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Should I do anything if I am cited for something that wasn't in my paper?
I’ve just read a paper in which a previous paper of mine has been cited.  The line in which the citation happens is something like:

It has been shown that technique X is successful in this problem [citation for my paper].

However, in my paper, I never mention technique X.
Should I do anything?  The paper that cites mine is otherwise fine and really doesn’t need a reference for their use of technique X, since they spend a lot of time developing it anyway.

@uwnojpjm: mainly because I want to be recognized for work I've actually done, rather than just get recognized for existing

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49633/how-to-react-to-your-work-being-cited-incorrectly-or-in-a-misleading-way

@MichaelStachowsky Sometimes you just gotta play the hand you have.

Get used to it: It happens all. the. time.

I don't necessarily agree with the "any press is good press" stance here --- if technique X actually isn't successful for this problem, then this might spread either a) the belief that OP published an incorrect result or b) that X is applicable and thus waste research time.

I had a much more annoying instance where someone said something like "Such and such happens, even though X claims it does not", and cited my paper as X -- even though I had done the exact opposite, and made no such claim. Exasperating, but I decided it wasn't worth picking a fight about.

I will make @apnorton point less abstract with "It has been shown that smoking cigarettes is successful in curing AIDS (citation for your paper)." but that does not sound like the case here.

Are you absolutely sure that your paper is not an example of some more general technique, even if you didn't think of it that way?

@John_Krampf yeah, I'm super sure that the citation was not actually about my specific paper but seemed to be a typo.  Like the accepted answer suggested though, I did end up ignoring it since it was likely just a minor typo.

There really isn't any action worth pursuing here. You could write the editors and ask them to issue a corrigendum stating that the reference was incorrect, but you'll probably waste a lot of time and effort for what is likely a very minor issue.

Agreed. An exception would be a prominent reference in a paper that is potentially read by a very large group of readers - as an extreme example, a reference on page 1 in a Nature article.

If I (as a reader) came across a reference I was interested in or was important to my research, I'd be pretty miffed to waste my time digging through a paper that contains nothing about it.

@Phill: That’s true, but are you going to dig up the corrigendum to see that “Ref. X on p. Y should be Ref. Z?”

@aeismail, well yes I would, I'm not sure how corrigendums (corrigenda?) are handled, but if it came with the paper I just downloaded or was on the website - which I'd hope it would be - then I personally would feel compelled to quickly glance over it before reading (maybe I'm weird)... Then when I found a reference etc. if it triggered my memory then I'd double check the corrigendum before following it.

I completely disagree with this answer. Although it seems unlikely that a corrigendum is required, it makes very good sense to at least contact the authors. If nothing else, it should stop them making the same mistake in their next paper. If the incorrect citation is just a typo, the journal might be willing to correct the online edition; if the paper is on, e.g., ArXiv, the authors might correct it there.

@DavidRicherby: Most journals do not correct online editions after they have been published; they only do corrigenda. You may want to send an email; others may find it's not worth the effort. I certainly don't want to have to deal with the nonsense of publishers for something like this. (I've dealt with a publisher-made error, and it was bad enough then.) If it's a repeated pattern, then maybe.

@aeismail OK, but mailing the authors isn't going to take any significant amount of time.

Since you never mention their technique, it is quite likely it's a "typo" (they accidentally cited a different paper than they meant, which, at least, in my field happens more than 0% of the time), or they just misunderstood your paper (or you misunderstood your paper).  I agree with @aeismail that there's nothing you need to do, but if you want to get to the bottom of this, you could contact the authors, saying something like:
I noticed you cited my paper in ... about X.  However, that paper didn't consider X.  Did you mean to refer to another paper?  If so, I'd be interested in knowing which paper.

Contacting the authors, rather than the editor, has two advantages. It is a less drastic, friendlier action, and it gives them an opportunity to fix the mistake in future papers in the same research area.

The stated situation doesn't appear to present enough evidence to go beyond where we should be assuming good faith. If the OP has a way to contact the authors, this appears to be a good way to handle this. The issue is much more likely to be a case where the author just made an unintentional error, as opposed to being intentional misrepresentation.  I would expect that most authors who made such a mistake would want to know about it, so it could be corrected in any future publication.

Good points there.  I think I'll send a quick email, just to see what the idea was

How is this not the accepted answer!

... "or you misunderstood your paper". Duh?

@MichaelStachowsky You might want to consider changing the accepted answer.

@299792458 Misunderstanding one's own papers is possible, in the sense that I might not be thinking about X when I write a paper and therefore wouldn't mention X in the paper, yet an alert reader familiar with X would immediately see that my paper is relevant to X and perhaps even provides important information about X. On more than one occasion, I've had to give a theorem an attribution of the form "This was proved but not stated by so-and-so in reference such-and-such."

Yes, you should write the authors.
I disagree with both @aeismail and @Kimball, in that I believe it is important to address the incorrect reference, and you should go to at least some effort to do it. Since it's not a critical reference in the paper OP mentioned, I would not do much, but we should be striving for published research to be absolutely correct on the facts (as opposed to opinions/perspectives/etc) so as not to confuse future readers.
So, a minimum of something like this (the wording is just a suggestion of course):

I've recently read your paper Their paper. Some nice words about their paper so as not to appear too hostile. I've also noticed the paper quotes own my work in Your paper regarding technique X. However, that paper of mine does not actually discuss technique X nor use it. Did you intend to refer to another paper (e.g. Some other paper which might be more appropriate)? Regardless, I'd like to ask you to consider taking some action to address this issue (perhaps by contacting The Journal), to ensure readers are not confused by the reference.

would be in order. Be respectful in addressing them.

I agree with writing the authors, but disagree with telling them what you think they should do.  So that email but without the last sentence, and maybe add a sentence at the beginning saying something nice about their paper.

@NoahSnyder: See edit.

You have a number of options. Beginning with writing the editor, author, or publisher.  If they refuse to redact or recall or issue or public correction, what you can do is come out publicly to scorn the misuse of your work. This is especially true for scientific works that are being deliberately misrepresented, or maliciously used to advance some agenda.  You have a duty to call out false reasoning in all contexts, but even more so when your own work is being used to do it. At worst, your work will advance bad science or social ideologies, depending on the work. At best, if it goes unchecked and unnoticed, it could tarnish your own reputation because people may not verify what your work actually says.

This is gratuitously heavy-handed for the situation described in the question ("The paper [...] really doesn't need a reference for their use of technique X, since they spend a lot of time developing it anyway..."). Do you really think that "public scorn" is appropriate here? Come on.

What Im going for is public awareness of those deliberately trying to manipulate the masses with false research.  Do you think that is inappropriate or ineffectual?  Do you really think false research should be ignored by those who see it for what it is, whether because they had a direct or indirect hand in it?  I question your ethics and your involvement in these tactics if you have a problem with truth being called out. However harshly the people react is on them, not on those doing the calling out.

Fundamentally this question is about ethics.  Not just on the part of the BS research(er), but on the poor sap who was misquoted, and a duty we all have in science to the truth.  Harsh social reaction is not inappropriate, no, and if that utterly destroys the reputation of a liar passing his garbage off as science then so be it. Its all for the greater good.  I cannot imagine anyone in academia disagreeing with this.  Its your reputations and your work and especially the reputation of your institutions as unbiased and quality campuses that are at stake.

This goes well beyond an accidental misquoting or misinterpretation of source material.  It could very well have ideological undertones and be socially/culturally manipulative, at worst, and at best, the inability of the paper-writer to adequately interpret source material speaks to his competency in the field.  But ultimately, the refusal of the author to retract his publication after realizing a falsity speaks to intent, or ego, neither of which belong in academia.

So no, I dont think that this guy writing a public notice pointing out to readers the misuse of his work - in particular after the abuser has been informed and chosen to do nothing about it - is at all inappropriate or excessive. How could it be?  The abuser ought to be ashamed of himself and perhaps will be shamed, but that is not the intent of the notice. The intent is to preserve the sanctity of the original source work and the reputation of its author, respect for the sanctity of science, respect for all readers of both papers.

I have laid out one optional solution based on a detail that is not specified in the question. Given the outlined scenario, I cannot fathom a reason why anyone would take issue with this solution unless they were a part of the problem themselves.

