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Why do professors want to make sure that their notes written on the blackboard will not be published?
I am a university student and have recently found out how much easier it is to use my smart phone to take snapshots of notes professors write on the blackboard during lectures (since I am quite bad at understanding and writing at the same time, it is very useful).
To make sure the professors do not have problems with this, I asked each of them before starting to take pictures. They all had the same response: they are fine with it, as long as I do not make the shots publicly available. Of course, I have no intention of doing so. However, it made me think: why do professors emphasise this? All of the material is already public, tens of different lecture notes exist, some of the profs even made their own lecture notes freely downloadable for anybody.
So my questions are:

How could bad quality pictures of the blackboard cause any harm to them?
Why would it make a difference if I copied the content into my notebook or typed it in word by word and published that? (I have never heard any professors asking the students not to upload the notes, they write themselves during the lecture.)

Suppose you ask a book author: "Is it OK if i make a Xerox copy of your book?"  What do you think they will say?  Suppose you go to a music performance, and you ask them: "is it OK if I make a video of the performance on my phone?"  What do you think they will say?

Maybe they want people to attend their lectures instead of students exchaning pictures of their blackboard writing?

@GEdgar The book comparison doesn't work because you're not expected to make copies of books, whereas you are expected to copy down notes from the board. If I asked an author "Is it OK if I make a Xerox copy of your book?" they'd say no, whereas the answer to "Is it OK if I make a Xerox-like copy of your blackboard notes" was "Yes but for personal use only." Completely different situation.

As an aside, it seems to be increasingly common that lecturers write up their lecture notes in textbook form, and publish them (accessible to everyone) on their personal website.

Have you asked the professor? What is their answer?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet but, it could also be that they don't want photos of themselves/others that might incidentally be in the frame to be published without the consent of those pictured. I could imagine a handful of ways that could be abused or might make others uncomfortable.

@GEdgar "Suppose you go to a music performance, and you ask them: "is it OK if I make a video of the performance on my phone?" What do you think they will say?" -- It depends on the band, but there are quite a number of them (admittedly mainly smaller ones) that not only allow this, but actively encourage it.

Why not talk to all of those professors again, this time asking why they said that, then come back and add your own answer here... ?

As well as all the perfectly rational reasons answered, as a generational thing it may be that most simply have an emotional dislike of having themselves or their work plastered in an uncontrolled way over the internet.

Actually most people record shows and events with their smartphones and I never saw any artist asking YouTube to delete this videos

@Keith: where by "emotional dislike" you probably meant "rational dislike", and by "generational thing" you meant "thing differentiating sensible grown-ups from immature people incapable of thinking ahead more than twenty minutes into the future". Right? ;-)

@DanRomik. Pretty much yes - but as "sensible grown ups" I'd suggest we find the phenomenon creepy and then rationalize as much as the other way around.

On a side note, after reading on this quite depressive topic of abuse and cruel intentions: from now on, whenever I write anything that can be photographed, I'd feel obliged to use half of the board for a written disclaimer. Think fine print, piracy warnings in films, this sort of stuff is where it leads.

Another possible concern - providing slackers who don't bother coming to class with the actual classroom material.

While I have fairly detailed sets of notes online, I occasionally get off script on the white board. I encourage the students to take snapshots, as I do myself for my personal record. All I can think of is that if you're improvising and get something very wrong, it might go viral on facebook. A teacher lacking in confidence might worry about that.

While I wouldn't be afraid of a student photographing my blackboard, I certainly do believe that students checking their smartphones in class is harmful. I wouldn't allow students to whip their smartphones in the classroom, no matter the excuse.

The scribblings a professor writes on the board during a lecture represent the lowest-quality type of content that that professor will ever present in public: handwritten, hastily created under time pressure and at a time of high cognitive load, messy, unchecked, and prone to error. On the other hand, professors, like any other professionals, will much prefer to be judged by the highest-quality content that they produce, e.g., their research papers, which are carefully crafted over a long period of focus and concentration, digitally typeset, polished repeatedly, and double- and triple-checked for accuracy. So, to the extent that a professor gets to control which of the content they produced gets publicly released, they will almost never voluntarily consent to the release of the low-quality content.
An analogy that occurs to me is that of a movie actor: for precisely the same reason as I described above, actors prefer for the public to form its opinion of them through their movies, and not through a paparazzi photo of them taken while they were out shopping for groceries, wearing disheveled clothes, no make-up, a sloppy hairdo etc. So, if you don't want to be like a paparazzi, you will respect the wishes of your professor and not publicly post photos of their blackboard writings.

Edit: I feel a need to clarify my remark about "lowest-quality type of content" and "hastily created [...] messy, unchecked, and prone to error". It seems that some people are reading this as a description of some kind of unprofessional professor who comes to class unprepared, delivers a poor quality lecture, then out of insecurity and fear of having their poor lecturing skills exposed publicly, refuses to allow pictures of their blackboard posted online. That is not quite what I meant (or at least is only one possible scenario covered by my answer). I was talking much more generally about any professor, whether excellent or poor, who comes to class, well-prepared or not, and delivers a lecture, which may be an excellent one, and then, for completely legitimate and rational reasons and not out of any insecurity, guilt, or shame, objects to having pictures of their blackboard posted online.
Why would they object if their lecture is so good? Some have asked. The logic behind this is that the blackboard scribblings, even of an excellent and well-prepared professor, will still be a type of content that was created during a very short amount of time (the time of the lecture), while the professor is busy doing several other things at the same time (talking to the class, figuring out the details of the math or whatever it is they are writing on the board, consulting their notes, keeping track of time, etc.), is under the psychological pressure of being watched by a large group of people (many people find this a stressful situation), and has no time or cognitive resources available to detect or correct small errors that may be introduced inadvertently, no matter how carefully prepared one is. So, in a purely relative comparison between this content and other kinds of content that the same professor creates (e.g., research papers, which as I've said are thoughtfully prepared over many months), blackboard scribblings are relatively speaking a low quality content. It is simply an unfair competition: two different kinds of content, two different quality standards, and for the reasons I explained, many professors quite reasonably prefer to have only one of the two types be posted publicly online.
Finally, note that all of this is not at all at odds with the fact that the blackboard writing can still be good or even excellent in the context of the lecture in which it is performed.

But why are they worry about that? Everybody knows that the lecture shouldn't be judged strict as other products (books, presentations, etc). Is that right?

@Ooker why are movie actors worried about paparazzi?

@DanRomik Usually because of the invasion of privacy, actually.

@Ooker So when a picture of a blackboard, showing a grave miscalculation, accidentally done by a maths professor in class, appears on Facebook, accompanied by a snarky comment about the professor's assumed inability of algebra, you expect that no one will share it and make fun of it, because "[e]verybody knows that the lecture shouldn't be judged strict as other products"? How can I regain your trust in humanity? ;-)

@Dubu I would say that most of my Facebook friends have no idea about Lie group, and who know it won't make fun of it. Except something is really fun (like a graph looks like boobs), but that doesn't seem to be the case of OP's class. In that situation, the prof knows what to do.

@Ooker I was thinking of something in the range of "2 + 2 = 5", obvious to everyone. (Except the writer. It is terribly hard to see such mistakes if you're writing on a black-/whiteboard in large letters.) Eventually, students would probably point out such an error (depending on the prof) and it would be corrected, but someone could have made a picture before.

@Dubu but that student will need to be sneaky to snap it, right? In the case of OP, he asks him directly

@Ooker, I doubt that the professor has such specific scenarios in mind. I think it's more of a case of caution in the face of uncertainty. Students and social media mix in unexpected ways, and when the damage is done, there's no going back.

Yes, it's not about a specific scenario or worrying that I'll write 2+2=5, it's the principle of the thing. Just like anyone else, I want to present to the world the most favorable image of myself, and @Ooker, I'm sure you do as well. For example, I see you selected a certain photo of yourself as your Twitter avatar, and not a different, much worse photo. Similarly, on the professional level, I am going to endorse the release online of certain materials I created (my papers), but not other materials (blackboard writings, and a poem I wrote when I was in the third grade). Simple as that.

@DanRomik hmm, ok, I see your point. Yes, everyone wants to make the image of theirself beautiful. I think you can add that to make your answer more persuade. But I still don't understand why the professors are embarrass about their own product. The lecture may not represents their highest quality, but it's not bad enough to be embarrass. After all, it should have enough quality to be presented to the students, right? Similarly, my profile picture can be gorgeous, but if you catch a crazy picture, I wouldn't really mind that, because I have make sure that you can't see all the worst ones.

@Ooker think about it as a game theory problem. If we assume all the professors are in a big competition called "academia," and some of them do not let blackboard pictures be released, then others, even if they might be otherwise okay with it, will also have to follow the same strategy if they want to remain competitive. In such a competitive environment one cannot afford even a small mistake or embarrassment. This toy model is of course an exaggeration of the real-life situation, but only a slight one.

