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Making already published papers open-access: is it and could it be an option?
Currently, there are plenty of options to publish an open-access paper. From using purely open-access journals (free of charge or for a fee) to opting-in for an open-access license in the traditional journal (usually for a fee). However, I am not sure about efforts/options to make already existing papers open-access by means of re-licensing or double-licensing.
Typical use case:

A researcher has some papers published in a traditional journal which some time ago became hybrid open-access. Thus, new publications have an option to be published in an open-access fashion.
The researcher has the funds (source is not important) and the will to make some of their already published contributions open-access.
Currently, the best existing option to make the publication more accessible (not open-access!) is via self-archiving, depending on the policies of the particular journal\publisher. This is a great option, but certainly not an ideal one.

I am not aware of such options existing for any major journals\publishers that I have papers published in. Do they actually exist? Is there something that prevents publishers from offering open-accessification of existing articles? Are there more materials and established point-of-view on this topic that I was not able to find?

Their business models?

@ScottSeidman not sure what you mean, Scott. Could you clarify, please?

@Roland I have not (but I certainly consider it), as for me in particular, this is with IEEE which is a bit notorious for the potential bureaucracy, especially, when one needs to do something very custom.

@Roland I am not. I am asking in general. As if it is just about IEEE, the answer is simply: contact them.

Publishers have ways of making money, and some publishers just don't have open access as part of their business plan.  They are repositories of information, and charge for access.

The thing that prevents them is that they'd make less money. In capitalist society, everything has the purpose of extracting money from other people. Considerations such as the advancement of knowledge do not factor in.

As Roland points out, licensing terms can, at least in principle, be renegotiated. I'm aware of one academic publisher that provides an option for this: Springer-Nature has (what appears to be a trial run for) a policy allowing retrospective open access in certain case:

From January 2021, authors who published primary research articles in
Nature or the Nature-branded Research Journals can choose to make
their articles open access (OA) retrospectively, however only primary
articles submitted in 2021 will be eligible for the retrospective OA
option.
All non-primary research in these journals (e.g. Reviews, Comments,
News & Views) is not eligible for Open Access under our current
policies.
After submitting the form below, you will receive an Open Access License to Publish (OA LtP) Form that needs to be signed and returned. If you order open access for your article, you will be charged an article-processing charge (APC). The invoice will be sent to you after the license to publish document has been returned.
We will publish a correction article and update the metadata and full text of the original article, which means that copyright, license and open access information in the article will be updated.

"retrospective open access" — that's the term I was looking for!

@AntonMenshov Note that other publishers may use different terms. E.g. "retroactive open access" would make sense too.


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Describing speculative challenges for a new method in a paper
When presenting a new method in a paper and you don't have any/sufficient empirical evidence of the limitations, what is the best way to introduce speculative challenges and potential mitigations?
I'm looking for the title of the section: is this part of the limitations section? my understanding was the limitations had to have empirical evidence.
What wording would be used for introducing them?
Update: the field is interdisciplinary: a mixture of Business Administration and Computer Science.  The method is for Business Administration but relies on some Computer Science techniques and theory.

I think this is very dependent on field. Can you be specific?

@Buffy BA and CS

What about potential limitations?
I guess that you have at least some intuition or some loose arguments as to why you suspect that the things you are going to describe are indeed (possible) limitations. If not, you should not list them. If yes, add these to the section. Also you could discuss, what would be needed to overcome the limitations.

I do have some ideas, mostly drawing for challenges for similar methods or components of my method.

I assume that your results require some preconditions or prerequisites to permit applicability. Do they depend on a particular governmental structure, kind of business, economic system, regulatory regimen, or anything else? You might just start there.
Do the results work over long term or only short term? Do they require cooperation between various players, etc?
It is impossible for an outsider to know, but you could start there and see where it takes you.

I have listed the preconditions, my method is an extension of an existing framework.   I do have a list of speculative challenges and mitigations, the question for me is where do they fit in the structure of a normal scientific paper.

If you have worked these limitations into the text proper, it may be enough to point to them in a short "limitations" section, just for the convenience of the reader looking for them. "In section x it is noted that ...". All a bit speculative here, I guess.

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Is it better to pull out of exams or fail them?
This year I have been pursuing my second Master's degree in pure mathematics. It is a one-year program in which the final score is determined 100% by the final exams. I have excellent scores at my previous degrees, but this year I faced a health issue which resulted in me making very little progress, to the point that I'm pretty certain I will fail my upcoming exams. Assuming that I will be able to overcome my health issue and apply for a PhD* in the future:

Would it look better in a PhD application if I pulled out of my upcoming exams completely or if I took them and failed them?
What would I write in my CV in each case?

The second scenario sounds a bit worse to me because there will be a transcript with extremely poor grades which I will have to attach to any future PhD application. But maybe I'm missing something. Any advice is welcome.
*: I haven't decided whether I will be pursuing a PhD or not, so I'm posting the analogous question at workplace.SE as well. I don't think this is cross-posting since the option that is best for pursuing a PhD might not be best for job hunting (for example I'm not sure whether you are supposed to attach your academic transcripts in a job application).

If you had a health issue, you are qualified to request an incomplete grade and to finish the course later. I usually give the students who experienced severe health problems during the course at least 3 months to recover and prepare in such cases and I see no reason why your professor should be unwilling to do the same.

Please specify the academic environment here; country, at least.

You should go and speak to your course lecturers as soon as possible, and put in a request for special consideration on the basis of illness.  Your university should have a policy of how to apply for special consideration, and the criteria for granting consideration.  This differs from place to place, but most universities are accommodating of problems caused by illness (assuming you can give evidence of this via medical certificates, etc.).  Given your position, I would suggest you request for them to allow you to defer assessment in your courses until you have had time to recover from your illness and study for the exams.  If this is too much for them, then as a fall-back position, ask them to allow you to withdraw from the courses without failure.  Whatever you do, don't just make a unilateral decision on what to do without speaking to your lecturers --- discuss your circumstances with them and find out their position.

I think you should obtain written confirmation of your illness from your doctor, meet with your dean to explain the situation, and ask to delay your exams without penalty. You will be asked why you didn't report this problem earlier, so be ready with an answer.

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Applying for a postdoc when you don't have all the necessary skills
I have recently completed my PhD and now looking for a postdoc/research assistant position. I found a few positions that look attractive - but I don't have all the skills listed in the job ad. I have some and I know I can learn the rest quickly; I also know from talking to other postdocs that their current research is not related to their PhD projects.
The question is - should I apply for the jobs I'm not completely qualified for since it's normal to learn on the job, or is it a total waste of time? And how should I answer to selection criteria in this case?

Assuming you believe you can do the job and can make a compelling case in your application, yes you should apply. A person with the exact set of skills listed may not be available, in which case they will have to chose whomever they believe is the best fit of those who apply. Also, the skills you have may be beneficial for the position but may not have been thought of for the job ad.
In answering the selection criteria naturally emphasize the skills that you have which match the job ad. Additionally, highlight the skills which you have that are not listed but you believe would be beneficial and why. Finally, you can also make a case for why you can quickly (and independently) learn the additional skills that you do not already have.

The original purpose of a post doc was to learn a new skill, technique, literature, etc while engaging in an intense period of discovery and scholarship meant to bolster ones publication record and research toolbox.
Thus, i would argue that the best candidate has a strong foundation in science but seeks to learn the specific skills involved with the job. If that’s the case you must sell your passion and ability to quickly adapt and integrate. In fact, many post doc grants (eg NIH NRSA) require you detail your training plan and likely won’t find you if you already have all necessary skills.
Labs looking for a fully trained staff member that can be productive immediately are looking for a research scientist.


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Details an applicant should include/exclude in an introductory letter to a prospective grad school adviser?
I'm applying for graduate school (PhD in computer science), and I'm considering writing to faculty whose research areas match with what I intend to pursue, to understand:

Whether they'd be looking for new students at all in the coming year?
If they did, would they be potentially interested in my profile (I know no-one would guarantee an acceptance without me going through the process of application), but it would help to know if they would not be interested at all in me - which would leave me  free apply to other schools in which I get a neutral/positive response.

Keeping the above in mind, what would be the best way to introduce myself in the first mail?

What should be the salutation - I know "Respected Sir" sounds archaic, but was wondering if "Dear Professor X" sounded too informal or not!
Do I state my credentials (details of where I did my undergrads/masters) first, or do I state my purpose in writing to him/her?
How to mention my background concisely, without giving too much details, while at the same time not "underselling" myself as a potential grad student?
I want to give a link to my resume/profile hosted on my website - should I embed the hyperlink, or is it better to write the link in plain text?
How do I end such a letter - the obvious ones (such as "see you soon" or "till we meet again") being not quite suitable in this case)?

