :)

I don't know if spotting problems is easy per se, but it's such a routine part of the job that novices are, or should be, intensively trained in it. The fact that academia SE and similar sites constantly see questions like this one, from new PhD students, suggests that even people fairly new to the field are able to spot problems quickly.

I think this is true for your immediate field of expertise, but if you move a bit further away it might be more complicated. What I think could help would be something similar to the customer reviews on Amazon product pages, in this case reader reviews of scientific publications. It would save me a lot of time if I could see what problems other readers have spotted without me needing to check every publication on my own every time. Problem spotting is much easier if we would all do it together instead of everyone for himself/herself.

@Trilarion In fact a lot of journals offer the option to leave comments on papers at their website. It's just rarely used, even less to point out problems with the paper. Maybe the publishers should learn from Amazon how they manage to get so many reviews, especially the critical ones?

@silvado You mean scientists should pay their friends to leave positive comments about them and then we all agree to only read papers that are 4 stars or more?

At first I didn't realize that (except for my own, of course) and (unlikely!) were sarcasm, and I was quite concerned.

If you're listing, you might as well include Comment on a paper by Samir Chatterjee.

@silvado Amazon's main advantage is their big user base and the common platform. It's a marketplace. If journals are like the paper sellers, then the marketplace for publications would be something like Mendelay, ResearchGate or Google Scholar with their user bases. If anyone, they could pull off a customer review system on publications that would have a positive impact.

Many do, just in a polite way. Most of numerical modelling seems to be a variation of nicely stating "previous folks did things wrong and/or inefficient, we improve upon that; or at least offer another approach despite not showing their failings." There, criticism/failing of other approaches is often shown throughout the article.
Additionally, you are starting your PhD.

What you feel might be a serious omission regarding method applicability could be a well-known limitation of the method everyone in the community is aware of. In this case, your "you are propagating BS" is a pointless and wrong rant - they know their methods better than you. Say everyone might already know X will offer about 1% higher error, but 100x easier simulation/experiment. If you suspect this might be the case, rather write a polite mail asking for clarification and whether the obtained results are still valid or how the approach could be improved etc etc.
On the other hand, everyone could be assuming something that is actually incorrect for the problem, and you know it. Here, bluntly stating "you are propagating BS" isn't technically wrong, but you won't be getting any new friends with that. Rather write a nice article showing how and why everyone is approaching the problem wrong way and how you solve their issues - you would be instantly a highly regarded member of the community.

But yeah, a lot of fairly shaky research is taken as true and this leads to severe reproducibility problem all over fields. There are journals for publishing reproductions of other's work, but most prefer doing something original. Can't blame them: Invent X and have name immortalized vs "yeah, X's results check out".

If you don't see criticism in papers, its because you are not recognizing it when you see it. Its there. Its just between the lines.

Generally good answer. Although repeating the premise that "everyone already knows X" alongside the premise that the OP doesn't is clearly contradictory.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit "Everyone" means "most experts", not literally everyone.

@DavidRicherby The word "everyone" means "everyone" - say what you mean!

@LightnessRacesinOrbit if you insist that the word "everyone" must mean literally every single person who is currently alive, the word becomes almost useless. Language is not mathematics. We don't communicate by concatenating dictionary definitions.

@DavidRicherby Of course there must be room for interpretation but you have to be sensible about it. Using the term "everyone" in a sentence whose entire purpose is pointing out that there is an exception right in the subject of the sentence seems quite silly.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit "everyone means everyone" is tautological, but David and I still got your meaning.

@LightnessRacesInOrbit Of course, especially if you use "everyone" in a sentence right before pointing out an exception, people (everyone?) will usually be able to figure out that you're restricting the set of individuals your quantifying over.

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

(I don't have the reputation to move the conversation but suggest someone does it)

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Sorry for the long delay. With the "everyone knows X" I meant everyone already working in the field. Obviously people not in the field don't know method details and limitations. I don't consider someone just starting with PhD to be already a "proper" member of the community.

Politics. Criticising peers directly leads to lack of political support.
This is because science is increasingly based on connections and short-term appraisal, and this is greatly detrimental to the advancement of hardcore science, and intellectualism in general.
We are social animals. This leads to a natural tendency of taking others' actions personally and "return favours". Also people are very wary of others' opinions and public image, and as a result are naturally sensitive to negative criticism. Usually, when you hurt the feelings of someone in public, you've made yourself an enemy.
I firmly believe in criticism and frankness as the shortest path to improvement. That has put me in delicate situations many times. In my early papers I was eager to lift obvious flaws in whatever specific topic being discussed, as to attempt to contribute. I have the habit of signing my peer reviews, and I am rather picky as a reviewer. This eventually resulted in being avoided in the citation and collaboration lists of relevant peers. Nowadays I am internally struggling on how to discuss faulty literature and how to approach clearly flawed logic.
I have been told that in order to say what you want you must reach a certain level of authority. However reaching that point largely depends on connections and good relationships. There are no Isaac Newtons today.

This eventually resulted in being avoided in the citation... lists of relevant peers. — I'm sorry you have unethical peers.

An important counterpoint: How not to be a crank, by James Heathers (in which he details how it is possible to lever some quite severe criticisms at the literature without receiving a career-ending backlash in return).

Simply speaking: The better long term strategy for staying in academia is to be the nice guy that plays along.
Academia is full of systemic corruption because jobs in a specific field of research are very limited/competitive due to the pyramid nature of human resources (number of students > number of PhDs > number of professors). Academia is structured around the selection of outstanding and remarkable individuals. However, history has told us that most metrics tend to be overshadowed by character traits in the long run. Especially if you think about the fact that most professors are not doing much research themselves but are rather responslible for the management of workgroups and projects. Hence, the nice, non-critical guy has a structural advantage in the system. Letters of recommendation, which tend to be more positive for a friendly person compared to "troublemakers", are also a direct indication of this.
The system is the people and the people select their system. People don't like criticism. So the system/people deselected criticism.

most professors are not doing much research themselves — ...in some fields.  This is certainly not true in all fields.

I am going to convert my comment into answer. 2-3 decades ago a professor use to publish few research articles in his entire career now I have seen people publishing 10s of articles during PhD. The quality of published article is getting low day by day. There are multiple reasons but most important reason in my opinion is Publish or perish culture imposed on academia.  On average Writing a good article takes 1-2 years but to save tenure (in my country) an AP has to publish 3 SCI articles per year. With such kind of pressure a researcher can not write a quality research paper.  Moreover,   strong critique require time to analyse the findings of other researchers, while the race of publish don’t allow to spend much time on that part of article, which I believe is one of the most important part of article.  Yuval Noah Harari author of famous book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, once he said in his interview that he start thinking out of box when he promoted to Associate Professor position, because in his university there is no requirement of publication once you get Associate Professor position. That's why he wrote this book within 2 years of time.

@scaaahu Critiques require time to analyse the findings of other researchers, while due to race of publish mostly researcher avoid it.

We really need to all sit down and collectively agree that going on like that doesn't make any sense, if we are to be true to the explicit goal of academia of advancing human understanding of the world. Now what is just a metric had become the implicit goal.

I'm pretty sure that all (or many)  academics do agree with this. Unfortunately, while the explicit goal of academics might be advancing human knowledge, the academy is not run by academics. Mostly funding bodies, governments and university administrators to make the decisions..

