text:
PhD application denial - Is it usual to ask reasons/recommendations?
I got a denial to a PhD application I sent. The mail basically stated that they had picked another candidate and wished me luck.
I am doing my master in a German university and I applied to another department in the same university
Is it usual to ask the reasons of denial?. Would it even make sense?. If it is something like e.g. low GPA, there is pretty much nothing I can do to change that. If however it is something like "your motivation letter was too long" or something like that I guess it is salvageable.

Often is not even anything specific. They could have had 4 applicants, all very good but just one is better.

One thing I think the answers below aren't focusing on that might be worth doing so: the fact that this is at the university you are doing your masters at.  I would think that would be a bit different, because you would have some personal relationships (even if it's not in that department, your professors may know the professors in that department) and so could be more receptive to "What can I do to improve my application".  I don't feel like I can answer the question myself, but it would be interesting to see an answer focused on that part of things.

You can certainly try asking, but I expect you won't get a useful answer.  In the cases I'm familiar with (mathematics departments in the U.S.), you aren't likely to get any official answer beyond "no comment".  This isn't because the department is being unhelpful or deliberately withholding information they could reasonably share.  Instead, it's because offering useful feedback is really hard.
Rejected applicants sometimes imagine that the rejection may have been due to some identifiable flaw they could fix, but in my experience this is rarely the case.  Most rejections are based on an overall evaluation, rather than isolated flaws.  Even if a single problem derailed the application, there might have been other issues that were never identified because discussion stopped when the application died.  Nobody wastes times on hypotheticals like "Would the candidate have been admitted if it weren't for this problem?", since the committee is eager to move on to the more contentious cases.  So even if the committee can point to a specific problem, they generally can't predict that fixing it would lead to admission.  It's not particularly useful or encouraging to be told "Here's a serious problem with your application, but don't assume you'll get in if you fix it.  We haven't even considered that question, so who knows?"  (Plus there are legal issues: you don't want to be sued by someone who is told their application was rejected for a specific reason and then discovers that you admitted another applicant with the same issue.  You might have had an excellent reason - perhaps the rest of the other application was magnificent - but it could still look like a pretext for discrimination.  It's safest not to offer any explanation that oversimplifies the full decision making process.)
These cases with isolated flaws are really not typical.  Instead, most feedback would fall into two categories: "Your application just wasn't good enough overall for us to even consider you" or "Your application was good and you made the short list, but you were outcompeted by people with even stronger applications".  The first sort of feedback adds insult to injury, and it's wise to avoid making enemies among the applicants you reject.  The second sort of feedback is also not constructive, since there's usually no good way to convey to the applicant how the final comparison was made.  The evaluation process consisted of multiple readers, perhaps with differing opinions, followed by a committee discussion that compared the application with the competition.  Confidential letters of recommendation played a major role, and in any case the process was lengthy and involved enough that it's difficult to summarize it usefully.
For comparison, U.S. National Science Foundation review panels provide applicants with copies of the written reviews and ratings of their proposals, together with a brief summary of the panel discussion.  This is about as much transparency as one could reasonably hope for, but it rarely leaves rejected applicants with a clear idea of how to improve their future proposals.  In many cases they don't even have a good understanding of why they didn't make it (beyond "some other proposals were even more compelling").

Our department receives requests for feedback from rejected candidates fairly regularly, so yes it is quite typical. However, my university operates an institution-wide policy that no feedback will be given to unsuccessful applicants. I appreciate that this is not helpful, but (1) providing feedback to the (many) unsuccessful candidates would impose a large additional administrative burden, and (2) some candidates who bear a grudge would invariably use any feedback provided in legal proceedings against their rejection.
So, in short: it can't hurt to ask, but be prepared for the distinct possibility that your request might be refused. In the first instance, it is advisable to write to an admissions administrator rather than a faculty member.

Its interesting that this is a university-wide policy. I cannot speak to other departments, but I know faculty in my graduate program (in psychology) have provided brief feedback when its been requested by unsuccessful applicants. In rare cases where the interviewing student raised significant red flags regarding inappropriate behavior, there has even been discussion of our program contacting their undergraduate mentor or letter writers.

I understand the legal issue, and I understand that admissions committee are already processing tons of applications, but frankly, with the application fees that university require to even apply and the amount of time and effort it takes would be kind of nice to implement some kind of pipeline for that kind of feedback, maybe with that feedback being very brief and formulated in a way that does not say directly "this is why we rejected you", but still.

Most departments only have a few spots available with quite a bit of competition; in the majority of rejections, the answer is just that you weren't in their top n applications, not that you did something wrong.

The institution may have a feedback process that you can apply to. In many cases there are just too many applications to be able to offer or give feedback on. Depending on the country you live in you might also be able to use Freedom of Information legislation, but the process can be quite onerous. Could you get a friend in a graduate program to have a read of your application and give you some recommendations?

I actually wrote my application with the help of a current PhD student (who's about to graduate and is someone I consider a "good" scientist, i.e. several publications), and also with my current master thesis advisor, who is also someone with a lot of experience.

Even if a Freedom of Information request is an option legally, I suspect it would really annoy the people at the institution that turned you down, which is not good if you have any intention of reapplying. There's also no guarantee it would yield any useful information.