I'm basically afraid of saying too much (causing vexation) or too little (resulting in no response to my missive). I understand that the faculty are accustomed to seeing their inbox flooded with such mails each year, few of which ever get a positive response - which may not always be due to lack of an interesting profile, but the manner in which the mail is worded (Many professors have explicitly mentioned on their websites that they would not respond to generic "Do you have funding" type of queries no matter what the credentials of the student are!).
Though my interest is specific to CS, I believe it would apply to other fields as well. Also, I would be interested in the opinions of both present faculty members (who have to sort through such mails), and past applicants to grad-school (who have the experience of successfully writing to their advisers before applying)...

+1 Good question, broadly interesting and useful to many potential students. You've also generated some excellent responses below.

Side comment that might help: in the UK, it might be helpful to contact postdocs / research-fellows who are eager to get students to work on projects, to introduce you to professors who are able to supervise. I had some success this way. Much easier to get the prof's attention if a trusted colleague introduce you.

This is another example where internationalization of programs makes an answer more difficult. If the program in question is in the US, for instance, you should probably never contact the professor directly until after you've been admitted into the program in question. Since admissions decisions are handled centrally, it's just a waste of time.
For foreign professors, however, I believe you should again exercise caution before making contact, and also keep expectations low. For instance, I'm in the role of Assistant/Associate Professor that Charles mentions in his response. However, I will probably not take the time to respond to a request asking for positions in my group unless I think a candidate is an exceptional match, and would be one I would actively consider for the group if I had an available opening. Otherwise, I don't reply, just because it takes too much time.
To address the question of salutation, I would absolutely use "Dear Professor X," or some other salutation that includes the name of the person you're addressing. Otherwise, it doesn't look like you're doing other than sending out an email blast to a bunch of email addresses—another move which almost guarantees that your email is going to be consigned to the "ignore" pile.

+1 for the low expectation. We receive a lot of such requests, so it is not possible to handle all of them.

While this may be the case, students should be careful not to generalize to other fields. In many departments, contacting the professor in advance is almost essential. Admissions decisions in many disciplines are heavily driven by individual faculty indicating interest in specific students. For better or for worse it is your job, as an applicant, to generate that interest.

Glad if you can follow up: Why is it unwise to contact the professor directly before getting admitted to a program in US?

As an adviser in TCS, I don't want new students, I want to work/advise someone who is in my opinion very promising.

First, the email must be concise (not necessarily short, but concise): be respectful, don't ask abruptly if the person needs students. Present shortly yourself: "I am XXXX, currently studying YYY at university ZZZZ"
Then, present your work interest, and more, show that you are aware of the work of the person you target: "this year, I educated myself on the problem of finding an algorithm of complexity XXX for solving YYY. During this process, I analysed in details the method for finding a lower bound that you present in paper ZZZ"
Ask for a short scientific discussion, you can either ask for clarification on the aforementioned lower bound, or explicitly mention that you have some ideas about the problem, or that you need some guidance on further reading about the problem. Anyway, make sure that you worked hard before coming to the meeting. If you cannot afford the travel (too far, too expansive, etc.), ask kindly if you can ask a few scientific questions in another mail.
Once you're known to the person, everything is easier. Then you can ask about your future.

The thing is to make yourself known for something different than job request. For instance, you target TCS, if you are known on TCS.SE, it will be easier to have guidance/advice from TCS researchers that are also on TCS.SE.
Concerning some of the points you mention, don't hesitate to join a resume to your mail or (better) a link your (serious) homepage.

+1 for "The thing is to make yourself known for something different than job request." — This is the same advice I give to incoming PhD students about finding an advisor: Become a colleague first, ask for administrative support second, and ask for money last.

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What are the options for fellowships for international grad students in USA?
I'm looking for fellowships that an international grad student can apply for, to support him/her while working towards a Ph.D. (additional to whatever funding that may be available as TA). So far, I've been able to identify the following:

Fulbright Scholarships for International Students (applications have to be done more than a year before, and they've suspended 2013-14 grants, so not really an option for me)
Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship Programme, which has the following selection criteria:

The main criteria for selecting award winners are: l) excellent academic records, 2) genuine financial need, 3) admission to a reputable institution of higher learning and 4) thoughtful and coherent educational and career plans. Candidates are also evaluated on their extra-curricular interests and achievements, potential to achieve their goals and likelihood to succeed in a foreign academic environment. Applicants are expected to have some years of work experience in their field of interest.

It would be great if I could get to know of similar fellowships that an incoming student can apply to, before starting grad school.

According to http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/17096#17096, questions about student loans/grants are not off-topic, as long as its specific - which I believe this question is...

I'm asking for "where can I find more information" than the one's I've listed... which I hope is within the scope of this SE!

I would recommend reformulating the question to remove the discipline-specificity from your question. Otherwise you could have a separate such question in every academic field, which we probably want to avoid.

The Smithsonian offers fellowships for international grad students, specifically a ten-week summer internship for pre-dissertation grad students and 3-12 months of funding for post-dissertation grad students. Also, you get to work at the Smithsonian.

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Applying to PhD programs in mathematics, how to address (now resolved) health issues that affected GPA and subject GRE scores?
I want to apply to a doctoral program in mathematics (I am currently a master's student) that is strong in algebra. The schools I found that have what I am interested in are "tier 1" schools with very competitive admissions and I am not sure what to do to improve my application. I had to withdraw a semester after my first year of graduate school because of several health problems, and when I went to the doctor I was told I had severe iron deficiency anemia as well as another medical issue I do not want to discuss here. I had it for almost ten years, but my previous doctor never diagnosed it. My GPA has suffered a lot from its side effects (it is 3.3) and also my subject GRE from undergrad is terrible (560). I was not able to retake the subject GRE because of a time conflict.
I want to apply for Fall 2016 because my health is a lot better now, but I am not sure what to do to make my application better. I feel like if I try to explain my health issue it will look like I am trying to make excuses. I have done seminar presentations, gone to an algebra conference, and done independent work without a faculty adviser (they always seem to tell me they are too busy or that I should stop studying material outside of classwork).
If someone can offer a suggestion on how I should approach explaining my situation or could suggest something for me to do to make myself more competitive, it would really help.

How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? addresses the general question of how to overcome poor GPA/GRE scores, but I'm hoping someone will answer in more detail whether to address health issues in your application, and how.  (The answer to the "general" question hints at addressing this in the SOP, but doesn't give much detail.)


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Double PhD: is it really worth it?
Is it possible to have a double PhD even if the university you are originally applying for doesn't focus on this category? A double PhD is not the same thing as two PhDs. For example, the medical school at the University of Groningen describes its double PhD program as follows:

A Double Degree (DD) PhD means that you will obtain your PhD degree from two different institutions, i.e. a double diploma, sometimes also referred to as a "dual award". A double degree (two diplomas, each of which issued by a single university) should not be confused with a "joint degree" (one diploma issued by multiple institutions).

I'm applying for a PhD position on a university and it does not have a explicit double PhD program (although I know there are some people on another field that held a double PhD from this same university). However, this double PhD degree would be very helpful to me considering my future plans.
From this, I was wondering: could I receive a double PhD if I find a second advisor from another university? Or the universities need to be associated upfront? In this case, if the university I'm apply on does not have an explicit double PhD program, it is possible (for legal issues of diploma printing) to just associate with another university?
My second question is: for an advisor, what is the advantages of having a part-time student? For last, the thesis needs to be approved for both universities... how this happens? I would have to present for both?

To clarify, a double PhD is not the same as two PhDs. See this meta question

I know of a person doing sort of a double PhD in Stockholm University and (MIT/Caltech/Harvard, don't remember which one), arranged by the supervisor, not a program from the institutions. Among other quirks, this means she doesn't qualify for travel funding from either university.

