text:
What is a proper way to consider the supplementary materials as a reviewer?
I was chosen as a reviewer for a conference in the field of computer science in which the authors can also submit some extra materials like proofs and additional implementations separately (until a week after the deadline), but their papers should be understandable and self-contained without considering these additional materials.
The paper I’m reviewing has a good scientific contribution and I like the way they tried to solve the problem, but some parts are not so understandable unless you read the additional submitted PDF file. For example, their pseudo-code for their algorithm has some mistakes, but they provide the correct algorithm in the additional material. Also, they provided more implementation results in the extra PDF file, which I think are important to support their claim. The proof and in-detail explanation of their method is also provided there.
The organizers have emphasized that the authors shouldn’t use the additional documents as way to submit a more complete version of the original paper.
So to be fair, if they add some of the parts from their supplementary document to the main paper, then the resulting paper would be perfect and I’d definitely accept it. However, I’m not sure whether it is better to accept it with feedback on the lacking parts, telling them to move these parts from the additional PDF to the main one to make it complete, or to only consider the main paper to be self-explanatory, in that case I’d more likely reject it!

How close is the paper to the page limit? Maybe the authors know full well some of the material you listed would actually improve the paper if included, but did not have any space left for that.

They have enough space to add them to the paper, but i think they didn't have enough time to finish the paper before the deadline! Also there are some written mistakes in the algorithm which they have corrected it in the additional documents, however they were advised by the organizers not to do so!

Mistakes/weaknesses of the paper that can be fixed in less than 15 minutes should never form the basis for rejection. Your example of mistakes in the main part that are fixed in the additional material are a prime example for this.

Your job is to provide critique and suggestions by which the authors can improve the paper. The published paper should be self-contained; that does not mean that as a reviewer you should ignore the supplementary material.
It sounds to me like you already know how to advise the authors to improve their paper. I would definitely ask them to make improvements and submit a revision, rather than reject — especially if the paper would be "perfect" with your suggested changes.

Good point, but if it was a review for journal paper, i'd be more confident that they'd make the revisions that way. But for a conference paper there is no guarantee that they would move these additional parts (around 1 page!) to the main paper for the camera ready, however they have enough space to do that.

@Bob I don't get this. If you believe that the article should be self-contained (and your question implies that is a rule of the conference too), but you are concerned about the fact you can't guarantee that the authors will edit the paper to make it self-contained, then surely you reject the paper?

@Bob as a reviewer, you have zero power to force anybody to do anything. If you think a paper is complete **** (and explain clearly and objectively why you think so) the editors can still publish it if they disagree with you. A reviewer's job is simply to say whatever needs to be said about the paper, and then get back to living their own life.

You say that a paper should be self-contained and understandable in its own right, and as this paper isn't there could be grounds for rejecting it. However, it's not the case that you've been sent a flawed paper and have no evidence that the authors can do better. The supplementary material demonstrates that the paper could relatively readily be improved to make it self-contained and understandable.
As Dylan Richard Muir has highlighted, one of your roles as a reviewer is to provide guidance on how a paper could be improved. Take this opportunity. Accept the paper (if the only options are accept or reject, as your question suggests) but strongly suggest that the authors improve the manuscript by bringing the relevant content from the supplementary materials into the paper.
If the authors choose to ignore your advice, and it's far from obvious that they will if the material exists in some form and there's enough space in the paper for it to fill, then it's really only their paper that suffers.


text:
How are paper authors uniquely identified?
Some authors have an ORCID ID in order to be identified and distinguished in case of authors with similar name, change of name, different name format, etc. However, some sources don’t provide the ORCID ID of the author (if any exists), which causes a lot of problems when someone tries to harvest papers from websites with scholarly resources.
I thought that a combination of some author features such as name, email, and affiliation could be enough to distinguish the authors, but I don’t think this is a robust solution.
Is there any way to uniquely identify every author?

‘Harvesting papers’ - what, really, are you trying to do?

@Jon Custer Get the metadata of papers provided by different sources .

See J. Pfeffer & J. Pfeffer, "Another Article that Makes Bibliometric Analysis a Bit Harder," SIGBOVIK 2015, pp. 79-82. April 1, 2015. *Note: The specific date within that year is not a coincidence; it's a humor venue. PDF page numbers are +8.

Out of curiosity: Have you though of different spellings of the same name yet? E.g. the german family name Schröder might appear as Schröder (umlauts are available), Schroeder ("german" alternative when umlauts are not available) or Schroder ("scandinavian" alternative).

Related: How are scientific papers uniquely identified?

Aside from ORCID (which by far not every paper and person has), there really is no sure-fire way to uniquely identify an author. Using the name becomes problematic with common names (not unusual anywhere in the world, but a particularly common issue in Asia) or name changes (for instance in case of marriage). Combining with affiliation and e-mail address will also only get you so far as most academics tend to change universities at least once or twice in their career, and both affiliation and e-mail address tend to change in these cases.
For bibliographic research, the most promising approach is probably to combine all of the above with field information (e.g., a Markus Huber publishing in medicine is not particularly likely to be the same as a Markus Huber publishing in philosophy), and train some sort of heuristic classifier. Clearly, false positives/negatives will happen, but if your goal is to holistically assess a larger field of research a few false categorizations are unlikely to impact the overall picture too much.
If your goal is to assess an individual researcher, really the most accurate information is usually to trust what information the researchers themselves maintain (e.g., a CV or publicly available publication list).

This is exactly what ORCID tries to achieve:

ORCID is a nonprofit organization helping create a world in which all who participate in research, scholarship and innovation are uniquely identified and connected to their contributions and affiliations, across disciplines, borders, and time. (from their website)

However, not everybody is aware of this initiative or cares enough to set up an ORCID for themselves. Some journals request ORCIDs upon submission, e.g. for Nature Methods each Corresponding authors needs to have an ORCID.
The problem with using other information to identify researcher, is that this information can change as opposed to a uniquely assigned number.

I am not sure it's required. It might be encouraged. For example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-018-0187-8

From the link in my answer: 'As part of our efforts to improve transparency in authorship, we request that all corresponding authors of published papers provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) ID, before resubmitting the final version of the manuscript'. I don't know if this applies to all journal of the nature publishing group. And I also can't say how strictly this rule is enforced. But thanks, I changed require to request!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How shall I report a critical error in a given paper?
This is a follow-up of my previous question about this course task:

Find an existing, published research paper in the field of Chemical Engineering and try to autonomously replicate its results (plots, data, equations et similia).

In my replication study, I found that there was a report error; that is, a mathematical model was wrongly written, but the results shown on the paper were related to its correct form.

After my revision and replication trial, I found that using their same model, I do not obtain the paper results. There is no presence of replication error by me, and my TA pointed out flaws (of fundamental nature, for example F = mv instead of F = ma) in the model, that once corrected allowed me to obtain the results shown in the paper.

Now, I discovered a pure error in one of the basic assumptions of the model (namely, the molar mass of molecular oxygen set to 16 u, and not 32 u). This error in itself changes all the results of the paper, since it invalidates the reactor model and the subsequent optimization.
I have verified and consistently proved that the error exists, as I can reproduce the paper results including said error. What are my options now? I want someone to take notice and fix this paper, since I have proved it contains wrong results.

32=2*16, maybe they are talking about $O_2$ and you about $O$?

@MaartenBuis I checked more than once, but in the paper's context only $O_2$ was considered

So they did not make an error https://socratic.org/questions/is-the-molar-mass-of-oxygen-16-or-32

@MaartenBuis I am sorry, but in the paper's context they only considered $O_2$ giving in the calculation a molar mass of 16, and not 32. This is a fundamental error (of overlooking nature) that has implications on the results.

I think there are some good answers here - though I also suspect nothing will happen. I came across some mathematical errors in some papers (one a plus instead of minus), another a formula that didn't provide me with the same numerical result as a computational chemistry code. The answer I got from the author was "sorry, the formula in the paper is wrong, here is some code with the bit around line n, the implementation in the code you used is correct" ... Something I would recommend you do if you do contact the author is to phrase it in a way that is is asking for help and not saying...

...and not saying "you are wrong". State that you are trying to replicate their results, applying their formula and have problems with the specific steps a,b,c. - If you feel that you know what the error is, you can then inquire if you are correct in suspecting that a factor x,y,z is missing. - At least it shouldn't antagonize the author if he/she gets a message from someone seriously interested in their work.