If you're applying for a "free-standing" PhD position, then it is very unlikely that you will receive any feedback whatsoever, as such searches are tantamount to job searches. In general, candidates are not given feedback for why they are turned down for such positions, and I would expect such policies to apply to PhD candidates as well.

What do you mean with "freestanding"?

A single position not connected with a "program" that centrally screens applications for an entire department.

I once got rejected from a with-a-stipend Masters' program (not exactly the same, granted), without a clear reason being given. Eventually I "heard it through the grapevine" that the department ran out of money on start-of-year stipendiaries and couldn't afford accepting the mid-years - but nobody would ever tell me that on paper (= officially).
So, even if they would be willing to let you know, they might not be willing to let you know officially. Sniffing might be in order...


text:
Should I apologize to my professor for not attending a lecture?
Long story short, I was unable to attend a lecture of a course I'm interested in. I met my professor directly at her office and asked questions and extra material for her course. Moreover since I'm interested in her course, I've read some extra notes, books and papers. After stating an advanced question she suggested me to read some extra papers and extended bibliography.
How can I "apologize" my professor for not being able to attend the lecture, after showing such excitement? Should I send her an e-mail or talk to her directly? (I guess face-to-face discussion is preferred.)

What is the culture of attending lectures in your country or university? Apologizing would be needed if you did something wrong to the professor, which to me does not seem to be the case here, as you didn't agree on meeting at the lecture. Obviously the professor might wonder why you didn't attend after your conversation, but that would only require an explanation, not an apology.

From the first paragraph, it sounds like you went to meet your professor and ask questions after you missed the course.  However, it sounds this is not what you mean in your question.

I met my professor a week before the missed lecture, in fact right after the previous lecture.

When you see her next, say something like

I apologize for not showing up for lecture last week. I had a
  doctor's appointment/seminar talk/committee meeting/friend's PhD
  defense I had to attend.

Nothing more is needed than just to convey the message that you had a good reason to not attend class. Professors are busy people, they know that missing meetings is a fact of life. It only becomes awkward if you stayed away from class because you wanted to watch the last episode of Walking Dead/went out drinking with your friends/etc.

Goodness, no. Professors get upwards of 100 emails a day. Things happen, but don't expect me to repeat everything from the lecture that is "important" (i.e. on the exam). Ask someone who attended.

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text:
Dealing with intern supervisor who underestimates my abilities
I am an undergraduate student who got into a voluntary internship for a year in my department.
Without going into much detail, I'm a trainee in the lab where programming lessons are held with lots of computers available for the students(Teaching Lab).
The main problem of concern is that my supervisor, who also happens to be the administrator of the lab, does not seem to believe in my abilities and underestimates my intelligence, which I can't understand why.
When I signed up for the internship I submitted my resume, followed by a short interview from the university. I can say I got the job easily mainly due to my background.
I was hoping that I was going to work on something productive, like a research project. On the contrary, my supervisor seems to be very lazy and constantly assigns chores to me (cleaning, being his personal mailman on the university etc).
At the start since he found out I was bored he suggested to study some basic HTML (Fact is, I worked as a professional web developer some time ago!). If I reply that the tasks he sets for me are easy, he gets mad and tries to get me wrong so that he can show that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Professors who knew me before and visited the lab asked my supervisor to offer me some motivation for extended bibliography and some more productive learning. He answered that if I have the right foundations then we can negotiate for something more productive! (Yet, he only has one paper, published 20 years ago).
What are your opinions on this? I was about to withdraw due to boredom but I only have some months left. Should I talk to a professor about this topic? Am I expecting too much or am overqualified?

If this is an unpaid internship, and is a waste of time (if I understand you correctly), what are the reasons for not just quitting?

tries to get me wrong so that he can show that I have no idea what I'm talking about, did he succeed doing so?

@FaheemMitha by saying it is an unpaid internship I mean that it is not part of my studies! It's something I do just to gain "experience".

@scaahu I try to seem clueless so that I won't initiate a dispute

So you are in the upper left corner, huh?

@Nickolas I wasn't saying that because it was an unpaid internship it was a waste of time. They were unrelated statements/observations. My point was, if those things are true, then why stay?

@FaheemMitha I guess because I only have little time until I finish.

"I only have some months left." That sounds like quite a lot of time to me. How many hours a week are you working at this job?

@FaheemMitha There's about a month an a half left. I started about 7 months ago. I work everyday for about 3 hours.

So around 100-130 hours. Not a huge amount of time, but not nothing. I guess the question is whether there are reasons for sticking it out. Avoid upsetting someone or someones you don't want to upset?

@aparente001 Please don't apply [tag:emotional-responses] to a question unless it explicitly asks about dealing with an emotion, not just about dealing with a situation that may involve some emotion.

@ff524 - It seemed to fit here because of "I was about to withdraw due to boredom."  Boredom is an emotion, and the OP asked for advice dealing with that emotion.

@aparente001 the main point of the question is the supervisor, not the boredom. Tags should describe the main point of the question.

@ff524 - Well, I disagree, because the OP wrote, "I was about to withdraw due to boredom," but you have more experience setting tags, so I will respect your decision.  This issue isn't very important to me so I don't mind letting you decide (even though I disagree).