@Ooker also I think you are underestimating the difference in quality between something I create when I have time to work on it properly and am not simultaneously busy speaking to a classroom of 200 students (the "high cognitive load" I was referring to) and something created under haste and psychological pressure. It is a huge difference. So yes, the blackboard is good enough to present to the class (it has to be, what other choice is there?), but not good enough to present to the rest of the world, who will probably not appreciate the context in which the material was created.

I think the last sentence is the key. Can you give me an example of that? I've never taught anyone so I may not have the experience.

others, even if they might be otherwise okay with it, will also have to follow the same strategy if they want to remain competitive — ...except for those of us who are confident that our board work makes us look better than our competitors.

@JeffE my point was that even the best blackboard writings usually do not compare well to more thoughtfully prepared material. But yes, for those rare individuals whose blackboards are amazingly neat, free of errors and written in beautiful calligraphic handwriting, your comment is correct and very much in the spirit of my game theory model.

@DavidRicherby well, I am not an actor so can't speak authoritatively about why actors care about paparazzi. I'm sure invasion of privacy is a big component, but I'm equally sure protection of their brand name and public image are another big part of it. In fact, our human desire to control how others view us and think of us is probably a big reason why the notion of "privacy" even exists.

@Dubu If students do start posting things like that, they should be none too surprised if Professors decide to post pictures of said student napping in class, with scholarly friends commenting on the laziness of math students. ;) Nobody likes to be seen at their worst.

lectures being lowest quality type of content...that explains a few things

@chalkchewer okay, that's kind of funny, but joking aside, I did not say lectures are the lowest quality type of content, only that the blackboard scribblings had that property. Furthermore, my comparison was purely relative to other types of content, and "lowest quality" would still in many cases be pretty high quality on an absolute scale. So, I'm sorry if you had a bad professor who gave shitty lectures - it happens, and you would be right to complain and make jokes about it - but I think the joke in this case was a bit inappropriate and needlessly misrepresented what I said.

@DanRomik blackboards are amazingly neat, free of errors and written in beautiful calligraphic handwriting — No, that's no more required than having every paper win a Nobel Prize, or even every paper appearing in Nature.  You just need to be better than your competitors.  That distribution has a very long tail.

@DanRomik only that the blackboard scribblings had that property — [citation needed]  I see your blackboard scribblings and raise you typical PowerPoint.  (shudder)

@JeffE good point, but as far as I'm concerned PowerPoint slides are such a low life form that I wouldn't (and don't) present them even non-publicly (obligatory XKCD reference)...

The first sentence seems like you want to say that hand-writing on boards should have no place in teaching.

@Raphael nothing could be further than the truth. What on earth gives you that impression? Blackboards absolutely have their place, and that place is precisely in the classroom (and one or two other places). In any case, if you want to debate this, let's focus on what I actually said, which is an objective question, rather than on what it "seems like I want to say", which apparently is highly subjective and easily subject to misinterpretation.

Unless you are Gerry Sussman or Harold Abelson -- then you have it recorded live and published on videos and later served across the web to millions for decades on end, self-caught errors mid-sentence and all. Actually rather engaging, still today.

@DanRomik You said, "hastily [...], messy, unchecked, and prone to error" -- doesn't sound like an artifact you'd want to use in teaching. That said, I have experienced several lectures by professors who had excellent "blackboard scribbling" -- because they carefully prepared them beforehand, checked them (repeatedly, I guess) and arranged them clearly on the board.

I'm surprised this answer has so many up-votes yet nobody mentioned the huge flaw in the actor analogy. Professors, while teaching, are performing to an audience who will formally judge them for a job they're being paid for. The elephant in the room (not always visible to undergrad students) is of course that because of how funding happens, most universities value the research efforts of professors more than their teaching efforts.

@Fuhrmanator: I admit I'm just as surprised as you at the number of up-votes, but nonetheless I think the analogy with actors is a pretty good one, and manages to capture an essential feature of the psychology of the professors' refusal to allow release of their blackboard pictures. Of course, like all analogies it is not perfect and breaks down pretty quickly when you take a detailed look at the two situations in all their complexity.

@DanRomik I think you've nailed the psychology, and that's why it's a popular answer. The analogy doesn't work for me because at the grocery store, actors are not working. Professors in the classroom are working, and therefore should be adequately prepared (it's not a good reason to ask students not to publish photos; it's an emotional insecurity based on lack of professionalism). The analogy (to me) takes away the professional responsibility of the professor.

@Fuhrmanator: I see, and that's a good point. However, here is a point I tried to make several times in the comments, without much success: a professor can be coming to class very well prepared, can be doing an excellent job, and their blackboard still won't look as nice and clean and professional as a well written paper. It's simply an apples to oranges comparison: two different kinds of content, two different quality standards. So the psychological reasons I mentioned are still completely legitimate even for the best lecturers, and do not imply any insecurity or lack of professionalism.

@DanRomik Your last comment makes sense, but it's quite different than what you wrote in your answer: "hastily created under time pressure and at a time of high cognitive load, messy, unchecked, and prone to error." I read that as inadequate preparation, so it might explain the confusion people are having.

@Fuhrmanator great point, thanks a lot. I feel a bit stupid for not realizing this sooner. I've now edited my post adding a clarification of this point, hopefully that will clear up the confusion.

Where though do these professors learn this practice? E.g. if I someday became a professor, and I hadn't stumbled upon this site, where would this practice enter?

@mike3 I'm confused by your question. What practice?

@DanRomik the simpler answer is that everyone will have bad days.  However well prepared you are,  however carefully you have organized the material, there are days when nothing goes right because any one of a 1000 possible small things went wrong, and the final product looks nothing like what was intended.

@DanRomik Very good answer; EXTREMELY WELL EXPLAINED.
Yes. I know, I use the comment section to convey a simple thank you. I am aware of that.
have it great //wishes from Sweden. Thanks once more for the brilliant answer!

Several explanations are possible:

Their blackboard scribblings are their copyrighted material, so they have every right to restrict distribution. I.e., written "for my students only".
What ends up on the blackboard is just a part of the class, explanations, questions and answers, on-the-fly examples, reiteration of a missed point is an integral part of teaching. All that doesn't show up, so the result isn't really complete, and probably less than useful on its own.
They don't want to get exposed publicly with stuff somewhat sloppily written on-the-fly, badly organized, with little (or no) possibility of checking/editing, and (probably worse) no careful citing of sources.
They are secretly writing a textbook, and don't want to get their scoop stolen by a "pirate blackboard" version on the 'net ;-)

Could the last point really happen? I mean, yes, it can be in theory, but I don't think a collection of pictures taken from the board could ever replace a book. And if they really need to be secret, then they won't let the students take pictures at the first time.

@Ooker, see the smiley...

@Oooker probably not in math or science, but in the humanities where content in classes is much less standardized, this perhaps might be more of a concern. Still doubtful.

@Ooker In mathematics I have known many professors to base their books off of their lectures, or to give lectures based off of tenative drafts of a book.  The book is meant to be educational and used in classes, so it makes sense to field test it and see how it goes.  A significant proportion of my math texts contain forwards by the author mentioning the classes that were taught with early versions of the text, and thanking the classes (sometimes even specific students) for their feedback and help in improving the book.

@zibadawatimmy but in that case, my point still hold, is that right?

When I began teaching, point #3 would have been the biggest reason I wouldn't have wanted my students to publish images of my blackboards. After 15 years of teaching I got over that insecurity because my preparation is much better.

I think your question a bit naïve. Once you find yourself in the same situation as your professors, the answer will be obvious.
Just imagine that a junior student comes to you and asks you for some help, say, with a difficult math problem.  Would you help him?  I suppose you would.  Most people would if they have the time and expertise.  You'd spend an hour with him, hopefully solve the problem and explain the solution to him.
Now imagine that the same student tells you that he is going to publish all the notes and scribblings you make while you are working together on this problem.  Anyone will be able to find them if they search for your name.  It will be available on the internet, likely forever.  You will have no control over it whatsoever, as you aren't even the one who published them.  You won't be able to correct it if you find a mistake.  It will contribute against your professional reputation, but if some stranger criticizes the notes, calls them wrong or hard to understand and useless, you will not have a chance to defend, clarify or correct them.  It is not at all the same as when you were explaining the solution to your friend and you were having a discussion with him.
Would you still help this student if you knew he was going to publish the whole discussion?  Maybe you wouldn't.  Or maybe you would but you would only agree to publishing the notes if you get the chance to carefully correct and polish them, to make sure it is suitable for a general audience with whom you cannot engage interactively, and that you would have some control over where and how the notes get published so you can update them in the future if necessary.  Of course preparing these notes is going to take a lot more time than the one hour discussion you'd need to explain the solution to just this one student.  So you might easily decide that you don't have the time for such an endeavour.

+1 ... and those are also good reasons for not disclosing real names when one publish half-thought answers in sites like SE :)

I would say that there is a risk to have them published without permission, but it's not large. No one wants to go to page 10 of Google.