Talk to an experienced researcher in the field before getting too excited.  For instance, you could talk to the professor of your course, if they are an active researcher in this area.
The question of what constitutes a "critical error" is subjective and often hard for a student to evaluate.  For instance, perhaps the authors are just using conventions that you are not familiar with, or you have misunderstood what they are saying.
It can also happen that although the text of the paper is literally incorrect, an experienced researcher can see immediately what was intended, and won't be confused by it.  These sorts of errors are typically not taken seriously and are not considered to warrant a formal correction to the paper, which requires a lot of work for the authors and editors.
It's good that you've discussed this with your TA, but your TA is likely a graduate student who doesn't yet have a lot of experience with research and publication in this area.
I think it's pretty common for students to get very excited about finding errors of any kind in published work, and to feel that "the world needs to know".  I've had this experience myself.  But community standards may not be what you think they are, and if you try to raise a big fuss about something that the research community regards as trivial, it'll just waste time and make you look a bit silly.
If an expert agrees that the error really is critical, then they can also advise you on how to proceed.  Typically you would begin by contacting the authors, and they would talk to the journal editor about publishing a correction (or "corrigendum").  In the unlikely event that they don't acknowledge the error, you can also raise the issue with the journal editor directly.  If the discovery of the error is itself something of significant scientific interest, then you could think about writing a new paper about it.  But don't cross that bridge until you come to it.

At first, you could talk to your TA and confirm that these errors really exist. According to your description, this should be a rather quick and easy task since you have identified the error already.
As a next step, you (together with your TA) should contact the corresponding author of the paper in a friendly manner. Do not try to sound accusatory but rather be interested in their work.
However, I do not expect that such an error could easily be fixed in the paper. Once a paper is published no modifications are allowed usually. Perhaps they might add an erratum note or even retract the paper (if the error is significant).

Regarding the last paragraph (that I approve): maybe in a few years, it will be possible to write public reviews on article (I know some websites started implementing that but I cannot find which ones). That would be a way of letting readers know about the mistake.

This is broadly the right answer, but the asker should contact somebody more senior, as well as their TA. The TA can probably verify whether or not it's actually a mistake, but grad students typically don't have a whole lot more feel for how to handle such a situation than undergrads do. But, even without involving somebody more senior, it's hard to go wrong by sending a polite mail to the corresponding author of the paper.

I have verified and consistently proved that the error exists, as I can reproduce the paper results including said error. What are my options now?

I recommend co-authoring a manuscript with your TA that highlights and fixes the noteworthy issues that you have found. (Fixing the issues makes the contribution far stronger, but perhaps isn't absolutely necessary.) I recommend sharing this manuscript with the original authors prior to any publication/submission (as noted by J-Kun); the shared manuscript needn't be in publishable state, it just needs to be comprehensible enough for the authors to comment on.

I want someone to take notice and fix this paper, since I have proved
  it contains wrong results.

I recommend that you fix this paper, perhaps in collaboration with the original authors (this would reduce the burden on you). Your results demonstrate that the original work is unsuitable, so fixing the paper is a publishable result.

Answers to issues raised in comments:

Couldn't the manuscript just be an email? I don't agree that an erratum is a publishable result (if by that, you mean a research article worthy of journal publication).

The following issues have been noted:

a mathematical model was wrongly written;
flaws...of fundamental nature...in the model; and
a pure error in one of the basic assumptions of the model [which] invalidates the reactor model and the subsequent optimization.

The first sounds like it belongs in an erratum, the second doesn't (albeit the accompanying fix "F = mv instead of F = ma" sounds like it does), and the third seems to suggest a non-trivial fix is required to derive a new reactor model and new optimizations. Thus, it seems like a new article is required. As an alternative, the original article could be extended (in collaboration with the original authors) and published as a technical report.

I am sorry I gave the wrong impression over the contribution of my TA. In this case, as opposed from my previous question, I discovered the error myself during the winter break (so I had no personal contact with the TA).

@AndreaL. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't mean to suggest judgement from my side. Perhaps drop "However, this time I did not talk to my TA nor the corresponding author of the paper."

Couldn't the manuscript just be an email? I don't agree that an erratum is a publishable result (if by that, you mean a research article worthy of journal publication).

@anderstood I've edited my answer to address

Whether it deserves an article  probably depends on the signifiance of point 3. But if researchers start writing articles for each significant published mistake... :)

@anderstood we probably aren't the best judges of whether an article is necessary, that's something for the OP.

I‘m not sure if this answer is allowed, based on advertising guidelines of Stack Exchange. Either way: A friend and I have started an app for iOS and Android with the intention of making reporting, discussing and looking up errors in publications as easy as possible. If you want you can check it out at https://mistakey.com.
The idea is to provide a network for collecting reports on all kinds of literature (currently, anything that has an ISBN, ISSN, or DOI can be reported). As others here have pointed out, it is unlikely that an already published paper can easily be revised. We therefore envision our platform to coexist as a hub for discussion and critique without requiring full papers for commentary or response to an existing one.

Please note that this is not spam as per our rules as it addresses the question and comes with full disclosure. However: “Don't talk about your product / website / book / job too much.” – Do not post any further answers promoting your software before you have contributed to this site in another manner.

That being said, I do not think this software can solve any problems. If I contact the publisher with an erratum and they react, I will reach a far larger audience than your software, in particular if the publisher maintains public errata. Otherwise your software seems to hinge on the utopic assumption that almost everybody uses it, because otherwise the overlap of papers read by its users would be almost zero.

@Wrzlprmft Thanks for your feedback! It is true that the idea might be far-fetched and very strongly depends on the number of users we can attract (which is why this apparently very controversial post was created...). What we see as our big advantage is a strong focus on ease-of-use and the possibility of transcending the platforms of individual publishers. We also have an inherent incentive of making existing errors as public as possible - in contrast to publishers who might be more incentivized to quietly fix mistakes in future editions.

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

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


text:
Supervisor who does not answer
My advisor has not replied to my email for 4 days. I'm in a hurry, this is a piece of paper that he should sign for me before December 18 what to do? any exemple of emails ? please help!!!

Finally, I sent him an email with the subject "urgent" and it worked, he replied almost instantly.

Perhaps your supervisor has other important things to do which have a higher priority for him at the moment.

December 18 is three days from now. Has your supervisor previously acknowledged this deadline? If so, just remind them the day before. They may have even more urgent business to attend and may be triaging.

Also, whatever you do, do not send emails in the way that you have written this question. The breathless tone, excessive punctuation, and lack of capitalization is not suitable for professional communication.

4 working days? Or were you expecting an e-mail over the weekend?

Go see him. Failing that, go see the department office. They can intercede for you if he isn't responding. Actually four days isn't so much time in a busy season. And he may not realize your urgency.
Email is not your friend here. Especially if your advisor is a generation or two older than you.

Telephone is another useful technology.


text:
Careers at the National Research Council of Italy and difference from the university system
What is the organization of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR)? In particular, I'd like to know

How does one get a position there? I assume there are public competitions (as for university positions), but I've never seen an announcement: Are they very rare or just not advertised as much?
What is the career progression in the CNR? I've seen people being called "Technologist", "Researcher", "Senior Researcher", and "Research Director" within them: What are the differences/seniorities/career progression mechanisms?
What are the other differences between an academic career at a university and at a CNR unit? In particular, in terms of teaching load, administrative tasks, and salary?

First, CNR is a giant entity with a hundred units, spread across all Italy, and with about eight-nine thousand researchers. It is therefore quite different from a university.

Yes, there are public competitions. All available calls can be found here. These calls are also published, like all public calls in Italy for whatever position, in the Gazzetta Ufficiale 4ª Serie Speciale - Concorsi ed Esami (in Italian).
In principle, technologist and researcher are two different paths. A technologist is a kind of senior technician. However, the distinction between the two paths is frequently fuzzy. For researchers, the career progression is Researcher (equivalent to an Assistant Professor in the university system), Senior Researcher (equivalent to an Associate Professor), and Research Director (equivalent to a Full Professor). For technologists, the career progression is Technologist, Senior Technologist and Technologist Director. You move from one level to another through competitions. These are all permanent positions.
CNR staff does not have any teaching duties, because it's a research only institution. Some researchers, though, are also affiliated to universities (and some CNR units are hosted by universities) and may teach classes. The salary between CNR and universities is about the same. Within CNR, also the salary between technologists and researchers, at equal level, is about the same. You can find details about the gross salary in these tables, which are however quite hard to interpret. The salaries for researchers can be found from p. 3 of the linked document. According to my understanding, the levels (abbreviated Liv. in the document) correspond to the positions: Liv III, Researcher; Liv II, Senior Researcher; Liv I, Research Director. The fascia corresponds to the number of years of employment: one starts from 1ª fascia, then after three years moves to 2ª fascia, after five more years to 3ª fascia and so on (the number of years between each fascia is reported in this page).

Thank you! What is the path to get promoted between Researcher, Senior Researcher, and Research Director? Is there a habilitation process (as in the French CNRS)?

@Kei As far as I know, there's no habilitation for CNR (unlike in the university). You apply for a progression when CNR opens a position.

Thanks! I've also taken a look at the tables, but I couldn't understand much. Could you extract from them the lowest and highest salary (before taxes) for the "Researchers", "Senior Researcher", and "Research Director"?

Finally, I'd like to ask you: on average, would you say that the number of positions in the CNR in a given town and in a given research area (within mathematics) is more or less than the number of university positions?

@Kei I've edited the answer to add some explanation on the salary. Beware though that that is anyway the gross salary, and the net salary is not easily predictable. The number of university positions is totally independent from that of the CNR positions.