First, a note for those who are not familiar with the terms. In general, double degree or joint degree are degrees awarded by two different universities within a student mobility agreement. They do not refer to the pursue of two independent degrees, as described in this question.
At the Master's level the tradition of double degrees is well established within the EU, and has been going on for more than twenty years, probably 30, since the establishment of the Erasmus programme. Currently, the major EU programme supporting joint degrees is the Erasmus Mundus. The Erasmus+ guide, p. 109, describes the framework of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master degree. Of course, individual universities can set up joint degrees outside of this programme, especially when one of the partner universities is outside the EU.
At the PhD level things are much less established. As far as I know, the idea of a double PhD degree has emerged only in the last 3-4 years. Before, it was totally unheard of, at least in my country (Italy). Though students are usually encouraged -- and funded -- to spend a period abroad (typically from 6 months to 1 year), this is done within an agreement between two research groups, and not at the university level (though it should be approved by the PhD programme committee).
Usually, to obtain a double PhD degree a student should follow a shared path between two partnering universities. For instance, the two universities might agree that the student shall spend two consecutive years in one university under the supervision of X, and two other consecutive years in the second university under the supervision of Y; that the coursework should be divided equally between the two universities; that the student should defend their thesis in front of a joint committee (or in front of two committees separately); etc.
Since at the PhD level things are much less established with respect to the Master's, I will answer on the basis of my experience: I have a student who is pursuing a double PhD degree; one who initially asked me to do that; and I know a couple of other students from other advisors who are pursuing it.
None of the universities I know of have an explicit double-degree programme for PhDs. In fact, the double degree is usually proposed by a student who thinks, in this way, to strengthen their PhD or to facilitate the immigration in another country. This means that the double degree should be set up on a case-by-case basis, which usually brings about a bureaucratic nightmare, especially for the PhD schools and the advisors. This nightmare comes from the fact that different countries, even within the same region (e.g., EU), have different requirements for what concerns programme duration, funding, coursework, publications and assessment, and finding an agreement is quite complicated.
For instance, if the PhD in one country has a duration of 3 years, and it is funded for that period, who is going to pay for an additional year in a country where the "standard" PhD duration is of 4 years? If there is an ongoing collaboration between two groups it might not be that difficult to find the money, but it could be almost impossible to set up such an agreement out of the box.
As I said, in my experience, the double degree is usually proposed by a student who thinks to strengthen their PhD. I strongly disagree with this premise, and I usually discourage my students from such an idea. A double degree is not stronger than a single one done working hard and with a good publication record. Then, whether it can facilitate or not immigration to another country is questionable: I don't think that, to date, there is sufficient statistics to know this.
As for your last questions:

for an advisor, what is the advantages of having a part-time student?

There is an advantage if there is a collaboration between two groups, otherwise there is really no advantage.

For last, the thesis needs to be approved for both universities... how this happens? I would have to present for both?

These details are really decided on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes the outcome depends on whether one university wants to appear stronger than the other and impose its criteria.

What you are asking is often called "sandwich PhD". It's a European thing, and all programs I know are funded by Erasmus Mundus (which also has a lot of sandwich Master programs).

From this, I was wondering: could I receive a double PhD if I find a
  second advisor from another university? Or the universities need to be
  associated upfront? In this case, if the university I'm apply on does
  not have an explicit double PhD program, it is possible (for legal
  issues of diploma printing) to just associate with another university?

When you submit a PhD thesis, you often have to state something like "this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university".
Therefore, in order to apply to this program, the two universities need to have an agreement before you can apply. Never assume that you can convince the administration of a university to have this agreement for you.

For last, the thesis needs to be approved for both universities... how
  this happens? I would have to present for both?

Yes. You need to be approved by the advisors from both universities, and need to submit the thesis to both universities. And this can be very awkward.
I know a person who were in this kind of program. He had worked for two years in the Netherlands, before coming to my university in the UK for the final year. However, the two advisors did not collaborate at all, and did not work on the same topic (although in the same field). During the time in the UK, he could not produce any paper in 1 year in a different topic, while still working with the supervisor in the Netherlands (this is unknown to the advisor in the UK).
After 3 years, the advisor in the Netherlands had 3 papers with him and thought he was good enough to graduate. The advisor in my department had no paper with him, and wanted him to work for another year without scholarship (the scholarship from Erasmus Mundus is fixed). In the end, he had no choice but to quit PhD.

Good explanation, except the observation that your limited exposure to Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate (EMJD) has left you with a negative overview of the program.
I know many successful EMJD PhD graduates, who did well with both universities/professors. But what you encountered is somewhat common - but to a lesser severity. For instance, not any paper with the second professor, but still graduate on time. Or at least the second professor offers the grant for the student to continue the 4th year.
Disclosure: I am an EMJD student myself, and also a program representative of EMJD.

I think that the main question that you have to ask yourself is: what will I gain by doing a double PhD thesis. If, e.g., it will give you access to a (second) lab with unique assets, complementing your first lab, or provides you with a second supervisor who has complementary knowledge to your first one, then there might be some benefits.
It will certainly give you some extra headaches, since you will be the one dealing with two university bureaucracies, trying to align two (probably conflicting) sets of PhD regulations. (I am speaking from experience here, since I performed a double PhD thesis).
Now for your questions:

From this, I was wondering: could I receive a double PhD if I find a
  second advisor from another university?

Yes, but you will make need to make sure that both universities support the double degree.

Or the universities need to be associated upfront?

While it certainly would help, it is not a strict requirement. You need to make sure that both universities support the double degree, and you need to assert this at the very beginning of your PhD program. It is advisable to have a statement from both in writing.

In this case, if the university I'm apply on does not have an explicit
  double PhD program, it is possible (for legal issues of diploma
  printing) to just associate with another university?

While this certainly makes it more difficult, it might still be possible (unless they explicitly prohibit it in their regulations). You will need some agreement. Contact the supporting professor, who can direct you to the appropriate person(s) to talk to.

For an advisor, what is the advantages of having a part-time student?

It really depends. If there are some nice complementary properties to either the second lab or prof, then the first prof might benefit from this as well. Also for his/her network it might be beneficial.

For last, the thesis needs to be approved for both universities... how
  this happens? I would have to present for both?

The thesis needs to be approved by both universities. Personally, I presented only at one of them, and had the members of the committee of the other one attend (Actually I followed the protocol of the first university, while presenting at the second). Anyway, you will need to align with your supervisors on this matter.

I have two peers who have such double PhDs in physics(one in experimental physics related to ALICE experiment and other related to nuclear theoretical physics). They have both "doubled" the PhD in France. They have worked formally with two supervisors, but in practice only with one of them. The double PhD had the advantage of training with the group in another country, and of course the funding came from both Universities, which doubled their salary. The only problem were the thesis evaluation system, since the standard was different in the two universities(in one of them the thesis is evaluated strictly by the number of publications and their impact, while in another the standard were related more to the advise of thesis committee).


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Stuck completing master's thesis, how to overcome poor choice of topic and supervisor at this stage?
I'm in the second year of a master's program, working on a thesis. I am not getting enough help from my supervisor because he has a different methodological background from me. I am also not finding enough evidence to complete the thesis, and the topic has been very difficult to research because almost nothing is written about it. I am dreading completing this degree. What are some constructive ways I can deal with this issue and complete the degree? Is it possible at this point to make it through the degree and succeed despite my poor choice of topic and supervisor?

Perhaps, this answer by JeffE will be somewhat helpful. :)

If your topic is 'obscure' and you can't find much evidence/literature that suggests to me you're producing something novel. That sounds exciting! ☺

@user46140 Please follow this procedure to merge your accounts so that you'll have "ownership" of the question and will be able to edit it directly and comment on it. Thanks!

I know how you feel, I have been in similar enough situation. From your perspective now it maybe looks dark but it's not. You are almost finished, just one step and that masters degree is yours.
First, I assume you are from USA, so different system than in mainland Europe where i studied, so take that in mind.
If you find your thesis dull and mentor unhelpful, easiest way is to switch thesis, but better yet, switch both thesis and mentor. If you opt to do this, best way is to approach your mentor, tell him how you feel about your thesis and politely ask if it's possible to change theme of your thesis. You are still stuck with the problem of not very helpful mentor. Most faculties have on the website written rules and regulations, there should be something about changing mentors for master thesis. If they don't there is always student service or somebody in administration who can tell you how to do it. For example, in PhD program on my faculty, it is explicitly stated that you can change both PhD thesis and mentor once, no questions asked. It is wise to assume yours has similar rules, even in masters program. Even if you have to pay for additional semester, it would be worth it since you are clearly unhappy with current situation.
I have changed both my mentor and master thesis since midway into it, our ideas parted and his were highly unappealing and boring. I thanked the professor for his time and parted ways with him since further cooperation wasn't possible (and at that time i was kind of angry at he prof for wasting both his and my time).  Change did set back my graduation for about 6 months, I had to pay for additional semester,  but in the end I did thesis on the subject I liked with the great professor who backed me up and help me out lot more than previous one.
Last thing, if you can't change anything, don't give up. You invested a lot of time and effort to get to where you are now. Don't throw it away. Write what you can, submit it to the mentor and see if you can defend it even if you think it's sub par by your own criteria. Once you get the diploma, you can bury that thesis and forget about it.
Best of luck :)

From the last paragraph: "Write what you can." The most freeing sentence for progress is to remove my ego from the work and know that I can always revise tomorrow but I'll have nothing to edit if I don't write anything today. "Write without fear. Revise without mercy."