Some of the available answers allude to the following principle, but none say it directly.
Identifying idiosyncratic flaws of a single article, if published alone, makes your article a satellite of that primary article; the importance of your article cannot possibly exceed the importance of the primary article, but usually the satellite weighs less.
The best way to reach publication-worthiness (in a journal of the same caliber like the primary publication), you should ideally get some results of your own, studying the same problem.  That buys you a ticket under which you can not only showcase your own work, but you can also compare it to the state of the field (i.e., the flawed article, and any other relevant prior work that you are aware of) in as much detail as you find intellectually stimulating to a "generic" reader of the journal where you publish this.
The point of comparing your work to previous work is to make your contribution shine in its relevance and methodological superiority, rather than to punish your predecessor or to save your colleagues from falling into believing obviously flawed results.  And that is an entirely non-political reason to approach the comparison with utmost indifference and politeness, in a way where many readers (who never encountered the actual earlier article) will not even realize the references to it to have motivated your article.  The flawed article isn't enormously important, right?  I'd even argue that you should be primarily comparing your new work to the best available results of others, unless certain flaws are propagating over most prior work and your own work stands out (in your eyes) by being more sophisticated and free of them.
The reason why some high profile journals pay more attention to "letters to the editor" than solid "average" journals is that if the primary article is widely seen as a breakthrough, its satellites might still be publication worthy if the critique is deep or if it adds a relevant multi-disciplinary angle, and if their points are really good.

None of the answers given so far covers the aspects that are really relevant here. Most of them are poorly written and only mention one or two arguments, probably only in an effort to gain reputation. My answer will lay out the arguments in a structured form, with unprecedented completeness and clarity, and with nice formatting. It will be enriched by an example which was not yet given in any other answer, and help the reader to properly and thoroughly understand this complex topic.
Well. Let's see how that plays out.
Seriously: The main arguments have already been given, and can roughly be classified into political/interpersonal ones or methodological/technical ones. I think that the details will vary depending on the subject, but the tags indicate that the question refers to the more technical fields.
The political arguments are mainly that the critique might backfire and might hurt your reputation. Beyond that, people are usually not funded for criticizing others: A paper that only criticizes another will hardly be published, and the publication count is in many cases the only measure of "success in academics". And even if your critique is justified and the paper is technically sound, a harsh critique may simply be deemed "unnecessary", and thus shed a bad light on the author.
The technical arguments are related to the efforts that are necessary for a profound and (optionally: ) "constructive" critique. In order to really identify technical flaws, you need a deep familiarity with the topic. Care has to be taken in order to eliminate the slightest doubts when criticizing others. This is particularly difficult when you are at the beginning of your career. The situation may be different when you really know the related work inside out and backwards.
Basically every non-trivial approach or insight has limitations or (hidden) assumptions. For a critique to be profound, the results often have to be replicated and the flaws have to be "verified", in that sense. The efforts for this are often prohibitively large. Whether a critique is considered to be constructive then mainly depends on whether you can suggest improvements. This was already summarized nicely in the answer by Jirka Hanika.
Therefore, much of the game that is played in the academic world consists of finding flaws and suggesting improvements: Find a paper that shows how to solve a certain problem with red, green and yellow balloons. Write a paper that points out the "serious limitation" of not considering blue balloons. Show that the same problem can be solved with blue balloons. You got a publication there, and maybe another year of funding.

However, there are papers that plainly criticize others. I'd like to refer to one of my favorite papers here, with the ballsy title "Clustering of Time Series Subsequences is Meaningless" :

Given  the  recent  explosion  of  interest  in  streaming  data  and  online  algorithms,  clustering  of  time  series subsequences,  extracted  via  a  sliding  window,  has  received  much  attention.  In  this  work  we  make  a surprising claim. Clustering of time series subsequences is meaningless.
[...]
These results may appear surprising, since they invalidate the claims of a highly referenced paper, and many of the dozens of extensions researchers have proposed ([a list of a dozen publications]).

So this paper basically burned down a whole research branch. Reading it can give you a glance at how difficult it is to criticize others in a way that can not be attacked or questioned on a methodological level. And even though the author himself says that the results are "negative", I think that one of the most useful contributions that a scientist can make is to put people back on the right track, instead of participating in the game that is essentially a politically and financially motivated waste of time.
So when you're sure that you can profoundly criticize others: Do it.

+1 for an answer that is also a practical example. It really captures the sound of many research articles' introductions.

I disagree with your assumption that his does not happen, although I suppose each discipline may be different.
What does happen, is that criticism is often presented in a very diplomatic, curteous, and professional way, such that it may not appear as criticism to the "untrained" eye (but a 'trained' person looking for the right paper will pick up on the criticism).
For example, you may find yourself writing a paper which corrects a pretty obvious (in your opinion) and damning flaw in a proposed method. It may be tempting to write "this paper had a serious methodological flaw which invalidates the results and should never have been published, here we show you how to do things properly". But this would be a highly inappropriate way to do this, and a good PhD supervisor will probably ask you (possibly to your dislike) to rephrase this as something like "We build on the novel methods proposed by X et al, but additionally consider adding Y. Adding Y is justified because adjusting for Z would likely lead to more optimal results for the following reasons, etc etc".
Note that the two are effectively saying the same thing. But to the untrained eye, the first reads like "wow the first paper was bad, and we're exposing them", whereas the second reads "ok, the first paper made a significant step in the right direction, and we found ways to improve on it". Which is kinder, and actually closer to the truth, in most cases.
Some might go to one extreme and call this politics, others might go to the other and call it professionalism. It's probably a little bit of both. But I would agree that the latter does make for a much more welcoming environment; if we wanted flamewars, there will always be youtube for that.
Additionally, don't forget that (hopefully) these papers have been peer reviewed. Reviewers don't always have to be experts in the particular area of the paper, just 'reasonably familiar' to offer a useful, educated review. What is an 'obvious methodological flaw' for someone who is in the process of becoming an expert in the field, may not be so obvious for someone who is otherwise knowledgeable and interested in the paper, but not necessarily an expert in the field.
So before you go out all guns blazing to criticise someone in a paper for having 'obvious' flaws, do keep in mind you may end up sounding like the nerdy guy who argues how the TX5800 calculator's third bolt under the second shelving unit is actually 5.49 mm, NOT 5.5mm, and how stupid can someone be for getting that wrong, all you had to do was disassemble the flux combobulator and measure the voltage, even a baby can do that".
You do not want to be that guy.

I hate to break it to you, but the TX5800 doesn't have a flux combobulator, just how ignorant are you?  Not only that it isn't a calculator, the two most likely potential products are the Timex TX5800 Digital Photo Frame with Temperature, Alarm Clock and Calendar or the Texwipe TexWrite MP-10 TX5800.  Texas Instruments uses TI, not TX.  Check ya'self, before you wreck ya'self.  :P

bwahahah. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! xD ... dammit, I just realised, I just missed an amazing opportunity to use TIS-100 instead!

Criticism is published, as pointed out by iayork. It may also appear in less formal places like blogs. So one reason you don't see it is that you aren't looking in the right places.
The best place for criticism is in the peer review process. (That is, peer review should catch bad work before it is published, rendering subsequent criticism unnecessary. However, bad work does sometimes get published, so criticism of published work is appropriate then.) Reviews are not usually published, but some venues do publish reviews. E.g., ICLR and NeurIPS reviews are available with the papers (for ICLR, even the rejected papers have reviews published).
Constructive criticism is better than simply trashing other people's work. Attacks can backfire -- they make the attacker look unprofessional, and things can degenerate into a back-and-forth flame war. Constructive criticism appears in the form of follow-up work that fixes the shortcomings of prior work. This is more polite and less obvious, so you may not notice it.
Even when bad work gets published, it may simply be best to ignore it. Engaging in criticism is a messy business and some of the mud may stick to the critic. Criticism usually only appears when the work in question is getting a lot of attention.