Thank you very much! About the location of the CNR, say the "IAC – Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo Mauro Picone" for example, I see that there are four places: Bari, Firenze, Napoli, Roma. Is the application process centralized and then you get to choose the place or does each town have its own positions?

@Kei Afaik, typically each town has its own positions, but the application process is centralized and all positions are reported in the link of point 1.

I see, thanks! And you cannot move between one place and another without an additional competion? Also, I forgot to ask a fundamental questions: are the positions permanent? Is "Researcher" a tenure-track job and "Senior Researcher" the tenured one?

@Kei Those are all permanent positions. Also Researcher is permanent. But CNR has probably also temporary positions.


text:
How good are Taiwanese universities for getting PhD in Industrial Engineering?
My cousins have recommended me to pursue my Ph.D. in Taiwan instead of wasting my time, email constantly to professors to many professors in Europe, The United States, Canada, Australia,..., with a little tangible outcome (not responding to my email, or have financial restriction, or unable to accept further Ph.D. student), and after graduation, I can immigrate to another country such as Australia for work. I do not know a lot about Taiwan, and I do not know if it is worth to spend my time going to Taiwan. Is worth it? I do not know if a country like Australia or Canada accepts my Ph.D. degree. I live in Iran actually and due to economical conditions, political conditions, and social conditions, many well-educated people tend to move out of the country in hope of a better job or life condition. Although the COVIDE-19 pandemic make everything or future unclear

I am going to pursue operation research which can be found in those three fields.

Please send e-mail to College of Management to ask about  the admission procedures. I am not in your field, I can't tell you how good they are.

Also, I just found this. Contact them, then make your own judgment.

Thnak you for your comments and advice

It is interesting you have no luck in Australia.  I have many students from Iran applying for next year.

For Australia, specifically, I have to write a proposal. I do not have problem with this. Without a doubt, the proposal is not seamless and I have to check with a prospective supervisor. I have 3 topics that I am currently working on it. I send many emails to supervisors that I think have a same research interest and employ almost the same methodology. Besides, I have to make sure about the uniqueness of my thesis projects. But I do not recieve a single response. Some universities ask us to secure a potential superviosr before sending our application, without which the do not consider our app.


text:
Being a reviewer for a conference I found the exact same claim of my last year paper that got rejected
Last year, I submitted a paper to the conference XX'22 in January. We made an Arxiv preprint.
And the paper got rejected. We got very good reviews, except there were some imprecisions that we needed to improve.
Some months later we submit to YY'23 and the paper got accepted in November 2022. We wrote blogs about the paper, tutorials, we released software...
A few weeks ago, we presented the paper in the YY'23 conference.
Now I am a reviewer of XX'23. And I have to review a paper whose main claim is the same that we made in our submission in XX'22. It has been on Arxiv since then and has now been published.
The keywords are the same. The paper title has the exact same bigram. Their method is different, but with the same theoretical principles.
One of the experiments has the same evaluation methodology as ours.
And, obviously, there is no citation.
The main contribution of this paper is being novel about this technique that is very simple.
As a reviewer, what should I do?
Deadlines:

Paper submission XX'22: Jan 2022

Paper notification XX'22: May 2022

Conference XX'22: July 2022

Preprint in arxiv: Jan 2022

Paper submission YY'22: Aug 2022

Paper notification YY'22: Nov 2022

Conference YY'23: Feb 2023

Paper submission XX'23: Jan 2023

Note that the XX'23 submission is before the YY'23 presentation

Are you accusing them of plagiarism or other inappropriate conduct, or is this a "Well, this was rejected last year, so it should be this year?" or just "Well, this isn't novel anymore"?

I guess "it is. not novel anymore" I dont know if they knew or not about the existence of my paper. I want to think not.

Did you mean: "Conference YY'23: Feb 2023"? It's rather reasonable they missed your paper, considering the timing is so close.

Yes. I guess they missed the paper. The problem still persists

If my paper has been there for longer there will be no problem.

Is it actually common in your domain to have viable contributions on Arxiv, and/or to use blogs/tutorial/software as scientific contributions? In the two domains I work in, one rates these the same as "peer reviewed conference paper" and in the other domain these things might as well not exist.

If you make a paper and then scientific dissemination using blogs and software pointing to the paper. It is just the science divulgation of a paper. No?

Point is, in some domains "paper on arxiv" is not "a paper". It's just something you wrote on the internet and lord knows whether it is correct, consistent or even coherent; being rejected underlines this. It wouldn't count as actually being published in a scientific sense.

It was accepted in Nov2022. And it appears as accepted in Arxiv. Even thought the proceedings of the conf are not yet there

I would recommend you do now what a peer reviewer is supposed to do: Give feedback on the scientific substance of the manuscript. You can explain in your review pretty clearly that there is previous work that would need to be taken into account in the discussion of the literature, and that the authors should explain how their work contributes new knowledge. Also, if appropriate, you can express your concern that there are similarities between your paper and the manuscript that suggest that the authors plagiarized. Then it is up to the editors what to do with this information.
It also would make sense to disclose to the editors as clearly as possible what happened from your perspective, like you do it in your question, and that you are an author of the earlier paper. Do not put this info into the review for the authors, though, in order not to violate the anonymity of the review process.

I agree with this, but I'd start by contacting the editors. I'd find out how they want to treat it. If it's similar enough that it could be plagiarised, they might want to investigate this first. If it's just convergent ideas, then treat it exactly as you would reviewing another paper that was remarkably similar to an existing one.

It is relevant that your paper was published in YY23 and that it was on arxiv earlier- you should highlight the YY23 paper in the review, tell the area chair that you are the author of the YY23 paper, and let the area chair decide if it is too similar (even plagiarism?) or no longer novel, or that the publication is so recent that it doesn't affect novelty.
While it stings, it is irrelevant that your paper was rejected from XX22 since the authors of the 'new' paper had no access to rejected papers. Mentioning the XX22 submission will hurt your credibility.

"since the authors of the 'new' paper had no access to rejected papers" At least the Editor and the reviewers have seen the paper.

@FooBar ya if it were me I'd change that to "presumably had no access".

OP said the Arxiv preprint of the rejected paper was available a year before the XX'23 paper submission.


text:
Supervisor ignoring me
I have an issue with my Masters' dissertation. I was supposed to complete it for May, however when I submitted my proposal on February 24 but I had no reply about confirmation until I emailed my tutor multiple times and she only responded on March 20. So, because she took nearly a month to approve it, I have missed the chance to hand it in in May and graduate in July.
I have emailed my tutor with questions regarding the dissertation on April 19 and heard nothing back, I emailed her asking for an answer again on the 19th of May and still nothing. It is really hard because she is also the module organiser so I can’t email anyone else about this.
S,o not only did I miss may deadline and now need to hand it in in August, but I don’t know what’s going on exactly and also don’t get replies to my emails regarding the dissertation.
What would you suggest I do because clearly emails are out of the question and I am getting really frustrated. Because it’s a distance learning course, I can’t go to university to see her.

Sue them or threaten to sue them.

@Walter That's a terrible idea.

Who's next in hierarchy? Or ring her up. Some people are badly organised, but not explicitly unhelpful, and phoning may help them to reprioritise.

Next in line would be programme leader, he is even worse when it comes to emails. Noone would speak to me over the phone because you have to make appointment over email to arrange phone call and as you know noone is replying to my emails.

@jakebeal It was not too serious. But seriously, it's not necessarily completely terrible (why?). At least talking to lawyer may be useful.

Have you paid any fee for this course? If I had and get this type of service, I would be p***ed off. I suppose Email is their formal way of communicating with students, so this is completely unacceptable. Seriously, talk to a lawyer.

I paid £5500 for 8 modules and dissertation. Have completed the modules so just the dissertation to do.

@Walter, that is a horrible idea, and liable to get you expelled. Odds are, her manager is swamped with emails and forgot (case in point, I've seen 1000+ unread emails in my manager's inbox). Phone calls would be best.

@Walter Threatening a lawsuit is a really great way to get a response similar to "I'm not allowed to conduct discourse with you anymore; the school's legal department will be in touch."  It's the workplace-interaction equivalent of holding a gun on someone in response to them bumping into you.  If you actually care about getting stuff done, you won't threaten legal action.

In your position I'd send an email or straight up call whoever is next in the chain of command after the programme leader. There must be someone in charge of keeping things running smoothly, unlike these two. Don't be passive about it, call daily or once every couple of days until you get a straight response. Sometimes you got to make yourself heard.

@FundThmCalculus If these are even semi-important emails, that would be a horrible manager.

@o4tlulz I agree it's not right to be forgetting about your student's emails, but I do understand why it can happen.

Is this possibly a for-profit institution?

@Virshininke: why do you send an e-mail? Can't you call, skype, or even better, visit this person at his/her office, with or without making a rendez-vous first?

@Dominique In order to be able to call I need to arrange the call via email. Problem with that - noone answers my emails. Can't visit because its a distance learning course. Also uni is 5 hours away.

@Virshininke: and what about the university itself? Don't they have a general phone number, or the phone number of student support administration or so, where you can call and explain your situation? (I have the impression that the distance is too far to go there physically)

I don't know the local etiquette (seems to be UK), but if they never reply to emails, you are legitimately waived of your obligation of taking appointment before a phone call.