Don't you think you slightly exaggerate things here? Did you consider that the wrong quotation may just be a typo and not the meanness of the author who is trying to end the the world? I find myself often copy+pasting references in LaTex from my bib, grabbing a wrong citation would stay unnoticed.

I think youre the one blowing things out of proportion.  I gave an OPTION based on details that were not explicit in the question. If it applies, use it. If it doesnt, dont.  You clearly didnt read my content. If you accidentally grab a wrong quote and the author of your source - or anyone else - pointed it out to you, youd make a correction, would you not?  My post is premised on the idea that you refuse to correct yourself when pointed out - then youd be in the wrong for malicious and deliberate intent. If you cannot wrap your mind around this then that is your problem.

Whooooa there. For all you know, the error is a simple typo and the paper says "Widget theory, as developed in [14]" when it should really be "Widget theory, as developed in [41]" or something similar. Please stop throwing around these wild accusations of gross misconduct that are based on nothing more than supposition.

Answerer, please be reminded of Hanlon's razor.

"Mistakes" happen. But if the person responsible for a mistake refuses to correct himself, and abuses your work and your name, as is the premise of what Im saying, then such people dont deserve sympathy.  If they are so "innocent" then they wont have a problem coming forward with a public admission and redacting their own work... and there is nothing for you to do.  If youre FORCED to do something yourself THEN to hell with the person and their so-called "mistake".

@leewz Malice or not, even the genuine idiot writing works passed off as science also need to be called out for what they are.  Thats how you preserve the sanctity of science.


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Paper stolen by a co author and published as his own

Possible Duplicate:
My research work stolen and published as his own by the co author without my consent

My research paper was stolen by a co-author. I have reported her but the head of my institution is defending that teacher. I have all the mail correspondences between the unethical co-author and myself along with all the data that I produced as part of my contribution.
How do I go about proving my side of defense? My faculty are trying to prove that she has done this as a part of her MTECH, which is completely false!
What do I do?

@recursion.ninja Hi. Please refrain from editing closed questions when your edit does not fix the problem related to why the question was closed in the first place.

@recursion.ninja Have a look at this meta post.

@MadJack thanks for the reference. I have reviewed it and understand the community's position on such questions. I didn't know it would affect the re-open queue. Can I ask why this revision was rejected? I thought it greatly improved readability. What is the community's standards on revisions for formatting & readability?

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tips for mathematics student giving interview for physics (quantum information)
As suggested by @PiotrMigdal I am putting a separate question regarding the title mentioned above.
I am  a Mathematics PhD student doing work in functional analysis / operator theory aspects of quantum information. My basic training (up to masters) is in so called 'Pure Mathematics' ($C^*$ algebra, representation theory, elliptic curve etc.).  I am about to complete my PhD and applying for post doctoral positions. It seems most of the jobs in this area are for experimentalists and a few for theorists. I do not have much knowledge about experiment. Moreover, my understanding about quantum measurements as very basic. These  can be considered as negative points. Positive sides: I have a few published papers in some reputed physics journal, a few (in discrete mathematics) preprints, and a few works in the draft stage. However the published papers are not reviewed by math. review.
My question is, what a mathematics student, like me, should focus/emphasise  if he/she go for a job (for me post doctoral) interview in front of physics faculties.
Also more general question can be regarding the job perspective    of mathematics students in quantum information. Advanced thanks for any suggestion, answer etc.  Feel free to edit and/or retag it, if you think it is necessary.

Thanks to both Noah Snyder and Piotr Migdal. I hope some more users can also help me as well as the community sharing his/her views.

It may be too late for this, but I'd suggest giving a talk for physicists in a lower stakes setting (eg a seminar at a school that isn't interviewing you). Physicists often have different names for things and ways of talking about them, and it can be really nice to have some exposure to the kinds of questions you might get asked.

"Physicists often have different names for things..." this applies (obviously) not only to the case under consideration, but also to any interdisciplinary subject that can be approached from two different directions.

indeed so.. though not that much in quantum mechanics, but i had to spend a lot of time to understand the daily techniques of physicists, mathematically (C* alg or measure theory point of view) and yet to sufficiently understand many things

A lot of quantum information is a part of mathematics (that is, mathematically well-defined concepts, proper proofs, etc...), with some physical motivation. Many problems can be stated easily as mathematical ones, without providing and physical grounding.
So if you are a pure maths PhD, then it may be actually beneficial for you, as you: can prove (not only hand-wave) and perhaps have better training (and motivation) in Hilbert spaces, group theory, discrete mathematics, abstract algebra, convex geometry, algorithmic complexity, information theory etc...
Surely, different groups have different tastes for different problems, different emphasis on physical, mathematical, numerical and experimental content. Just ask them; if it is pure quantum information then maybe even you can go without knowing quantum mechanics (which is worth learning anyway, BTW).
Source: I am PhD student in geometry of quantum states; a considerable fraction of people working on that topic are mathematicians.

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What to do with a result too small to be publishable, but interesting nonetheless?
Let's assume, for the sake of example, that I have found a new figure of merit which is of the same complexity as the one currently used, but is much more justified from a mathematical and physical standpoint. However, the whole development barely goes over one paragraph (maybe two), as the "proof" is extremely simple and straightforward.
Now, I was planning on saving this smaller result for a bigger paper on the same topic, where I'd introduce this new figure of merit along with other results, but the future of this other paper has become quite uncertain lately.
Is there any way I could still present this new (small) result?

There is a website somewhere where you can publish single figures, complete with authors and DOI and fully citable.  If I remember the name I will post it as an answer.

I'm afraid I can't find it.  I'm quite sure I learned about it either on [Academia.SE] or on [OpenData.SE], so perhaps someone else can.  What I have in mind is basically an online-only "journal" that publishes single science-quality figures (with captions), complete with doi, list of authors, etc.

Poster, short paper, workshop paper, or tech report.

I have a couple of small things sitting on my webpage. One of them has been cited by two sets of authors (unlike my papers, sigh). One of them is also on the arXiv.

Did you consider having it on Arxiv ?

@gerrit do you mean figshare?

@Michael Yes, I do!  You could add that as an answer, as I think it might fit user8001's needs.

File it away in the interesting results tab of your file cabinet and move on or investigate more. Maybe in many years you or someone will have some results you cannot explain and the results from this earlier experiment will enter your mind and progress may be made. I believe Fleming merely mentioned the properties of what turned out to be Penicillin as something interesting but an "aside" it his early publication(s). I like the posting in on arXiv comment as well to take ownership should something develop from it.

The reason why you're publishing is because you think you have a new way of doing things that is better than the old way of doing things. Simply publishing a derivation of the new way isn't sufficient to convince people of that fact. You need to convince people that your new way is better.
So yes, your derivation is a simple one to two paragraphs, but in addition to that you should spend several paragraphs explaining why your new way is better. Why was the old way used? Why weren't the deficiencies not considered a problem until now? (Or if they were, how were they addressed with the old way, and why is your way better?) What are some of the objections that the people used to doing it the old way will raise? Why might they not want to switch to your new way? What do you say to those potential objections? Are there possible use cases might your new way not be appropriate for, and if so, how do you choose between the old way and the new way?
You'll probably also want to spend several paragraphs in an introduction, explaining how the field got to the old way, and outlining the deficiencies. You probably also want to include and example of using your new way, comparing it to the old way, illustrating why the new way is better.
Basically, you think your paper is too short because you're planning on just presenting the derivation and assuming its merits are obvious to others. They won't be. In all likelihood you'd be chewed up in review - not because your paper is too short, but because you won't have convinced the reviewers that your new method is worthwhile. Fleshing out the paper with necessary background and discussion to presents a coherent argument for your new method can easily take you into the 1-2 page range which is the typical size of "brief communications" (depending on field, journal, etc.)
Don't pad your article just to increase its size, but don't omit things which will bolster the arguments in favor of your new method.
Edit: In response to comments, here's an attempt at clarification: An academic paper is not just about presenting results. It's also about presenting a story and an argument. How does this result change the field? How should it change how the readers think about the topic?
I'm guessing that the original questioner thinks their paper is only one to two paragraphs because they were anticipating presenting just the short proof/derivation of the new figure of merit. My point was that the proof itself is insufficient for a decent paper. In addition to the proof you also need to convince the reader that the new figure of merit is better than the old one - and to do so for people who may be unaware that there was anything wrong with the existing way in the first place. Doing this properly can easily extend the paper from 1-2 paragraphs into a size which is more typical for a standard journal article. Write a proper paper, and it's no longer "too small to be publishable".