"The right place for criticism is in the peer review process." -- is this to say published work ought not be criticised? I don't see why.

@Scientist Of course published work should be criticized! However, peer review should be the first line of defense. Most of the time when published work is being criticized, it's because it should not have been published in the first place. I have edited to emphasize this.

@DSVA I wouldn't call that "criticism".

I’m sure all published literature is open for criticism, and must be criticized. Science is built on correction of flawed assumptions. We’re always off the mark and missing important factors. It’s a never ending discussion.

@Scientist yes, of course. I’m not sure what we are disagreeing about. Science is always improving.

@DSVA If you want to, you can call all scientific progress “criticism” of prior work. However, I don’t think that is what OP is thinking about.

After the second year of Ph.D. study, I started to learn extensively on how to write highly regarded publications.  The first thing that was hammered in me is how to describe the assumptions and limitations of the given research, and give a framework or scope of the given research.  My first publication described many of these limitations and scope in detail, but my second and third publications did not because I already established these issues in my first one.  So, it is paramount that you check ALL the citations, especially the ones by the same author.  These usually give you the 'background' of the research.  In addition, be familiar with 'well known' assumptions, and practices as well.  They are accepted for a reason.
Second, I have seen an article (peer-reviewed in high-ranking journal) that outright attacked another earlier published work by another author.  Even though the attacking article may be correct, it did not exactly contribute anything to the field.  On other hand, if you developed a novel methodology that addresses the issue that was presented in that offending publication, you can say, "here's my work on this, and I did this." and then cite that paper, and then say something along like, 'improves the results because their approach did not address this particular issue'.
Third,if you burn bridges and piss off the wrong people by attacking them outright, you will not get very far.  It is a fact of life.  Learn how to navigate the world with proper conduct and delicate touch (people ARE sensitive), and stay true to yourself.

Other answers discuss good reasons (besides the fair point that answers do exist): e.g. good criticism takes time, also the authors may know the specifics better than you.
Another reason why criticism is usually very tuned down: the reviewers for your article are selected based on familiarity with the field, which means they possibly have a (favorite) method / approach of their own. So new articles need to strike a balance between saying "the existing methods are insufficient" (which is why we are publishing our novel one) while at the same time not being too harsh (which will offend the reviewers).


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How to approach my MSc advisor that I may want to apply for another PhD program?
I am doing a research-based master's degree at a university, and my advisor was asking me "if I want to do a Ph.D." when I was starting and I said yes. For some reason, he assumed that I'd be doing a PhD under their supervision.
Even though my advisor is an amazing person and I would definitely like to do a Ph.D. with them, there's one single professor in another university that I am also interested in working with. I am still in my first year and I should in theory graduate in two years. How/when can I approach my current advisor that I would also like to apply for another school (alongside my current school)? Especially since I would like them to be one of my references.

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Student responsibility for synchronous online assessments
Here are constraints for my course (which will be delivered remotely):

The class size is huge (250+ students).
Lecture contents will be delivered asynchronously (with pre-recorded videos and live Q&A sessions).
Synchronous (scheduled weekly for 20 minutes), frequent, small assessments will be used to test lecture contents.
Each assessment is web-based and can be automatically graded (say manual grading is not possible, given the TA hours, for this large class).

Given that it's an online course, is it fair to assume the responsibility of stable internet connection (so that each assessment can be started and submitted in time) on students?
If such an assumption is not fair, then does it mean any student claiming a network-related problem can be accommodated unconditionally for extra time or another test?

Is this a course that was always planned and announced as a remote course, or one that would normally be available in-person but has been moved to online?

It had been taught in-person pre-COVID19. It will be taught online the first time in the coming Fall.

Are the students all in one country? I have students in 90 countries and the internet performance varies...

Students might be in different countries like yours. This is my very question: students are to take assessments online, but can we assume that they're able to complete them online?

Some platforms will allow interactive quizzes where if students get questions correct they continue, and if wrong they go around a loop to reinforce the learning.

Have you considered things like the Lockdown Browser?

Only your institution can say what is fair or not fair to assume of the locally enrolled students and their internet connection, or if the type of accommodations that need to be made. There isn’t a universal set of assumptions that apply to all students worldwide.

This is something you need to work out locally and before the course starts if possible. People here will have opinions, but only the local opinions at the university will have any actual weight.
Some things here seem foolish to me. Especially a large student population with insufficient TA support. There should be a dozen or so TAs to make this possible. Harvard's CS 50 course is also huge, but the student to staff ratio is about 20 to 1.
It may not be fair for the course designers to make such assumptions but you are probably going to be stuck with them whatever they are.
You point out some of the deficiencies of online instruction at this time. Even worse is that some students just don't have access to the equipment or bandwidth. But it is a chaotic situation.
Probably the best you can do is file a statement, say with a department head, and get acknowledgement of it that (a) internet connections can be flaky (b) cheating can be rampant no matter the technology (c) policies need to be established to fairly account for as many of the potential problems that might occur. And the policies will need to be somewhat flexible.
But demands are likely to be ignored. Enter into a conversation so that you have some assurance that fairness will be maintained.
On the other hand, some things about this course seem fine to me, such as frequent small assessments rather than a few high risk exams. Question-answer sessions is also a good idea if the times are flexible. Mailing lists can also be used to increase communication.
The course may actually need to oscillate a bit toward a successful outcome as there has bee insufficient time to even design the research needed for successful pedagogy. But if those assessments are well designed it can work out.
And you should prepare a quiet place in which to work if that is at all possible. Especially for the assessments.

Not only well designed assessments, but well designed material.

@SolarMike, you and I, at least, never produce anything except high quality stuff.

Well, I do try to do thst - some students like it, others don't. But it's a good answer.

Given that it's an online course, is it fair to assume the responsibility of stable internet connection (so that each assessment can be started and submitted in time) on students?

No, I don't think it's particularly fair to have the students shoulder the entire responsibility for something that is largely outside their control without giving them some alternative way to complete the assignment. Moreover, it's unrealistic to assume they have any reasonable way of ensuring connectivity. Internet connections can go down, the power can go down, and hardware can fail. I understand you may be trying to avoid people taking advantage of you, but these things happen and should be accounted for. (Personally, I've experienced the first two during video calls with collaborators during the last couple of months.) Further, some students (perhaps rural or less well-off) will have less table connections than others. Do you want the assignments to test students' learning, or the reliability of their internet connections?

If such an assumption is not fair, then does it mean any student claiming a network-related problem can be accommodated unconditionally for extra time or another test?

I think you should make some accommodations, but unconditional ones seem unnecessary. Reductio ad absurdum: if a particular student doesn't have a way of accessing the internet at all, they shouldn't be registered for an online class. If the student has recurring connection problems they should take steps to address that. But accommodations allowing for missing or delaying some number of quizzes (the number could be specified in the syllabus and/or kept flexible) seem important. There's somewhat of a parallel in mandatory physical attendance policies, which usually allow for missing some lectures even in normal times.