I don't say this lightly, but given everything you've said: I think you should probably quit the internship, or at least present the prospect of that to your supervisor.
Some key points:
1) You say it's a "voluntary internship".  Well, all academic internships are voluntary (I hope!), so I think what you mean is that you are a volunteer, i.e., unpaid.  [Added: I just looked this up, and apparently this phrase is quite common in parts of the anglophone world outside of North America.  Sorry.]
2) You wrote

I was hoping that I was going to work on something productive, like a research project.

That is a very reasonable expectation for a volunteer internship.  However, the parameters of the job seem to be very different:

I'm a trainee in the lab where programming lessons are held with lots of computers available for the students.

But that doesn't sound research-related at all: it sounds like you're in a teaching lab, not a research lab.  If you were actually doing the training, you'd be some kind of TA...without pay.  Unfortunately:

On the contrary, my supervisor...constantly assigns chores to me (cleaning, being his personal mailman on the university etc).

Having to clean up a laboratory space after using it is very reasonable.  In my branch of the academic world at least (North America), cleaning up after other people is a paid job, not part of an internship.  Similarly, mail delivery is the sort of thing for which someone is usually paid an hourly wage.  If you are doing some of this and some of something else, it might be okay if the something else were especially attractive and rewarding.  But given that you're not, it sounds to me that you're simply being exploited.  Certainly I would feel that way if I were you.

Yet, he only has one paper, published 20 years ago.

Yikes.  So the professor is probably not even research-active, or at least not to the level necessary for it to be plausible that he is the head of some kind of research team.  He is not a good choice to supervise your research.  In view of everything else you've said, I'm afraid that it seems likely that the business about your having a "proper foundation" -- especially in the context of his willful ignorance of the skills that you already have -- is just an excuse.
I would go to this professor and say that there's been a misunderstanding.  You thought you were getting involved in a research internship, and as it hasn't panned out that way, you'd like to give notice.  If he wants to change your mind, have him mention not just the prospect of future research "when you're ready", but actually nail down research that you can get started on right away.
It would also be good to speak to at least one of the other faculty members you've mentioned.  I don't know where in the world you're writing from, so it's possible that your local academic culture is very different from mine.  But unless you find out that it would be a big bridge-burning mistake to quit your internship, I think you should be angling for that outcome.

By saying "voluntary internship" I mean it is not an internship in the sense of working before obtaining a degree in order to gain experience. It is not part of my studies!

@Nickolas: Are you getting paid for it?

As I mentioned in my question, no. It's voluntary.

@Nickolas: It's no big deal, but I interpreted "voluntary work" as meaning that you are not obligated to do it.  It is not used -- at least, not in my part of the English speaking world -- to indicate unpaid.  But I just looked it up, and your terminology is also used by some: http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/81136-volunteer-work-vs-voluntary-work.  Still, it couldn't hurt to edit your post to clarify this.

Your relationship has degenerated into mutual provocation, it sounds like.  Not a healthy situation.  Just try to get out of there as gracefully as possible.  If you were being paid, it might be somewhat different.  But in an unpaid internship -- well, it's reasonable for you to make yourself useful to some extent; but you should be learning and growing.
You might be interested to read what the U.S. government considers the definition of an unpaid internship to be:

The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the
facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be
given in an educational environment;
The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under
close supervision of existing staff;
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate
advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its
operations may actually be impeded.

See http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm

Edit

Should I talk to a professor about this topic?

Yes, that would be fine, as long as you can avoid whining or complaining.  If you're past the point of talking about the problem calmly then it would be better to leave as soon as possible.

I agree with your answer, and I'm quite sure that my working rights are being exploited!

While your situation is tricky, from your description it sounds like you have a bit of an ego which is not helping you.
One sure shot solution to the problem is to let your actions speak for you.
For instance, try to apply your web development skills when your supervisor expects something done in HTML. Try to show how meticulous you are when you are given chores (I know it can get boring but may be you will rise in his eyes if you do chores in an impressive manner). Find out what he is doing and has done in the recent past and see if you can act on something that helps his work.

Ego?  Recent past?  Do you mean less than 20 years ago?

The supervisor didn't ask for some task to be done in HTML: he asked the student to learn some basic HTML, which he already knew from his professional web-developing experience. And, ego or not, cleaning and delivering messages is not appropriate activity for an intern: internships are supposed to be about training the intern to do things they wouldn't learn in the course of their ordinary education, not about having a free supply of menial labour.

@aparente001 By ego I mean a feeling of being underutilized. In my experience, people quite often do work that is below their skill levels simply because the job at hand needs to be done. David Richerby, I do understand that cleaning and delivering messages is not an appropriate activity for an intern. However, I think it is ok to help your supervisor once in a while with chores. This will benefit the intern at least to understand the general style of their supervisor if nothing else. It is certainly a red flag if chores is a routine.

@Ketan What bothers me about your answer is that you seem to blame the OP for the untenable situation he's in.  An internship, especially an unpaid one, is, by definition, supposed to be mainly about growing in one's field, by participating in some hands-on, real world activities.... Note, we know the chores are routine because the OP wrote "constantly assigns chores."

@aparente001 I think I am trying to indicate to the OP that things could work if they try to adjust. I know it is not an ideal situation but in real life one often has to bend ways to get the end results. From the narrative of question I had a feeling that the OP and their supervisor are not on same page and some adjusting needs to happen. I suggested one way how this could happen. Not ideal but ultimately OP will be on receiving end if things go south.

@Ketan Thank you for clarifying.  This sounds positive and supportive!