"Just imagine that a junior student comes to you and asks you for some help" -- and it would be great if they brought a picture of my blackboard! Did I miswrite or they misread?

@Raphael That's not public sharing though.

As a professor, I want the class experience to be dynamic. If students had access to the content on the board, they might think it unnecessary to show up.
Also, writing notes results in a higher retention of information than just reading them (or typing them). http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

Dynamism is critical, finding a way to "add value" beyond static books or PDFs. Pre-fabbed overheads, or pre-determined notes to be copied onto a black/white-board, tend to dampen that, despite the possibility of huge live audio supplements, which (bad-miraculously) many students seem to disregard and discard. But/and the students leap to presumptive conclusions about the "freshness" of the audio, too, while being to disregard it. Thus, I actually tend to think in terms of a sort of (highly informed, hopefully expert, hopefully fluid) improvisation and responsiveness...

If your lectures truly add value to the slides, then why are you afraid of students not showing up?

@Livings I personally am OK with students taking photos of the board. I minimize time lecturing and don't show much in terms of slides in class. Board information is usually answers to exercises that the groups do in class. Plenty of students will find any justification not to come, but some might be more motivated if all the info is not available outside.

they might think it unnecessary to show up — So let them not show up.  What's the problem?

@JeffE Why not ask that question formally so you can get answers from the community?

Sorry, my comment was snarky b/c I hated lectures myself. But I've also fought classes where hardly any students ever showed up, because they were lazy(not enough space to explain, but we had other classes for comparison). In the end, you get blamed for the lazyness of your students, so it makes sense, even if out of self preservation. If they all fail, next year you have twice as many students. Would have been the right thing to teach them a lesson, though.

One of the ways I find it helpful to think about questions like this is to ask "What's the benefit of the reverse happening?" Lets say that the professor not only allows you to take a photograph of the notes, but to share them online. What benefit is there?
Even leaving aside things like errors propagating through the notes, allowing the notes to exist online just lets a lesser form of their lecture notes (the blackboard, absent any context or the lecture itself) out into the world. What purpose does that serve? Who really benefits from it?
There are numerous downsides to it (as other people have discussed), and the upsides are pretty fleeting - at best, you could argue that the current class would be freed from taking notes, but many people prefer to take notes, and this creates a dependence that your camera, picture taking skills, and hosting will always be available and adequate to their needs.
Basically, ask yourself: "Why should they?"

In addition to the reasons given in the other answers, your professors will probably teach the same class again in a year or two and they don't want the next batch of students to have access to all the notes. There are good reasons for this:
Firstly, students could use past lecture notes to cheat on problem sets and exams. This could happen because next year the professor switches the example he or she went over in class with a homework problem. Or the professor might go over solutions to homework in class.
Secondly, if students have access to the lecture notes from previous years, they might decide not to come to class (or come and not pay attention). The usual student reasoning is ``I don't need to go to class, because I have access to all the information already.'' Unfortunately, those students end up doing poorly, because lecture notes don't adequately compensate for not coming to class. So sharing lecture notes with the next batch of students can be doing them a disservice.

Professors do not need to have a reason, but both of the reasons you gave are bad.

@emory Right, I would downvote if I had the reputation for that. The question is about taking photographs vs making notes on paper, while none of the points of this answer make a difference here. Both points would apply equally to notes taken on paper.

Many universities have policies against posting written notes on the internet or selling copies of written notes.

There are good reasons for this — Maybe so, but you haven't given any.  College students are adults; if they want to rob themselves of the education they've paid for, that's their right.

Many of my courses paid a student to type up the lecture nodes. Those were very helpful for learning.

@emory why bad? I have seen a lecturer taught with PowerPoint. She moved the slides so fast that no one can script it down, and she refused to give the slides to students for this exact reasons.

@Ooker (1) So her slides contain the answers to next years homework assignments? As a student, I am allowed to photograph them, but I may not publicly distribute them.  I'll tell my frat brothers they are not for public distribution.  The frat will keep distribution private.  (2) If I can learn the material without attending lecture, I should be able to test out.  This is a good thing.

I don't understand the downvotes. There are definitely professors who think this way. Whether you agree with those professors is not relevant.

I agree that, as in other answers and comments, faculty might not want "unedited, unengineered, live" performances to be recorded and exist forever on the introwebs.
At the same time, the "added value" (supposedly beyond books, Wiki, on-line stuff, even my own on-line notes produced for the very class itself) I aim to provide is something (I fancy...) cannot be captured by just "screen capture" of the blackboard, any more than a video without audio of a stage play would "be the play". Ok, so then a video+audio recording (I think they call these "movies") would maybe capture everything... just as movies do. Or video DVDs of orchestras playing music, as though that might substitute for "going to a concert".
In many ways, these substitutes are excellent. Cheaper, for sure. So one should ask about in what way, if any, they lack. That is, instead of worrying so much about prohibition of "pirated" videos of my lectures, I should ask myself what, if anything, I'm offering that these recordings don't capture...
Answer: not so much that very many people would care about. ("Oh, those silly people...")
For such reasons, I refused to be video-taped giving some popular courses of mine some years ago, when the university did not agree to give me sufficient IP (intellectual property) rights to not have my recordings replace me in my job... :)
The relevance of this ranting to the question is that many professors reasonably worry (whether or not they're good teachers at various levels) that their university or department will seek to replace them with cheap simulacra... possibly even just recordings of themselves... as I do suspect... and even tangentially related things are instinctively resisted, even if they're almost non-sequiturs.
In particular, unlike what even bad actors can expect, there are no "residuals" for replays of math videos. Maybe in the future. For the moment, "tenure" is the closest thing? :)

Any and all materials produced in a lecture are covered by copyright, intellectual property, and student conduct/academic integrity policies.
Materials for students available in university classes are not 'public' materials, and distribution of materials outside of the classroom goes against the policy, and may/may not be subjugated to copyright infringement law. Otherwise, why go to university if you get the education for free?
Technically, notes and other materials from units should not be reposted in any manner 'to help the next student' in accordance with these policies. It's a very grey area, however.
To give an example of when it happens and it's not so grey, I found an assessment of mine earlier this year (word for word, including tips on how to do the assessment well, and what the assessment marking criteria is) all over paid essay writing websites, with attached codes pertaining to the subject of my unit.

There are various ways to get a free college education, but simply looking at photos of blackboards is hardly going to be effective, it seems to me.

From my university days, I remember studying the Central Limit Theorem.  Are you saying that I can not use it anymore because it was my professor's intellectual property.  I am already in enough trouble as it is by using grammar I learned in English class.

Are you saying that I can not use it anymore because it was my professor's intellectual property — Now you're just being silly.  Of course you can use the ideas presented in your professors' lectures; ideas cannot be  copyrighted.  But you can't post video of their lectures to YouTube; expression of those ideas is copyrighted.

One additional point I haven't noticed above: at certain institutions (including mine), the copyright of the professors' teaching materials (including, strictly, their writing) does not solely belong to them: it belongs to the institution as well.
The logic behind this is as follows: the university pays the professor to create course material. However, the course itself (and the material) belongs to the university. The expression of that material depends on the professor, so they have a say in its use (I believe "performance rights" is the phrase). However, it remains the university's material.
This also explains why nobody worries about a student making open their notes on the course: the student's notes are their interpretation of the material, not that which was produced as a work for hire.

@Ben Ian says this about "certain institutions, including mine" - are you asserting that this is not true at any institution, even Ian's? Hard to see how you could know that.

Whilst I cannot find a public link to my own institution's policy, it is similar to this policy from the University of Glasgow. Note the quote "The University owns IP generated by University staff in the course of or incidental to their employment, including teaching or university materials."

First, thanks for having the courtesy to ask for permission.
I think there are a couple of other things to consider:

Since all the professors answered the same way, there may be a department or university policy regarding posting content online.
"Harm" is relative to the individual and the situation.  It could be financial, artistic, or social.  At the end of the day, the content belongs to the professor and the university and they determine the usage.
Class notes are your interpretation of the knowledge disseminated in class.  They are meant for personal use.  When you post them online, veracity and/or plagiarism become your responsibility.

It seems that they do not want to be held to any mistakes, accidental plagiarism or misattribution, or inadequate explanations that they wrote during class.
Also, they may view publishing itself as a process of 'quality control' that lecture doesn't offer. Also in some fields there is a fear of being 'beaten to the punch' if something you are working on is made available before it is complete. Ideas are intellectual property and there is a fear of that property being stolen or unfairly adopted. Publication leaves a paper trail to resolve any potential disputes, so they tend to be avoided all together.

Would you not say that the ideas shared in a classroom are being openly shared to the people in the classroom? Are there really classrooms where there are restrictions on the use or sharing of ideas learned in class?

Undergraduate lectures are rarely at the bleeding edge of current research so I don't think your second paragraph really applies.