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Should I volunteer as the department chair?
My department's chair was due to renew this year. There was a search where, through an anonymous survey, short-listed candidates represented tenured faculty members with the most support from colleagues. But the search failed as all short-listed candidates ended up declining the offer. A new search committee is being formed and should it fail again, the dean will have the authority to appoint a new chair (likely an external person).
Having joined the department as a teaching-stream faculty member for six years, I just received my tenure a year ago. I chaired curriculum committees in both the departmental and faculty levels, and I have taught almost all foundational, compulsory courses in our undergraduate program.
I am now debating whether I should volunteer myself to the search committee (or to the entire faculty to gain more support in the survey). There will be standard teaching release and monetary compensation. What would be the points for me to consider? (For examples, am I just too junior to attempt this role? Should I wait until I'm "fully prepared"?)

Ask the past chairs for advice.  Departments vary.

Compare yourself to the shortlisted candidates. Are they all full professors? Are they research or teaching focused? What is their experience with administrative work (committees, positions)? What do they all have in common?

Do you know why the short-listed candidates declined?

There are departments in which the chair position rotates on a schedule, with all tenured faculty taking their turn at the task. And it is a task. A thankless task in some places, but not all.
People turn down an offer because they see their current work as more important or they just see the chair as too much administrative work or ....
I'd suggest that letting people know you would be willing to take the job is fine, though the normal process will still be followed, I assume.
If the department is research focused, you might not be considered, I suppose, though you would be expected to support all important department objectives even if that isn't your main focus. But that is true of anyone, actually.
If the chair serves for a limited term in that capacity it would be more likely that you would be considered.
But yes, it is acceptable that you put your name in the hat.

@Buffy is right to say sure, you can let it be known that you're willing.
That said, think about why you want (or are willing to undertake) the job. Is it a good professional move for you at this moment? Will the money and release from teaching compensate for the administrative work? Do you know and respect the office staff, who will be important to you? Do you get along with the dean? Are you doing this for you or because you care about the department and the students (could be all three)?


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What incentive does a professor have to allow a student to enroll in a course that is already full?
I'm hoping trying to register for a course I need that is currently full, and am told that I can try contacting the professor for permission to enroll. Under what circumstances are such requests typically granted? More students = more work for the professor, so I'm trying to figure out why a professor might agree to allow me in.
My best guess is that I should:

Convince them that since I'm a good student, I won't create very much extra work for them.
Convince them that since I'm a good student, allowing me into the course will raise the average grade for the term and make them look good.

What else can I say that they might find compelling?

If it's a course where most of the students are largely uninterested in the subject (only taking the course to satisfy some university wide requirement, such as a math course), then showing interest in the subject would help a lot. But make sure you don't overdo it, as I'm sure the professor has seen this strategy before.

Most professors are rather far from being [i]homo economicus[/i] - the caricature presented by economists of human beings as purely rational and self-interested.  (If we were, we'd all be in industry making twice as much money.)  We're usually happy for altruistic reasons to help out deserving students in need, whatever that means to us.  (We're not always fair in our judgements of who is deserving and who is in need.)

What kind of class and institution? The answer will be vastly different for an upper-level seminar capped at 15 students versus an intro level class capped at 200, for example.

Does the course include any sort of group work activities? A professor with a class of 80 students might allow an extra student so that he can arrange the class in groups of 3 students, for example.

@AlexanderWoo For nitpicking purposes, "selfish reasons" can easily include altruism. If altruism increases your well-being, which it does for most people, then you've got good selfish grounds to pursue it; don't even have to bring up that engaging in it will contribute to making the system one that generates greater well-being on average which would mean you've got good distant selfish reasons to pursue it.

As a former student, I saw other students often drop from classes which were full either because they struggled with the material early in the course or had to rearrange their schedule. Sitting in on the class and waiting for such an opening is a possible alternative.

I'd like to see you focus your question more clearly.  As it stands, it is a combination what-tends-to-occur and best-approach question.  Perhaps you'd like to focus on the latter.

I disagree with your proposed strategy.  The marginal added workload of one additional student is usually negligible, and the average grade for the term is not usually something that reflects well or poorly on a professor to a significant degree.  These aren't usually the main issues.
I would expect the professor to make the decision by trying to balance the benefits to you of taking the course, versus the negative effects on the other students from having the course be more crowded.  Your case will be more compelling if you can show that:

Not being able to take the course would represent a major hardship for you.  Something on the level of delaying your graduation.  If the only effect is that taking it later is somewhat less convenient, means a fuller schedule, means getting up at 8am, etc, that won't be compelling.
The fact that you couldn't register for the course normally is due to circumstances beyond your control, and not a result of inadequate planning on your part.
You are adequately prepared for the course, and are reasonably likely to pass it.  Being a "good student" overall means something here, but more to the point is showing that you have done reasonably well in all prerequisite courses.  If your preparation is marginal, the professor might think there's not much point in giving you permission to take a class you would be likely to fail.

There isn't much you can do about the negative effects from crowding; let the professor evaluate that.  Don't make suggestions like "I could skip all the lectures so that there will still be enough seats".  That tends to counteract #3 above.
Definitely do not attempt to bribe the professor with money, favors, etc, in exchange for being allowed to take the class.  (This should go without saying, but I have known it to happen.)

In my experience as a student, I can attest that your number 1 point is accurate. I hit the unit cap when registering for classes, and I needed one more GE class to graduate. Since I hit the unit cap I was unable to register for the class while it was open with priority registration and I couldn't get on the waiting list. I explained that not being able to take this class would delay my graduation by a quarter just for one class and that I had already contacted the dean of my college and had gotten approval to overload the class. He signed my overload form and let me in the class.

You could also add to the list that showing true interest in the topic is a very convincing factor. As a lecturer there is nothing more boring than a bunch of students who just sit there because they have to. If you can have an additional one who's a good student, who's interested in the topic and who is known to contribute to the course, I'd be much more inclined to admit him though the deadline's passed or the course is full.

And #2 is also something I can confirm to be effective. My course registration day was once on a religious holiday when I was not able to use the computer to register for classes. One of the classes I wanted to take filled up and I contacted the professor with an explanation of what had happened and he let me in without any objections.

I always said things like "I'd love to take your course because it's related to my career interests thusly" or "because so-and-so recommended that I take a course with you" or "because I need to to graduate," supplemented when applicable with "Although I don't have pre-req X, I have done Y, and I'll be happy to do any extra reading you recommend." I got into almost all the extra courses I wanted.

@PatricHartmann That's how I once got into an overloaded course. The professors told me that there was a waiting list for the course, but if I attended the lectures for the first few weeks, they would move me to the front of the list because they'd rather have students who were interested and already engaged. After a couple of weeks, there were enough no-shows for a spot to open up for me, and the professors were happy to have me in the class!

One of the most important lessons I learned in college is that when you want or need something from someone, show up in person at their office. E-mails are forgotten, phone calls are missed or just get an easily-forgotten note to do something, but someone physically being there waiting for something from you is really hard to ignore. The online register was nigh-useless at my school, but a quick stop in Debbie’s office usually got you everything you wanted (plus candy!). (This has to be done respectfully and at an appropriate time when their office is supposed to be open for business.)

In my experience, it doesn't hurt if the class is in your major and/or the professor is in your department.

Then again, the risk of having to get up at, say, 6:40 am would be quite a compelling reason to enroll them (to me, anyway).

In my own teaching experience, I allow overloads, or extra students, only if the student has put the course off until the semester of graduation (which happens with students often in my subject, mathematics).
If your college or university so offers, you may also ask if your institution has "independent study" credit. In this case - especially if all seats in the lecture room remained filled until the first exam - you would be expected to work on your own apart from prearranged office meetings with the professor. This path has the advantage of providing compensation (however small) for the professor taking the extra load.
As a last resort, your institution should have a waitlist for each of the filled sections. Get on all of these waitlists, especially if the course has a high drop/non-participation rate that shows up early on (at my institution, I'll lose three or four seats right away in sections of our higher-level stats course. If you get in before the last add date, get prepped to do a week or so of catching up right away.
If all available paths fail, you may do well in purchasing the material yourself and preparing for the next session. Auditing policy may not allow for this, but usually seats start to empty after the first few weeks (again, especially after the first exam) and in my own experience I have not found occasional students attending the class to be disruptive or against institutional policy.