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text:
How to propose collaboration, when I have an idea for analyzing another group's data?
My field is data analysis in which i try to invent/improve algorithms to better analyze existing datasets. During my search i noticed a good medical institute is trying to solve their problem from data analysis point of view, or in other words they are working on designing methods to decipher their own data.
Based on their publications i noticed that my method might have a better result according to what they look for. So one approach is to ask them if i can have the data and try my method and in case of success i can have my own next publication.
However, i also really like to have collaborations with that institute rather than just using their data, as in my field it'd be a great value to have close works with data-experts like them.
But i do not know how to approach them? and whom to contact? In fact, i already had a short talk with the post-doc involved in their project. Should i just contact him, or better to put their adviser in the communication loop?
Also, it would be naive if i say "my approach will work better than what you have devised so let's have collaborations!!", wouldn't be?
I would be so grateful if you could give me some advice on these situations!

I would contact the postdoc you previously talked with. He could be senior enough to run the whole collaboration without keeping his supervisor in the loop all the time. At the very least he has close access to the supervisor, and would prevent you from "cold-calling" the PI with your idea. Why try that again when you already have a contact? This is of course assuming the talk went well and you think he would be welcoming the collaboration.
About how to suggest it: Don't tell them that your method is better than theirs. You could tell them you have an alternative idea that might give better results. As far as you could test it, this seems to be the case and you'd like to try it out with more data, preferentially in the form of a collaboration. This avoids telling them you're better than them / they're wrong. Nobody wants to hear that, and in this case they also don't need to hear it.

Would it be naive to say  "my approach will work better than what you
  have devised so let's have collaborations!!"?

It would very much likely be.
If you think your method is better than the current method employed by the target group, you must present with proof how and why your method works well, preferably with a test example.
Whom to contact?
I would suggest to contact the principle investigator/"corresponding author", referencing your discussion with the mentioned post-doc. I would CC the mail to the post-doc as well.
Unless the institute/group policy says otherwise, I think its unlikely that your would actually get their full raw data without convincing them how your method would substantially improve the results.


text:
How much should we trust that the approach described in a paper solves the problem that it addresses as well as it claims to?
To be honest, I'm not sure how exactly to word my question in order not to cause any miss-understanding.
During my literature review sometimes I encounter with researches which propose an approach with promising results. Then when I try to use it or to investigate its theoretical principles I notice it is not as straightforward as it was mentioned in the paper to expect such great results. Then I contact the guy asking for more details about the method or even for the code to implement the approach and reproduce the results, but I hear no answer from them or some thing like "sorry we do not know where the code is now!" or "we have no right to give the code" or some vague answer which is not helpful.
Well, these papers always have tables and numbers related to real data to support their hypothesis, but sometimes I wonder if it is even rarely possible than the authors were faking something? or I'm totally wrong about it?
Even some of these papers are published in high ranked conferences which makes it harder to be skeptical about them!
So my question is how much should we trust works of others in academia even if they published their work in well-known conferences?
p.s: my field is computer science and mostly about algorithms and methods and the implementation results which can support the claimed performance for the algorithm.

Welcome to the reproduciblilty problem in academia. It's a well-known problem.

I'm not sure what your question is. Based on your 2nd-to-last paragraph: Are you asking whether you should suspect data fabrication if you find that some idea is not as straightforward as presented in the paper, or if the researcher says they cannot share their code with you? Or something else?  Please [edit] your post to clarify.

My question is how much should we trust works of others in academia even if they published their work in well-known conferences?

"Trust" in what sense?

@ff524: That their research X will solve problem Y as good as as they claimed in their publication!

@Bob: Are you also assuming that you're replicating their entire experiment? Down to the hardware they used, the system and non-system libraries they used, etc.?

Are you thinking that when a paper is published in a journal with stringent review standards, the results are guaranteed to be reliable because the editors and referees have checked that the results can be duplicated, while conference papers are accepted with more cursory reviews and no checking if the results are reproducible, because of lack of sufficient time between the submission date and the presentation date?

@DilipSarwate Presumably the OP just refers to conferences because that is the major venue for dissemination of research results in many areas of computer science.

@ff524 But the point still stands. A conference presentation follows fairly shortly after the submission of the paper, and the reviews must be completed in a short period of time. Furthermore, the reviewers are often the members of the technical program committee themselves which means that each will be reviewing several papers, not just one, in a short period of time. So, are the conferences being denigrated as not providing sufficient quality control in removing overblown claims of how well the implementation work or how they are far superior to JoeBlow's method published last year?

@DilipSarwate I think you are asking something completely unrelated to what Bob is asking. If you want to ask about quality control of conferences vs journals, you should ask a new question.