I'm confused by your answer...

@Mindwin - If the edit is not sufficient, please elaborate on the area of your confusion.

I will blame language barrier. But now I see you are correct in saying that communication is about what the listener understands, not what the speaker tries to say. What is obvious to Archimedes won't be so to Erasthothenes. +1'd

You can think of publishing it as a short communication, many journals accept this kind of contribution (they can be designated in different ways, depending on the journal). As I recall, the shortest article ever published was of about 3 lines [1] ;-)
[1] F. Lenz, "The Ratio of Proton and Electron Masses", Phys. Rev. 82, 554, 1951.

[...] the shortest article ever published was of about 3 lines Interesting. Can you provide any reference?

@EnthusiasticStudent: I've added a reference. I've found a picture of it, but adding this would probably result in copyright infringment. Actually, I'm not sure it's the shortest, but it would be surely difficult to write a shorter one.

Some other examples of short papers: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/7330/which-math-paper-maximizes-the-ratio-importance-length (the list includes papers of length 6 lines and 9 lines.)

Nope. Shortest paper is The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer's block”

@ff524 Wow! How is it a paper?!

@ff524: Lol. Definitely unbeatable, if we don't count note 1 :-)

Guys, they've only used lemon juice and x-rays for the initial review. We can do mass spec, smoke signals, and MRIs in our review and publish our findings 41 years after the initial report.

In many physics publication these go by the name "letters". Indeed there are Journals---such as Physical Review Letters---devoted entirely to them, and many other journals also accept them. PRL is notable for it's short time to press.

On a related note, this is the shortest abstract I know of: http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2832. That's a grand total of two words!

@Compass it already has been replicated in a multi site study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078566/?report=classic

I would submit the manuscript as a short paper, or even a poster in a workshop. Workshop papers and posters in my domain (computer science) usually demonstrate more early results of ongoing research.

A poster will only solve half the problem, though, won't it?  Anyone not at the workshop won't be able to find out about it, and there won't be a permanent document that a future researcher could read and cite.  Maybe poster + arXiv preprint, or poster + publish in some journal?

@Nate Eldredge, regarding posters, I have in mind reputable conferences that publish posters online and in conference proceedings. See for instance the posters here, 2-page publications in fact, which can be read and cited: http://www2013.wwwconference.org/papers/companion.htm#P

Oh, I see. Thanks. In my field a poster is literally just a poster and there is no permanent record of its content.


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Should one mention multiple, albeit somewhat unrelated research interests?
As the question implies,  I have two main research interests in the natural language processing and computational genomics domains.  While I have a preference for the former,  I am also very interested in the latter.  I ask because I am not sure if it would look like I am too unfocused for a PhD. Many professors seem to have multiple areas of interests,  some of which are not too related, but nonetheless I want to make sure that mentioning multiple interests will not hurt me.

What makes you think those interests are unrelated?

@JeffE I don't think that they're entirely distinct. There's a decent amount of overlap, I'm just afraid of coming off as being unfocused.

If you can convey your enthusiasm for the overlap of these two somewhat distinct areas, you will be ahead of the game. A PhD candidate is expected to extend the limit of human knowledge, and one of the better ways to do so is to research within the overlap of two (or more) disciplines. I would tend to see having more than one area of interest as being an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Of course, as your question implies, a multiplicity of interests can backfire by causing a candidate to appear unfocused. Focus on the overlap, and make your application shine!

Your PhD should be somewhat focused, but before that, you're not in general supposed to have real scientific results. I would surely mention both, unless you feel that one of them is significantly unsignificant.
If you managed to have multiple results as a master student, that makes you a very good candidate for a PhD, because not many people have that!

The answer depends on you, the professor and when and how you communicate, .
Mention Both

Better mention both than fear. Until you handle the fear to stand for both interests it will not go away. When you are clear about what you fear you may know the answer already.
Showing that you have a broad interest means that you are open to change.
You may get angry at yourself for not having mentioned the other interest. Especially because professors know other professors to redirect to.
If you write you can make sure that it is clearly understood that you have two interest. Such as by choosing a headline for each. The professor may then choose what to focus on.
If you talk to the professor you get responses what (s)he likes most. Then you can focus on that.

Mention One

When there is not enough time for both topics it could be bad to mention both.
Mentioning both can mean that the professor does not choose you because (s)he only takes in people with one interest who can be put under more presure because they can not choose to go somewhere else.
Sometimes professors are really proud of themselves because nobody ever tells them they are wrong. You may have to adjust what you say so they do not fear your intelligence in a field they do not know.

I come from a computer science background. There may be different cultural influences in other professions.

So to summarize: Mention both unless your professor is a jerk?

I do not really know.


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Why do so many people apply to so few PhD programs?
Most of the schools that I've looked at for PhD programs in Computer Science have between a 9-15% acceptance rate.  I've noticed similar acceptance rates for other programs outside of computer science; yet almost everyone that I've ever spoken to has only applied to a handful of schools.  This just doesn't make sense to me.
Let's just say that each school that I apply to has ~15% acceptance rate, then if I only apply to only 6 schools, I have roughly a 63% chance of getting accepted to at least one (1-probability of getting declined everywhere).  That doesn't seem horrible, but if I know I want to do a PhD, I would like to have much higher odds, plus most of the programs are closer to a 10% admissions rate.  I understand that applications are costly both monetarily and temporally speaking, but having a 37% chance of not getting into any programs is pretty bad.  Whereas if I apply to 14 schools, I have about a 10% chance of not getting accepted anywhere.  Can someone please explain the thought process behind this?

PhD students are not chosen randomly from those who apply!

Your assumption that admission decision is independent is wrong.

People only apply to a few select programs because they are looking to do a PhD on a topic that interests them. If you are happy to work on a huge number of topics, you may not be focused enough to start a PhD.

I would add that your sample (people you know) is not large enough and not iid (independent and identically distributed).

Fair enough.  I actually am quite familiar with the process, but didn't know a better way to simply evaluate the probability of getting into an institution.  On another note, there are quite a lot of universities doing similar research, so I'm not sure why one would assume that I want "to work on a huge number of topics."

@daniel: Maybe this varies by field. In mathematics (in the US) I would say it's the minority of students who enter a PhD program knowing what they want to work on, or even in what area. Of those who do know, most change their mind. So at least in mathematics, not having a focused sense of what you want to work on is not necessarily a danger sign.

Surprised that no one pointed out that it's not just, "I want to get a Ph.D". The PLACE where you get into matters, sometimes a lot, and often times more than the fact that you'll "get a Ph.D".

Although, I like your way of analytical thinking, some ouf your assumptions do not hold:

Selection procedures of PhD programs are not random.
The selection procedure of one PhD program is not independent from other programs, as it is likely based on similar characteristics and markers in your CVs. (Maybe, there is conditional independence given 3, but that is problematic because the value of 3 is relative to the local distribution of 4.)
Your application profile does not change.
You do not know who your competitors are which may also vary between programs (and time).

Therefore, I would assume that people use their applications as measures to test the unknown distribution of the accessibility of PhD programs. Unfortunately, this accessibility changes every term/year because of different populations of applicants. Furthermore, information about the specific demands and requirements of PhD programs is limited because it is time-consuming to look them up and sometimes they are simply hidden. That makes it reasonable to concentrate only on few programs and draw convenient samples. If applicants fail, it is easier to adapt, as your application costs were moderate, and to finally accept that there were better competitors and go on with life.

Oddly enough, I am quite familiar with the process, but I didn't know a better way to try to evaluate the probability of getting into an institution, given that I essentially have little to no data. In the least pretentious way possible, I am not worried about getting in, I just know quite a lot of people who only applied to a handful of top programs and was confused as to why they would do so. I guess what it comes down to me is that even if you are a ridiculously awesome candidate, if you only apply to a few schools, isn't there a non-negligible chance that you won't get in anywhere?