Both my partner and I felt exactly the same way towards the end of our respective master's programs (in totally different disciplines, at different institutions). I was advising her, and vice-versa, to just stick it out for a few more months and complete the program. We'd both put in so much work and effort up to those times, it would have been a shame to just totally wash out with nothing to show for it.
Now here we are a decade or two later, and both of our careers have been completely predicated on having those degrees as door-openers and a foundation for success. I really love my job in academia, and it wouldn't be possible if I hadn't completed that program. I just asked my partner if she could go back in time to that very difficult period, how she'd advise herself, and she said "Definitely, stick out! Get that diploma!".
In both cases it took us about 5 years to mentally "wash off" that feeling of desperation. But we both feel so much better off, skill-wise, to have that under our belts. Best wishes; it does get better.

There are some great answers here! To add, I might suggest trying to find help / support from other professors in your department. If there's no one who uses your approach or might be able to offer some helpful input, you could also consider contacting other, more senior graduate students or scholars elsewhere who do work in your area. If you do either of these, I would strongly encourage you not to bring up problems with your adviser. If you can indicate that you find the (other) professor's work engaging it might help your chances of hearing back in a timely manner. The conferences that Captain Emacs talks about can be a great way to find like minded people to approach.
Overall, I agree with the 'stick it out' advice you're getting. I think it applies to your situation. In case others are reading this, I'll say that there can be a time when sticking it becomes increasingly foolhardy. This would be a more common problem for students pursuing a PhD who, despite being many years 'in,' are encountering ongoing problems (unable to get approval for a defense date or to get feedback of any kind, for example). Reconstituting a committee at this stage is an option, but one that is sometimes seen as risky to other professors who might take you on - not least because they do not want to be seen as 'crossing' your existing adviser. Pursuing administrative options can also be difficult, especially if the people you are talking to are professors or former professors who locate blame with the student and not the larger situation or the existing adviser. These can be gloomy times - particularly if you're having to take out student loans against an already grim professional future to fund an endless cycle of revisions.

A few tips: try to go to conferences of that topic. If your supervisor likes you, he will support it. Interacting with other people in the field can be liberating and inspiring. "Go to conferences" was the single most useful advice I got during my PhD. Spend your own money if necessary and possible, but try to identify the relevant ones, don't waste time and money on side tracks.
Make contact with experts on the topic and see how they see the field.
Else, see whether there is an alternative direction that you can develop. It is rare that you get just the results you aimed for originally. It is ok to vary the direction (of course, after consultation with your supervisor). Some topics can be very hard, and need to be attacked from the back-entrance which you have to find first, but you won't if you try the same things again and again. Vary your approach.
Finally, how far are you? If you have already some considerable material, map out what is missing and plug through. If you are at the beginning, reorientation (possibly even with the current supervisor) may be an option.


text:
Why are there such low rates of acceptance in AI/ML conferences?
I come from a signal processing background and I have even published in a signal processing conference with a PhD student when I was an intern, therefore, the publication process isn't unknown to me.
My PhD supervisors insist on publishing at top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR, etc); however, upon researching these AI and Machine learning conferences, I was surprised to discover their low acceptance rates, which can be as low as 20%! Is this common in this field?
I am anxious about my ability to graduate if I am unable to publish at these conferences. Can you offer any advice, blogs, or tips for publishing at these conferences?

The number of people submitting to these conferences is extremely high, it is not uncommon to get close to 10k submissions each year, so even with the low acceptance rate 2-2.5k new papers are presented in each conference. And the growth is also crazy: https://twitter.com/ICCVConference/status/1637566384522637312

Crucial question: do your supervisor's students regularly publish there?
These are the possibilities:

If so, and if most of their students do, they have a pipeline and know how to get top-worthy publications done reliably.

If not, and students still graduate, it's fine to just aim high.

If the answer is no, but they keep the students from graduating unless they have publications in these venues, you should reflect if you want to stay in this group at all, or if, perhaps, you want to give it a try at least for a round.

Thank you for the answer. I would say possibility (2), some of their students publish at these venues but not all of them.

Conferences have limited speaking slots, limited by time and space. If you get a lot of submissions in any hot field, you get a low acceptance rate.
Note that venues for conferences are contracted for long in advance, much longer than the submission/acceptance cycle.
Things may settle down if the number of venues increases or the field cools. It might also be that a lot of the submissions were of low quality or represented parallel work on some problem and reviewers had to choose from the better papers there.
In any hot field (ouch) you have a lot of competition.

I don't understand "or represented parallel work on some problem and reviewers had to choose from the better papers there." How do reviewers know if there is other work that is parallely submitted to what they are reviewing?

@GoodDeeds, not the reviewer, the conference committee makes selections just as a journal editor does. They see all submissions.

These are indeed competitive conferences though they might not be quite as competitive as the percentages appear, since some fraction of the submissions are crankery/junk.
Some of my colleagues do publish in these areas and my impression is that they typically resubmit work that doesn't make it to the "top tier" in more accepting venues, and this is not a barrier to graduation. This is really no different than journal publishing in other fields: supervisors may want their students to aim for Nature and Science papers, but very few papers actually make it in to those venues.

OP asked about "publishing", not merely "submitting" at these conferences. Of course, if the supervisors do not have a record of their students regularly achieving this, this is just a illusory requirement. Also, while these conferences are no longer the venue of exquisite originality of old, as a reviewer for these conferences, I know that the papers submitted are certainly no crankwork and still highly competitive, even if no longer exciting to read.

@CaptainEmacs It's not up to the supervisor or the student where they publish, only where they submit. I would assume most of the crankery is filtered out by the editors/chairs before making it to you as a reviewer.

Yes, I would agree in theory. But some supervisors are not reasonable. As for crankery, I was told that in one of the top conferences (which I won't name here), the desk rejection was abolished. I do not know (and did not check) whether this is true. However, I heard about that after noticing why the review tasks I received in that year when it supposedly happened were less relevant and, in fact, interesting, than in earlier years. Not outright trash, but just more tedious. So, without hard proof, I at least have some circumstantial evidence that the selection process may have changed.

This has always been the case for computer science conferences; some has low double digits acceptance rates, e.g., ACM SIGCOMM comes to mind.
Top researchers are measured by the number of such conferences they have on their resume.  In contrast, in the EE discipline for example, IEEE Trans. are the norm.
The low acceptance rate is a function of the limited number of slots and the huge community.  Arguably, the computer science community, especially AI, is much bigger than signal processing.

While the acceptance rate of venues can change between different fields (as discussed in this study), values ranging between 20% and 30% are seem to be common for top venues not only in AI/ML but also in other fields including signal processing.
Taking the signal processing/ML example specifically, we can compare the acceptance rate of some top venues:

IEEE transactions on signal processing: 32% in 2010 (source)
IEEE transactions on image processing: 24% in 2012 (source)
Signal processing: 16% in 2022 (source)

Those numbers are in the same ballpark as conferences such as NeurIPS and ICLR.
The other answers elaborate well on the reasons for acceptance rates being low, but I would recommend you not focus on these numbers but instead on whether your advisor's students publish there regularly, as suggested in Captain Emacs's answer.


text:
Should I go to an average university for summer research
I am an U.S. undergraduate in math and computer science at a university that is very good (top 5 in some rankings) in electrical engineering and computer science. I am planning to apply for PhD at next school year, and I'm wondering if I should go to another university for summer research.
Currently, I'm working with a professor on mathematical programming at the electrical/computer engineering department toward publishing a paper. Although I am mostly doing the numerical sides, I think what I'm doing does require some training. I have taken 3 optimization courses (including graduate ones), and I have gained some familiarity with this area.
Now I wonder, as for the summer, is there any advantage for me to participate in another university's summer research program, in the case that this university is not very good? In contrast to working with my current advisor or with another professor.
I don't care about how much I get paid. What matters to me is how it will affect my PhD application. I know people doing summer REU at a university and got accepted to PhD programs before applying. So for me, I don't see the reason of applying to REU at places other than the top universities such as MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, etc. My advisor and other professors in my school also have connections to these top universities, so their recommendation letters should carry more weight as well.
My question applies to students at top universities in any research area.