I think there is more than one type of "trust" here: "trust" as in whether to believe the authors are being honest, "trust" in terms of the state and certainty of knowledge in a field, and "trust" in the value of the peer review system.
Although misconduct is possible, and it is worthwhile to consider, another possibility is that the approach used in a paper relies on assumptions that were either taken for granted or are stated in the paper but you have overlooked them. For a signal-processing algorithm, for example, there may be an assumption that external noise has a particular color (white, pink, etc) - with a different color noise, or with real world signals, the algorithm may not work as well; for code optimized for a particular architecture you might get different results with different hardware or a different software environment. You shouldn't "trust" that a result in one context will apply to all other contexts that have not yet been tested.
Peer review is meant to improve the quality of and confidence in published material - it is not a flawless fact-checking system. Even when everything in peer review goes perfectly, the best you can assume from a peer reviewed paper or presentation is that the methodology is sound and the conclusions are reasonable based on the data. You should never "trust" a published work as the last word on a topic, and be wary of far-reaching claims - these are often stated for the potential of the technique, not necessarily the implementation as presented - these statements are intended to gain support for further work on the topic, so feel free to treat them with some skepticism. I wouldn't classify any of these as misconduct, just a potential for miscommunication between what is written and how you are expected to interpret what is written.
Lastly, the issue of sharing code differs by field, but at least in the biological sciences it has become standard for journals to ask authors to make analysis code and raw data available on request. I am not sure about the norms in computer science, and it certainly might depend on the potential for commercial application. It seems unlikely that someone would truly have "lost the code" to a recent paper, but if you are going back more than a couple years it is certainly possible that was indeed the case.
It is also possible, if you are a student, for example, that the authors felt your request was bothersome. How did you ask? "Can I see your code?" is a lot different from "I implemented the algorithm you published in 2014, and I got a different result from what you published. Here is the code I used - would you be able to share your original code, or have a look at mine to help find the discrepancy?" If you are truly skeptical, this is the approach I would suggest - science would benefit greatly from these types of replication and confirmation attempts.

Re "I am not sure about the norms in computer science" see Reference on availability of source code used in computer science research articles?

@ff524 Summarized from the link: source code was publicly available or shared on request approximately half the time.

The correctness of the scientific result is proven by experiment, never by "trust". Science is not a form of religion. The article must include enough information to repeat the experiment, independently and from scratch.
Other laboratories are likely to repeat the experiments, especially if the results would bring important conclusions and are somewhat questionable. And while a single laboratory may fail because of random reasons, inability to reproduce the results in multiple independent laboratories normally brings the original author into trouble.
Because of this, there is no much motivation for the original author to twist the "Materials and Methods" section of the article so that no one would understand how to repeat the procedure. Also, while intentional falsification of results does happen time to time, the only way how it could stay undetected is that the work has so little scientific value that nobody cares to read the article.

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text:
If I'm racist/sexist/homophobe etc, can I still be admitted to Cornell University?
This completely hypothetical question is based on Cornell's founding statement:

"I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."
-- Ezra Cornell, 1868

And their core values:

As a university founded to be a place where "...any person can find instruction...," we value diversity and inclusion, and we strive to be a welcoming, caring, and equitable community where students, faculty, and staff with different backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn, innovate, and work in an environment of respect, and feel empowered to engage in any community conversation.

Read in a vacuum, I think most people will support these sentiments. However, they seem inherently contradictory. If I'm racist/sexist/homophobic etc, can I still find instruction at Cornell? Perhaps more concretely, have they actually expelled a student for racist/sexist/homophobic conduct, and if so, how did they explain their decision?
I've phrased the question to be specific to Cornell, but I'm guessing that most universities (at least those in the West) will also have this kind of ideal, in which case I'm also curious how they deal with the apparent contradiction.

What about newborn babies, deceased people, or people currently attending Harvard? And "any study" -- what about internet trolling, basket-weaving, or toilet-flushing? "Read in a vacuum, I think most people will support these sentiments." Sure, because most people understand that they are only the summarized sentiments of a founder, which not alone, but along with many other sentiments, practical considerations, rules, nuance, context, and common sense, can be interpreted in a way that is reasonable to those not living in a vacuum.

@richard I fail to see the relation. To enroll at any university, one will need to legally be able to study in the country. This isn't a condition imposed by the university, but by the country hosting it. Newborn babies will not have the requisite visa and so will be excluded. Same goes for deceased people. For those currently attending Harvard, it presumably depends on whether the university allows dual enrollment. I suspect it does (hence exchange programs exist), so there's no problem.

"Any study" presumably means "any discipline that is taught here" while simultaneously setting the university's mission to teach as many disciplines as possible. Don't see any contradiction there either.

@Allure haha ok makes sense.

Do any enrolment forms have check boxes to indicate if one is racist / sexist / homophobic ?

If you were racist/sexist/homophobic, then would you "value diversity and inclusion"?

@JoelReyesNoche I don't see how that's relevant either. Unlike faculty members, students are presumably under no obligation to agree with the university's values. Only constraint would be "do I still want to study at a place whose values I don't agree with?", and some people will undoubtedly answer yes.

"students are presumably under no obligation to agree with the university's values"  Really?  If the school values academic honesty, then students are presumably under no obligation to agree with the school's values?

@JoelReyesNoche then it wouldn't be a "value", it would be a rule.

So why would faculty members be under obligation to agree with the university's values if they aren't rules?

@JoelReyesNoche per xLeitx's comment to this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/143018/who-decides-a-universitys-stance-on-a-topic. I imagine the consequence of not agreeing with the university's values is to be sacked.

Then you might be able to imagine the consequence of (a student) not agreeing with the university's values is to be expelled.  But anyway, I can see your point, so I will stop here. (I did not downvote or vote to close your question.)