IOW, if Professor Z misexplains a theorem in class and I apply the theorem as incorrectly explained on an exam and lose marks, I should suffer the penalty in silence.  The second paragraph is complete rubbish.  My time stamped images of Professor Z's blackboard are just further proof of Professor Z's timeline.

Ideas are intellectual property — No.  They are not.  The expression of ideas is intellectual property.

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


text:
How to spot problematic pictures in a publication?
A few professors from the National Taiwan University were caught manipulating experimental data in their publications on several prestigious journals this year. They were accused of using the same image in different experiments, and the papers were either retracted by the authors, or removed by the journals.
This kind of plagiarism is not very rare in biology. What are some key points to spot plagiarized scientific pictures?

As it stands, your question looks a lot like "let's discuss this issue". This kind of questions is not encouraged here; we prefer well-defined questions with a clear answer. I encourage you to edit it to improve it.

"How can we avoid reading scientific publications?"  Hmm.  I suppose that probably isn't what you meant to say.  Click where it says "Edit" and see if you can make your question clearer.

I took the liberty of removing the question “How can we avoid reading problematic scientific publications, especially in biology ?”, as it was one question too many (we prefer one question per question) and not really anwerable: If anybody could spot problematic scientific publications without reading them, the world would be a better place. The only thing that we can avoid is reading problematic publications without noticing.

When you write "problematic", do you mean "plagiarized"?  If so, please write "plagiarized".  If not, then your question is very unclear.

i once saw a presentation by a journal editor about what they do to check on modified, altered data.
as you can guess, they ask for the raw data, and check imagies with photoshop.
a very easy way to spot altered pictures is to blow up contrast and brightness, which tends to highlights cropped and modified areas.
obviously people are getting smarter at that too, but if the goal is to deceive, i think at some point it will be difficult to tell what's fake and what's not.

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Journal paper and conference proceedings note appear to be identical, is this plagiarism?
I am looking at these two papers in the field of astrophysics. One is this journal paper and the other is a proceedings notes from a conference.
It almost looks like these two papers are copied word-for-word, with the exception of Equation 4.24 in paper 1 (although I guess considering the flow of things, it should maybe correspond go Equation 61 in the second paper). Is this plagiarism? I understand that it varies from field to field. How does one go about determining whether it is?
Two issues:

The latter journal article does not cite the proceedings notes.
The latter journal includes two authors (the proceedings notes has only one author), and the newly appearing person is listed as the first author.

I guess this highlights the ethics issues which aren't brought up often enough.

Does one of them cite the other?  For example, does the one that says "Revised" cite the one that doesn't?  "Plagiarism" is use of material without citation.

@GEdgar No. No mention of each other. I realize that both articles are behind a paywall, but I don't know how to make it public without breaking the copyright law. Hopefully most people frequenting academia.stackexchange are academics with access to university computers.

Some fields consider conference proceedings to not be "published," so that publishing that same content in a journal is generally allowed (and not considered duplicate publication or self-plagiarism.) Ultimately, this question comes down to "In physics, is a conference publication considered a "real" publication for purposes of later publication in a journal?"

@ff524 I guess I missed one important detail, namely that the latter article in a journal includes another person as the first author. I will edit the question to reflect these facts.

It's worth noting that the first article is from "Proceedings of the Sixth APCTP Winter School."  These types of educational events often have unrefereed publication associated with them; depending on how loosely it was organized, the original author may not have even known that the article was being published and archived online.

@jakebeal I doubt that the author didn't know that this was being published (otherwise, why format the paper perfectly like an article, and not bother to submit it to a paper?) It seems that everything boils down to the conventions of the field of astrophysics, which I am not familiar with.

@anonymous555 I'm saying that it appears to have been an informal collection of manuscripts intended for dissemination to the students, not for formal publication.  Other manuscripts in the collection appear elsewhere as well, e.g., this one published the year before.  Then, post-facto, somebody appears to have decided to bind them together into a book.  That's a rather unusual and informal form of publication, and would definitely not count as peer reviewed.

If @jakebeal is right and the first "publication" was really just something distributed to the students at that winter school, then that might also explain the discrepancy in authorship. Perhaps what looks like an author name is just the name of the speaker who conducted this winter school course and distributed the notes; it might not constitute a claim of (sole) authorship at all.

@AndreasBlass I agree that this could be the case in other cases. In this case, there is a thirteen year gap between the two publications, and the first author is a graduate student (this paper will constitute his PhD thesis).

Following up, an article on its retraction for duplication. The prior paper was not in fact considered part of the peer-reviewed literature; it still needed to be cited, however.  It will be interesting to see what else comes out about the case over time.


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I'm the only grad student who wasn't asked to write a tenure recommendation for my advisor. Should I be concerned?
I'm a few months away from defending and my advisor is going up for tenure shortly after I finish. I found out that every other student of my advisor, including a student who graduated a year ago, except for me was asked to write a letter for consideration in the tenure process. One of the students just joined the lab and was confused as to what exactly he was supposed to say. These requests weren't sent out by my advisor, but by another professor on behalf of the tenure committee. (That professor just happens to be on my advisory committee.)
Should I be concerned about this or am I just being paranoid?

I'm sure it was just an oversight.  Given that you get no real benefit from doing this, I'd just be thankful to be spared the extra work!

Probably they needed N letters, your advisor has N+1 students, and someone rolled an (N+1)-sided die.  I wouldn't worry about it.

Since the requesting professor is on your committee could it be conflict of interest instead of an oversight?

If you think there was an oversight, you could always ask the chair of the tenure committee directly if they left you out. Alternatively, you could simply write the letter and submit it to the committee. The worst-case scenario here is that the letter is not forwarded to the committee.

I'm ok with it somehow being an oversight. I can't say that I don't mind being spared the extra work!


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Is there an open crowd-based peer-review tool?
I would like to know, if anybody is familiar with any open crowd-based peer-review tools?
If I as a student, for example, use www.academia.edu, is it then possible to get my papers peer-reviewed? I understand that this normally happens if I write a conference paper or a phd. But would like to know, if there is any open tool, where I can add papers and get reviews in a not-formal way?

Whatever you decide, be SURE you understand the potential risks of sharing your research ideas and any findings in an Open forum. Unfortunately, you don't always know who can be trusted with this sort of information. (It's sad, but it's still a reality). As a possible alternative, it's usually an accepted practice to ask a trusted colleague or faculty member to look over your paper and give you their opinions. Of course, you want to be respectful of their time. If you ask them to look over it, just make sure you say something like, "if you have the time, would you be willing to...". If they sa

Try to clarify what you're looking for. Particularly, what do you mean by "peer"? Why does that not contradict "open"; or, what do you mean by "open"? Do you mean "post a paper, where anyone can make anonymous comments on it"?

Yes, I have published in academic journals many times. It's a great tool free to use for anyone.

@user6726 with open I mean something like stackexchange, like a forum where everyone can contribute. And by peer, I mean people of interrest, who could contribute with meaningful feedback, maybe that's not the original meaning of "peer"?

Besides http://peerevaluation.org, there is http://www.peerageofscience.org; and there is also reddit.com. Reddit is most like SE in terms of user interaction, however they have some problems with quality control. It is "open" in the sense that anyone can offer material and make a comment (review): it is "not entirely open" in the sense that authors and reviewers have the option of using a pseudonym, so real identities are usually not known. The other two sites are open in the latter sense, that authors and reviewers are openly identified (as far as I can tell), but peerageofscience requires reviewers to "have published a peer reviewed scientific article in an established international journal, as first or corresponding author", so it is closed to reviewers without that credential. (I am not sure about peerevaluation but it does not seem to require any qualifications from reviewers though it does ask you to categorize yourself).

http://peerevaluation.org/ was envisioned as such a forum. I am not sure to which extent it is popular in your comunity and what is the current status of the project.

That looks interesting, but also like it's not so much in use.

"Crowd-based" is not "peer review". So, while there are platforms Open Peer Review, these still assume that the person doing the reviewing is a "peer" and not someone random from the public. The only mature one I know of is Science Open which does both publishing and peer-review.


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Journal employees offering free publication in return for co-authorship and citations: is it a scam?
Some of my colleagues and I got offers from employees  of some reputed journal (not from journal itself), to publish our research paper for free, if:

We include their name as co-author
We use 60%+ citation of their journal (Doesn't it add up to IF??)

In return:

It will be published completely free
They will give us discount of some sort for next publication

Is it may be some kind of scam?

Also of interest: What are "fake", "shady", and/or "predatory" journals?

I'm sorry that this comment will seem harsh but I really can't think of any other way to say it: anyone who thinks for even a microsecond that this might be a reasonable offer seriously needs to read up on publication ethics. If these people really were employees of the journal and the journal really was reputable, they would be fired as soon as the journal found out what they were doing.

Also, if that journal is reputed, I'd seriously think about forwarding that email to upper-level management person with short explanation about what's wrong. Such practices (I mean "include me as co-author") should be killed with fire.