Just to add a way other schools do it, my university doesn't have waitlists, they just send out a text blast when a spot opens up and whoever gets to a computer first gets it.

"This path has the advantage of providing compensation (however small) for the professor taking the extra load." — perhaps at yours (lucky!) but sadly that doesn't apply at every university

To add to the waitlist bit: I know at my university, we're expected to have full classes for the next semester and waitlists for several classes. In this situation, personally admitting a student to the course would be bypassing someone on the waitlist -- so it might not hurt to try this option first.

Putting the course off until the semester of graduation seems like a pretty bad reason to allow someone in (from some perspectives).  From the students perspective, you're probably a hero, and that is good.  From an education perspective, you're basically saying that it's perfectly fine that they put off courses they needed to the point that they missed registration.  That's a pretty bad message to be sending out, essentially allowing them to get away with their bad planning.  It just seems like an odd criteria, essentially "they weren't interested in this course so I will squeeze them in".

JMac: Students aren't going to put off a course until the last semester just so they can register late. It would be much easier to just register on time. I see your desire to punish students for bad planning, but most would find that rather unimportant compared to helping them graduate on time.

Jmac: to be entirely frank and open here, requests in cases of students entering the last semester that they can take a particular course usually come from administrators, who approach me for students typically following either bad (or, worse, no) advising or students not following good advising. Add to that the general fear and stigma of math and you have many cases of students taking deep breaths and diving in semesters after they really should have.

Faculty may not always have the ability to admit students into full courses.  We don't have the staff in our department to meet the student demand.  So our administrators normally set the roster size to the be the legal limit of people in the classroom.  The only way to enlarge the class is to find a larger classroom; and classroom space is another thing we are short on.
All this to say, no matter how nicely you ask, you still may not get in even if the instructor wants to let you in.

I agree with most of what is said above but would add one thing: I find it a lot harder to turn down a student who's standing in front of me than I do to reply in the negative to an e-mail request.

I usually based my  decision on how many students I already had enrolled. If the cap for the course was 25 or less, I would usually let a student or two in. I assume you are enrolling for Fall 2017, so if the course would not be offered in the spring (especially if you needed it for graduation), I would have no objection to letting you in. If this were a large lecture course (35 or more students), I might still let you in, but the odds decrease as the class size increases. A word of warning: I spent my career at a small liberal arts school, so we were generally more lenient in these matters. At a large institution, your request may get an icier reception, regardless of your stated case.

Maybe they do not need to be compelled.
We set up a maximal number of students for some courses. If there are more, the students can still ask to get in (or put themselves on a waitlist).
Then the teaching professor will be able to decide. Basically, if there are two more students, they would usually both be allowed in the course. But if there are 25 students more for a course you planned to take 15 students in total? You might not have the infrastructure (large enough lecture hall, enough tutors, ...) to still allow all of them in the course. But you also cannot pick, so none will be allowed.
So in that case: If you are the only extra student your chances are good, whatever your reasons are. If there is a whole lot of you, things get more difficult.

In this case (at least here at the college I work for) the department chair will add a second section.   Another reason to allow students in aside from teh "needed to graduate this term" is that just like a minimal section an adjunct gets paid less, with it slightly fuller (30 instead of 25, etc) then they get paid somewhat more...

Here no one gets paid more or less based on the number of students and also the department can't just add courses. I guess this is heavily based on location and tradition.

If the Professor doesn't let you in before Class. Try showing up the first day of class. Keep showing up to class and showing interest in the class. I've gotten into a "full" class by doing this. The first day multiple people showed up wanting to join the class. By the end of week 2 hardly any of them were showing up and the Professor let me in the class. My actions showed I was serious about wanting to be there.

Many professors will simply do this as a matter of course. I have personally gotten into many classes simply by emailing the professor and saying 'Is there any way that I could get into this course?' Almost every reply was a yes. Most professors expect a few students to not show up the first day or to drop the class within a few weeks, so letting an extra student in usually is no big deal. I have only in very exceptional circumstances had to explain why I wasnt able to enroll in the course on time.

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Being forced to publish a paper?
Background: 25 years old, I have a BA in Anthropology, graduated in 2016, but currently working in a field unrelated to my degree.
I have been involved within a scientific organization for the past 3 years doing anthropology related projects. The whole involvement was completely voluntary, though I also got to travel two times to different countries because of it. But overrall, it was money loss + missed chances to start my current job earlier.
During the past 2 years, the organization started to publish a journal with collected papers from other people in this field (most of the authors are known only locally in my country). The director (senior colleague of mine) of the organization started to push me to publish in it to which I, naively, accepted without realizing how actually difficult is to write a good paper. The reason he did this is because I had an experience with few methods which are rare in my country, but then no-one could review them to check if they are done correctly.
I have a draft version of the paper, however, the final results are not quite what I was hoping for. Because of the lack of good quality data, the results are obviously flawed and knowingly publishing bad quality results might hurt me in the long term if I decide to pursue academic career later down the road. But currently, I'm quite satisfied with my job (which is unrelated to anthropology) and I will never put this paper in my CV. Furthermore, I doubt that I will continue working in anthropology in the future.
The only thing that's killing me is that I already promised to deliver a paper, and this would be the second time that I would not send a paper for publishing. The first one that I did not send was when I was 22 (two years ago, because of the same reasons). During that time, the director got a bit offended and told me that some one could benefit from the methods (even though they were never actually reviewed by some professional experienced in applying them, so they could've been flawed).
What would be the best thing to do in a scenario such as this? I really do not like to publish bad quality results. Should I talk with the senior colleague and risk to burn bridges?

A published paper with some flaws is better than an unpublished flawless paper.

...people will find it even if you don't mention it in your CV. But rest assured nothing bad will happen, though. At best, people might curiously ask some decades later: "this was a research question then?"

My first guess is that you think your work is worse than it really is. This is a variation on Imposter Syndrome of course. The director, however, knows your work and presumably something about the field. His faith is stronger than yours.
But to ease your fears, I'd suggest that you try to work with the director to refine your paper. Along the way you can bring up your reservations naturally and, probably, address them. If you can arrange this, then you might include the director as co-author, depending on the degree of collaboration.
Even if your paper isn't perfect (few are), you probably have something valuable to contribute as the director indicates. Indeed, the methodology of the paper might be much more important to the community than the immediate results.
Also, I hope that the publication system of the journal includes good reviewers. By submitting it you will get additional feedback from knowledgeable people that will help you improve the paper before final publication. Even without the director's direct help, the review should be valuable.
Publishing just seems like a big win to me.

If you know the quality of the data is not good enough, state it clearly. Then it won't hurt your career.
Some papers state explicitly what their contribution is. You could add this and explain that you primarily want to introduce the method and show some preliminary results which are not good enough for themselves.

+1 for just be honest about the data. Then your readers can draw appropriate conclusions.

Sometime honesty gives better results. Try to state that the approbation of the method is your primary goal. Try to compare the results with results that were obtained using other methods. State that the method is used in other countries/fields so it's try to apply it in yours. State which parts of the results are suspicious and require further research and what you don't like in them. "vague/cheaty" statements may mislead and waste others time. The result of clean/honest statement - may indeed help others to get something from the method even if it works not perfect in your case.