Of course, there is a real chance that you won't get in anywhere. But how can you figure out by yourself that this is due to your sample of programs and not your relative profile? It seems to me that the best strategy is to use some kind of a mixing approach applying at programs with both high/low reputation and high/low specialization.

Fair enough.  That's what I plan to do.

If I would have known that you ask the question for yourself, I would have answered somewhat less ironic. I hope that you do not feel offended!

Not at all.  It was clever and informative.

There are several levels on which one could answer your question:

One could say that people (even those applying for graduate school in quantitative fields) typically don't approach things logically.  Someone will suggest a number of schools to them, and they will apply without doing such a probabilistic analysis.

The statistics you want to do such an analysis properly are just not accessible.  I haven't been able to find any graduate programs in math (my subject) that publish admission stats. (EDIT: I was totally wrong about this.  It seems that the secret is to look at central rather than department websites.  For example, the stats for my department are here) You even if you wanted to carefully analyze things, the data isn't there.  I think anecdotally, people have found that 6 or 7 schools with a good range of rankings is good enough.  If people were doing this intelligently and still getting in nowhere, I think the CW would change.

I think the number of people who only apply to places where they have a 15% chance is small;  smart students will apply to a couple of the best places (thus giving a few places very low acceptance rates) but also a range of places with lower ranking and easier admission.  If you look at this thread, for example, you'll see very few people rejected from all the places they applied, even though you'll see many rejected from most of them.  In general, grad schools outside the very top tier are pretty hungry for good students; admission to a top 5 program is of course very hard.  Getting into a top 50 one might be easier than you think.

People who only apply to a couple of top places have revealed a preference: they are interested in getting a Ph.D., but only at a top place.  This is a reasonable position; I'm not sure what objection you have with it.  Just because you can get into some program doesn't make it a good idea.

This isn't precisely what Ben Crowell says below, but his comment and post reminded me: people tend to operate on short time horizons.  The trouble and expense of more applications is very visible and concrete, and the trade-off of maybe going to a school which is worse on some dimension of prestige/fellowship/fit etc. is very indefinite and far off. Thus, people will tend to focus more on the former and somehow push off the latter to some corner of their mind.
I've gotten the general sense that undergrads don't have a very visceral feel for how going to a higher vs. lower ranked graduate program affects their chances of success in academia.  Of the faculty in my current department, almost all the PhDs from the US are accounted for by the Ivies, the University of California system, Chicago and MIT.  At Oregon, where I was previously, I once calculated that half of the US PhDs in the department went to Harvard, MIT, Berkeley or Stanford.  One can argue how much of that is selection bias, how much is getting a genuinely different education, and how much is just the power of the name, but I think they all play some part.

@BenCrowell I think you're reacting to something offhand which was not my main point (I think we may be interpreting "the best" a bit differently; I mean top 5, not top 20).  To rephrase, I think most students very consciously try to include schools where they feel confident of getting in (or at least the schools amongst those which are acceptable which give them the best chance).  People who apply to a few top places are telling you what's acceptable to them.

There are so many factors you are ignoring in your analysis... No offense but I have to say that your understanding of recruitment is lacking a lot of depth. Recruitment strategies and practices vary quite a bit but below I tried to give some ideas to the shortcomings (IMHO) of your analysis.

TL;DR: Recruitment is a complex procedure that typically has many factors that are asymmetrically known to different parties. Writing applications, personal letters etc is almost an art in itself. Thus it's important to get a better understanding of the system before jumping into conclusions with misleading statistics.

Outcomes
You seem to take the outcome as a binary variable, while for a single application it might be a valid way to see it, for a single applicant it might be misleading. Based on the project at hand and the candidates in question, the fact that you didn't make it for that particular application isn't necessarily independent of any future incidents, or rather the other way around; your future applications will most likely not be independent of the previous one(s).
It's quite the contrary, actually. You might have significantly increased, or decreased, your chances for a future position with the same group, or at another group associated with the one you applied to. That's practically based on the competition (to which you are will be in the dark) for the project you applied to, and to the impression you have left on the admission committee or the individual PI/group leader. It's important to keep in mind that people talk. In other words, your reputation will most likely proceed you, whether that is positive or negative that's a different story.
Fairness
One might like to think otherwise, but life isn't always fair and recruitment is typically one of those scenarios. In most respectable universities, all open positions need to be publicly announced, which means that anyone in the world can practically apply to them. Furthermore, there are usually laws and regulations that are put in place to work against discrimination of any kind.
What might get forgotten, however, is that the projects aren't really randomly devised. It is not that uncommon for a position to be announced so specifically that it's essentially tailor-made for a candidate; practical examples of this case could be the continuation of a master thesis work, or any similar project work. Such a position could be de facto filled months in advance.
If you are applying to a position at a group with no prior knowledge of the place, you might actually be applying to a position that is already filled. However, many PIs use the public application procedure to "scout talent". In other words, you might not be an interesting target for the project/position you have applied to, but you might still be very interesting for an upcoming project (see previous section "Outcomes").
Spamming
If you are looking at numbers only, you might be mislead on accessing the real number of feasible candidates. I might be insensitive, or even offensive to a certain degree, but there are people who do not even read the job description and mass-apply (especially if it's free to apply). I work with bioinformatics, and among the other candidates there were some who apparently: "... always dreamed of the chance to be a radio engineer, and thus would gladly take the opportunity to ..." (I have not seen the application myself, as it'd be a conflict of interests. I heard about this much later at a pub gathering with my colleagues and boss)
You would be muddying the statistics if you count with people that would be sorted out almost immediately.
Hype
Word gets around, quickly... So more and more people want the same thing; "Did you hear {insert_famous_professor} group has announced a new position?!" While that is a normal human behavior, it also points out a fundamental defect in the way we reason; just because something is famous it's not necessarily better than something else that isn't as reknown. At this point it's also worth noting that a successful senior scientist isn't necessarily a good teacher of doing science. The distinction might not be very apparent prior to doing a PhD but a couple of years into academia, you start noticing the difference.
In other words, while most people swarm over a few number of positions, very few apply to many positions elsewhere. Ask any head-hunter (recruitment professionals) and they'll even give you statistics.
Suitability
Call me a snob if you will, but doing a PhD isn't a god-given right to all humans. It's a job, a career path and thus not suitable for everyone. Please note that I do not, in any way, mean that you are not suitable to do a PhD (it would not be my place to make a judgement, even if I knew you in person). I am merely stating that if a person is consistently getting a rejection, the chances are highly likely that the person is being unrealistic, or stronly under/over-valuing his/her skills. The negative effect of over-valuing is obvious, I suppose, but modesty or humility to the extreme could also impair one's chances of getting an acceptance.
Hope it helps!

Oddly enough, I am quite familiar with the process, but I didn't know a better way to try to evaluate the probability of getting into an institution, given that I essentially have little to no data.  In the least pretentious way possible, I am not worried about getting in, I just know quite a lot of people who only applied to a handful of top programs and was confused as to why they would do so.  I guess what it comes down to me is that even if you are a ridiculously awesome candidate, if you only apply to a few schools, isn't there a non-negligible chance that you won't get in anywhere?

Sure the risk always exists, but a good-enough (at least on paper) and driven candidate should not have a really hard time finding a position, given that it's a VERY narrow, specialised field.

Sometimes the applicant is the former Master's, postdoc, or Undgraduate resarch student of the Professor who has an open position and they can make an offer to do PhD research after going through the bureaucratic motions of posting an opening and (faux?) interviewing some applicants. Unless a more-qualified applicant sues, the former student is likely to get the position. The posting will be pulled down at that point. This is probably illegal in most places, but done right, who's going to know that it was wired for a former student or postdoc? It's possible someone in the lab will know the "new" person from prior work with them and rat them out to HR. Usually, wired positions work by having the targeted person apply as usual, go through the competitive process, and turn out to be the selectee, for research positions, at least. I have no insight to seeing profs hired this way.

Why would a former postdoc be offered a PhD position?

Well, no, but they might be offered an asst. prof. position.