You should definitely follow up on unanswered emails before a whole month passes. Perhaps try calling her office directly to see if you can reach her. And if not, then contact the departmental admins to find out how you can. If your questions are related to substantive material and not the logistics of your module, then I'd suggest asking someone else in department who does work in your area.

Absolutely: if something is time-critical for you, you cannot just wait passively for a month.

I'd like to highlight the idea of calling or finding alternative contact approaches - there are many people who are just bad at answering email.

I would try to schedule a phone meeting via email. The key to this is sending a very simple email. My hunch is that you have been sending complex emails which she decides to "deal with later" and then forgets about. The key is to make it easy for the professor to respond immediately.
To do this, you want the email to be a very simple question. Suggest three phone meeting date/time blocks in a email and ask which works best, or if another time is better.
If no response after 2 days, call and leave a message "Just checking to see if we can schedule a phone meeting. I sent an email request a few days ago and wanted to make sure you saw it, thanks!"
On the next day, send a follow-up email repeating the info from the first email.
On the next day, try getting ahold of a departmental administrative assistant for her to make sure she isn't out sick/on vacation.

First -- embrace the idea that this is not necessarily your supervisor's fault.  This is a communication problem between the two of you (or at least nothing you've said so far leads me to believe it wasn't).  When communicating something like this, you need to make deadlines very clear, as well as what the deadlines are for, and what happens if they're missed, and then make sure you receive a timely acknowledgement.
As to how to make this go better, if your emails haven't been perfectly clear, make them so.  Also, send the email to your supervisor and cc it to the rest of your committee.  They should see your near-finished draft as a courtesy, and knowing that other faculty are involved in the communication might prompt a faster response.
Lastly, finish the email with a request for a meeting to discuss the document and recommended changes.  Leave enough time for the document to be read -- about two weeks feels good.  If you haven't heard back about confirming the email in about two or three days (I think this is a fair time considering the history of this document, but is perhaps a bit short for a first try in general) follow up with a phone call or visit.

Can't really request a meeting, "Because it’s a distance learning course I can’t go to university to see her."

The OP might not be able to request an in person meeting, but there are numerous options for meeting online (GoToMeeting, Skype, Google Hangouts, Slack, to name a few).

I don't agree with this. Going literally months without responding is an untenable position barring catastrophic health issues.

@TemporalWolf  -- or the email got lost-- or the prof screwed up.  Communication is a two-way thing.

From the point of view of UK Universities (relevant as per the questioner's profile) there should be a number of people you can contact:

A more senior member of staff or course administrator, as suggested by other answers
Student Services -- This may be more for non-academic issues, but I expect they would know who to contact on site
Your academic student representative (possibly listed as Post-Graduate Taught)
-- they may have finished for the semester
Your students' union would be able to give advice
An ombudsman -- my University had this service for post-graduate research, but again, they would know who to talk to

Check the material you received when you started the course. This should be listed in a student handbook, any if you signed a "contract" there may be a section on the University's obligations to you.
If you cannot resolve the issue, your university should have a webpage detailing the complaints and appeals procedure. Failing that, there is the UK office of the independent adjudicator (OIA).

This answer is ok, but heavily UK-centric.

@astronat The OP's profile says they're UK based. I'll clarity that in the answer

It sounds like it's time to go to a dean, or some kind of administrator or supervisor of the non-responsive professor.
If you have trouble figuring out which administrator to contact, try calling the office of somebody quite high up.  That office will have the crème of the crème of secretaries/administrative assistants, who know the university hierarchy like the back of their hand.
Once the appropriate administrator has been identified, you will likely have to make your case to him or her by email.
When you write that message, I suggest saying that if Prof. X does not have time to provide feedback for the proposal you submitted, then could the department please assign someone else to do so.  The more neutral you can keep your tone, the more effective your self-advocacy will be.

Some basic points :

If you can't get a response by email or phone, it's time to write.
No organization can (should) ignore a registered letter sent and marked urgent.  Keep a copy of the letter and the registered mail number for tracking.  The post office are very careful with registered mail, so the "we didn't get it or notice it" excuse is not going to fly with anyone.
Dissertation time.  However busy your supervisor is, you ought to be near or at the top of their priority list as you're completing the process.  It ought to be in the university's interests to complete that process and get you out and about and off their books so that they can get in a brand new candidate and add to their count of successful candidates.  Ignoring you is very disturbing, bordering on suspicious.
Don't wait a month between attempts to communicate.  Your need is justifiably urgent and it's probably time to contact the head of the department, who ought to be angry at the failure of their subordinate to deal with such an important issue effectively.  Go rapidly up the chain of command - not months, a few days between attempts at most.  @steve gave some relevant info for UK universities.
I know it's distance learning but it's five hours away, not on the moon.  You may simply have to get up early and get to it by bus or train (or car if it's an option).  If they don't respond to your registered letter promptly (that means email or letter - something you can have a record of !) in a week, then it's time to investigate.  Record any contacts you have in the hopefully and probably remote possibility legal action is later required.  Under no circumstances engage in angry verbal arguments.  This simply gives them an excuse to ignore you.  Ask straight direct questions, record the answers as you're entitled to.

Next in line would be programme leader, he is even worse when it comes to emails. No one would speak to me over the phone because you have to make appointment over email to arrange phone call and as you know no one is replying to my emails.

That's a very disturbing pattern of avoidance, I may tell you.
One person ignoring you, for whatever reasons of their own, is problematic, but an institutionalized system which seems to have no function other than to prevent you communicating with people is very poor.
This is why it's time to use registered mail - ignoring registered mail is something courts everywhere regard as very bad behavior, and that's why when one of the things lands on your desk in an organization it's time to sit up and pay attention.  They're equivalent to a shot across the bows legally.
When writing keep it simple.  Avoid angry comments (difficult but important) or confrontational language.  Stress simply the urgency of the matter and why, the failure of their organization to respond promptly and your reasonable expectation that they respond "constructively" (always a good word for these documents) to deal with your urgent need and "their responsibilities" (again important phrase) quickly and satisfactorily.
Something to consider is that the reasons for the delay in contacting you are irrelevant to you.  You don't need reasons (excuses) you need action.  There could be a hundred reasons why your supervisor ignores you, but they should not and if it's a failure of the department or the supervisor, it's not your concern.  Don't let them divert you into a discussion of why this happened.  Concentrate on seeing it stops happening and that they act accordingly.

Have you tried making an appointment with what ever e-mail system is in use? It will send your supervisor a reminder message.
Have you suggest using Skype to your supervisor? That way, you could have a one-on-one conversation without having to travel a long distance.
Do try to keep a diary of all your interactions with your supervisor:

Record when you send an email, and when you get a response
Record when you attempted a phone call; record why do you wanted it etc.

Once you have a diary, it's a record of what you have tried to do. It can be quoted at your supervisor, his manager, the deed etc.
You can try having a chat with students union, the deed, the welfare office etc. They might be able to resolve any issues with a chat between all the different parties. As soon as you go for making a formal complaint, the legal route etc, peoples' hands are tied because the official process has to be completed.
Do remember that your college has probably had this type of issue before. They will know how to defend themselves, and you don't. The legal route will be very expensive.
I wish you well with your studies.

My advice would be you need to accelerate your timeline: A month to get a reply to an e-mail is untenable. At least in the US, there is usually a written commitment to turnaround time for e-mail that's on the order of days (24-72 hours excluding weekends/holidays was common).
If they aren't responding, send an e-mail to the department or university expressing your concerns. Explain what is going on, including the significant delays and lack of communication.
My largest concern is I can't fathom this happening at my university, so I'm worried you may have gotten involved in an institution of ill repute.

I don't know why you assume an institution of ill repute: many professors are terrible about returning emails when not reminded.

@jakebeal I would hope that is less true of distance education professors, but I don't disagree.

@TemporalWolf: I would have thought it would be worse with distance education. Out of sight, out of mind...

Can you give an example of said written commitment to response to email within 24-72 hours? It's certainly nothing I've encountered in my career.

@MichaelHoffman I'll check my school laptop to see if I have a specific example when I get home, but my university covers it in their teaching handbook for blended/online courses: "Timeliness Response and Feedback Promise - Create a response policy for assignments and communications. It helps students understand expectations and helps prevent them from sending unnecessary emails."

It sounds like you're already past the point of trying simple methods, but for in the future, I've found that in a professional environment when someone is slow-responding or even non-responsive by email, emailing multiple people in the same email and making it obvious that you've done so returns better results more quickly. It puts pressure on the individual who is responsible for following up on your issue.
In my experience I've found many times people don't mind being slow to respond when they're emailed individually, but they don't want their peers and especially their superiors to know they do that, so they'll try to give good customer service when they think others might take notice in the issue. There's a good chance they'll never have to deal with you again so they don't really care what you think of them. They very much care what their peers and superiors think of them, though, since they work with them every day, so they're much more prompt to respond when they have an audience.
This is a generalization and won't work in every case, but I have found it to be a good next step after the standard "email and wait" method doesn't seem to be working.