As the other two answers have mentioned, write your paper and the data-collection mechanisms and the shortcomings you had with that mechanism. You can add a section titled 'discussion' (just an example) where you can spend a paragraph or two to explain the nature of the data, the degree of errors (i.e. what, how, and why) in the results etc. Then, in the end, you can mention that refining your results is part of your future work.
As you said nobody has worked in your method (in your country), it might be helpful for future researchers to build upon. They can remove those flaws. This is how research work. During my MS, I developed a scanning system which was miles away from being called an ideal system. But it provided a testing ground for use and later-on future researchers in my lab build on it and now it is being used commercially.


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Number of pages for journals?
I am aiming to publish my masters thesis in psychology and found some journals fitting my topic. Is there a recommended number of pages for the parts introductions, methods, results, discussion and conclusions? I could not find this in the authors guides of the journals I was looking for. These are some of the journals of interest: BMC Psychiatry, IEEE-Transactions on Affective Computing, Speech Communication, Computer Speech and Language.

How about reading papers in your target yournals and use these as orientation?

Good idea, thank you!

I know of no psychology journal that gives an explicit statement about the proportion of each paper that is expected to be devoted to the introduction, methods, etc. Indeed, it frequently seems to me that the decision by many journals to impose high minimum-word-lengths on articles means that a great many are unnecessarily verbose. When faced with the problem of an appropriate division, probably the best you can do is to see how other authors in the same journal have managed the available space.
However, there is another option which I have only recently encountered. Some journals ("Self and Identity" being the example I saw) make it clear that they will accept articles of (almost) any word length, with figures, tables and references formatted in any style of your choosing. Within the simple constraints of, say, Background, Rationale, Methods, Results, Discussion, you can then present your own research in its best light, choosing a length that best suits you, with the lengths of the sections determined by the demands of the content.


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Should I let my incoming applied school know that I've optained a scholarship from another school?
This is in an Australian PhD application context, and I'll try to provide as much info as possible without revealing anyone's identity.
I have obtained a full PhD scholarship from a less prestigious school last November. However, due to job arrangements, I had to defer the commencement of my PhD program to the upcoming November. During my current job tenure, my direct superior recommended me to a better ranked school (also in Australia). So I am in touch with the new school now (and the new supervisor knows that I've got a scholarship from the earlier application).
The new supervisor suggested me to note in my new application that I've obtained a full scholarship from the old school, saying there might be better chances of me getting a scholarship in this new school if they know that I've had a scholarship from another school (not sure what's the logic here).
This brings me to the following questions:

Should I, as the new supervisor suggested, mention in my new application that I've got a scholarship somewhere else? From my point of view, it sounds like I'm pressuring the new school to give me a scholarship, and they'll consider this disrespectful.
Would you consider this a moral delimma - given that I have accepted and deferred the offer & scholarship from the 1st school, and now I'm shopping around the market?
I heard from fellow PhD candidates that when it comes to PhD, school ranking isn't as important. Is it correct? I guess my current dilemma is in big part caused by school ranking - in my workplace, everyone comes from prestigious schools. So I just can't get past the fact that if I don't try the new school, I will end up in a less reputable school (even though my supervisor will be a super great gentleman - as in both personality and academic achievement).

please limit the post to one question at a time, otherwise the question will be closed due to being to broad.

Related/duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/110902/is-it-okay-to-explore-other-grad-school-options-while-deferring-admission-for-ot


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Unaddressed ethical violation I know about but have no connection to: Do I report it?
I've been made aware of a situation that blatantly violates the honor code at my institution (also every institution). However it does not involve my lab, and the folks in the relevant lab are not keen to address it in any official capacity.  What to do?
The Situation:

A graduate student proved to be unfit for the lab he worked in. After one year he transferred to a totally different department/school/program at our university--one that is not research intensive.
Upon leaving, my friend hounded him for the data he collected, which was part of a project she is lead on.  He provided her with an excel spreadsheet. The Day 1 observations appear normal, but the subsequent days were simply a formula that changed Day 1's values by a constant and added some variance. To be clear, he actually left the formulas (which linked to the Day 1 observations) in the cells. So, clearly it's fraudulent data.
My friend told her PI and is not using any data collected by this RA in any of her work.
However, what is problematic, IMO, is that the PI and my friend have no intentions of addressing it further. I believe they are motivated by a desire to avoid the bureaucracy and the awkwardness that comes with making such an accusation. They have also pointed out that the program he is in now is totally different and does not involve real research (but still writing up reports about observed data, I would imagine).

The Question:

This student is still at our institution and I feel that the lack of ethical integrity he demonstrated should (must) be addressed!
Am I being a self-righteous, cotton-headed ninny muggins?
If not, what course of action should I take?
NB: I am not in any way associated with that lab or PI... it's a different department too. I am a 2nd year PhD student.

Thank you for any insight.
Bonus Details:

This was intentional fraud. The data are behavioral observations of mice, there should be original video files, and there are for Day 1 but the subsequent files are missing. When asked several times this week it was "oh yeah yeah I'll get those to you... it's just my login isn't working since I'm switching departments..." indicating that he did not actually collect the data. He did not reply "just kidding," "my bad," or "actually I did something stupid." (Sidebar: his inability to realize how obvious he is reminds me of teaching while students not-so-covertly text... I see you!)
The specific formula was Day1Value*1.1+(RAND(-2,2))... so while he added variance it was a naive attempt at doing so... even if he hadn't left the formulas in there it would be as clear as day.

As background that seems relevant to the question, can you say something about how the graduate student proved unfit for the lab? Specifically, was that also something to do with unethical behavior?

Some honor codes have a provision that anyone who becomes aware of a violation of the code is obligated to report it.  Does yours?

@NateEldredge and what if it does? Are you going to suggest that OP now also implicate his friend and her PI in an honor code violation by being the one to complain when they were reluctant to?

@DanRomik: Obviously it's a personal ethical decision, but if there is such a provision, then I think OP should seriously consider doing it.  Aside from general principle, there's the issue that if OP knows about it and does nothing, then she herself may be liable for the consequences of an honor code violation, if and when the situation comes to light.  Alternatively, OP could cite this provision as a way to pressure the friend / PI, or even the original data-falsifier, to report the violation themselves.

@NateEldredge Your reasoning is sound, but a bit too mathematical IMO. Honor codes are not mathematical theorems - in practice, considering that it is a bit of a value judgment whether an honor code violation (or at least a serious one) even occurred (as discussed in my answer), and considering that minor honor code violations happen all the time without anyone getting too worked up, neither OP nor the friend and PI run much of a risk by not reporting the incident. I do agree about the principle being important, and that it is a personal ethical decision.

@kindredChords if you don't mind, "the little Dan" would prefer to be spoken of as the actual person that he is rather than as some kind of metaphorical shoulder-demon. And to be clear, as of now "he" isn't actually making any recommendations about whether you should or should not take action - Nate and I were just discussing some of the ethical implications of the various possibilities, without yet arriving at any firm conclusions.

So sorry, Dan, did not mean any offense nor did I mean to imply one was a demon and the other an angel. I only meant to express that I appreciate the discussion because it's the same back forth that was happening in my head and that is what prompted me to ask the question in the first place.