What they are asking for is about as reasonable as telling you that they'll publish your paper only if you include a footnote with a joke about a priest, a rabbi, and a Buddhist monk who all walk into a bar and get into a mildly hilarious situation. Setting aside the issue of publication fees, the only thing that a serious journal should require is that the paper is good enough.

I agree with @quetzalcoatl: forward the mail to the official contact address(es) of the journal. They need to know.

You might wish to check Beall's List to see if the journal in question is on this list of predatory/disreputable publishers.

Yes, It's in the list.

I find it concerning that you say 'some of my colleagues', which suggests at least three of you have got to the point of publishing without being able to see how obviously wrong this is. Unless you're all undergrads, which seems unlikely from the term 'colleagues', somewhere there's a supervisor that needs to add to their list of 'things to check all students know'.

This is a scam.
You are not the ones being scammed, however.  The editors are proposing to scam your readers, with your assistance, making you scammers as well.  Walk away before you damage your reputation.

Whether or not this is a scam, it is completely unethical.
Under no circumstances is someone entitled to a publication credit in exchange for "free" publication of a paper. Don't forget that many reputable journals do not charge publication fees. It may be entirely possible for you to get your paper published without such an arrangement, which will be better for you, largely because any journal whose employees operate in such a manner isn't worth publishing in.

Although this question has fully answered, just hear my point of view.
Have you ever asked yourself:

What obligations those people have to fulfill their promises? After all they have not committed to the basic ethic matters.
How are you going to claim the discount for your next publication?
What kind of publication this journal hase made, that you want to cite 60%+ of them in your work?

If you claim anything after this, they easily ignore the whole deal. The only thing that they have in their mind is to rise up their reputation, by any means. Charging people for publishing and then offering them discounts with this method, is just a scam. It's more like paper-cooking.
Don't let yourself to be used.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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What should I do when images in a publication appear to have been faked?
I just came across a paper published in a journal (IF < 2), which has used a couple of images without mentioning the source. This itself is not necessarily a problem. But they seem to be from a commercial software product I'm familiar with (they haven't mentioned even the name of the software, though it generated the image), and based on my experience with this software, the image looks to me like it has been tampered with.
Specifically, it is an image where the software predicts properties of a compound which is used to verify the result. Now, let's say some parameter have a cutoff at 0.5% and they are getting 10.3%. To conform to their result they removed the '1', and it become '0.3%'.
Emails to the corresponding author came back empty.
Should I report that to the journal or leave it as it is (may ruin someone's career)?
They have used the image to prove the result of the experiment.

I'm surprised that no-one has suggested you contact the editor. If you find data that has clearly been manipulated, I thought that the journal should be informed. I've followed http://retractionwatch.com/ for quite some time and it seems that even if the results do not change in an important way, data tampering is always taken very seriously. Before making accusations, though, be sure that you can indeed prove your claims.

This could be a big deal and something you should report and, alternatively, it might not be a big deal or reportable. The difference comes in the context.
Are the editted images presented as legitimate data or results that are the raw output of the experiments/research? By which do they say something like "In image blah taken by an electron microscope you can see that the magical unicorn bonds have been created by our process." (Keeping in mind that I know nothing about bio-chem and 'magical unicorn bonds' is a stand in for some actual process). Or in CS something like "Here you can see the robot we built" Statements like this imply or outright state that the object or information in the image is not just representative data but actual results or output. Data like this should not be manipulated or edited except for clarity(circling a targeted area or adding minor labeling).
The other kind of image is a bit rougher. These images can demonstrate what was expected to be seen, abstract output from the research, conceptual information. These kinds of images often are edited or manipulated. Sometimes as a demonstration of what was expected("We would expect magical unicorn bonds to appear after our procedure but instead....") or as an explanation of something more abstract("the robot should follow the optimal path as shown here when it uses the stairs instead of running repeatedly into a wall"). These are things that are no reportable. They can be in poor taste and they absolutely should be caught by reviewers if they imply results beyond the scope of the actual research. But, in some fields, these are the best way to demonstrate expectations, abstract information or background information.
All that being said - when you say the image is from a "commercial software" that makes me wonder if you mean not that it was created with "commercial software" but is actually an image from some commercial source. In this case the image may be copyrighted and it may not be appropriate, at all, to use in this research. This will depend on the image, the source and the 'tampering'. As a counter example to this in the realm of computer vision every uses the standford bunny model in their publication. It's a thing. This is not inappropriate. Someone using an image from a text book, however, or a Google search that they do not own is inappropriate and should be first reported to the PI of the paper and, potentially, the publisher if no action is taken.

'an image from a text book, […], or a Google search that they do not own is inappropriate and should be first reported to the PI […] and […] the publisher if no action is taken' Why on Earth would you bother about misuse of copyrighted material that you do not own yourself? This has nothing to do with academic misconduct and is primarily the publisher's business.

Using data(be it information or images) that you do not own is absolutely academic dishonesty. It is tantamount to plagiarism. I, and many of the individuals I've worked with, would absolutely be concerned about copyrighted images used inappropriately(ie without permission or appropriate rights) in a publication.

Infringing copyright is one thing, appropriating data you didn't generate is another. I'm concerned if it's used without attribution or citation (that is plagiarism) but I couldn't care less about copyright.

Regarding the circling: in some fields (not mine), that is not even allowed. For that reason, some microscopes have an embedded arrow that you can move around freely, so the picture can be included directly on the paper.

Manual alteration of figures aimed at deceiving readers (by fabricating, obfuscating, 'cherry picking' results, etc.) is a serious matter. It surprises me that people still try because it's very often quite easy to spot (other types of data fabrication are harder to catch). But it's sadly not uncommon, even in highly regarded journals and from researchers from reputable institutions.
For life sciences, according to one of pubpeer's moderators in a comment: 'Most of the life science reports involve image manipulation - a good majority are gels, with a bunch of duplicated specimen images as well. […] we see sometimes on PubPeer […] things like doctored NMR spectra in chemistry.' The latest seems to be related to your observation, although it's outside my area of expertise.
You can get a sense of the type of things that are reported on PubPeer reading this thread among many others. As an example, a close examination of this figure shows the use of copy paste to fabricate data:

Or this one, initially published, not in your average pay-for-publish shady 'open access' journal, but in Nature, that has a rather obvious copy-pasted middle panel:

(both the articles where retracted).
In your position, your first reaction is totally appropriate. Here is what I think is the best course of action:

Contact the author(s) it is a good way of showing that you are concerned but not necessarily interested in public shaming. If the authors do not react, then:
Contact the publisher (mentioning that you already contacted the authors to no avail) as suggested by @alarge in a comment. If it's a reputable publisher, the issue will be taken very seriously.
If all fails, you are left with public reporting of the issue, anonymously or not, via social media or the website listed above. Note that you are always at risk of putting yourself in trouble when reporting misconduct, the same as in any other field, so weight this risk if you intend to associate your name with the complaint.

EDIT:

Should I report that to the journal or leave it as it is (may ruin
  someone's career)?

I think that, as a scientist, you have a responsibility to report that sort of misconduct when you see it. What may ruin someone's career is their sloppy ethics, not your concern for integrity.

it may not be as bad as it seems. I often have to edit images from commercial software packages because the text is too small (or blurred) to read in the print version. Usually it's the axes that I have to fix because many packages make the fonts too small. The authors in this case may have simply overwritten with the same values, just in a larger text or (different/emphasizing font or color).

No, its bad. Read my last comment on my question.

First you should discuss the matter with a trusted colleague or two to check that they agree with you.  This is a heavy accusation and before doing anything you should check that you haven't missed anything and that there aren't other plausible explanations.  You may very well be right, but it's also easy for one person to make an error without outside feedback.


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How often are poster presentations rejected from conferences?
I've never given any sort of presentation at a conference before, but I was under the impression that poster presentations are less prestigious and also much easier to get accepted.
I submitted a late abstract in the second round call for "late breaking" posters. I will hear back supposedly by the end of the week whether the abstract has been accepted or rejected.
The abstract is definitely on-topic for the conference (it's a very large, general applied math conference with multiple sessions in various subfields, but the poster session is for all applied math fields). My PI/advisor is very well-known within my field. We worked on the project together, although I would be the one presenting the poster if it gets accepted. She read over the abstract and helped make corrections/suggestions as well.
Just wondering generally how often a poster presentation would be rejected in this case.

You know what the problem is here: there is no information on what quality other posters are of. Hence, there is no way for anyone to tell. Just wait patiently. And best of luck! :)

An excerpt from this answer by @gerrit to a related question: "In my field, posters are not peer-reviewed and virtually always accepted, if not clearly off-topic or rejected for political reasons."

In my area (circuits and systems) posters are claimed to be as prestigious as lecture presentations (and there are no separate calls). However, in practice the "worse" part of the accepted papers (~45% of all submitted papers are accepted for the major conference) are typically assigned to poster presentation. But they are accepted as full contributions and you can not tell from data bases if it was a poster or a lecture presentation afterwards. This seems to be common practice in many adjacent electrical engineering fields as well.