What do you mean by 'not very good'. Is it an R1?


text:
Can I publish a part of my master thesis without having my master thesis supervisor as a co-author?
I completed my master degree at one of the top universities in Europe more than 5 years ago. Me and my supervisor had some conflicts at the end of my thesis submission and then he was not interested in publishing my work any longer. Then I somehow gave up to publish my work either. Anyways, after many years, during my doctoral studies, I added some novel results to this previous work to make it more valuable.
This topic was selected by me. Of course, during my master thesis, my supervisor supported my research. He gave me a lab space and some chemicals were purchased but as far as I know I had some money inside the university to support the student's lab work. Main work was done by me but my supervisor did some analyses and I already put them in my thesis.
Now, I currently consulted with my doctoral supervisor about her opinion if I would like to publish my work partly done many years ago during my master thesis and some parts were added during my PhD time. She left the decision to me.
I met my master thesis supervisor last year and when I asked about this thing, my master thesis supervisor did not say anything and I understood my master thesis supervisor don't have interest in this thing anymore.
I'm a bit confused but I also want to publish my results. I wrote a manuscript with the data that I already had in my master thesis and also included novel results which have done during my doctoral studies after many years completing my master thesis and as well as mentioned my master thesis supervisor's name in the acknowledgment part as thanking for things she has done or more like thanking her for some analyses hem made. I am the corresponding author and one co-author who did some novelties are on the manuscript right now.
My fear is how my master thesis supervisor would react. Could she go over to do against something on my master thesis diploma? I am not sure about my legal rights, I could not find answers. I already contacted with my previous affiliation but they were not helpful. If I told my name, they would contact with my master thesis supervisor immediately and she would be mad at me. I'm looking for some opinions and then I will decide what I am going to do. Thank you in advance.

Can you ask your master supervisor directly in the way that you clearly say that you'd like to publish this and of course she'd appear as a co-author if she wants? Optimally she'd say "publish it if you want, I don't want to be co-author", and then this would be settled. But really ask in such a way that you get an answer. "She didn't say anything and I understood" is not how things should be done in science.

The fact that the other person is your supervisor isn't the important point. If another person contributed enough to the paper to rise to the level of authorship then they need to be an author and to agree to publication. If they contributed intellectual/creative content to the work then it is likely they deserve authorship, though some would insist that the other person participate in the writing/editing process itself.
This varies by field. In mathematics, not much is required in terms of time - it is the insight and creativity that matters.
Harvard publishes a set of guidelines that might work for you.

Thank you for your answer. Well, my supervisor was there as my supervisor and she did some analyses to get some physical data which I used in my thesis and of course I want to use this data in this desired publication. The current co-author also did some theoretical calculations to support the main idea and the person contributed the paper. Therefore now me and other person name is on the authorship area. My former supervisor´s name is mentioned on the acknowledgment part as thanking her for doing some measurements. I will read your recommended website. I hope I can get other opinions as well.

Personally I think if she is offered co-authorship and refuses, this shouldn't stop her student from publishing alone, regardless of whether she'd "deserve" co-authorship or not. At least if she doesn't object against publication under only the student's name when being asked.

Thank you for your reply as well. From my side, I wish she would have wanted to publish it together with me. She could be the corresponding, it is not a problem from my side. But apparently, my former supervisor doesn´t seem to have any interest in this work. Maybe she doesn´t find it worthy to be published or something else. I really don´t know. But as someone can imagine, this publication will help me to achieve my goals. I have been asked several times "why haven´t you published your research during your master?" and sometimes I couldn´t really answer.

I am not fully relieved. Asking myself, "what if she go against on my master degree diploma" or something like that. Because she would take it in different level. Because i my master degree is affected and then now my PhD will be in danger, no? I don´t know maybe I overthink a lot but it scares me.

I think your worries are unfounded. Perhaps you should talk to her about this.

Your prior advisor can't unilaterally rescind your master's degree. So that concern is not realistic.
I'm not sure why your old supervisor would be mad at you. Did you leave on poor terms, or was she just not interested in working on the project further?
I think the obvious answer to your dilemma is to contact your old supervisor directly and offer authorship. It sounds like you have a manuscript drafted, so just attach that to an email and say something along the lines of "I would like to publish this, I feel it is appropriate to include you as author for x, y, z reasons. Please look over the manuscript.". If she accepts, great. If she declines authorship, also great. Either way you can go ahead and submit the manuscript.
I suppose she could demand that you not publish at all - this would cause an issue but would be unusual. If she never responds you're also stuck.
In either of those cases, you can always cut away the old material, cite your thesis, and just publish your new results. Your advisor has no claim to new work you did, whatever it is based on.


text:
Do I have to mention that I used ChatGPT to polish my paper?
Just finished my paper writing for my PhD. My supervisor is not happy with my academic writing and suggested using ChatGPT to polish my writing.
Does that go against any writing ethics and may result in problems now or in the future?
do I have to mention that I used ChatGPT in my paper?

Do you think presenting text not written by you as yours is plagiarism?

Perhaps depends on the field. The writing style in a good Physical Review Letter is very different from a good collage English paper.

@JonCuster your typo "good collage English paper" is actually funny and appropriate here!  A ChatGPT paper is likely a collage rather than a college paper :)

Perhaps pastiche is even better? But,  on my bad...


text:
What is the etiquette surrounding tweeting authors of a paper queries about their work?
I came across a paper from a tweet by a researcher (in the field of computer science, specifically interpretable AI or Explainable AI). I had a query in that field, to answer which I could not find sufficient information online. So I was wondering if it would be a good idea to directly tweet the query to that researcher. But I was wondering, if that would be a good practice of social media interaction and tried to find other alternatives which could be easily deemed as acceptable. Alas, now I have lost track of the paper as well as the researcher.
So, I thought of posting the following question here for future:
Is it a good practice to tweet a query directly to the researcher on whose research work you have  the mentioned query?

I don't use twitter, but isn't the point of twitter putting things out there, so that other can comment on it?  What could possibly go wrong if you reply?

@XanderHenderson : In hindsight , I could have replied , but was wondering if tweeting directly would be discourteous or something that is not a standard behavior in academia.

Is it a good practice to tweet a query directly to the researcher on whose research work you have the mentioned query ?

In most cases, no problem. That's how Twitter works. When someone posts a tweet, they can restrict who may reply to it. So if they haven't done so, then you can go ahead and reply to it.
Two obvious caveats:

in some rare cases, it can be preferable to share the  feedback privately.
tweets have limitations such as a rather low character max length.

So tweets are fine but think about whether public disclosure is ok and whether tweet limitations are an issue.

I see, I will act on this next time :)

If you are worried about professionalism, you can try privately messaging the researcher to ask for their professional contacts. In my opinion, Twitter's 140 characters limit does not lend itself very well to discussion, especially academic discussion.

Tweet character limit in English is 280, in CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) is 140. Please see this page.

@Nobody also depends on whether the account is verified

@Jeff Do : Thank you , I did so and it worked well.

If twitter is your only source of contact then use it, but a more professional way would be preferable. I think this would be the same for other social media, but my current opinion of Twitter for anything is pretty low.
One problem with any social media, including this one, is that if you want to go "offline" you need to somehow provide contact information and you risk that becoming public resulting in a spam-a-lot situation.

Thank you , I did send an email to the researcher and got a reply from her as well. :)


text:
Is it common/acceptable practice for a PhD student to be on an undergraduate thesis committee?
I am currently a PhD student and have been advising an undergraduate student on their thesis, which will eventually contribute to part of my own work. Their committee currently consists of my faculty advisor and another faculty member at my university. The problem I see is that neither my advisor nor the other faculty member have substantial research/experience in the area of the thesis since I am exploring an intersection of 2 fields and the university does not have any faculty in this specific area.
I feel that the current committee is well suited for evaluating the quality of the research methods but not the novelty or accuracy of the work done. This student has put in a lot of effort and I want them to receive feedback and critical analysis on their work. I can easily provide this feedback in our regular interactions, but I don't want other universities' admissions departments to disregard the work due to the committee selection.
My own work in the field is not well known or well cited so my name doesn't bring any value to the list of names on the thesis committee, but as we don't have other faculty in the area, I am not sure what else to offer.
Is it reasonable for me to suggest being added to the committee? Is it common/acceptable practice for a PhD student to be on an undergraduate thesis committee?

Seems pretty institution specific. As an undergraduate I only had my advisor, not a committee, to grade my thesis.

where are you based? Norms concerning supervision vary from country to country

This is at a public university in the United States at a top 10 school in Computer Science.