If it was intentional fraud, you have a problem on your hands. I personally consider faking data the top violation of the scientific contract and its top capital crime, even worse than plagiarism. I think you need to judge your further process via: feasability/chance of success/damage to yourself and whether that balances off with the others. I personally think that to ask you to endanger your career by exposing the fraud, is similar to ask someone to risk their life to save others and a similar ethical conundrum.

@kindredChords no problem, I did not take offense.

I report any and all incidents of academic dishonesty I come across.  Likely an aspect of Aspergers Syndrome that I need to work on, but I feel that if I can work and not for cheat, for lack of a better word, then the rest of the world can do the same.

I took action... After carefully reading our honor code and the procedure for reporting misconduct I felt more compelled to act.  Ultimately, I think falsifying data is one of the  worst things you can do as a scientist. I just couldn't stop thinking about the new department he is in, the new advisors he has, and the new cohort he is apart of... all ignorant of this offense.  If I was his new advisor, I would want to know about this.  So out of respect for them and for my institution I knew I would act.  The question was how?
It turns out my university has a protocol for reporting misconduct anonymously, which is great. But rather than go that route, I actually asked the PI if we could meet. PI was taken aback because, although PI knows who I am, we are not at all working together. In our meeting I simply explained that...
"I feel compelled to act in accordance with the honor code given that I am aware of the situation.  But once I report the incident, you will likely be the first person they contact.  So I wanted to come to you instead, out of respect, and explain how I felt regarding the situation and basically find out if you prefer to take care of it or if you prefer for me to move forward acting in my own good conscious."
PI was surprisingly kind about it, empathetic even. PI was very responsive to me explaining that I mostly felt bad for the new people this person was working with, that they were ignorant to his lack of ethical integrity--something the PI had not considered. We discussed how the PI wrote the RA a letter of rec to get into the new program, and I could see a realization on the part of the PI--specifically, that he had a responsibility to let these folks know that he no longer stands by his characterization of this student. In the end, PI assured me that we were in agreement, that taking official action through our university's research office was the appropriate next step. I apologized profusely for meddling but PI assured me I did the right thing and that I would've been equally right to have reported it as well.
So in answer to my own question, I would say that...

First, read your honor code carefully to find out what responsibility you have to report incidents you know about. (This is why S.Diaxo's answer is incorrect; not only is there something I can do about it, I am technically required to do something about it).
Figure out what your options are for reporting misconduct, it may be the case, as at my university, that you can simply report it anonymously and that they will look into it and you do not need to be involved.
If you feel compelled to report something, but you want to be respectful to the people it might involve, consider talking to those people directly (in a respectful and non confrontational manner). That worked for me, and I'm glad I don't need to be the one to report it.

Thanks everyone for your discussion.

I think the place to start would be to talk to your friend about feeling uncomfortable with the position you are in. It may however be that the situation has in fact been addressed, but without the effect being visible to you.

Thanks for your answer, @JessicaB. I did express how I felt to both the PI and my friend (I was in her lab for lunch), and once the PI left, I was even more forward with my friend.  The PI has a really...uh, interesting personality, and I can say with confidence he didn't take care of it.  He does not want to deal with it--not officially, unofficially with the student, or otherwise. Still, you are correct, particularly if he has made any other mistakes with others.

The truth is you don't have the evidence, and your friend and its PI are not being co-operative. They should have directly called him out and given him a scolding, and proceed further, using the evidence depending on the students reaction/etc.
Btw, have you seen the fraudulent data yourself?
I must say I find it weird for someone "unfit" for research to bother to 1) fake data for a lab they left, when they can just say leave me alone 2) put the effort to fake it with a minimal level of technical decency (add variance)...
To me, there is something odd about the relationship between these 3 characters. It will be interesting to hear the story from the cheaters side.

Thanks for your answer.  I did see the spreadsheet.  I was in the lab when the file was received and we all looked at it.  As far as the RA's abilities, it is not a lack of aptitude, it is a lack of interest and a failure to actually get things done (not uncommon in 1st year grad students who chose the wrong path).  I added the exact formula to my question.  I agree, this person should have just walked away, that is part of the reason his behavior is so unnerving... all the more reason it should be addressed.

Ok! I understand and it is  really frustrating. But you are a PhD student in another department, and the people who should be reporting let this one go... so I think there isn't much you can do.

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Can I bring my dog to on-campus graduate housing?
I am from the country of Georgia.
I'am going to apply for US PhD program.
My top choice university is UCLA.
If I would be accepted to UCLA (or another American university) PhD program, can I bring my Dog (Siberian Husky) to campus? Can he come to my office or live with me in on-campus housing?

Are you asking whether you would be able to bring the dog to school to be with you while you're in class (either as a teaching assistant or as a student) or working, or whether you would be able to bring the dog into the US and have them at home while you're working?  (Note that, at most US universities, grad students do not live on campus.)

@AlexanderWoo I should live in campus . So my question is about campus space

UCLA is among the vast majority of US universities where very few of the grad students live on campus.  You will almost certainly end up renting a room in an off-campus apartment or house.

I recommend you do not try this unless you have a lot of money to spend.  For example, you might have to buy an expensive house (not a condo) to be able to keep a large dog in a city.  If you have no history of living in the US, you would likely have to pay cash for that house.  Near UCLA, that might be $1.3 million.

@AnonymousPhysicist You can rent houses in the US.

@AzorAhai-him- Landlords do not like large dogs.  In current economic conditions, they can choose their customers.  See cag51's answer.

Is a service dog? do you have medical reasons to bring the dog with you? exceptions may apply.

@AnonymousPhysicist Well sure, but for someone moving to the US from a different country it would have been more clear to say "you might have to buy ... because it might be hard to find a landlord who will allow a large dog."

It's not that hard to find someone willing to allow pets in a large community. You will have a more limited selection and not get the best locations, but it's quite common. A quick web search for pet-friendly rental near UCLA should return useful results.

I had a colleague who brought his dog from his home country as a graduate student... But to do that, he first came alone, found the right accomodation and then, during the next visit to his home country he brought the dog.

Bringing a do into the US is non-trivial also: https://www.cdc.gov/importation/bringing-an-animal-into-the-united-states/dogs.html

Anecdotally, my friends and I can recall a recent UCLA grad student who had a German shepherd, but nobody is quite sure where he managed to live with the dog.

How is this related to Academia? Aside the fact that your dog might be in a university part of the time? I have never seen dogs strolling around in academic buildings.

@HermanToothrot It seems like OP, who is coming from a different country, might have been expecting to be placed in university housing as a grad student, not knowing that is exceedingly rare in the US. Plus it is also asking about norms about bringing a dog to your office everyday in the US (also not usually OK).

Bringing your dog is tricky but not impossible.

As others have said, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to live on campus with a large dog. There are probably few if any US universities that allow large dogs in campus housing.

This is not necessarily a problem, since you could simply live off-campus. However, finding a landlord that allows you to have a large dog might not be easy either.

It will be hardest near campus and in downtown major cities. If you're a landlord in one of these areas, you are getting several applications per day and may choose one without a dog, to avoid concerns about property damage, barking, liability if he bites someone, etc. In particular, you may find that some cities are near impossible -- the nearest affordable, large-dog friendly apartments may require a multi-hour commute.
On the other hand, if you choose a university outside of a city center and you live at least a few miles from campus, you should be able to find something. However, in my personal experience, most landlords will not allow large dogs.

Your university will have rules about bringing your dog to campus with you (UCLA, for example, allows leashed dogs on campus outdoors, but forbids non-service dogs in all buildings). It's possible that you'll get lucky and no one will care if you break the rules -- especially if you dog just curls up in your office and never bothers anyone. But it's very likely that someone will complain (or will have allergies) and you'll have to leave your dog at home. It can be a challenge to give your dog proper stimulation and attention under these circumstances, especially for an energetic breed like a husky.