In physics, typically none are rejected.  At some conferences, no talks are rejected either.

Impossible to tell. Contributions are rejected if the submitted abstract is horribly bad and/or off topic. Otherwise the venue is filled with the best contributions or eventually more sessions are added. A rather good contribution might be rejected or downgraded to poster if the space is just full. An extended deadline for submission however means there is still space,

In my field (Electrical Engineering), poster and oral presentations are usually accompanied by a full paper submission (or atleast an extended abstract) which is what is peer-reviewed, so the acceptance ratio of posters would be the same as that of the oral presentations.

It depends on the conference and the field. Some conferences have limited space for posters and there is plenty of submissions for those slots, so some percentage are rejected.  Other conference have space for all submitted posters.
Mainly, you should view posters as opportunities to meet other researchers, and to practice your skills in presenting your research and answering questions.  It also often is a requirement to get school or department funding to pay for your conference expenses.

I guess it really depends on your field and your conference organizer.
As a poster reviewer, I did reject some posters (around 2%), but they were really poorly written (I can't understand their English), the study did not make sense (poor methodology) or it is totally irrelevant to the conference theme. While it may seem the rejection rate is low, remember that usually people who submit poster are graduate student with their supervisors as second author, so there are some quality control before they are submitted for review, and that could partly be the reason why most poster got accepted. After all, poster is more like preliminary finding sharings and conference is for exchange of ideas, as long as the idea make sense, I see no reason to reject them.
But I heard some conference is really just a business and they got their money from people presenting poster, so they may accept anything...

In my field it is rare for a competent poster abstract to be rejected. There are only so many places for talks, so that can be selective. I sometimes prefer to present certain pieces of work as a poster because the opportunities for discussion are better, and it allows my students to talk about their work instead of having me do it. Posters are not automatically considered bad.

It would be good if you specified what your field is.


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Is experience abroad important for your career?
I'm just finishing my Bachelor's degree in Geochemistry at a German university and will soon start my Master's degree, but I've been wondering for a few weeks whether a stay abroad (1 semester or even 1 year) is important and when it's best to do it. In other words, should I do it during my Master's degree or during my dissertation?
What are your experiences, or has an experience abroad been important for your academic career?

@Roland That can be expanded into an answer ;-)

In and of itself it has no meaning to an academic career, no matter when you do it. What matters is what you do, not where.
That said, there can be opportunities for study abroad with key people in your field. If you can manage that, then you can, perhaps, produce something worth putting on your CV.
But, "I studied for a year in Spain (or wherever)" counts for nothing on a CV, unless you are a student of that language and/or culture.
Geochemistry (which I don't know anything about) might benefit from time spent on a project in the field somewhere interesting to that field. But only because it can lead to contributions specific to the field.

This might be true for some regions of the world, but in developing countries experience in a wealthy country can help your career.  Often it is just assumed without evidence that anything from a wealthy country is better.  Also, in Australian universities, a year of experience at Cambridge is worth more to your career than a year of doing the same thing anywhere else; it puts you in the elite social club of people who know all about how Australian universities/culture/weather are better than Cambridge.

If you want to join the academic elite in Australia, it's quite helpful to be able to speak with authority about how Australia is less elitist than the UK.

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How much time should I spend on illustrations?
I am in the process of publishing my first paper in geosciences. I have developed a model for the paper and now I want to create 8 figures. However, already I've been working on it for 2-3 weeks (for 4 figures) and can't get anything else done. How much time should I spend on the figures and what do you do to speed up the process? Furthermore, I am still at the lowest level of the "science hierarchy" and unfortunately cannot delegate the tasks to others.
I realise that there is no absolute answer, but when is it too much?

It's hard to give an answer without knowing the relevant details. Figures can be very essential and improving them can make a big difference, but in other cases it is acceptable if there are some imperfections, or they could be replaced by other figures that are much easier to do. Also nobody here knows why you spend so much time, i.e., whether what you would want to achieve can be achieved much faster/easier. You better ask somebody who has experience with your type of figures and your type of publication in the same field.

I have to commit that my code is quite bulky and not very efficent, so it takes around 8 Hours to create one map using this code after that I work with Inkscape

I sadly mean Nr 1) .... I have no one to ask cause I used Python and my sorrounding is using R so they cann´t help me (I wrote the code before I meet my working group)

If you are re-running your analyses (each run taking 8 hours and ending with a figure), then you are not "just spending time on illustrations". You are running different analyses. That is a different question. Multiple weeks just for figures does sound excessive, but investing multiple weeks in running different analyses sounds much more reasonable.

In the 8 hours of computation there must be some step that can be re-used. Address them, save the numpy array to a file (there is a function), if you work with dictionaries save them as json (please note that when you reload them the keys will be always string).
And of course, get used to have a profiler like numba, you may discover that a single cycle/function is what make you tremendously slow (for example, doing a sqrt with native function instead of numpy function may slow you down of a factor 1000 ....)

I typically avoid all postprocessing (e.g. InkScape). If your figure creation process is fully automated, you can stop optimizing your Figures whenever you see fit. And you don't have to repeat a single line of code. You can delegate: to your computer.

Time is not a very good measure of how much effort is needed. You must make the meaning of your paper understandable by others; if your figures are not understandable, you must continue to put in more time until you can achieve this. Some aspects of figures are absolutely critical yet take very little time to make acceptable. An expert may take less time than a novice, that doesn't mean they can each stop working after the same amount of time, it just means the expert can produce more. This is true of almost every task.
Strategically, it may be worth improving figures to the point that they not only communicate the message but also communicate competence or expertise. This is very difficult to measure, and I'd say impossible to put any number on. I think the best measure is to ask some colleagues you trust for their honest opinion of what impression your figures make.
From the comments, it sounds like your problem is not about the time and effort placed in figures, but rather the computational efficiency of your code. This is an entirely separate problem, and I'd recommend getting advice with your code from someone who understands both programming and your field. It's of course also possible that the inefficiency is inherent in your algorithm and unavoidable without some grand technological breakthrough. In that case, you may be able to speed things up with different hardware but ultimately if you're limited by your algorithm that's just where you are. Improving the speed may be worth a separate paper.

Thanks for putting "numbers" in what people often overlook!
For the first figures you prepare in your career it is necessary to spend an enormous amount of time, unfortunately.
The good aspect is that you will reuse these figures, hopefully, not only for scientific communications but also for proposals, grants requests, abstracts, etc. etc.
The time you spent was well spent if it was spent in building automated way to prepare the figures, badly spent if you spent it by fine tuning the single figures with paint.
And if you were constantly re-running analysis/models to prepare the figures... ugly, but sometimes necessary.
The only useful technique to save time, with nowadays available tools and in the long-run, it is to save the figures in vectorial formats, so they can be modified with Inkscape and similar tools on the fly. Otherwise, you may have a nice bitmap that is practically impossible to modify in a decent way.

Your figures are very important to the communication of your results (I imagine this is especially true in geoscience). Your figures should maximize the amount of data communication while minimizing noise or aspects that are not quintessential to the point the figure is meant to communicate. In my field, figures are very important to this end too (in econometrics), and I spend lots and lots of time making my tables and figures such that they do the goal I've outlined. And if I'm honest, it's an iterative process: you'll spend some time, but after you've submitted it, you'll wish you'd spent just a little more time. So without giving an exact number, a lot of time. Best you can do is automate it with good coding practices.

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text:
How to sign a professional email as a retired professor in two departments . .
Wise colleagues,
I am in need of your counsel, please. I am a retired professor requiring clarification on how to sign a professional email. Although I am happily retired, there remain certain occasions when one needs, or simply wishes to use one's professional title. After all, it was laboriously earned.
Although the answer seems simple enough, during my tenure I held a professorship in two departments. Both departments were in the Fine Arts division, but my job title (professorship) was different in each. And, I was never simultaneously professed. (Is that a thing?) I certainly don't want to appear as something, or someone I was not.  But, all of this rigamarole makes for a very long signature, which feels rather ridiculous.
I'm quite sure there exists a precedent of which I am quite unsure. One of my dearest colleagues was a distinguished Professor of English. She always had an answer to these curious inquires. Alas, she is no longer with us. Would that I held her vast knowledge.
Thank you kindly for imparting your wisdom. Health, and prosperity to each of you!
(I'm guessing the following format is incorrect, but I took a stab in the dark.)
Cheers!
Complimentary close,
Name, Academic Credentials
Job title #1, Department of Theater (Do I place "retired" somewhere? And, should my last position come first?)
Name of Theater Center?
Job title #2, Department of Music
Division? (Not necessary?)
Not even close?

Were you retired from one before starting the other? Are you located in a relatively informal (US) or formal (Germany) culture?

How did you sign your emails right before you retired? Add “(retired)” in the right place and you are done.

@JonCuster That's exactly what I've done.

Congratulations on keeping contributing after retiring!
I would say that there is no general answer to your question, but sometime, you can achieve a better solution by questioning the premises of the question, so let me have a try:

Do you need to use the same signature for all your emails?