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


text:
What does it take to get a tenure track position at an Ivy League School?
I see some professors at Ivy league schools who didn't go to Ivy league schools. I also see professors who went to Ivy League schools that end up working at mediocre universities. So clearly pedigree doesn't play a very significant role by itself. What other factors come into play?

There are many disciplines where the Ivy League doesn't really matter. And can I just say "stanford, berkeley, UW, Georgia Tech, ...". I'd argue that this question is not well-posed, and maybe a better one is: "to what extent does a Ph.D from a high/low ranked school affect your chances of getting a faculty job at a high/low ranked school"

I think it's more important to get into an institution with fellow researchers who will complement yours, rather than aim for a school of national ranking.

You should also consider the factor that the actual tenure rate is often low at these schools (that is, the % of tenure track faculty who get tenure). Princeton and Yale, for specific examples, have a reputation for giving tenure to very few tenure-track faculty, and instead hiring many of their tenured faculty with immediate tenure by recruiting them from other schools. So tenure-track jobs at these schools might be better thought of as very prestigious postdoctoral positions. However, once you look at schools other than the extremely elite ones, the tenure rates become more reasonable.

The Ivy League is an athletic league, not a list of the top universities.  They are all very good, and some of them are great, but nobody thinks UPenn is more prestigious or a higher-ranked university than Stanford (despite the fact that UPenn is in the Ivy League and Stanford is not).
Furthermore, the strength of individual departments is correlated with the overall prestige of the university, but there's a lot of variation.  The prestige of the university plays some role in recruiting faculty, but departmental strength is the primary factor.
Finally, schools really shouldn't (and generally don't) care much about the pedigree of the candidate.  They are much more interested in accomplishments than educational background.  Of course, there's a strong correlation between accomplishments and pedigree, for at least two reasons.  Talented, ambitious students are likely to have the opportunity to attend top schools, and they often take that opportunity.  Once they are there, they benefit from an environment full of top faculty and other students like them.  So it's no surprise that many professors at top schools studied at such schools themselves, but they didn't all do so.
As for what other factors come into play, that's a very broad question.  At top research universities, the big question is how good your research is, primarily judged by external letters of evaluation.  There's nothing special about getting a job at a top school, beyond the degree of competition.
Regarding the Ivy League students who end up teaching at lower-ranked universities, that's numerically guaranteed.  Every research university graduates more Ph.D. students than it hires, and typically far more, so there's no way they could all get jobs at schools like the ones they attended.  (But keep in mind that most colleges are not research universities and do not offer Ph.D. programs.)  To a first approximation, most Ph.D. recipients from top universities will get jobs at lower-ranked research universities (or other types of jobs entirely, for example teaching-focused or industrial).  Most students from lower-ranked research universities will not get jobs at research universities at all, although of course they may still end up in academia.

The way you phrase your last paragraph, it makes it seem that there is little to no chance of "upward mobility"; that is, a graduate from a lower-ranked university attaining a position in a higher ranked institution.  Why might that be so?

While it's harder, it's not entirely true. In those cases, your mobility comes from the work you do post-Ph.D, and it's not uncommon for people to use the tenure process as a time to do this ship-jumping.

@Paul I think it is pretty clearly stated: "There's a strong correlation between accomplishments and pedigree"

@Paul:  As Suresh said, upward mobility is certainly possible.  Ultimately, the work you do will carry far more weight than the schools you studied at.  However, the number of job candidates per available position means the field must experience downward mobility on average, so upward mobility will always be unusual.

On the other hand, most faculty in the very top departments come from lower-ranked schools (unless they mostly hire their own graduates).

There are enough top departments to choose from that I wouldn't say most faculty in such departments come from lower-ranked schools, although it depends on how fine your ranking system is.  To get some data, I looked at tenured professors in the Princeton math department.  23 come from top math departments (Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, Harvard, Hebrew University, Moscow State, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford), 4 from strong but lower-ranked departments (Columbia, NYU, Rutgers, UCLA), and 4 from more surprising places (Birmingham, Brandeis, Kansas State, Yeshiva).

Also bear in mind that belonging to a top institution is a lifestyle choice as well as an academic choice. Lots of good (skilled) researchers decide that the high stress, "publish or perish" attitude of top-ranked schools is not something they want to participate in. I know folks who left an elite school because they wanted more family time, and I know folks who left a second-tier school because they realized they wanted tenure at a top institution.


text:
What should a tenured professor do to move to a more research oriented school?
Much is written about how to get a job, but I've seen very little about how a professor with tenure (typically an associate or full professor) goes about changing schools.  If a professor wants to move to a school with a higher emphasis on research, obviously his or her research, publication, and grant records will be very important.  But what else will be important?  Particularly, which aspects will be much more important than they would be for an assistant professor looking to get a job at the same school?

Its difficult, and rare for faculty to move from non-research oriented schools to research oriented schools, particularly at the senior level. To be hired as a senior faculty member, you generally have to be specifically recruited, and someone has to make a case that you, specifically, would substantially strengthen the department. This is because making an offer with tenure is a huge commitment for a department, and much more expensive than hiring a younger scientist.
So what you have to do is be a visible leader in your field. When people think of your field, they should think of you, and when their university thinks of expanding their coverage of your field, you should be one of the first people they think of.

To be hired as a senior faculty member, you generally have to be specifically recruited. — This is not entirely true.  I know many senior faculty who applied for their current faculty position (rather than being invited to apply).  But your second point stands — in most departments, it's easier to get tenure internally than to be hired with tenure.

One possible way to convince a department that they want to have you around would be to visit for an extended stay, say on a sabbatical, and let them get to know you and how you could contribute to the department.  For a professor who is targeting a specific school, do you see this as being a good use of time and energy?

Becoming a leader in a particular field is a lot harder when one isn't already in a research university (ideally a university known for studies in said field).


text:
Am I likely to be perceived as less successful if I start as an assistant professor at age 40?
Several professors, including my former advisor and a senior member of my research community, have been encouraging me to apply for a faculty job. I am torn about it mostly because I am 40 years old. Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an assistant professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again.
I believe that my pre-PhD experience leading projects would lessen the learning curve that new tenured track faculty goes through. On the other hand, I am not sure if there would a be a stigma associated with my age. I would have gone for an academic position ten years ago in a heartbeat, for the research, freedom, and teaching. But I had personal reasons for not being able to pursue PhD sooner.
Is it too late to do it now? Would the low academic rank to age ratio make my job harder, leading to possibly being prejudiced that I must not be successful to still be at the lowest branches?
There are several threads here asking about pursing PhD later in life, but I do not recall any of them addressing starting an academic carrier.

I tried to make the title more specific, please let me know if I did not preserve your intent

Related: Are old (>35) faculty candidates discriminated against all over the world?

I think there is a very wide variety between fields, between humanity and hard sciences.

I would say it depends. In the following question, JeffE resoundingly stated that age does not play into the decision whether to appoint somebody for an academic position. Yet, ETH Zurich (one of the world's premiere institutions in the technical sciences) even publicly states that they will rather not hire an assistant professor older than 35 (see the information box on the right).
Pragmatically, you may be a bit out of the norm. This may give you a small edge in some cases, and may be a small disadvantage in others. For every academic that is concerned about your age, there will be another one that values your industrial experience. I would say, if age is the only thing holding you back, then go and apply for assistant professor positions.

Leaving a job in a research lab to start as an associate professor would in a way seem like a starting all over again.

Assistant professor isn't the same as associate professor. Both are not the same as "starting all over". In practice, in most places I have seen, professors on all levels are able to work quite independently, so none should be seen as an entry-level job. Assistant professor may be entry-level in terms of professorships, but it is actually a quite senior position in the wider context of academia.

I've got a question. When it says "not to be older than 35" that means that if I'm 35 and 4 months then I'm older than 35? Or is it up to 36? Thanks

As an assistant professor, you would have four constituencies: undergrads, graduate students, your department's tenured and "sure thing" pre-tenured faculty, and the school's administration.
Undergrads want to know what's going to be on the test. If your age isn't going to be on the test, they won't notice it. To them, a professor is a professor is an old person. Just be prepared and predictable and they'll be happy. Being 40 might command more respect than being 30, and should mean fewer crushes to fend off. I consider it a plus for this group.
Grad students want you not to be insane. "Dear Lord, please allow that my advisor be not changeable like the wind, be not stubborn like the glaciers, and be not crazy, and be not on drugs. Also I would be grateful if you could manage that she not work me like an indentured servant, please, and thank you." They'll judge you by your recent publications, your connections and  intelligence.
Some or  all of the faculty will be writing reviews of you and your research program in three or four years. For that reason, you should talk to them about theirs. For real. They can judge your acuity better on home turf than when adrift in a sea of unfamiliar words and ideas, and they'll be flattered. If you came in as a 23-year-old wiz-kid, there might be some resentment or envy. If you are pleasant and dedicated to your career, irrelevant factors like your age will not undermine your prospects with your new colleagues.
Presidents and Deans want to hear only good things about you. The Dean will be told of any difficulties you experience, and could possibly alert the President, so don't have any. They might not even know your age, and I can't think of a reason they'd care about it. Help the department move up the prestige ladder and they wouldn't mind if you were 60.
Age could be an issue when you apply for jobs. They'll assume you were 18 when you started undergrad, regardless of when you graduated. If you graduated late, you could put the year you graduated instead of the years of attendance. Your age might be off-putting for the hiring committee before they meet you. If they get over it and invite you to interview with them, you'll have your CV, references, and many chances to make a good impression. You haven't been playing mahjong for the last few years.  As long as you "read" like you're of the tribe, your age will not be a negative in academia.


text:
Are there any language requirements for citizen applicants with low English skills?
I see from a university website that "if you are not a citizen of one of the following countries..." [a list of countries], "you will need to take the TOEFL before enrolling."  (USA is not on the list, but I presume that's irrelevant).  My friend is a US citizen originally from a different country, and her conversational English is passable, but she absolutely would not pass the TOEFL.
In most schools, could she walk in without the test, because she's (lately) obtained her US citizenship?