This question depends too much on the country and the institution to be answered by us. However, a good committee / advisor can draw on existing expertise outside the committee. You can offer, if you want, to serve as an outside, unpaid resource if you feel like it. Whether you offer is acceptable, depends on the circumstances.
Edit: Since you are in the US, I would wager that the university does have clear and concise rules, but most likely, no-one in the department remembers them. Often, the department admin can find out using informal channels that would lead to the relevant document. If there is nothing, then a department meeting could put in a rule, which most likely will be forgotten about within a few years. Since undergraduate thesis are rare (at least in CS) and are used often as an incentive for grooming students to follow up with advanced degrees, they tend to be treated rather informally or they may be treated through analogy with an MS Thesis committee. Often, there is some rule or custom that allows a qualified outsider from industry to be part of a thesis committee (MS or PH.D.), even if they lack formal education. This is US specific and might not be true for even the majority of institutions.

This is at a public university in the United States at a top 10 school in Computer Science. Not many people do undergrad theses at my school, so there isn't any well defined common practice that I am aware of.
I think the suggestion of being an external resource makes sense, I have a pretty casual relationship with my advisor so asking won't hurt

This only indirectly answers your question, but I think may be relevant. I've probably reviewed >100 early-career CVs (PhD candidates, post-doc applicants, early career fellowship applicants), and I can not recall a single time I even noticed tertiary supervisors/committee members, let alone took them into account in the evaluation of applicants. So I can't comment on if including PhD students on committees is common or not, as it's not something I would notice. That might be different if there was a Big Name attached, but the presence or absence of a PhD student is going to be marginal at best.
So, while it's good of you to be trying to look out for the student, I don't think it's going to make a significant impact for them either way. It may actually be more useful for your CV (as it shows clear evidence of supervision etc.).
(I'll add the standard disclaimer here that academia is highly heterogeneous and there may be fields/countries where this is more of an issue, and you might get better answers if you specified both of those points.)

Thanks for the perspective! I also got the impression that as I am very early on in my career, my name wouldn't hold any meaning to someone reviewing an application. Knowing now that its not something that is often looked at anyways, I think my advisor's name being on it says plenty in this case.

Are you worried about the committee members' grade/comments on the thesis or what they will write in reference letters?
For either case, perhaps talk to the committee members about whether they would be willing to discuss these points with you and/or offer to write a short document that they can use when writing the reference letters.

As @Thomas Schwarz has already stated, this is very much dependent on your location and local uni policies. But nevertherless, here is some perspective from personal experience:
At my university, the main supervisor always has to be a full professor, but the second supervisor ("Zweitgutachter" in German) - there are only two in the committee - could be anyone who has the same qualification as the person writing the thesis wants to obtain. That is, anyone holding a bachelors degree could (technically) be the second supervisor for a person writing a bachelor thesis, a person with a masters can supervise a masters (for PhD the rules are different). Of course the person needs to also be knowledgeable about the subject of the thesis on top.
So as a PhD student, you would be perfectly eligible to be in a thesis committee for an undergrad at my university. Of course, other rules might apply, but it doesn't hurt to ask - it is not a completely unreasonable or unheard of proposition.


text:
How to respond to a professor asking for investment in their business?
A few weeks back the prof asked me to invest in his business. That is a significant amount for us, I do not understand why he is proposing that. I wonder what should we do with this proposal. What can be the reason behind such a request in a polite way?
I do not want to hurt either side, could you advise me on how should I respond?

The reason behind his request to invest your money in his business is presumably that he wants to get you to invest your money in his business. It's not really puzzling at all, just highly unethical.

Can you copyedit this? : "What can be the reason behind such a request in a polite way?"  Also clarify that fully funded means fully funded by a scholarship. And how the request/demand/opportunity was presented - in writing to each of you?  With a biz plan?

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Did you get the invite to invest via his email ? If yes, could it be that someone hacks into his email account and sends you that email ?

You haven't said whether the business is actually related to the research you are doing. I can think of cases where the supervisor believes that the research might result in a viable start-up business and wants to make sure that everyone in the team has an opportunity to take a stake in that.

This would seem to be a HUGE conflict of interest, so local laws and university rules would apply.  The prof could be in serious trouble for this, but I would try to shield that if you can.  Of course, I'd say neither of you should invest, but if you miss being at the start of a great opportunity, that's the risk of not investing!

@Scott Seidman what was the point of that rollback which turned the title from something informative to something which is just a vague uninformative statement which doesn’t help future readers? Titles should be actual questions, not vague statements.

@user438383 -- the title was OK but leaving the amount out really changes the question as to being able to recognize the magnitude of the problem.

I have no idea why rolling it back to v11 didn't roll it back to v11 (which had the numbers, but I tried.

Just say no thank you. Do it politely. Do not offer any reason for saying no. Don't provide one if he asks. Just say no.
You or we can speculate endlessly about what this might mean and never find out.
Just say no thank you.

Completely agree. If you are asking your students for investment money you are either a crook or too stupid to be in charge of other people's money.

So basically you're suggesting ops sister talk to her supervisor roughly like "do you want to invest? No. Why? Won't say. Why not? Noooo I won't invest noooooo nononono noooo go away". Or what? Sure, this thing sounds very fishy, but that's no reason not to be polite.

If the professor asked for 80,000 US$ you can legitemately argue that this is more money that you have available to invest. A senior professor probably has $80,000 available that in principle they could invest. A PhD student or recent graduate in general does not,regardless of whether they consider the investment a good one or not.

@DonQuiKong Once you state a reason for your "no: you're inviting a negotiation. The professor can ask for less, or change the offer, or argue. That makes it even harder to stick to no. You can say no from the start politely.

@DonQuiKong: According to the unwritten social contract, it would usually go like this: A: Do you want to...? B: No, thanks. A: Why? B: I just don't want to, thanks. [Optional, if A is a bit slow on the uptake: A: I get that, but why? B: I just don't want to, thanks.] A: takes the hint and stops asking.

You can always answer with something a bit more plausible, like you prefer to save your money so you can buy a house, or you don't feel you have enough experience to assess the level of risk.

@MichaelKay I disagree. The whole point of "no" without offering any reason is to forestall all further discussion. Either of your two suggestions might prompt a response from the professor.

If you feel you need a reason, "I don't invest" should suffice unless the person is already aware of you making other investments, and unlike other reasons I don't think it invites negotiation.

Just one more word of caution: it may as well be that the professor has been scammed.
There are many schemes when scammers make victims believe that they have a "profitable" business, and make victims pull others (relatives, friends, random acquaintances) into investing into this "business". And obviously there would be no "business" in fact.
The prof might be deep into such a scam, and scammers (indirectly) telling them that another $80000 will save all their investments and finally generate a huge profit. Which in fact will never happen.
Whenever I hear that somebody asks somebody else to invest into their business, and this request comes in an awkward or inappropriate context, I always think that this may be a scam.

A gross violation of good ethics.  Most likely a terrible "investment" as well.
A word of caution.  If your professor or someone associated with them finds your post here it is possible there could be negative repercussions for you or your sister.

A few weeks back the prof asked us to invest in his business around ($80,000) for a 5 percent share.

Firstly it needs to be considered if this is attempt to seek a bribe.  Is there any hint that this really more along the lines of you "invest" in my "business" or I'll make sure you never finish your studies ?  This is the worst possible interpretation and you give no evidence of that, but it's something to consider.
There are a large number of ways a legitimate business can get finance at this level of funding.  "Asking" people you have considerable influence over for it is grossly unethical and not one of them.
However to get such funding would require them to let people with expertise in business finance look at his business plan in detail.  Students don't generally understand enough business or finance to do a proper objective examination of a business proposal like this, so it's quite clear (to me) that the person you are dealing with has either already failed to get finance through legitimate channels (because it's a bad deal, most likely) or is unwilling or unable to provide a realistic business plan to back up their claims.
In practical terms this person values their business at $1.6 million which makes the need to seek money from his students very odd.  At this point ask yourself how many other people have been asked for this money ?  Also ask yourself if this "business" has a much lower realistic valuation and $80,000 would represent much more than 5% of it's true value.
There are a lot of red flags here.

That is a significant amount for us, I do not understand why he is proposing that. I wonder what should we do with this proposal. What can be the reason behind such a request in a polite way?

Decline any requests, now or in the future, with a firm but polite "no".

I do not want to hurt either side, could you advise me on how should I respond?

This is somewhat dependent on where this is happening, as different rules and laws apply and different cultural norms apply as well.
I would regard this is extremely unethical (at best) and potentially fraud (at worst, e.g. if it was related to a pyramid scheme).
I would suggest:

Discretely check with other students (you trust) whether they have been approached in this way.
Ask the professor for a detailed business plan and proposal by email.
Politely but very firmly decline the "offer".  You can stop here if you want.
Consider approaching the institute's ethical committee or even (if you are so motivated) asking the police or a financial regulation body to investigate.