I would imagine that if one title was always "superior" to the other, you would not have this issue.
If which title is more appropriate depends upon your correspondent, you could adapt your signature to your correspondent, and omit irrelevant titles.
Sure, choosing which information is more relevant to the situation is more work, but it is a work which needs to be done amyway, either by your correspondent or by you!

Can you point to a webpage with the complete information in your signature?

This would allow you to keep the signature short with the minimum information that anybody to whom you write might need, and a pointer to the more complete information for those who need it (hence not "lying by omission).
My email signature is pushing this to the extreme: I do not even put my family name in it, just my first name and a pointer to my webpage. I do extend it when I write to someone who does not know me (either in the text of the email, or in the signature), but 90% of my emails are for people who already know me, so they do not need any more information than my first name, and a reminder about where to find more information should they need it.
Getting a personal website is pretty easy nowadays, but I would assume that one of your two previous departments would be happy to setup and maintain one for you: it is very cheap, and adds a nice touch of continuity to keep contact with emeritus members.

The two questions are independent, and the solutions that such questions suggest can be combined in various ways, from the most complicated (e.g. maintaining two webpages and pointing to one or the other and having them pointing to each other) to the simplest (e.g. choosing one title depending on the correspondent and/or topic of the email, but pointing to a single webpage with all the information "omitted").
I hope it helps! Keep contributing, but take care of yourself first!

Some excellent ideas. Thank you! I don't use any titles on my personal emails either. I must admit that I don't have a personal website. I'm just old enough to not have even considered that as an option. Ha!

@Prof.DA62 If my answer was useful, you might want to select it as the "Best" (and only) answer to your question ;o)


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How often have advanced degrees been revoked due to misbehavior as an undergrad?
Has anyone ever lost their PH.D. or MA from something they did when they were an undergrad?
I'm going to use an example of a college buddy who has an MA in history but bullshitted a project once as a sophomore.  They did a presentation on an event that they didn't actually go to.  What would happen if that was found out?
I thought about this after reading several articles. It appears that when individuals lose their advanced degrees, they typically do so because of plagiarism related to their thesis or falsifying data in a study.  In other words, things they did in their post graduate years.

You might be hard pressed to find somebody who didn't "bullshit" some project as an undergrad. Just the way it is...

While not entirely impossible, and it may have happened a time or two, it would be extremely unusual for a graduate degree to be rescinded for an activity that happened in undergraduate years. The person would have passed a lot of milestones since then.
A lot of undergraduate misbehavior is handled within the institution and sanctions applied, but almost always the details are kept private to the institution, even when known. And academic misconduct, rather than actual serious crimes, are typically handled as an internal matter.
I doubt that the scenario you describe would be treated as serious enough, if discovered much later, to even rescind the bachelor's degree.
Occasionally, a degree will be rescinded later when the person commits some serious crime (pedophilia) or the actual process of obtaining that degree is questioned (plagiarism). The former case is due to the fact that the association between the institution and the individual reflects badly on the institution. The latter situation is because the degree was obtained fraudulently.
But both of those are pretty rare. Honorary degrees, as opposed to earned degrees, are probably the more common situation, when the individual "honored" commits some public deed generally considered horrendous. Think Jeffrey Epstein, though I don't know if he is an example.


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Is there any meaning in having your paper published in the first page (p.1) of a conference proceeding?
I am new to the Academia and unsure if there is any extra meaning in having your paper published on the first page of a conference proceeding. Are the final order of papers just randomly sorted out?

It might possibly have some meaning for some conferences, but not all, and maybe not many. In fact, many (most?) conferences are organized into tracks and the proceedings likewise.
In CS, I've never given a thought to the meaning of paper order in any conference, worldwide over a career. But fields differ in their general practice.
A very specialized conference would probably use its own concept of ordering, and it might involve perceived interest or quality. But you'd have to ask the committee.
I doubt, however, whether a formal randomization is used.

And if order is important, is being the author of the last paper something of a downer?

Indeed. By definition, some paper will be first and some paper will be last.

@JonCuster, I suppose we could publish on a Möbius band an avoid the issue altogether.

@Buffy, I thank you for your time in answering the question. The reason I will hold a few days before finally accepting it is because I was hoping to get an insight from someone who deals in organizing such conferences. In the absence of such, I'll make sure to return here. I also had a small giggle from your Möbius strip remark, here.


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Submitted paper to journal, one referee report OK, other terrible and IMHO ignorant, wrong. How do I proceed?
One referee report is awful. Comments are basically two types:

Please re-invent the wheel and write a primer to the whole field.

Must supply more basic background to the field (analogy: paper is about one aspect of mouse genetics, referee wants me to explain what genetics are, and what mice are - the request is that broad, that absurd.)

Must supply all details of my source material because paper must stand alone, just referring to previously published work (mine and others) is insufficient (That would require a shelf of books to cover it.)

Clearly you don't understand the technicalities of the subject.

I don't understand the subject. (I quite literally wrote the standard reference book).

I use the technical terminology wrong. (This is a "scientific use" / "popular use" issue, I think; they use the looser laypersons' definition, I use it as per our discipline.)

Half the publications I refer to don't understand the subject either. They are wrong about everything. (Again, these are publications by respected authorities.)

Editor says "revise and resubmit". But how? Do I just write to the editor and refute these points one by one? What are my likely outcomes if I do just that?

You should not take advice from people who have not read your paper.

Please don’t vandalize your post. See the help center for suitable alternative options.

Related, possible duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/167153/i-got-a-very-bad-review-from-one-reviewer-but-the-paper-was-not-rejected/167156#167156

Since I don't know the editor, consider this as a suggestion to be considered, not necessarily a recommendation, but it is what I would personally do.
Revise the paper as best you can taking whatever is valuable from the reviews. In general, it isn't necessary to take every recommendation, but each should be considered.
I would resubmit my best effort with a note to the editor that you believe that one of the reviews was wrong in (nearly) every respect and so much of it couldn't be incorporated. Further, I'd suggest that the reviewer was possibly (probably) the wrong person to do the review.
Then let the editor(s) do their job. If you get rejected, submit elsewhere. You might, however, get a new review cycle with a different reviewer. That takes time, of course, but gets some additional advice that might be valuable.
But a detailed rebuttal probably won't help and will possibly seem defensive. Possibly offer to submit a detailed rebuttal if the editor requests it.

Where the unreasonable referee says "write a primer to the whole field" perhaps instead you can provide some references of primers to the whole field.
Where the referee says "I don't understand this technical point", you should add a reference for that particular technical point.
If the referee objects to a usage that you consider correct in the technical sense, add a bit taking the time to explain that it is, indeed, a technical usage.
In general, you can probably make your paper better (and satisfy the editor) by adding references and little explanatory sentences here and there.

I have been in situations like this before, also from the editor's side. As editor, as long as I don't reject the paper, I have some hope that it can be brought up to publishable standard. If the negative reviewer actually recommended to "reject", this already implies that as editor I don't fully agree with that reviewer. This means that you'd probably have a chance to convince me that the points made by the negative reviewer are mostly invalid. I would however expect a point by point response and that you make an effort to understand if some of the issues raised by that reviewer actually can be used to improve the paper. Ultimately as an editor it is my interest to have a paper that is as good as possible. Sometimes this does not mean that I want everything fulfilled that a reviewer wishes. I'd be open to arguments from both sides and would like to be convinced by you in case you don't follow that reviewer.
I can't predict the outcome obviously without having any idea about the paper and its content, however with me as an editor you'd have a chance to convince me in a point by point response. Less so if you generally write that the reviewer has been bad and shouldn't have been chosen as a reviewer in the first place (even if I may ultimately agree; I have for sure seen reviews that made inappropriate demands and as editor I will not impose these - but even then there may be one thing or two in such a review from which you can learn and improve the paper).
I should maybe add that as author and reviewer I occasionally have seen editors who wouldn't take a clear stance against one of their reviewers, and ultimately won't accept a revision if you can't convince the critical reviewer themselves, regardless of whether their demands are justified and reasonable. I don't think this is good (my interpretation in such a case is that the editor may be too lazy to think through the issues themselves), and I think it's a minority behaviour, but it does happen. A bit of luck is needed in publishing.


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I missed a paper from the past year which is very close to what I am doing. What should I do?
I have worked on a project for 8 months and am due to submit it in a month. Recently I found a paper (by a professor from a different university) which is very similar to mine and even goes a step ahead. I missed this paper completely and now I am afraid to talk my advisor, though I know I have to.
This was my first paper as I am just completing my MS and will start my PhD in fall. I was pretty excited about it. Now I just want to cry and die. How do I tackle this now?

Go ahead and cry—we all feel that way from time to time. (Don't die!) Then consult the excellent answers below :)

"now I am afraid to talk my advisor" Why? What do you imagine you did wrong?