Suppose she were admitted without bringing her English up to the TOEFL level. She would be in a mess. She could not be a TA, which might leave her without funding. She would have trouble following lectures and formulating questions.

are you asking for US school? US univ would not require US citizen to do TOEFL or equivalent. Proof of language proficiency for international students is to ensure some likelihood of success and to weed out those who would require extensive resources for remediation. While the student described above might end up failing or never being accepted (due to not being able to do well on the SAT or ACT's or GRE's preexams in English) the percentage of citizen applicants accepted but not fluent 'enough' would so small that it would not be time/staff effective to bother to check. They sink or swim.

Becoming naturalized as a US citizen normally requires an English test. I know someone who went through it - it is a basic test of conversational English and is graded based on whether the examiner can communicate with you. It can be passed with terrible grammar and awkward vocabulary. "I american want to be, i understanding the englishes, know how asks for directions, i know statue of liberty in new york city and must be 18's to votes for president i can be americans?"

Usually, universities set the requirements by native language and/or educational experience in English. If you have a bachelor's or PhD from a US university, they usually waive your language testing requirement because (1) you probably have already passed one many years ago and (2) if you're not good enough at English you probably would not have received your degree.
But if you're just an American citizen, no. They don't usually waive TOEFL just because of your passport. There are many Americans out there who don't even speak English. Of course, if you're an American citizen whose native language is English, you would most certainly not be expected to tale the TOEFL.

I would add to the other user answering your question that, citizenship status do not necessarily waive the language test requirement. Academic institutes have usually these conditions for an applicant to not require him to sit a language test:
He has completed his previous studies in an English speaking institute (either in an English speaking country or not), or the applicant have worked for at least two years in an English speaking environment (an English speaking country, a project which is done in English, etc). The applicant may prove it by presenting a letter written by his/her employer.
Otherwise, whether he is a citizen of that country or not, he has to prove his language skills by presenting a valid test score (which is usually a test he has sit not later than two years before the date he is attending the university. Some other institutes may have more strict conditions depending on the major of study or applicants' conditions).
Even I have read some pages over the net (I am not remembering the exact link to refer to and I think it was among the questions in this site) that citizens who have spent some years outside of the country (for instance they have attended a local non-English speaking school) have to provide a language test for their applications, if the university doubts about his communication skills.


text:
What is a 'Master's by Research'?
Someone has stated that they have a 'Master's by research'.  Does this mean that their entire degree was awarded based on their thesis work?  Or does it mean that they took requisite courses, but also wrote a thesis?

In most institutes Masters by Research means they had to take the core courses usual Master students are offered but they also produce a compulsory Masters thesis in order to earn their degree. However, I have that seen in most cases that they have to take lesser number of electives so that they have more time for research.
Edit: Also see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Research


text:
How do you organize your research?
I am doing a lot of reading and experimenting to dig deeper into my research topic. In our institute we have weekly meetings, were we present our latest research. Often my professor asks me questions about specific details or numbers in ongoing discussions during the presentation, which I cannot recall so fast. For example, what is the current GDP of X country? I have understood, what the GDP is, but I do not know the number, which he would really like to hear in that moment.
I often have read this, and also re-read it in other reports and papers, but I cannot recall it in his moment exactly and I do not have the number available during the presentation? Btw often it is unclear before the presentations, which numbers are relevant during a presentation and also my peers feel that way.

How do you structure your research?
Which tools are you using?

I really appreciate your answer!

I am confused by this question - the title and the summarized questions fit, but the whole case description sounds more like "How do I memorize trivia?", or possibly "What to do about a professor who insists on learning arbitrary factoids by heart?" Also, for clarification: Is this about a particular country X that is somehow particularly important to you, or does that professor seriously expect you to memorize essentially this WP page by heart?

Learn to say I don't know. Practice how to gracefully say "Thanks for asking about that. I don't know but I will look into that." Do it to a mirror, make it look like it's your right to not know something, not a crime or even a weakness. After the meeting, go check the facts and then follow up with an e-mail.
Google it right there. It's getting more and more common and socially acceptable for anyone just to whip out a handheld device (smart phone, iPad, etc.) and Google it. If you're not sure about that, do ask "I don't know but would you mind if I search for it now?" Search phrase like "GDP [Country's name]" will actually result in a nice trend graph in Google, like this one for Vietnam. It would take less than 5 seconds; much shorter than time taken by people to apologize.
Prepare some fact sheets. If your work is heavily related with countries, consider printing out some fact sheets like the one on CIA the World Factbook and bring that with you. Similar devices like tip sheets or cheat sheets for basic information like formulas or acronyms will also be useful. The process of preparing them can also serve as a revision.
Use bookmarks and highlighter. If you are carrying some reports with you, use those write-on bookmark stickers to mark the potentially useful charts and tables.
Ask yourself why, for 5 times. While preparing your major arguments, you may consider a technique of asking yourself why for 5 times. For example, you have picked Haiti as your target country, why? It's a poor developing country, why? Because its GDP per capita is only US$820, why is that low? It's at 157th as of 2007. So on, so forth. This technique can help you think about unexpected questions, and also come up with strategies to deal with the "So what?" questions.
Knowing small details is not as important as knowing the big picture. Contingent on the last point, for research  (in my opinion) it's more important to know the big picture: rationale, theory or theoretical framework, pros and cons of methods, validity and reliability of the results, and what these all add to the literature or application. While planning for the research meeting, it's most crucial that you having given these components a good thought and be able to justify your interpretation and decision. Random statistics can come later.
Recalling small details is not as important as discerning pattern and anomaly. As the use of mobile Internet browser becomes more prominent, getting random details and facts is no longer our burden. Instead of using our precious brain power to memorize trivial little facts, it'd be more useful to tightly incorporate critically asking questions while going through the data, noticing patterns and exceptions, and synthesizing more questions or speculations.
Deduce it right there. Sometimes, the audience may not be expecting a perfect answer but rather a "guesstimate." Simply saying like "the GDP is likely low, it's the poorest country in the west hemisphere" can already address part of the question. If you really have no clue, it'd still be great if you can suggest how someone can get that information: "I'm really not sure about that, but I'd look for that in the US Census 2010 Fact Finder online."

While I do notice that you're also asking for advices on how to organize one's research. I don't think I can answer that given how little I know about your work, personality, and affinity to technology. Great research can be done with just a shoebox, index cards, a pencil, and an eraser; it can also be done with a state-of-the-art computer, various software packages, and cloud storage. It's likely something you need to discuss with your supervisors and other experienced researchers, and take and practice what is likely to be useful to you.

Working for many years with detailed data and diverse information and a little bit of memory problem I feel your problem. I would add below points to above answers.
1. reference management tools
You can use them as bookmark manager, also you can read the pdfs and leave notes and then be able to search those notes and hopefully find them fast. I used Mendeley and Zotero and both do the job. Mendeley does a better job on desktop note taking and Zotero does better on collection of data from web and bookmarking.
2. Searchable notebook online/offline
tools like Evernote lets you search into your notes quickly and store briefer on different issue to refresh your brain up on some issues as fast as possible. use tagging carefully so that you remember your tags and organizations. Meanwhile, using pen and paper is always more reliable than any tool.
3. lists, tables and finally frameworks
there are plenty of tools you can use for listing stuff. Google Keep can be one of the best ones. You need to organize and re-organize many iterations all the time for a bulk of information. as you go ahead in this process you can remember them better and you can feel the progress. start by making lists that you can quickly refer to. then make an index or category and transform lists to tables where can store a lot of information in small place and at the end you will have many lists and tables try to come up with rules and frameworks that can help you know which table to refer to and for what reason.
4. keep a voice memo of the events
There are phone apps that can record your voice as mp3. and maybe soon tools that can convert them to texts. Always knowing the theme and direction of meetings can help your memory to shape around the usual flow of the meeting and it can make you prepare. by listening to what happened in last events you can make your brain ready for the upcoming event. It also helps you organize your work based on what is expected from you in the meetings. always mention the date and the attendees of the event. what was expected to happen and what actually happened.
5. last but not least
Brain War is a mobile game with multiple memory activity that can help your short and long term memory performance. There are many games like that which might help you measure your performance if not helping it. Also, I was told by my doctor that using Coconut oil instead of normal oil has helped some people with Alzheimer.