Bottom line: if you have a good housing solution for your dog in Georgia, you should probably leave him there. You could always make arrangements to bring him over after your first year, if you manage to find a dog-friendly apartment. If you "must" bring the dog with you, that is certainly doable, but you should take this into account when choosing which schools to apply to. Look at the advertisements for apartments a few miles from the school in question and see how many allow large dogs.

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

A quick search shows that pets are not allowed   in UCLA graduate student housing (fish excepted with restrictions). I'd guess the same to be true most places (campus housing). But every US university will have its own rules on such things.
For off-campus housing the landlord's rules would apply and some would permit and others forbid it.
Note that, while you can probably walk a dog on campus, it would almost certainly need to be on a leash and you need to clean up after it. This would be true most places in the US these days, with some exceptions.
There will also be issues about bringing a dog to the US in the first place; vaccinations, quarantine, etc. Make sure you understand the rules.
Service animals such as seeing-eye dogs have special relaxed rules.
Note also that not every university in the US has housing dedicated for graduate students, though some will allow single grad students in regular student housing, which is mainly for undergraduates; no pets, though. Single rooms might be available or not. But most universities tend to be surrounded by lots of rental housing owned by individuals or corporations.
If you don't bring your dog, note that lots of shelters here have animals needing a home. You would ethically need to consider their long term needs if you don't intend to stay after you finish a degree.

"You would ethically need to consider their long term needs if you don't intend to stay after you finish a degree" Fostering can be good in this situation. Especially for older/chronically ill animals that are harder to get adopted and can benefit from long-term fosters (with the caveat that you are more likely to have to deal with their death)

If I would be accepted to UCLA ... PhD program, can I bring my Dog ... to campus?
Yes, you may bring your dog to public outdoor areas on campus, provided that you abide by various rules. From UCLA policy #135 (version at time of this post became effective in July 2019):

A Pet dog is allowed on most outdoor public areas of University Property† only if the Pet dog is under the control of a competent person and restrained by a substantial chain or leash not exceeding six feet in length. Note: Certain outdoor campus venues may not allow Pets and/or have additional restrictions.

Note that pets are not allowed on campus-provided transportation vehicles (e.g. shuttles).
UCLA's policy contains a general description of your responsibilities:

An individual who is either visiting or residing on campus and who wants to bring an animal to campus, is to be mindful that the animal may constitute a hazard to others, especially in confined or closed spaces. Such threats may include but are not limited to, allergies, exacerbation of specific phobias, falls, increased risk of disease, and bites. In addition, the presence of an animal in certain areas may distract or interrupt activities or may create a nuisance, including the nuisance caused by animal waste, noise, or damage to property.
An individual bringing an animal to campus is required to be aware of these potential threats or hazards and to exercise reasonable control over the animal in order to minimize the risk to others.
The animal owner is responsible and liable for the animal at all times while the animal is on University Property. Any injury to an individual while on University Property or damages to University Property by an animal will be the responsibility of the animal owner.

Can he come to my office ...
No, not if your office is university property†. From 135:

A Pet dog or other Pet animal (leashed or otherwise) is not permitted in any campus building ... at any time.

If your office is not university property, then the property owner's policies apply, of course.
(If you are referring to your office at your place of employment, though, fwiw bringing pets to work in office buildings is a generally unusual practice and I believe it would be very unlikely for you to find an employer that let you bring your dog to work with you, especially in a corporate setting.)
...or live with me in on-campus housing?
No (as per above), not if the housing is university property†. There are some allowances for UCLA faculty and staff in very specific conditions. See also UCLA Housing Regulations §B.11 for details specific to university housing.

There are exceptions if your dog is a service animal.
Please refer to the linked policy documents for up-to-date info, the other rules by which you must abide, and details about service animals, as this post is not a complete description of UCLA's policies, nor do I intend to update this post if their policy changes.
† Note: "University property" is defined in that policy:

University Property refers to the grounds and buildings of UCLA campus and off-campus buildings owned or operated by the University.

... (or another American university) ...
The policy I described above is UCLA-specific. For other universities, you will have to read their respective policies, which may differ from UCLA.
There isn't a central resource for university pet policies so your best bet is to visit their web site and either use their search feature if they have one available (to limit your search to official university provided info), or poke around on the site. If they do not have a way to find or navigate to policy info on their web site, then use your favorite general search engine, taking care to look at official and up-to-date sources. "University name pet policy" is a good bet for search keywords.
If you have doubts or are unable to find information, there should be some kind of contact info on the university's web site for a department that can answer your questions.

If your chosen university does not have an acceptable pet policy for on-campus housing and does not require you to live in on-campus housing, then you may also consider looking for off-campus housing that meets your needs.
Additionally, if your dog's needs are a factor in your decision, there are various city-specific resources that you can find. Lists of "top US pet-friendly cities" on the internet sometimes give rundowns of amenities available in the area (dog parks, veterinary services, etc.). You can find them by searching; I don't want to link to any specific info as it is rather subjective.


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Having a co-author as an external examiner for doctoral thesis defense
I'm a PhD student in Computer Science in the UK. I had co-authored a paper with a Lecturer from another university (not any of my supervisors, just someone's work I'm building upon) in my first year. I have kept him up-to-date with my work and he's very familiar with what I'm doing. Would I be allowed to have him as an examiner for my thesis?
Edit: Just to clarify, I'm referring to an external examiner.

What does your university regulations say? What does your supervisor say?

My supervisor actually suggested that I contact him, but he wasn't sure either if it would be allowed. And he just said, "We'd have to check this." (not where or with whom though). I didn't know that this was something that varied from university to university? I expected there to be some sort of a national or global consensus on the matter.

If you do a google search for your university and "phd external examiner", you should find something. I just checked 3 universities in the UK and they all had their policies online (i.e., you can have an external examiner but their qualifications must be approved).

@AustinHenley I think you've misunderstood the situation. In the UK, you have two examiners. One of them must be from your own institution; the other must be from some other institution: it's not "can" but "must".

@DavidRicherby I certainly did misunderstand then! Thanks for clarifying.

I'd be very surprised if your universities regulations did not explicitly forbid this; it would be a clear conflict of interest.

It doesn't matter whether there is a "national or global consensus"; it matters what is the rule at your particular university (consensus means "general agreement"; there may be exceptions).  Given that the concern has been raised, your advisor is exactly right when he says "We'd have to check this."
It sounds like you don't know who to ask and are trying to circumvent this by instead getting a general answer from the larger academic world.  That's not the way to go here.  If you don't know who to ask, begin by telling your advisor that: this is his problem as well as yours.  Then together you ask various university people about the issue until you get an answer.  If there is some faculty member who has a leadership role in the graduate program in your department (e.g. the "director of graduate studies" or possibly just the department head), start there.
(Added: Of course you may be able to find the answer to your question in online regulations for your graduate program, and that is an excellent place to start.  I had assumed that the OP would have tried that first before asking here.  Generally posted regulations do not address every eventuality.)
For what it's worth I would be surprised if this were a problem.  But I said what I meant: the previous sentence is not worth much.  Maybe it's a problem at your university: then I'll be surprised (so what?).  The last thing that you want is not to check this out and find out too late that it's actually a problem.

Again, sorry about the trivial question. It lacked sufficient prior research. Please feel free to delete it if it falls below standard. Thanks for your answer!

@user1953384: No worries.