One course of action you should also take is to reach out to the author of the paper, and start building a relationship. Maybe send them the draft you had and start a discussion.

@Tilo having contact is harmless (to some degree), but no, I disagree with sending the draft to anyone else.

You might also benefit from reading this related question.

You're now an expert on the topic so you're in a good position to build on the work, but that's about all you can do.

@Andrew Which is what he should do. Now that he has a good idea of what's going on, he should now try to quickly add something one and a half or one and a quarter steps ahead.

Take a deep breath. This type of thing happens all the time to everyone in the business. I'd say more than half of the citations that go into my literature searches are things that I discover within the last stretch of writing a paper. Often it's only your long experience trying to write the thing that gives you the perspective to spot these connections.
If you just discovered this new paper, take a break from the whole thing for a day or two over the weekend.
Then come back with a fresh set of eyes to your current work and see if you can identify where it differs with this previous paper. In my experience, it almost always does in some important way. Your adviser will have some ideas on how to proceed.

Being scooped this way is a common thing, and happens even for professionals log into their careers. That this is happening to you at this point in your career is to some extent a good thing; it means you are thinking along the same lines that some professionals are doing.
But what you should do: look over what they did carefully and see if any of your work is different. How different? It may be that differences in your approach make parts of yours still worthwhile. But you absolutely need to talk with your adviser about this. The sooner you do so, the sooner you can get more specific advice which will depend on exactly what is in your project and what is in this paper.

This is a great point, you should take confidence that you are producing work sophisticated enough to be scooped before you've started your PhD! It's not a nice feeling being scooped, but it is very common, and means in many ways you are on the right track.

Depending on the area of research, you could rewrite some parts of your paper and reframe your paper as a verification of findings from the last year's paper. Perhaps if there are substantial differences in methodology, you could make some additional arguments. This will both preserve your academic integrity and increase the quality and importance of your paper.
Also, I think it might also be beneficial to come into contact with the professor, who wrote a paper that is similar to yours. Perhaps you might find career and/or academic opportunities that way, or perhaps some insight that could help you in your situation

Really good point about reaching out to the other author. Having just published on it, they're quite possibly the single most knowledgeable person in the industry to talk with on that specific niche subject. They're also very likely to be asked to peer review the work anyway, given that specialization.

With the amount of information out there, it can be easy for many topics to overlap somewhat. As long as you properly cite everything, you shouldn't worry too much.
In writing, the best way is to take a break from looking at your paper. After a while, go back and highlight the similarities and differences. Is it the writing style? Your ideas? What specifically sets yours apart? Remember your purpose/aim can be the same, but perhaps your methodology, discussion, results and conclusions are different.
If your paper is different enough, perhaps you can cite that paper you discovered just to be safe.
Of course, let your adviser know ASAP of this situation so you can work out something together. I wish you all the best!

How do I tackle this now?

You should be very pleased. You have discovered a source more credible than yours, that arrived at similar conclusions to yours - thereby bolstering your conclusions.
You are not required to be omniscient, and it's virtually impossible in the internet era to say something that hasn't been said before and is available, if you dig around enough.
Just explain to your advisor that you overlooked that particular paper, but are encouraged that 'so and so' also said something similar to you.
If your advisor, is reasonable, they should give you additional credit for 1 - being honest; 2 - arriving at similar conclusions to the paper you came upon late in your work.


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Writing References for a Weaker Candidate
Two of my students interns have applied for graduate school and are now asking me for references. Both did well, but one did really well. The weaker student is still excellent, and will do well in grad school I’m sure, but my reference for him will not be as strong.
They are applying to some of the same programs.
How do I reflect their ranking in the letters without completely killing the weaker candidate’s chances?
How honest do I get with the weaker candidate? I think it may be better that they apply to more (and different) programs, but don’t want them to get the impression they are not good enough.
More context:

The interns worked on one project together where the weaker student was the lead (culminated in a submission to a top venue). The stronger intern had a separate project that he successfully completed, in addition to two more projects that are currently in the works.
Both are applying to top US schools.

Let me suggest a few things you might consider. The one thing you don't want to do, of course, is to explicitly compare them. Depend on the fact that an application is multi faceted and while letters are very important, so are other things.
I suggest that you first think about what would happen if it were turned around and you were receiving the letters. What would you want to know about each of them. What positive traits, especially, are you looking for and would want some assurance about. You might make a list, separately, for each candidate.
Next, I would write the two letters on different days, giving yourself a bit of time to let the first one settle out so that it isn't the freshest thing on your mind when you write the other.
Finally, I would write the letter for the "weaker", but still strong, student first. Say what you need to say about that student to best support the application. Be honest, of course, and stick to facts. What has this student done to make them a good candidate? How strongly do you feel about their future success? You don't need to send the letter yet, but set it aside.
Then after, a day (or so), think about the other student and write that letter. Don't refer to the first letter, but use the same criteria.
Ideally, the letters should be independent, but it is probably impossible to assure that completely. But give it a try. Use some technique in which you can think about each of them independently of the other. And if you would surely accept one or the other of the students, or both, into your own program, say that, but separately for each. That is the most important part of any recommendation, perhaps.

Keep in mind that if the committee were only looking for a one-dimensional ranking on a strong-weak scale, they would not ask for a letter but a numerical score. Of course, an overall assessment is part of the recommendation, but it is more informative if you can evaluate different aspects of the candidates' qualifications too. This should also make it easier to communicate who is the stronger candidate without writing too negatively about the other.
You can highlight the respective strengths of A and B, but make it clear which is stronger through (1) the degree of praise may be higher for A, and (2) the skills of A that you choose to highlight may indicate higher chance of immediate success, while the skills of B are more relevant to learning potential and longer-term development.
For instance, many committees can tell the difference between: "A is one of the most capable, independent problem-solvers that I have ever mentored. For instance, she was able to devise a solution to a research problem with minimal assistance and the results will soon be published in a first-author paper." versus "B is a promising researcher and has progressed a lot in terms of knowledge and technical skills during his time in my lab. B is an excellent team player and, if matched with a good mentor, has the potential to be very successful in graduate school."

One thing that can help is having concrete reference points.  For example, you might say what caliber of graduate school you think is appropriate for the student.  If you say one student should go to a top 5 school and the other a top 10, then it's clear which one you're more enthusiastic about, but you also won't have destroyed the chances of the comparatively weaker student at schools that know they're not in the top 5.

Thanks @NoahSnyder. Would that not slightly offend the admissions committee? I mean I'd basically be saying to them something like "your school is not quite good, so you can have my weaker intern". Need to write that one carefully...

You don’t say anything about how you think the schools they’re applying to are ranked, just what caliber you think is appropriate for the student.  Another way you could say this is to pick a comparison to grad students at one of the schools you’re familiar with.  I know Indiana, Columbia, and Berkeley and might write that a student compares well to a typical student at one of those, and this calibrates what my enthusiasm level means.

You can check this: Writing a letter of recommendation for a mediocre student
But I would advise to merely write a simple letter describing how average the student is. That is not a bad thing. Average does not mean mediocre. Mention first that he took 2 classes with you and:

Attended as per reglament/regulations
Presented his work/homework as requested each time.
Got along with other students and never got into
a fight.
Was respectful to his superiors and equals.
Kept himself orderly in class

A person does not need to stand out or be exceptional. A recommendation letter can recommend how average good is someone. Grades are not important if he did pass the course, which was the objective, and in some regards or countries, the capacity to get along with others (AKA dont get in trouble) is even more important. Some institutions will prefer a candidate that can work along people and follow orders than one that always tries to show off.

@Morgan Rodgers Amusing 'throw under a bus'  as 'Useful/not harmful', the answer clearly states how to be polite and still mention valuable stuff.

@Morgan Rodgers OP did not specify country or origin or destination for the letters. For the rest of the world such type of letter would work, although in most of the world recommendation letters are merely optional or are even frown upon as nepotism.


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How to cite a repeatedly used direct quote?
I am writing a seminar paper where I would like to reference one scholar's (A) view of another scholar's (B) work. This view (that scholar A holds) reoccurs throughout my paper.
Am I required to reference the quote every time I mention it, is it enough if I cite it the first time, or does it need to be cited in every section of the paper?
I am using the Harvard citation style.
Example:

Scholar A describes Scholar B's theory as a "genealogical
  constructivism with iterative descriptive connotations" (Scholar A
  2007, p.8)

later in the text:

Other authors subscribe to the "genealogical constructivism with
  iterative descriptive connotations" movement.

Do I need a citation in the second reference?

Why not say something like this: "Other authors subscribe to the Scholar A's (view on) OR (description of) OR (definition of) the Scholar B's theory"?

I'm sure I'm in a different field, but I would say no, you don't, because you're just reusing the quote to describe something you already recalled and cited.  However, that seems like a mouthful, so I would suggest creating some shorthand for it, such as "genealogical constructivism perspective" or GCIDC perspective.  (In any case, look at other papers in your field for ideas, both regarding my suggestion and your original question.)