That is an old problem: Absolute freedom cannot exist for everybody, because absolute freedom would include the freedom to limit the freedom of others. So in practice freedom is always limited in some sense to preclude, or at least reduce, the harm to others. That is a trade-off: how much do you hurt the freedom of person A if you forbid her/him to hurt person B, and how much do you hurt person B if you allow person A to hurt her/him. In an ideal world you would hurt neither A or B, but that is a logically impossible outcome, so you need to choose.
In your case you probably would be able to apply, but if your conduct would be considered to limit the freedom of others too much, you would be given the option to stop that behavior or leave. The "too much" in the previous sentence captures the trade-off between how much you hurt others and how much you are hurt by expelling you from the university. Universities tend to take that trade-off very seriously, but there is a breaking point where universities decide that your actions can no longer be tolerated.

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


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Finishing PhD and didn't secure a postdoc position: how to proceed?
Disclaimer: My PhD supervisor, while not a bad person, is a bad mentor and has given me bad advice in the past. So discussing this with him isn't really productive. I have talked to other people in real life about this, and the opinion of this community would also be welcome.
I'm set to finish my PhD in theoretical physics in September 2020. I applied to several postdocs, got three interviews, and in one I was rated among the top choices but, in the end, I didn't secure any position.
I don't know how similar this is to the fields, but for context I'll explain how postdoc appointments work in (edit: high energy) theoretical physics. In my field, postdoc applications run in cycles. The majority have roughly the same application periods and deadlines (around November), most offers are made at the same time (early January following year) and they all start roughly at the same time (September). There's the occasional outlier, but that's the basic pattern. This means that it's more or less hopeless that I can continue looking for a position, ask professors, etc, for September 2020. If I wanted to stay in academia, I would need to look for a postdoc in the next cycle, starting September 2021.
I am unsure how realistic it is for me to try again or if I should simply throw the towel and quit academia.

First, there's the issue of staying one year academically idle (obviously not professionally idle, that would be insane). I could work on leftover projects from my PhD on my free time, but between finishing my PhD in September 2020 and the deadline for the next cycle on November 2020, that leaves very little time to do so.
Second, how do I even explain the gap in my cover letter? If I flat out say I failed the previous application cycle, it's a guaranteed trip to the garbage can. Some people have recommended me just lying in vague terms, like I didn't pursue a postdoc immediately after completing my PhD due to "health concerns that have since been resolved". I'm unsure if this is a good idea...

If anyone has any other advice regarding my situation besides these two concerns I've raised, that would be welcome too. Basically, I would like to stay in academia as a first preference, but I have no desire to bang my head against the wall against something that, at this point, might be very close to impossible. I don't have any preference for country to work in, so feel free to give country-specific advice.

Suppose Alma College (a real school, but used only as a hypothetical example here) was looking for someone to replace their theoretical physicist going on sabbatical for a year.  It would involve teaching three courses per semester, including both a calc-based and a non-calc based intro physics, and including running the labs (no TAs).  Would you take that job?  (And would you be reasonably competent at it?)

The postdoc recruitment is organised in cycles in your particular area and in your particular country. Have you considered looking for postdoc positions outside of this default country?

@DmitrySavostyanov It's like this globally.

@AlexanderWoo Possibly, since I'm not opposed to teaching, but I would need to know more.

I doubt that all countries follow the same pattern in postdoc recruitment. For example,  two countries I am most familiar with (Russia and UK) don't follow it. I see some postdocs (Research Fellow) posts advertised now with the starting date 1 May or a later date.

@DmitrySavostyanov There's an international agreement to follow a communal cycle. In any case, this discussion is neither here nor there. If I find positions advertised outside the cycle, I will apply to it. Consider the question I posted under the assumption I won't.

"There's an international agreement to follow a communal cycle" That certainly is not true of all theoretical physics.  Could you provide a link to this agreement?

@AnonymousPhysicist I should've specified high energy physics. Here's the agreement. Even if an institute hasn't signed it, in practice most follow the same pattern: deadline November, interviews in December, offers on January 7. I would say no more than 15% of positions I applied to deviated from this. In any case, this is a digression: if I find positions outside the cycle, I will apply to them, but realistically I should assume I won't.

1) First the bad news: The job situation (tenure track) in theoretical high energy physics is not good, covid will not help, having a hard time to get a first postdoc is not a good sign. Having difficulty to get a postdoc is probably not your fault. There are many possible reasons, such as field not a good match, advisor not helpful, institution not a good match. However, it is not clear that the situation will be different next year.
2) In the past it has been quite uncommon for people to work in the private sector and then return to academia. If it is just a year then you can probably finish another paper or two from your graduate work, and describe your stint as gaining real world experience. I don't think it is true that people will just discard your application, but it does not improve it, either.
3) The good news is that suddenly there does appear to be a new track. If you are interested in machine learning or quantum information then you can try to get a private sector job in this area, and that does leave open the possibility of returning to academia after you have gained some experience (after two years, for example, or even later than that).

One option possibly available to you are academic jobs that are more teaching-oriented.  While (in the US and Canada) hiring for permanent teaching-oriented jobs is mostly over at this point, there is still hiring going on for temporary positions, both full-time and part-time, both at four-year universities and community colleges.
Such a position maintains an academic affiliation.  Not being a physicist, I do not know how taking such a job would be perceived if you apply for research-oriented jobs in the future.  I expect these positions (especially full-time ones) would be viewed positively in applications for permanent, teaching-oriented jobs.