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


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Value of Print on Demand Publishing of PhD Dissertation
Following on from my question here, I understand there are many non-traditional methods of publishing a PhD dissertation as a book. One of it is Print of Demand (POD) method. A contributor to the question in the above link gives VDM as an example.
However, a close look at the Wikipedia article (same link as the VDM) reveals that POD is not peer reviewed and often adds little to a person's publication record.
I am wondering that if a PhD dissertation is of sufficient standard to be passed by the relevant university (assuming the University is reputable itself), why does it need to be peer-reviewed? Also, if it is reproduced as a book by POD, why shouldn't it add to the publication record of the author.
The PhD is often the first major work of many students (I fall in this category) so making the most out of it is the only way to add value to one's CV.

I am wondering that if a PhD dissertation is of sufficient standard to be passed by the relevant university (assuming the University is reputable itself), why does it need to be peer-reviewed?

In an ideal world, that could be reasonable, but in practice it's unclear what the standards are for a dissertation.  For example, imagine a student who works diligently for years but doesn't accomplish much.  Many advisors, even in very prestigious departments, will eventually let the student graduate with a minimal dissertation.  Or what about a sloppy student whose dissertation is full of minor errors? Hopefully the advisor will put pressure on the student to fix the errors, but sometimes, given the choice between letting the student graduate and keeping on struggling fruitlessly with this, the advisor caves in and approves a shoddy thesis.  Perhaps this shouldn't happen, but occasionally it does.
Of course peer-reviewed journals are also far from perfect, but their judgments are somewhat clearer.  A paper accepted by the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society is a more meaningful guarantee of quality than a dissertation from a top-five math department, although on average the dissertations will be better.
Peer review can also lead to valuable feedback and suggestions.  A dissertation has often not received many comments from anyone not on the thesis committee, and getting anonymous feedback from other experts can be important.

Also, if it is reproduced as a book by POD, why shouldn't it add to the publication record of the author.

The problem is that it doesn't "add" anything that wasn't already there.  Your dissertation is part of your academic track record, and your decision to let a company print it on demand is not additional evidence of quality or impact.
It's certainly useful to try to get visibility for your dissertation.  In a field where this is considered appropriate, posting it online (for example, on the arXiv) is very valuable.  Far more people will look at it there than via any POD publisher.  Letting someone print it on demand too can't hurt, as long as there are no copyright issues, but it won't help much either.

The PhD is often the first major work of many students (I fall in this category) so making the most out of it is the only way to add value to one's CV.

Certainly.  In most fields, you can make the most of it academically by turning it into journal articles or a scholarly book.  Mathematics isn't a book-based field, so I can't speak to this from personal experience, but my understanding is that publishing a dissertation as a book involves a lot of review and editing, and it's really not the same as letting a POD publisher reprint the dissertation.


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What do researchers mean by the "priority" of an idea?
I have heard the term "priority" used in regards to research ideas. For example, How does one determine priority, prominence, and impact with regard to books, rather than articles? asks about priority (and other things) in regards to books.
From the usage I have seen in this community, priority appears to be established when you submit a manuscript (e.g., to a publisher or arXiv). This seems very weird to me, so I am worried that I am missing something. The time at which an idea is submitted for publication can be years after the idea was had, so it seems priority is not giving credit to the first individual who had the idea. Since the review process is confidential and it can take years for an idea to get published, priority is not being given to the person who first disseminated the idea either.
What exactly is priority and why does it matter?

The term priority is important in patent law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_priority

"What exactly is priority" -- Isaac Newton demonstrated many important scientific truths, one of which is that priority is whatever you can argue it is ;-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E2%80%93Newton_calculus_controversy

The way I use this term, "priority" means "who had this idea first". Of course, everyone can come up and say "hey, I totally had this idea to determine graph isomorphism in quasipolynomial time in 1990", so it is difficult to validate a priority claim unless there is some written material to back it up. But intellectual priority is the former concept; publication dates are just an imperfect way to measure it.
In fields where research is routinely disseminated before formal publication (using arXiv, preprints, or conferences), such as mathematics, there are (in my opinion) fewer possibilities for issues such as "X had the idea one year before Y, but Y's paper was published earlier" or "Y was a peer reviewer and scooped X's idea".

Part of the work in a scientific opus is to trace back the origin of the ideas the authors  convey. This can be a difficult work, as many sources are barely available, and not always in a known language. Sometimes the original  ideas were only eludated to, given away in private communications. It often takes armies of historians to recover the whole story. Think for instance about:

the origin of relativity: Einstein, Poincaré, Lorenz, Young?
the history of the Fast Fourier transform, credited to Cooley and Tuckey, traced back to Gau{ss}, Good, Danielson, Lanczos
least-square regression, based on Cotes, Gauss (again), Laplace

Generally, a date of submission and a date of publication are public information that may stamp a priority, at least a prior date. For clear concepts, it is already complicated, see for instance in this chirplet (a type of of harmonic analysis for radar signals) debate around the first pair of inventors (Mann and Haykin or Mihovilovic and Bracewell).
But in many cases, honesty and deep referencing are guides, as ideas are often unconsciously borrowed and blended. Even a sentence like:

If You Steal From One Author, It’s Plagiarism; If You Steal From Many,
  It’s Research

has a debated origin (quote investigator).


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Status and selectivity of open access journals
I am wondering about the following (after reading this question that discusses open access journals):

Is it easier to publish in one of the open access journals (when compared to the traditional journals)?
Does publishing in one of the open access journals affect the academic value of an article? (Unsure how to put this, but I mean does it affect your reputation etc?)

I note that some of the open access journals are peer-reviewed.
An example of open access is the Directory of Open Access Journals.

We recently had a related discussion here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7908/value-of-light-to-none-peer-reviewed-pay-to-publish-articles

Open access vs. closed access is a totally separate issue from quality of journal.  There are high quality open access journals and low quality ones, and high quality traditional journals and low quality ones.  There may be some correlation because open access journals tend to be newer and so less established, but nonetheless if you want to determine the quality of a particular journal you should look at that specific journal not try to extrapolate based on whether it's open access or not.


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At what stage in academia are you most likely to suffer a mental breakdown?
Let's see, just in this week alone I got the news that I have failed four of my midterms (out of five courses in total, the last course doesn't have a midterm), achieving around 40% in each, quite consistent effort across the board. By the way I have around a 3.8 GPA over 4 years of engineering school and I received a letter from the faculty telling me to pull my grade up or consult mental health professional.
I think all this is happening I am in the final stage of wrapping up a year long project that has truly went awry. Two of the members contributed nothing and did not even participate in completing the final system. So I was there to build the entire system myself. This was easy until it was time to deliver our final report. Guess who wrote the 80 pg long final report.
During all this I had one huge McDonald per day at around 1:00 AM, drank a dozen of energy drinks which I know cannot be too good for me. Missed nearly every single lecture. Wrote a 1000 word email to my supervisor detailing how much I suffered through this project and later wrote a 20 word email apologizing for the rambling. Fell sleep in the middle of a lab exercise (thankfully I am able to make up for the lab tomorrow morning). Also rejected from two schools, not my dream school, but hurt nonetheless.
This is the part when I think I would be finally schizophrenic. Like John Nash or that girl in Proof, I go full blown insane. Wear a clown hat on my way to school while swearing at bus drivers, sitting in the middle of a floor in a 7-eleven crying or writing indecipherable symbols on the blackboard. I am not dealing with this stress at all. I have not talked to my professors about the midterms, no plans to make up anything. I have not bothered to pick up the midterms either to check what is wrong.
Surprisingly, none of this has happened. I wonder if I am in a phase that is beyond five stages of grief, or if I have truly given up in my subconscious. Has anyone experienced something similar? Like a setback that is so big that you would think you would run into emotional troubles but nothing wind up happening. At what stage in academia would one most likely to suffer from a break down of some sort?

Your final paragraph starts with none of this has happened.  Could you clarify where the true events start and the hypothetical ones start?  We all have setbacks, some can be overcome, and some people leave academia.  It may be difficult to answer your question.