text:
Outsider Contributions: Are They Possible, and How?
The current system of producing knowledge in academia, think-tanks, research laboratories funded by large organizations, and similar has the benefits that there is usually some oversight, the people involved have been trained on how to conduct and contribute to research, and how to communicate their results to the literate portion of the society they are supposed to aid.  (The above is subject to debate, but I prefer to assume it for the purpose of the question below.)
How can a person with no contacts to any of these contribute, or learn how to contribute, to the production of research, in spite of lack of oversight, funding, and training?  As examples, a person who finds an alternate and faster method of DNA replication, or finds influences of Jane Austen among current bloggers that suggest a certain societal trend, or has a new way of analyzing large portions of astronomical data, or finds a way of speeding up numerical simulations of models of biological systems involving capillary blood flow.  How does such a person present such an idea or method?
One can write to authors on the appropriate area; how likely is this to succeed?  One could look at an appropriate journal, attempt to copy the style, formatting, and phraseology of the articles and then submit their write-up to that journal, but without affiliation; with what result?  One might attempt to use the Internet to strike up conversations with like-minded individuals and find a willing ear and eye; are there enough willing ears and eyes?  One could start a blog or just put up a web page announcing the work; I have done that, but I have too many connections to be considered a complete outsider to academia, and I want to pose the question for those who are so outside.  Further, how could someone searching an index find that page among many that are computer generated using similar phrases?
There are several spins one can put on this.  Let us further assume that the primary goal is to present the idea/form of knowledge, and receive little or no more than the recognition of making the contribution and the satisfaction of seeing it used.  In particular, potential degrees, awards, or jobs are not part of the scenario or motivation.  In this day and age, would blogging be enough?  Also, for fun and to make answers less trivial, assume the outsider is not and is not likely to enroll in a university.
Added: To address a comment, enrolling in a university would likely provide many of the desired contacts, but with some cost.  The outsider may have had a university education, but this question makes the assumption that contacts there are stale or otherwise not accessible or appropriate, making this person more of an outsider.

Can you clarify the last sentence the outsider is not and is not likely to enroll in a university? Do you mean  that outsider does not even have a bachelor degree?

Nobody can stop you from actually communicating your research results via a personal blog. Whether or not that results in your inferences being accepted by the broader academic community is an entirely different issue.

Most of our audience here are academics and the OP is Not Quite An Outsider, I think I don't need to explain how important peer review is to research results. If the outsider needs the explanation, please use the peer-review to read related Q&A.
Obviously, the outsider has at least two options: submit the manuscript to journals and/or having blog posts of his own.
One of the effective ways to get your paper to be peer reviewed is to send the paper to journals. It is true that some journals tend to ignore papers written by authors without affiliation. I personally have this experience. I am retired and am not associated with any institute. I do have experience that my manuscript was rejected without any explanation. However, the quality of the paper makes the difference. If it is indeed a very good paper, some journals would take it and send to referees. I personally have that experience, too.
The second option for an outsider is to have blog posts. I occasionally come cross blog posts when I search on the Internet (I am a retiree, I have plenty of time). My personal experience is that more than often good blogs are written by good scholars who are insiders. I bumped into many poor quality stuff written by outsiders quite often. They just don't make sense to me at all. I usually read the first couple of paragraphs to determine if I want to continue to read them. Unfortunately, most of them written by outsiders are of extremely poor quality.
Of course, the outsider has another option - arXiv. I think it does not make too much difference with regard to your question.
To me, the key issue is the contents. If you do have something very good, publish it. Somehow, somewhere, your article will be read by others. However, if you never receive college education, I seriously doubt your stuff is good. You do need at least basic level knowledge to do research.

I like the point about an idea being well written to be accepted.  Regarding ArXiv as an option, doesn't ArXiv have some sort of endorsement or sponsor process?  Or are there plenty of people willing to endorse outside submitters? How does one find these people?

@NotQuiteAnOutsider The Q&As I want to submit a paper to arXiv.org, but I'm not affiliated to an Institute. What can I do? and What's arxiv “endorsement” policy? would be helpful info to your question.

"However, if you never receive college education, I seriously doubt your stuff is good. You do need at least basic level knowledge to do research." Does this really hold true in the age of the internet and wikipedia? They have university lectures on YouTube. Can someone attain levels of academic competence by being self taught?

@olli I watched some YouTube videos about Covid-19. After several times of replay, I still don't know what they were talking about. The main reason is that I am a Math/CS guy I never received proper training in bio/medical science. To answer your question, I still think physical classroom college education is necessary if you want to be an expert.

Make sense. I suppose that's part of the skill. Figuring out what you don't understand, why, and then how to learn it. Kinda like when working with a new coding framework or library

I want to add to Scaahu's answer, with which I of course agree. Basically anyone could in theory contribute to academic knowledge (I read that as research). But, it is easy to underestimate the amount of knowledge and experience that goes into successful research and publication thereof. The less you know about these required skills the more yo are likely to underestimate what is needed. Key is definitely to have a sound and up-tot-date view of research in the field or sub-field where the own interests lie. Add to that the skill to write up the science well, which includes not just writing well but understanding the format for writing well and knowing what is required and where to publish such work. i am not convinced blogs would work in all fields, I do not know of any such forums of any weight in my own field.
Since research educations are there to allow you to pick up the necessary skills for research, it should be clear that you need to have gained similar insights to be able to manage the entire research process well. I would guess that you may lack some of these skills; which, is of course unclear. Much can be learned by studying other's studies and at he same time pick up a god reference on the research process from idea to publication (write-up). Establishing a contact with a researcher in the field may provide additional help. We had such a person affiliated with our general research group while I was a graduate student and that person produced good contributions but probably would not have been able to without the support from the group.

Thank you for your input.  Are there preferred ways to establish contacts with researchers that you would recommend?  Even a field specific example would provide some outsiders a guide.  Or is it enough to write some respectful letters and see which ones pan out?  Would a letter of introduction work well today as it did in years past, and how does one get such a letter?  Your opinions on any of these are appreciated.

Just write a letter but consider the following: you are contacting someone who has a significant workload and lives in a world full of noise (students/colleagues) so be brief and try to sell your point quickly; a long letter might put the person off because of time constraints. It is better to ask for a short visit (if that is feasible). You need to show something meaty to get the person on the hook. A key graph/illustration with a brief description could be useful.

And keep in mind that, brilliant though your stuff might be, not every recipient of it will appreciate it. You're dealing with humans.


text:
What options does college dropout with great grades, research projects and CV have to return to university (or thinktanks)?
I studied Social Sciences (Development Economics concentration) at one of Europe's top ranked universities and achieved excellent grades, but had to interrupt my studies just before taking two final exams, entirely due to personal reasons - thus not completing my undergraduate degree.
While I was at uni, I obtained grants to run a new research project in my field with  sponsorship by some well-known professors. The progress of my work was published in an international journal and also a few industry magazines. I was also heavily involved in other projects around the university.
I mention these little details just to make it clear that I was not at uni just for the sake of getting a qualification, but because had a genuine intention of contributing to my field, to research and maybe become a professor.
While I was addressing my personal issues, I started working, first freelancing but later at a mid-sized company and have worked my way up to middle management. My job is somewhat related to what I studied and also very analytical, although it's obviously business-focused.
I am wondering what options I have...
- if I wanted to return to a research based position;
- especially, if returning to university might turn out to be too hard/long (might have to re-do the entire undergraduate studies while working)
- and whether it might be easier (but also possible) to try applying straight into think-tanks and development focused positions.
One of my concerns is that despite my good CV in business, I don't have the same quantitative-analytical and research skills of someone who studied at postgraduate level. It's one of the subjects I enjoyed most and even enjoy at work, but how can I prove myself to future employers?
I think my question boils down to: how much do my achievements matter, and what else do I need to do to make up for no degree?
UPDATES / Answers to questions in comments:
I dropped out of my own, for very personal reasons. In fact, I almost disappeared without notice and had to leave to another country. I am also a bit reluctant to discuss with my university about what those personal reasons were, but trust me they were very serious.
So I would have mixed feelings about returning to the same university.
I am sure I have disappointed many people there, and they would not understand why I left...
UPDATE 2 / Answers to rocinante's update :)
There must have been a misunderstanding. I didn't mention nor imply anywhere that I considered faking my credentials to advance my career. I started at entry level with my current employer and progressed from within, i.e. there were no academic requirements when I started, but I proved them that I had the skills required for my current level.
To be more specific, I am asking about whether there might be chances for alternative training to get into a more advanced research path. Adult learning, online courses, non-degree professional certificates.
For example, I have heard of several people getting into MBA programs after 5-7 years of work experience, but no degree.
Are there analogue routes into research?
I hope this clarifies.
UPDATE 3 / Answers to Ben Webster and rocinante
Thanks both of you. It's true I should consider my old university; I am just very afraid that it might not work and considering what alternatives I may have should my attempts fail. I am also not belittling the value of degrees, BUT simply wondering how else I could prove myself, improve my knowledge, use a professional body route rather than academic etc. if the old university option won't succeed.
I know many doors will close, but I am determined and convinced that my potential, passion and skills far outweigh what's on paper.