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Feasibility of using blockchain to avoid researcher bias
Would it be feasible, presently or in the future, to use computers with blockchain technology to help avoid researcher bias?
For instance, in a medical experiment, when an experimenter uses blockchain to store data gathered by interviewers about a patient's condition after a new medication, he/she would be able to guarantee that it would be literally impossible to change the results to fit the expected outcome.

When people talking about others fudging results, it's not usually the veracity of the data itself that is in question; rather it's researchers who -- through malice or misunderstanding -- use questionable statistical methods. Straight-up falsifying data is rare, p-hacking, less so.

It might be a solution for changing data, but how would it avoid bias? Bias can occur immediately  when the data is collected and entered. Even automatically collected data can be altered if you control the software that collects it.

Slightly relevant: https://www.xkcd.com/2030/

I was thinking about a case when researcher intentionally use p-hacking or data falsification from accurate results collected by interviewers. So blockchain might be able to prevent data from being manipulated by researchers in a foolproof way.

Why blockchain? That's complete overkill. Upload your datasets onto your university's public archiving system. Everything will be signed and versioned and that's it.

What do you mean by researcher bias?

@JayLee That is not what p-hacking means.

@Karl It is not overkill to use blockchains for this reason since it is very inexpensive to use blockchain to prove that the data has not been changed after the Merkle root of the data has been posted to a blockchain and since public archiving systems can and should do this completely automatically. This is an inexpensive solution.

In this question, we need to be specific about how researchers should use blockchains to avoid research bias and even what kind of blockchain should be used. I see no mention of any specific blockchain or kind of blockchain anywhere in this question. This is important since it will give people of how feasible the solution will be.

While blockchain might be a good solution for certain (future?) applications in research, experiments, and data collection – it is hard to shine a lot of light on it right now, as the technology is pretty new. And research techniques, scientific methodology, experiment design, and, most importantly, ethical standards have been (and will be) developed for centuries.
Most importantly, a lot of interaction between scientists is (and should be) based on trust and an assumption of good intentions.

This particular question focuses on researcher bias; however, the example is more about data manipulation or "forced outcome" research.
Regarding data-manipulation:

As correctly mentioned in the comments (@AzorAhai), it is rare to forge the raw data itself, but use certain statistical techniques to get to the desired outcome.
Using blockchain would have to be introduced on a lot of levels: not necessarily just the surveys. Blockchain for measurement equipment (which constitutes a lot of experimental data in natural sciences) is not yet there. And if one allows a researcher (how crazy is that!) to upload measurement data himself to blockchain-based storage – nothing prevents the researcher from forging data before uploading it.
Not being able to change the data might not always be a good thing. Sometimes, you have to change it (simple use – delete certain entries) due to technical (it was found that the equipment was broken) or ethical reasons. Here the "permanency" advantage of blockchain might actually be damaging. For example, even git (version-control system not allowing commit change without the change of the signature) has some widely discussed issues: ACCU talk of Alex Chan, the particular segment on GIT and personal info issues.

So, regarding the experiment data, I currently do not see the advantages of using blockchain anywhere in the research loop.
I can see some potential use of blockchain in:

review process (though, I would say it's an overkill) to anonymize authors/reviewers/editors. However, there are other simpler tools to solve it – and even they are rarely used in practice.
authorship proof – still there are other tools.

To conclude:
I am very interested to see practical uses of blockchain in other areas (let's see where the smart contracts go in 5-10 years). Academia and research process does not scream for blockchain and its usability is totally unclear and hard to implement.

Which kinds of blockchains are you referring to? And what protocol that is designed to prevent data manipulation are you referring to?

"Not being able to change the data might not always be a good thing."-Posting timestamps on blockchains does not prevent anyone from changing the data. This procedure only forces people to give a more honest explanation about it since if they want to change their data, they will need a new timestamp along with an explanation for why the data is being changed. Of course, it is hard for me to comment since I will need to know what protocol you have in mind.

@JosephVanName I am referring to blockchains in general. I don't believe I refer to ANY protocol that prevents data manipulation.

You cannot criticize the potential use of blockchains in facilitating scientific research when you are unspecific about how you expect them to be used. I personally do not know of any blockchain protocol that makes data manipulation impossible, but there is a big gap between making data manipulation completely impossible and making data manipulation more difficult.

@JosephVanName 1) Please carefully read my post. I do not criticize blockchains for facilitating scientific research in general, I also fail to see exactly how they will be used. 2) I provide thoughts and justifications of the current status quo. Not that it cannot be changed. 3) I provide reasons outside of blockchain, why data is handled the way it is now. 4) I provide my view on blockchain, as well as personal opinion that academia and research process does not scream for it.

I did carefully read your post, but I was concerned because it is hard to tell whether someone is talking about creating a completely new blockchain for scientific research and having digital contracts on blockchains completely guide the research or whether you are talking about a simpler solution that does not require too much effort.

The simplest solution that can be used to prevent data manipulation will be for researchers to post timestamps of the data on the Bitcoin blockchain. Here, one cannot change the data without changing the timestamps. This solution is effective, inexpensive, easy to implement, and it does not compromise on anyone's privacy/security. Your concerns do not apply to these timestamps.

@JosephVanName "Not being able to change the data" - is a reference to the original question. Please, consider my answer TOGETHER with the question being asked, its intentions, and phrasing.