A tangent: it is definitely (and sadly) true that many smart, hardworking, motivated people like yourself suffer from extreme stress or worse at various points in their education; however, I would caution against thinking that there is a "usual time" for this to happen. It's a short hop-skip-and-jump to the assumption that, if you're not experiencing stress at such a time, you're not working hard enough (if that seems silly, see http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38309/), or conversely that if you are stressed at other times, you're just not good enough. Bad times happen.

You have given more than enough evidence to show that you need to seek professional help and/or counseling.  The impulse of telling people that you're in trouble is a good one.  Posting anonymously on a site for academic advice is not the way to go: because you clearly need help by those with professional counseling training and very few academics have such training, most people on this site will (and should) decline to give you specific advice.  Please seek help in real life.  You can begin with student counseling services at your university.  If you don't know where to go, google "student counseling [your university]".
Note: I am leaving this as an answer rather than a comment because I feel strongly that this is "the real answer" for the OP.  The manner in which probability of mental breakdown varies with the stage of one's academic career is not relevant to the OP.  Mental breakdown can happen at all stages of an academic (and nonacademic) career, and rather than looking at age or seniority statistically one should look behaviorally, cognitively and emotionally on a case-by-case basis.

You should not have really taken up the entire work upon yourself!!!
The moment you knew that your contributors were't listening to you and you would have to do the entire work, you should have reported to your professor or lecturer in charge. While you strive day and night with just a burger for a day, your contributors keenly listen to lectures and get ahead of you. My advice to you would be

1)Talk directly to your lecturer/professor about this situation
  (face-to face) and seek their help.
2)There is a second chance for everything! Try to focus on your lab
  exercises and courses well and level up your grades!
3) Most importantly, Please eat well and sleep well. Only if you are
  healthy, you'd be able to catch up.
4)Sometimes, it's better if you share your troubles with someone. You
  can talk about it with your friends and even your family members. It
  relieves your stress. (It works for me, I can really relate to your
  situation-You know, I took step 1) below the moment I had a situation
  like yours)
5) Stop worrying. Everything has already happened and you can't do
  anything about it. Take a step forward and think about "What you can
  do NOW to resolve all these problems!"

In the FUTURE

1) Never have people as contributors who contribute nothing. The
  moment you get to foresee that you'd have to end up doing everything,
  take a bold decision to do your project alone. (You are the only
  contributor for your project so it doesn't matter if you do your
  project alone-and why let people take credit for your work?)
2)Keep in touch with your project guide/professor constantly and let
  them know the project progress-how much each contributor has
  contributed)
3) Please take care of your health (Eat well and don't be demotivated,
  no matter what happens. This too shall pass)


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How can I find out if someone really holds a doctoral degree?
We're currently interviewing candidates at my company and I'd like to verify if some of them really have the academic degrees they claim. One in particular claims a doctoral degree from a German university.
I've contacted the university, and the dean wrote back saying that they could not provide this information without the written consent of the individual.
I found this policy rather odd; I would have thought that the granting of a doctoral degree was public information. Is this normal? Is there anything else I can do to find out?
I obtained from the library a copy of the thesis in question but it was in German. I also found through Google a spreadsheet which appears to be a list of dissertations published by that university, but it is unclear whether these are doctoral dissertations or not. The person in question and his dissertation are in that list.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat per request by multiple user flags.

These are doctoral dissertations. There is a search form (de) for the department IFW. All dissertations of the university can be looked up in the TIB/UB (en).

Why does a copy of the thesis not make you happy? If it is officially stored at the library as a part of the PhD contribution, it essentially tells you that its author has a PhD. You might even want to assess the perceived quality of that PhD by reading the thesis. What more proofs do you want?

You could ask the candidate to provide written consent for the university to verify his degree. If he refuses to allow verification of his CV, then he's probably not someone you want to hire, regardless of whether his doctoral degree is legitimate or not.

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

It's also common for companies to ask the candidate to ask the university to mail a verification directly to the company (usually a transcript because it's cheaper to print than an actual copy of a degree). I've done it twice myself when applying for a job at large multinational corporations.

In Germany, a strict requirement for doctoral degrees is publishing your thesis. These are called Dissertation; master theses or similar are not. This is the final step of acquiring the degree.
Nowadays this publication can be online (in which case it should be easily findable), but at the very least should be contained in the university’s library. The library in turn should have an online catalogue allowing you to search for works by your candidate and see whether one of them (usually the only one) is categorised as Dissertation, doctoral thesis, Doktorarbeit or similar.
In your particular case, the library maintains a search engine for theses since 2005 and has lists of theses since 1997, both can be found here.
I can imagine that some libraries will tell you over the phone whether they have a thesis by a certain person – this is not private information, as we are talking about a published document and everybody could obtain this information by physically visiting the library.
Getting a thesis listed in those records without actually having a doctoral degree should at the very least require more skill than forging certificates and should be the best proof you can get without asking permission from the candidate to verify the degree. The only exception would be if the candidate lost his PhD, which is however extremely rare and often connected to public attention and also often causes the PhD thesis to be retracted. In any case, also ask for a certificate of all qualifications, as it makes it easier to sue the candidate if it should be forged.
Finally be aware that failing to find a thesis in such a list may have other causes than the person not having a degree. In that case you need to ask the candidate.

Instead of asking for a written consent, as suggested by @AnonymousMathematician, I would recommend to make providing a proof of academic credentials a part of required documents for a job application. That way you will transfer the burden of supporting an application to an applicant, which makes sense by definition and also will save you time and effort. This approach will also reduce the time for an application, since typically graduates are already in possession of proof of their academic credentials, furnished by their educational institution. The proof usually comes in a form of a diploma and/or an official academic transcript and, perhaps, an official conferral letter.

The difficulty I have with this is how to check the documents.  Diplomas and transcripts from different universities look radically different, and their appearances even change over the years.  If you showed me a fancy-looking document with the name of a university I attended on it, I couldn't reliably tell you whether it was genuine, and I wouldn't have even the slightest idea for other universities.  I suppose I could compare with image searches online, but that would give both false positives and false negatives.  It's easier to ask the university than to judge the documents myself.

(This raises the question of why official transcripts are usually required for graduate admissions in the U.S., if judging whether a transcript is real is difficult.  As far as I understand, the primary goal isn't to combat major dishonesty, such as forging a whole transcript.  Instead, the fear is that a much larger fraction of people would commit lesser dishonesty, such as "accidentally" mistyping one or two grades if they reported their own grades, emboldened by the fact that nobody could prove it was intentional.  Official transcripts avoid this temptation.)

@AnonymousMathematician I think the point is to make the applicant ask the university to send the official transcript to the company.

@MarchHo: Yes, that would work better (although it conflicts with the sentence "This approach will also reduce the time for an application, since typically graduates are already in possession of proof of their academic credentials, furnished by their educational institution.").

@AnonymousMathematician: You raise a valid point. My (perhaps, a bit naive) rationale was that it is highly unlikely that an applicant would go as far as submitting a fake document, considering 1) how easy is to compare the image with a known valid one and 2) how easy is to verify the legitimacy of the document with its originator and, finally, 3) how serious could be reputation, career and/or legal consequences of forging such document. You're correct in catching the conflict in my answer: unlike March Ho's assumption, my point was to shorten the application process by avoiding extra steps.

I like the idea of asking applicants to provide proof, but I also share Anonymous Mathematician's objection. As far as I'm concerned, a necessary condition for something to qualify as proof is that it came through channels not accessible to the applicant.

@DavidZ: As I said above, that point is valid, in general. However, extrapolating your logic, you're saying that, every time when an official or an organization needs to see your proof of ID, they would need to request a copy of your ID (i.e., residence card or passport) from official channels directly. Sounds to me like not a very feasible solution...

@AleksandrBlekh that extrapolation is entirely valid. The check could be done electronically - I think police do this when they pull people over for speeding, for example. But in any case, my point would be that most times when people check your ID, they are not actually proving that it is your ID. One may then question whether lindelhof wants proof, or merely to raise the barrier to getting a fake credential accepted.

@DavidZ: I agree and think we understand each other pretty well. Based on context, term "proof" has different interpretations - from formal (paper or electronic) document proof to just reducing chances of fraud.