Business is business. "Ask the professor for a detailed business plan and proposal by email." is absolutely necessary if you want to invest.

@Nobody To be clear I'm not suggesting taking this seriously as a business opportunity but having the detailed info in case there's a need for more serious action (like reporting it to the police or financial authorities) is important.  There are too many red flags in this for me to ever recommend it as a sensible investment.  At the very least and being very charitable, the professor sounds like someone with a terrible understanding of how to do business, which could be just as bad as dealing with someone who is consciously crooked.

$80,000 is above the usual first-time investor's share in an angel fund, and almost as much as the typical non-US startup raises pre-seed (the US has higher valuations than the rest of the world).
People and funds who invest in startups do their due diligence before committing the money. It includes a brief legal check to assess the firm's legitimacy, an economics study done by an investment analyst, a risk assessment, a HR-like look at the founder team and their competences, and expert assessment from people with startup experience.
The complete due diligence process for pre-seed startups costs VC funds about $25,000 (in the US). At this early angel investment stage it still costs a couple thousand. It costs because it takes specialized knowledge to invest in startups.
If you don't have this knowledge, you'll at best be offering what is known as "cheap money" - money given without making sure to get equitable consideration. It's not wrong to do so; some banks are in this business, but they charge interest.
At worst, you or your sister would be essentially gifting the money to the professor, with some hope of maybe making it back. Investment is a business, and here's the business math:
Investing $80k for 5% implies a $1.6 million valuation at no discount, or $2 million at a 20% discount, which the first investor is due. Investors usually expect at least a 10x growth potential for startups, or 3x for low-risk enterprises. So you have to be sure their idea is worth at least $20 million if it's something novel. Even a sure thing like buying items on Alibaba in bulk and retailing them on Amazon would have to be worth $6 million (3x).
People who don't invest professionally, often have very wrong ideas about how it works. For instance, one might think $80k for 5% of a business that will be worth $2M in a year is a 20% win. Not so; businesses fail, so today it's worth much less, and the first investor gets a discount on top of that. If this sounds harsh, that's how VCs survive startup failures and live to invest another day. It took them decades and a few burst bubbles to figure out how to do it.
If the professor is honestly looking for investment, the best course of action is to acquaint them with fair investment practices and accelerators. If you want to invest, you can suggest the idea to any VC fund and see what they think.
If you're new to investing, don't start with this. Leave risky ideas from people without business experience to experienced investors.

P.S. I'm a startup founder, a member of an angel investment fund, and I'm doing postgrad academic research on the economics of startups and startup studios. These synergize. Not quite a drive-by post.

Thanks for an expert's opinion.

Put it this way: if it was an investment opportunity, the professor would need a clear business case to making at least $20 million. They'd also need paperwork, a co-founder, a proof of concept or prior experience. Asking $80k on a promise is unreasonable.

@Trunk Quite likely. I mean, VCs require so much paperwork - business plans, unit economy, competitor overview, risk analysis, then signing term sheets and agreements for future equity... lots of hard questions, which a student won't even know to ask.

I am not a trusting person, and the idea of someone with as much authority and influence over your sister's life asking for large quantities of money (extremely large quantities of money in the context of a graduate student's life) makes me very very suspicious.  This person has so much influence over your life that you should be concerned about the consequences of saying no.  That alone seems to me to be a barrier to your evaluating the offer objectively, which in turn adds an element of formal ethics to this situation.
What's needed is some objectivity, which readers here can't really provide.
However, many universities have business incubators meant to help students and faculty transition academic research into commercial enterprises.  If this business is being run through such a group (and to be clear, this should be a business incubator that is actually part of the university, not just one in the area) that would be a good sign and you could inquire of them how these sorts of things are handled, if faculty and grad students form business ventures together.  (And eventually, how this specific business is being handled.)
If it is not being run through a university business incubator, I would consider that a bad sign, stick to the story of "We don't have that kind of money hanging around, sorry," (you don't owe them any more explanation than that) and potentially look for a new advisor.

I do not have that money sitting in my account, if I want to say something like this. How can I ask if he the business runs through university? I have a question for you: if the business runs through the university incubator, does the person needs to give up portion of the business to the university incubator?@Anonymous

@programmer_smart You have to GO TALK TO the business incubator.  You and your sister.  Only they can possibly answer this.

what should I ask the business incubator? I do not even know if the company has a business incubator

@programmer_smart Well that would be a thing to ask:  Is this company run through the incubator?  What are the rules for student-advisor joint companies?  Describe the situation and ask for their input.  We can't map out the whole conversation for you.  GO TALK TO THEM.

sorry by "talkhing to them" you mean I should approach the incubators and ask them if this business is running through the incubator? or do you mean I should not ask the prof if the business is running through the incubator?

Before you invest you collect information. The incubator is a good place to start, but also look at other publicly available information. This means, you talk to people at the incubator and other places that make such information available. That is what they are there for. Then you talk to the person who wants that investment, what is that money for, why does he want it from you, what is in it for you, etc. etc. Make sure you get concrete answers, not just general blah blah. But if you don't want to invest, you don't have to go through all that, just tell him you cannot invest.

Well, if someone asks you for an $80,000 investment, then there are three possible answers: No, I don't have the money. No, I don't want to invest my money. Maybe, give me some detailed business plan so I can make an educated decision.

If you don't have the money, there's no point in trying to figure out if the investment opportunity is legitimate.

We don't know what is behind the advisor's request.
It could be benign, in that he is intending to give you an opportunity to participate in a spin-off from your work. But than the communication was not as clear as it should have been. The power differential between you two should have made him extremely careful to make sure that his intentions were absolutely clear, preferably with an independent person involved. So even if it benign, it is not professional, and that should make you worried when it comes to such sums of money.
It could be bad, an attempt to use his power to extract money from you, or at least a risky investment he would not otherwise get from you.
We don't know, and neither do you. You could collect information to see which is more likely. However, if you don't want to or cannot invest that sum then you just say no. It is good to do that in writing, e.g. an email, so you have some corroboration if things get nasty.

The main possibility is that this offer/request comes not from your professor at all, but from a scammer. So you ask your professor directly "I received a message asking for an $80,000 investment, seemingly from you. I suspect it is some scammer impersonating you, so you might want to warn all your contacts". This is very useful if it is indeed a scam, and sends out a very strong message if this was indeed the professor.
The second possibility is that this is indeed your professor. That would be unethical on a massive scale. And what an earth would make him think that you or your sister have $80,000 to invest in his business? And how could he not see that this is a huge red flag? So make sure that you have 100% evidence of this "offer" in case he gets any bad ideas. However, the "scammer" is indeed the much more likely explanation.
Now if you are afraid to go this route, you tell them instead "This sounds good. Can you send me all the details about your business that I need to make an educated decision? Business plan, cost and sales forecasts, and so on. I'll show them to my friend XYZ who runs a business and doing quite well, and if he agrees, then I may consider investing. And my friend might consider investing as well".

I'm willing to give the professor the benefit of the doubt that he is acting with good intentions. But you should feel comfortable declining this offer, since you don't have the money to risk. That's a pretty compelling reason. It doesn't mean you don't believe in his venture, so shouldn't result in hurt feelings.
If this venture is something highly related to your research, it is not uncommon for a grad student to become a founding shareholder in a spin-off. But in this case you would expect to get your founder's shares for "sweat equity" -- the idea that you will continue to work on the project for the benefit of the company at reduced/zero pay -- rather than by investing cash. Most founders don't have enough cash to start businesses, and have to raise from others. Initially "friends and family" who have money to spare, then angel investors, then venture capitalists.
If the venture isn't related to your research or you don't want to work on this startup, I'd stick with a firm no, based on your lack of available funds.

Yes, it's not the business venture that sets off my alarms, it's the up front request for money.

Actually, I wouldn't be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At all.


text:
phd student not happy with the grade
I am a Ph.D. student, and I took a course with my supervisor last semester. Our class consisted of only three people, and our grades have been released. My grade is 91 out of 100 in the Canadian grading system. In my opinion, I performed better than the other students during both the term project and the final exam. I noticed that the class average is 92.3, and it seems that my grade might be the lowest. This is quite disappointing for me. When I inquired about my grade from my supervisor, they said:

Ranking the three students in the class was a challenging task. I had to evaluate their performance comparatively. Your achievement of 91% indicates your exceptional performance in the class. Typically, I reserve scores above 90% for students whose term projects have the potential to be developed into significant research papers. In your case, I made an exception.

could someone explain this paragraph to me? what does he mean by exception? How can I improve my grade, I have two more classes with him and I do not want to score low. We are planning to do reasearch together, and this grading makes me feel disappointed.