For clarity, I dropped out about two years ago.

The university might let you finish your degree; have you asked your department chair?

Two things I suggest you consider: 1) It's not up to the school.  They can't arbitrarily decide to withhold credits that you've earned and paid for.  If you want to transfer or something like that, transfer.  2) If you're still considering Option 1 bear in mind that some schools have dates-to-completion.  If you don't complete your degree within a given period of time you have to start again.

I'm with @rocinante here: you're handicapping yourself if you can't get past whatever block is preventing you from discussing this personal issue with people from your past university.  I don't know whether it's embarrassing or emotionally painful (and you don't need to tell us, we're just yahoos on the internet), but you have to be able to give some account of it:

First of all, you should make a good faith attempt to finish your degree at your old institution.  I'm sure you did burn some bridges there when you left, but if you can't get past that to try, that doesn't sound especially driven to me.  Credentialism may be a little silly, but you're locking yourself out of a lot of doors if you don't finish your degree.
Also, if you want to be successful getting a position in any area of research, recommendations from "one of Europe's top ranked universities" would be pretty helpful (for getting into a graduate program of any description, they are essential).  I know less about think tanks, but in most graduate admission committees, even with a completed bachelor's, no letters from professors you had as an undergraduate and an unexplained gap in your transcript  that's not explained extremely well in your personal statement would be an immediate disqualification.  So, not only should you go back to your old university, you need to set up meetings with the professors you disappointed, apologize sincerely, explain your situation, and knock their socks off with where you are now.

You need to establish a working relationship with of some kind with some department. Once you have that you can start working on your "deficiencies" (i.e. the courses you either have no record of taking or have a record of not finishing successfully).
Once you have that relationship you can talk to the department hear. You're probably going to have to tell him or her something about this mysterious personal emergency.
But here is the thing, (at least in the US) the requirement to have a Bachelor's degree to start advanced work is a gate-keeping tool: the department uses it to avoid having to filter out at lot of self-deluded know-nothings. Once they know that you know something the odds of them letting you simply start graduate studies go way up.
So how do you get started? Apply as non-degree or apply as an undergrad with a lot of transfer credit (they are likely going to ask you to take at least a year's worth of course-work).
The important step is to get a foot in the door and establish a working relationship with them.
There is something to be said for choosing a a small-to-medium sized department for the campaign.


text:
Can letters of recommendation be sent after application deadline in Politecnico di Milano?
I have just finished my initial proposal and I currently work on the motivation letter. The Politecnico di Milano deadline for Ph.D. is next Friday, May 29,2020. My referee and former supervisor is so quick, when I ask him to respond the email sent by universities, he responds within a few hours but I want to make sure that if it is possible if a referee send the recommendation letter 4 or 5 days after the deadline.

It is totally up to the school/department, so you should contact them.
For example, ETH Zurich does not accept any late submission, just out of principle, but many schools/departments accept late referee submission if they don't start processing the applications right after the deadline and behave more flexible.

Beware that many things in Italy are not up to the school or department but by the law.


text:
Question about arXiv replacement restriction and contacting moderators
Background: I submitted an article (denoted by A) on arXiv half a year ago and have replaced it several times later. Due to frequent replacements, one of my further replacements is removed, and I'm restricted to replace the article at most once per calendar month.
Question 1: Several days ago I submitted another one (denoted by B) onto arXiv and succeeded. Now I have some new ideas added to B and want to replace it. I wonder if the restriction is only on article A, or both article A and B? In other words, can I update B within this calendar month?
Question 2: I sent several e-mails to arXiv moderation (help@arxiv.org), but all of them are rejected, saying "Your message was missing suitable identifying information" etc. Nevertheless, I've included all relevant informations following the instruction, also "Dear arXiv," is added in preface. Can someone show me how can I modify my message to deliver my email? Are arXiv moderators really that hard to contact with?
Any suggestions is appreciated.

I retried sending emails to arXiv moderation but all my attemptions failed. Therefore I update the article B directly, as a result, the replacement succeeded. Thus, question 1 is solved.
Still I have no idea about the second question, since all of my 2 mailboxes (academic/private) failed to deliver the email.

My best suggestion is to stop making replacements so frequently and wait until you think you have a ready pre-print, before you submit to arXiv. The arXiv is, after all, an archive for pre-prints and articles, and not a server for uploading new drafts on a daily basis.
I honestly fail to see the need to make updates to an arXiv entry, more frequently than monthly, on a regular basis. My own work-flow - for an article with many replacements - is roughly the following:

Pre-print ready, upload to the arXiv.
(+2 weeks) Get comments on the arXiv pre-print from colleagues, incorporate then, make a replacement, submit to journal.
(+1-2 months) Get comments from journal referee, incorporate, make a replacement, resubmit to journal.
(+1 month) Possibly final comments, final proofs, replacement to final version.

I assume that you upload your work to arXiv to allow other people to read it. Consider that it only serves to confuse your readers, if you make too frequent updates. I would never expect that a pre-print I have once read, will change drastically on a weekly basis after I read it the first time.
Perhaps you should re-consider your format? If you want to be able to write down thoughts quickly, and release them to the world, perhaps a blog would be more suitable?

While I agree this is good advice, it doesn't answer the questions that were asked.

@NateEldredge: Sorry, I know. I jumped on "any suggestions appreciated".

You wrote

Question 2: I sent several e-mails to arXiv moderation (help@arxiv.org), but all of them are rejected, saying "Your message was missing suitable identifying information" etc.

From Contacting arXiv

If you have questions about the status of your submission, contact us at moderation@arxiv.org

Are you sure you sent your query to the correct e-mail address?

Thank you. As I'm not concerning the submission status (it is already submitted) but frequency of replacement, IMHO contacting help@arxiv.org would be more suitable. BTW, I've also sent detail-provided emails to moderation@arxiv.org. It also rejected my query, without giving a clear instruction. : (


text:
Can a visiting professor be tenure track in the same department concurrently?
I noticed something interesting on a professor’s ResearchGate profile. He says he’s both a visiting associate professor and a tenure-track associate professor at the same university and department, concurrently.
Can a visiting professor be tenure track in the same department concurrently?

I don't understand why you ask that question: you have empirical evidence that it happened at least once. So the answer to your question is obviously yes.

@MaartenBuis What is isn't always what appears to be.

A possibility is: that department contains two or more "programs", and that guy is tenure-track associate professor in one program and visiting associate professor in the other.

In the US there are too many variations in rules and procedures to rule this, or most anything, out completely. But it would be unusual. It might be a failure to properly update the webpage you may have seen this on.
But an associate professor on tenure track has almost certainly earned tenure elsewhere (some exceptions) and might have been invited as a visitor as part of the hiring process. They might be in transition.
Joint appointments are also possible, where someone holds a position at more than one university.
But since you didn't see this on a university page, I'd guess it is just a failure to keep things updated properly (guess, not claim).
A further guess is that a visitor was offered an associate professorship and accepted, but a (short) pre-tenure period was needed, as is pretty typical. The "visitorship" might even have been to "take a peek" at the person prior to an offer.


text:
Can I use an accented Chinese name when publishing a paper in academia?
My name is in Chinese. When it is transliterated into the Latin alphabet, a lot of other names come out the same. Despite some journals accepting Chinese character names, most journals don't. In this case, instead of a plain Latin alphabet transliteration, I'm considering adding a diacritic (the tone of the character in Chinese). Is this acceptable? Would it cause any issues? I know about ORCID, but a unique name is still valuable.
e.g., instead of Hong I want to use Hóng.

Did you mean "Hóng"?

@scaaahu Correct.

I think this is a great idea. As an ignorant American, however, I will note that this may not achieve the goal you wish, as I have no idea how to pronounce Hóng differently from Hong.

@jakebeal It doesn't matter: the visual difference is more important.

I always list myself in all my papers as José F. Martínez. Some people are better than others at replicating the accents in citations. Search engines have become much better at matching papers to names with accents even if citations won't include them, so in terms of missing citations (e.g., Google Scholar) I don't think it should be an issue.
My students definitely know how to write the accents :)

The issue I'm concerned is that this name is not my legal name (no accent on passport).

People use author names that are slight variations of legal names all the time: Joe, Doug, etc. Maybe you can put a guide to pronunciation on your web page and list yourself with your "normal" (unaccented it seems) name?

@xuhdev A related question Pen name similar with real name: Zu Yangzu instead of Zu Yang for papers

If you use a variation of the legal name, what name do you fill in the copyright form? The legal name or the variation?

@xuhdev Your comment sounds another good question: If my name on the published paper is different from my legal name, what name do I fill in the copyright form?