@AnonymousMathematician "If you showed me a fancy-looking document with the name of a university I attended on it, I couldn't reliably tell you whether it was genuine"  If you showed me a fancy-looking document from my university, I'd know it was a fake...  Cambridge gives out some cheap looking PhD certificates...

My proof of undergrad studies is the bank receipt from having paid the title (good luck convincing other people that is true!); the fancy looking paper (bigger than an A3, BTW, so difficult to scan) will take a few years. I guess I could get a provisional certificate, but I would have to request it in person, wait a few weeks for them to decide to print it, and go again to pick it up.

@AleksandrBlekh in Sweden, all ID have the phone of the issuing body printed on them for verification. A more practical approach is what Cambridge does for the language certificates: a paper with a Cambridge URL where the information is copied.

@Davidmh: Thank you for your comments. My Ph.D. diploma is also in A3 or so format, which is rather inconvenient, to say the least. I agree that the Cambridge's approach you've mentioned is indeed much better (in many regards, for all sides of potential transactions - convenience, cost savings, security, etc.)

In Germany "dissertation" is always the path to a Doktor grade which is equivalent to the PhD. The dissertation must be published in Germany (which is one expensive part if done in paper), so it is publicly available.
The dissertation can be and was often written in German, so no surprise. Because of the prevalence of English in the natural sciences, English dissertations are more and more common in this fields. It is also normal that Germany has extremely strict privacy.
To your question: Yes, he has a doctor/PhD degree.
In the general case:
a) Look out for the title of the dissertation and the university in the CV. If this information is missing, request it. Once you have this information (and there is no reason to refuse it), look up if the "university" is in fact a diploma mill or something suspicious ("The Great University of Melanesia").
b) Look up the dissertation which should be publicly available and google for the instituition. Mills and unsavory institutes will be found easily because they are advertising their "services". Contact the university which will likely provide you with the information if the candidate has the given grade (for other countries).
c) If you are savvy in your field and you can understand the dissertation, you could ask what the candidate has found out in the dissertation. Even for a diploma (Master) I could roughly describe what I did (do not expect formulas from me). This will expose people who used a ghostwriter (there are many politicians in Germany who were forced to resign after it was exposed that they "bought" their grade).

It's also more and more common to have the abstract of a dissertion in english and german.

I wonder if there are cases where the library holds a copy of the dissertation even though no degree was awarded: for example if the dissertation was accepted but the degree was refused for reasons such as non-payment of fees.

@MichaelKay: In Germany, you usually do not even have to be registered as a student when doing a doctorate, so it is fully possible there are no fees. When there are, these are usually collected by the "university secretariate", which tends to be unrelated to the "exam office" that watches over preconditions for certificates.

@MichaelKay: the Geman universities I know are extremely practical in that respect: they start the procedure for awarding the PhD (including review/grading of the thesis, defense, etc) only after they received the fee (there is a fee for the burocratic procedure regardless whether you are a student of the university or not). Likewise, IIRC I got the forms for handing the thesis over to the university library only after passing the defense - actually, the committee may ask for changes/corrections in the defense, so the final version is typically produced as 2nd last step, ...

... once the library certifies that you did do that, you can actually go and get your certificate.

@cbeleites: "there is a fee for the burocratic procedure regardless whether you are a student of the university or not" - really? I never had to pay anything other than the regular administration fees for enrolled students, and I never heard about any of my colleagues who chose not to enrol for their doctorate having to pay a fee of any sorts.

@O.R.Mapper: see e.g. FSU Jena https://www.uni-jena.de/unijenamedia/Downloads/faculties/bio_pharm/promotion/Geb%C3%BChrenordnung.pdf (§7 Prüfungsgebühren). But of course, each university (faculty?) has their own Promotionsordnung and Gebührenordnung, so it is quite possible that the universities you know have no fees as well.

To expand on previous answers:
In this particular case, the Institute in question provides a list of all PhD theses (Doktorarbeiten/Dissertationen) on their webpage:
http://www.ifw.uni-hannover.de/ifw-dissertationen.html
In Germany it is indeed common to prove your degree via a sheet of paper the university gives you and not by people calling up the university.
But shouldn't it be obvious from the references (you did get an academic reference, no ?) if the candidate has a PhD ?

Could you elaborate on how the presence of an academic reference would prove a specific degree?

"We're currently interviewing candidates at my company and I'd like to verify if some of them really have the academic degrees they claim."
Have the applicant provide a scan of his diploma.
"I've contacted the university, and the dean wrote back saying that they could not provide this information without the written consent of the individual.  I found this policy rather odd."
It's normal.  It's not their business to meet your requests.  Plus who cares what you find odd--there are probably many parts of the world that don't make sense to you--tough.
"I obtained from the library a copy of the thesis in question but it was in German."
Sounds pretty good to me.  Can't you skim it?  English and German are rather similar.  Does it have any figures?  Plus it's just sitting there--you think the library filed a fraudulent copy?  How would that change if in English?  If you really want to be a sooper detective, just get a few pages translated.  But honestly...this seems odd (on your end).
"I also found through Google a spreadsheet which appears to be a list of dissertations published by that university, but it is unclear whether these are doctoral dissertations or not. The person in question and his dissertation are in that list."
Sounds good.  How certain do you need to be?  First you have the assertion of the applicant (which should count for a lot--many places would just take that), then you have all these other positive indicators.  But if you want more, have the kid scan his diploma.  But really, your level of suspicion is "odd".  If I were an applicant and you showed me this behavior, I would reject you and move on to other opportunities.

Agreed, it sounds fishy. But standards varying the way they do, not just between countries but also within them, I would not set much stock by the title as far as presumably implied competence is concerned - you always need to assess that independently.
However, even if you are satisfied that the candidate will be able to do the job, you still do not want someone who would fib on their CV. Oh no.
I would find someone who speaks German (well, actually I would not have to) and is also competent in the field and ask them what they make of it.

I found this policy rather odd; I would have thought that the granting
  of a doctoral degree was public information. Is this normal?

Answer:

nothing requires a university to release this information upon request
  to anyone who asks, and in practice, many universities will require
  consent (and maybe a fee) in order to release it.

Meaning, they do it for money, which while is a hassle for you, is brilliant on their part.

-1. I am pretty sure German universities do not ask for a fee to release private information. They just protect it, until authorization is provided to release it.

@QuoraFeans The 2 upvoters of my comment seem to disagree Also how is holding a degree private information? :P

The two downvoters on your answer seem to disagree with you.

In the US, they charge for this. Not aware of that happening in Europe.

Data protection law in the UK would (or should) prevent a UK university from disclosing any information they have about a student without permission from the student.  I am a UK citizen so I have experience of this.  I am also aware that German data protection laws are generally more strict than those of the UK.  Whether they charge or not, they are forbidden from issuing information which regarded as the property of the individual it is about, without the consent on the individual.

The second quoted passage was taken from a comment made by me and since removed by moderators.  It can still be seen on chat.  (I guess the link marked "Answer" leading to that comment was intended as attribution, but now that the comment has been deleted, the passage lacks attribution to me.)  In the original context (not included here), I made clear that I was only speaking about practices in the US.  I make no claim that this sentence is applicable to Germany.

I would also like to add that the inference made by BCLC, that such university policies are primarily motivated by money, is solely BCLC's own.  That is not my opinion and I did not intend to imply it.

@BCLC How is holding a degree not private information? You think everybody wants anybody to know they have a degree in Nuclear Physics? Germany has strong privacy protection laws, including if you attend a university or which grade you have been given.

@Chris Grades I understand but I don't quite see why holding a degree is private information. Graduation ceremonies and candidates for graduation are often made for the public to see. Have you seen or heard of the TV series Suits?

@BCLC You don't have to attend the graduation ceremony, the same way, you don't have to publish your degrees on LinkedIn. You are right, though, that technically anyone could monitor the public announcements regarding who is going to be examined for their degree, however, the actual decision isn't made publicly as far as I know.

@Chris Information made public is therefore not private. Is that wrong? Or inapplicable in this scenario? Again, have you seen or heard of the TV series suits?