Typically they reserve scores above 90% in case XYZ, but in your case they made an exception, i.e. gave you a score above 90% even though you did not satisfy condition XYZ.

Is it your opinion you performed better on the term project, or you are saying: on all assignments they were graded individually, you received a grade higher than your peers, and then the final grade was changed to be lower?

Grades are not the purpose of graduate school, and your performance relative to the other students isn't relevant unless you significantly underperformed or the instructor is your advisor. I think you need to think more carefully about why this matters to you, because it shouldn't, and it serves as a legit red flag regarding your educational path.

When you graduate with a doctorate, nobody will care what grades you got. NOBODY. You will have a doctorate. I challenge my students to take an out of major course so hard ( to them) that they struggle to get a C. :). You grow by being pushed.

I'd guess you ignore the grade completely and depend entirely on what you were told. He considers you and your work to be excellent.
There is no real need to be competitive about it. The differences are minor in any case and may turn on minor things as well. A doctoral program isn't a race against other students. You waste mental and emotional effort in treating it that way.
Relax. Have a culturally appropriate beverage (or a bowl of poutine, if you prefer).

could you please explain what this sentense means? "In your case, I made an exception" I do not understand what exception means here.

Hard to say, but it sounds like he gave you a boost.

Yes, it seems quite clear. Typically grades over 90% are only given for work that could become a significant research paper. Your work does not meet this standard, but he still gave you a score over 90% due to "your exceptional performance." You may feel that your performance was even more exceptional than he acknowledged, but I agree with Buffy that you would be unwise to prosecute this matter.

Is the real issue here the 91%, what the professor might think of you, or the fact that other people may have gotten higher grades?
WRT the first one, objectively, 91% is not a low grade (unless I'm missing something about the Canadian grading system).
WRT the professor's opinion of you, his email seems to imply that he was perfectly satisfied with your performance.
WRT the comparison issue, at risk of sounding harsh, it's 1.3 points - get over it. In the grand scheme of things, the difference is negligibly small and unimportant. I can't imagine that small of a difference in one course having any meaningful impact on your future career prospects.

Apparently you performed well, but not as well as the other two students in terms of developing and presenting a project that is fit to be turned into a research paper.
If I were you I'd ask your teacher nicely for a one on one or a short email in which they give you a few pointers where your ideas are not developed enough and what needs to be improved for your next project/proposal.
Depending on your field of study this could be things as small as your research question being too vague, your choice of material/data not explained well enough, or your analysis strategy not the best fitting to your material/data. Receiving this feedback will greatly improve your research going on, so you should definitely ask for it.
However without any further information we can only speculate on this.

Ranking the three students in the class was a challenging task. I had to evaluate their performance comparatively. Your achievement of 91% indicates your exceptional performance in the class. Typically, I reserve scores above 90% for students whose term projects have the potential to be developed into significant research papers. In your case, I made an exception.

could someone explain this paragraph to me? what does he mean by exception?

I assume the first three sentences are clear. The sentence with "Typically" is emphasizing just how excellent a score above 90% is. I agree that the final sentence is a bit confusing, because it is negative (your project doesn't have the potential to be developed into a significant research paper). But the main message is that your project was exceptionally good.


text:
Fair use: Instructor sharing notes from textbooks
I am a new instructor, planning a course; this post comes from good faith. Basically, I am designing a course and am trying to give my students the best learning outcomes without demanding that they spend too much on textbooks.
1) There is one main textbook that I want to assign: Textbook A. From textbook A, I want to make my own detailed notes (certainly not word for word) so that my students can mostly read the notes to learn. From the student's perspective, the textbook is mostly for occasional reference and for the homework exercises. If I list this book on the syllabus and "demand" that students buy it, am I free to write my own notes without dropping a citation every other line? Can I post these on the course web page online?
2) There is another book, Textbook B, that I like a lot. Due to the fact that I don't want my students to pay an absurdly high fee for two textbooks, I do not wish to demand that my students buy it. However, I do want to occasionally reference it for my own purposes. Is it sufficient to list it on the syllabus as a book that I am referencing, but explicitly state that it is not required for purchase? Again, the plan would not be word for word copying or anything -- just for some ideas, possibly even coming up with reworded versions of homework or exam questions, etc.
I am torn on these questions. A part of me feels like I could do something wrong, but I also know the copyright laws seem to be pretty relaxed when it comes to teaching.
The "treat others the way you want to be treated" rule makes me believe that ethically, textbook A is fine, and textbook B is fine as long as I (a) do not use it that much and (b) reference it for any notably clever ideas.
EDIT: To add to questions above: Say Book B has many real world examples (with citations within the questions). One of the main reasons why I like the book is the abundance of real world problems. But I like the flow of text A more for teaching. I would like to give many of the examples from book B, but again, I don't want my students to pay an absurd amount for a book that I am only taking questions from. How do I settle this? I certainly can't reword the problems using the original citations given in book B.
In summary: Like the flow of book A more, but like many of the real world questions in B. What would you recommend in order to reduce textbook costs?

Copyright: Both are fine unless you copy. I don't know if a table of contents is copyrightable, but this is not likely to be an issue since classes almost always end up selecting only some chapters from textbooks.

Ethics: No issues here at all. You're writing your own textbook inspired by someone else's. This is how most textbooks have arisen in the first place. Very few people started from scratch.

I think you mostly are in the clear from an ethical/plagiarism perspective. Making your own notes off of a course textbook is perfectly acceptable as long as you appropriately reference the textbook. You can write a broad attribution in the beginning: these notes are largely based on the material in chapter X of textbook A. If you’re planning to take questions from a book but not more it’s fine to just reference the book for any specific questions you took from there, and list it as additional material.

This seems reasonable to me. How do you deal with the fact that if I cite the book, students may be able to look it up online?

@zugzug: Are you worried that they will find solutions to your homework problems, or that they will find your source of inspiration and might lose their respect for you?

@darijgrinberg: Much more the former than the latter.

@zugzug write your own problems around the topic - based on experience and variation. That way you build up a question bank - very handy for exams.

@zugzug If these are very challenging problems they will devote their efforts to finding the most similar problems in books and websites anyway. If your problems are to be found, they will find them. They work as a crowd and it is the kind of thing crowdsourcing is great at. If the problems are not very challenging however (i.e. just more practice versions of problems you demonstrated in class) they are more likely to just do them.


text:
Credit load for Grad courses vs Undergraduate courses for professors
As a professor I was wondering what others have experienced at the College/University regarding credit hours/compensation for teaching MA level vs BA level courses.  This is for a Psychology department...For example, a 3-credit BA course counts towards 3 credit hours of instruction. A 3-credit MA course may count at 3 credit hours or double (6-credit hours) depending on enrollment.  This policy is changing and I am wondering what policies may be in pace elsewhere for comparison.  In relation to this - how are professors compensated for mentoring MA thesis students?
Thanks in advance for any feedback that would be helpful while drafting our policy.

A 3-credit MA course may count at 3 credit hours or double (6-credit hours) depending on enrollment. - Where/what field is this?  I don't think I've heard of getting double credit for teaching grad classes before.

I think compensation for supervising students should be a sepetate question. You are also going to want to specify broad field (humanities, social sciences, STEM).

Social science - psychology

AFAIK my faculty requires, over one academic year, two undergrad-level half courses, and one graduate-level half course ("half course" = one term, academic year has three terms). BUT, if one of the undergrad half courses is dual-listed as a graduate level half course, this counts for BOTH one of the undergrad-level half courses and the graduate-level half course. So, in theory, a professor could teach only two half courses and have it count for the three required.

Thanks - is there an enrollment requirement? We have had a required enrollment for the course to be double. Admin is planning to increase enrollment required & limit # of grad courses one can receive the double credit load for per year. We are on a semester sched and a 4:4 teaching load - so for ex: I could teach 1 grad & 2 undergrad each semester to cover my 4 required each semester now.  But, in the future I would need to teach 1 grad & 2 UG say in fall and then 1 Grad & 3 UG in spring. I am trying to get as much info as possible as there seems to be no consistency among Universities.

I don't think so, since most of the courses offered in my faculty are required for the undergraduates to take; and as long as even one graduate student is taking the grad-level course, it would still be double-listed (since the graduate students would have slightly different requirements in terms of content/labs/projects). Some grad courses are offered during the summer term, so some Profs will teach 1 UG fall, 1 UG Spring, and their grad in the summer.