@BCLC it's going into a direction we should probably be having in a chat-room. The only way to migrate there is to keep posting here, though ... how funny

or to create one: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/36988/degree-privacy

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


text:
Dismissed from PhD program and reapplying; how to answer question about dismissal?
My story is that the research in my department did not match with my background. I worked hard and my GPA is 3.5+, but the research topic was hard to develop. Unfortunately, I was dismissed from the program but was approved to get a master's degree before I leave the university. I do not have any misconduct.
Now I am applying to another PhD program which could be a good match with my research interest. However, I am facing a question from most universities that I am applying to.
The questions is:

"Have you ever been expelled, dismissed, suspended or otherwise
  subject to disciplinary sanction by(at or from) any college or
  university".

I need to select yes or no.
In my case, it is not a disciplinary sanction. I was dismissed from the PhD program only due to misfit in research. I stayed at the university for my Master's degree and I was not dismissed directly from the university. As an international student, I am not quite sure how to answer this question.
I am nervous about this application. Can anyone help me figure out how to deal with this issue in a proper way?
Thank you so much!

The three answers provided are all correct.  The solution the department came up with was a graceful exit.  Now, take it with grace, with your head held high.  All the best for your future studies!

Were you dismissed (i.e. did they kick you out), or did you withdraw on your own (or, say, did they just say change your curriculum from Doctoral to Master's and then graduate you normally)? I expect this should not be ambiguous at all; it should be quite obvious since you would have to be the one filing for withdrawal or graduation.

@Mehrdad  At first I was placed on academic probation, and was given a grace period to push my research. The policy was if my work during grace period satisfies my advisor, then I can continue, otherwise I will be dismissed from the PhD program. Since it was a misfit, I did not want to continue, so I wanted to withdraw, but the department still gave me a  letter which said I was dismissed from the PhD program. Then I was approved to switch to the master program, take master coursework and graduate with a master degree normally.

@Alex123456: Wow, that's way more tricky than I thought. I think that paragraph should be included in your question. It honestly sounds like you were dismissed from the Ph.D., but I'm no expert in this matter. I would be hesitant to follow everyone else's advice, since you got an official letter saying you were dismissed. Perhaps go ask a counselor/registrar at the school that gave you the latter and explain & ask them? I'd make sure to get back something in writing if they say you weren't dismissed, just to cover your butt in case someone later accuses you of lying.

@Mehrdad Yeah, that is the most tricky part. Seems that other answerers think that though I was dismissed from the PhD program, it is not the same dismissal case that the university admission question is asking. But on the other hand, I am worrying that we are not 100% sure whether the university asks this question only to identify misconducts, or they regard the dismissal as any kind of dismissal even including PhD dismissal. It could be helpful to ask a counselor in my department. Thank you for your suggestion.

@Alex123456: You're welcome! One note: just make sure you ask someone who has some authority on the matter. I can only guess who this might be, but my guess is that this would have to be someone at the university level, not at a departmental level -- not just because that's what the question asks, but because I would expect that if this were to be ever verified, the person whom would be asked this question would be someone in the university administration. Possibly the registrar? I'm not sure. But e.g. your research adviser or ombudsperson would probably be the wrong person to ask.

@aparente001 Thank you for your kind word. Due to my special situation and the unclear question, different people have different understanding. I think a better way might be asking the director in my college.

@Alex123456 - Good idea, this will give you peace of mind.

I feel ya man. I had to flunk out of a few things in the past simply because it was a bad match for my knowledge set (Ie the machine learning course that presumed a level of math waaaaay above my arts degree having butt). Tell them what happened and that it was nothing to do with your capacity to handle the load it was simply the wrong guy/gal in the wrong program, and if they have any doubts point them at your previous supervisor.

I just wanted to take a moment to bring up something that I think will help from a non-academic standpoint: I feel you should stop using the word "misfit" as it has a negative connotation with it, I would say it was a "bad fit" or "misaligned", but misfit (at least in American English) typically means that you're a troublemaker

The fact that you were not allowed to continue toward the Ph.D. is not "dismissal" in the sense that that question means.  (I can certainly see how the terminology could be confusing though.)  The question is there to identify students who have been involved in academic (or other) misconduct.  Academic failure does not fall into the misconduct category, so you should answer "No" to the question.  Doing so will not imperil your application in any way.

That's correct. A student could be dismissed or expelled if he or she didn't maintain a certain grade point average, or stopped attending or registering for classes.

Thank you for your answer. I am also wondering the purpose of universities to ask this question. If we are pretty sure that the question is only to identify students who have misconduct, then my case of PhD dismissal does not belong to this category. But since finally I still received PhD program dismissal, as the question includes "dismiss", will the university admission officer consider that I did not tell the truth if I answer "No"?

The question is meant to catch people with some kind of academic misconduct on their record.  If somebody lies about it, the university can kick them out of the program if they do manage to find out, since they lied on their application.

@Buzz I see. But I have an official letter from the department chair which states that I was dismissed from the PhD program. As different people may have different understanding on this "dismissal", I think it might be risky to answer "no", if somebody in the future know that I have a PhD dismissal history and then accuse me of lying in the application. Next week I will ask an official person in my college for further suggestions. Thank you very much!

Obtain a copy of your transcript. It should say there whether you were dismissed or expelled. To be on the safe side, you should ask your former advisor.
At my program, a few students who we do not have confidence in might be asked to leave the program prior to advancing to candidacy. If they've passed their quals, they can leave with a MA if the department approves it.
This is a mutually agreed form of separation in lieu of the proceedings for formal expulsion so it does not count as a dismissal.

Thank you RoboKaren. Since I successfully switched to the master program, on my current transcript there is no "dismiss" or "expel". My department said after I finish this master's degree, on my final version of transcript, it will say "the student withdrew the PhD after he/she received master's degree".  I think my case is a mutually agreed form of separation, as both my advisor and myself think that we are not matched and it could be good for me to stop the research that I don't like and find a better match.

@Alex123456: That is a crucial point, and I think you should edit your question to take out the word "dismissed".  According to the official record, you weren't dismissed; you withdrew.  That makes it absolutely clear that you should answer the question "no".

This is simple. Your answer to their question should be NO.  The question they are asking is designed to identify people who have a history of misconduct, and whose past institutions have taken action against them. Your situation has nothing to do with that. You were not invited to continue on to the PhD, because of the lack of research fit. This is not the same thing as being expelled, dismissed, suspended, or any other situation involving disciplinary action.

"Expelled" and "dismissed" aren't restricted to cases of misconduct; they can also happen because of failure to make satisfactory academic progress.

@NateEldredge  In this case the question itself states that it is asking for past disciplinary actions taken.  As OPs dismissal was not disciplinary, this question should be answered with a no.  The place to bring up this dismissal would be if it is brought up in a letter or email after the application, or during an interview setting if the question itself is brought up.

Lets parse your question:
1) As the above respondents have indicated your answer to that particular question should be no.
2) Let's dwell on why and how. In Physics for example,there are two broad types of departments. Those that are very difficult to get in, but once you are in and you don't have a major league screw up, you generally will complete a Phd. At the other end of the spectrum, a department will let in a bunch and then do the screening at the qualifier exam allowing the people who didn't pass the qual to get a terminal master and move on.
3) Typically again in physics, it's possible to get a master's from passing the qual and transfer to a department which has a strong program in your area of interest.
The tradeoff in grad school is finding an available professor whose Phd subject you like the most. Most people are not that picky because to transfer lengthens the time in grad school, plus you have a whole new set of departmental politics to bone up on. The thinking here is that you might have some wiggle room on the topic area when you do a postdoc or your 1st Phd job.
Here is my grad school advice to you.
In general you are not just picking a research topic but also a thesis professor. There are three general attributes in picking a professor:
They work in a topic area that you like, they have funding to support you, and you can get along or work with this professor. I think a grad student is fortunate to find a professor that meets 2 out of 3 of the above.

This... doesn't actually answer the question other than to say "I agree with the other answers that say 'no'" before going on an off-topic expose about choosing graduate programs....

To be more specific and to the point that @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas :  Comments are restricted to those who have 50+ reputation.  Try asking questions of your own, or answering questions of others with real answers mind you

Changing graduate programs is a very serious decision. The fact that this person had to come here to ask a simple paperwork question says a lot. Did they not have a professor, grad adviser, or senior grad student that they could talk to? What is the the "underlying issue" is very relevant.