I am not sure about what your concern is. I am more concerned about which protocol is implemented since one protocol could be extremely expensive, difficult, and not suitable for its purpose (i.e. making a digital contract guide all of the research) while my suggested protocol is inexpensive and does not have any serious downsides that I can think of.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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the best start time of applying for postdoc position?
I'm a 3rd year PhD student in the UK. Due to the specialty of my topic (sociology), I spent two years collecting data, and now I plan to write up three manuscripts during my 3 rd year. My supervisors want me to graduate within one year (or 1.5 years), but I'm not sure if I can successfully find a job after my graduation, so I plan to simultaneously look for postdoc positions.
My question is, if I plan to graduate within 1 year, is it too early for me to start applying for postdoc positions? Because if I start right now, I haven't had any publications (I've submitted one but still under review, and another two are under writing).

If [realistic expected time of graduation] is earlier than [start of postdoc position] and you want the position, then you should apply the position. It really is as simple as that.

No, it isn't too early to start the search. It takes time and you don't really want a gap to happen. In the worst case you learn some things about the process and what to expect.
People should understand the situation if you explain it well.
In your CV you should have a section on work in progress listing what you are currently doing. If you have preliminary versions of those three papers, even outlines, list them there.
If your supervisor is strongly supportive it should help as well.


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Should I thank the professor for forwarding me webinar/seminar invites?
I work in the research group of one of the professors in my college. My professor forwards me emails which he receives regarding some webinars/seminars being organized in college/companies or articles related to our work. However, those emails are forwarded and don't contain any message personally written by him.
In such a situation, should I thank him for every such mail? (which I receive thrice per week) or will such frequent thank-you emails be deemed funny and spam by him? but if I don't respond in any way, I fear he will think I am ignoring his emails and my behaviour might be taken as rude.
What is common practice in such a situation?

No. If they are regularly useful to you, thank him once in person.

If you send emails forward, and the other responds with a brief expression of gratitude, would you be annoyed or slightly pleased? I think I would be pleased. A little thanks goes a long way.

If this professor really helped you, rather then sending them an email, when you see. them, thanks them. A face to face thank you really makes the other person feel good. (And yourself too)

I would suggest not for each of the emails. He probably just has a forwarding list and does this as a matter of course. Since you describe it as happening in a research group, he is probably trying to make sure everyone sees things that might advance the work of the group generally.
However, if you find any of them particularly useful for your own work, thank him for those, individually, and say why.
You could, in fact, return the favor when you see something that works for you and might for others in the group. Send them to the prof. and let him pass them on if he agrees on the value.

If you get a rather important one or something that can relate to your work, I would thank the professor that sent it to you. But you don't need to do that every time. Although he might have a forwarding list, it always makes people feel good when you thank them for their work. Many professors really appreciate a meaningful and descriptive thank you letter. So if you do send them a thank you email, make it meaningful and descriptive and not just a quick blurb.
Hope this helps.

As a professor, I have to say that I would find it very odd if someone sent a "heartfelt thank you" for forwarded seminar announcements. It's so extremely minor on the scale of  importance, it doesn't warrant any thanks at all, certainly not a "heartfelt" one.

Well, then I guess some professors appreciate a heartfelt thank you. My friend is a college professor and when he gets thank you's like: Thank you for the paper. I look forward to reading it, he doesn't really care, but when he gets one like: Thank you so much for the paper you sent me last wednesday. It really helped me on my biology quiz, he feels like he should help that person in the future. And when I was in college, my professors didn't really take me seriously or feel compelled to help me because of my thank you's.  I always used to rush it and I guess the professors could tell that.

"Thank you so much for the paper you sent me last wednesday. It really helped me on my biology quiz" is meaningful and fine. I wouldn't describe this as "heartfelt" but rather just informative. A statement of just "Thank you so much for the paper you sent me" would be odd and unnecessary.

I revised the sentence.


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Addressing the shortcoming in IELTS results
I'm applying for fall 2023 and I took the IELTS Academic but scored an overall of 7 with a writing 6. I'm planning to retake the test. Should I mention this in the sop?
I wrote this:

Despite having only 4 days to prepare for the IELTS exam, I managed to score an overall band of 7. As much as it was stressful, this situation taught me to work under high pressure. Nevertheless, I plan to retake the exam to demonstrate my true potential and capability.

Why did you have only 4 days to prepare? Sounds like primarily your fault, and not something to necessarily advertise.

I don't feel the need to explain myself to you. Therefore, keep your comments to yourself.

No, you don't need to explain it to me; I'm not commenting to criticize, I'm commenting because all the cases I can think of would make me see the story you've presented as a negative, and I was wondering if there was something I'm missing that would turn it around.

I'm from Iran and as you might know, it was chaotic here for the last couple months. My gre physics exam got postponed twice and instead of 29th of October, it was held on 11th of December. So it got really close to my IELTS and there was nothing I could do. I was lucky that my general Engliah level was good enough to score 7 without that much preparation.

I do think that an admissions committee would consider hardships induced by world events in evaluating the relative strength of applications, though I think Anton's answer is good to keep in mind about the purpose of the SoP. However, I still don't think your comment paints you in a good light: your study plans were interrupted, but it's not true that there was nothing you could do. In particular, it sounds like you focused on studying for the GRE physics exam instead of trying to balance studying for both exams. Can't change it now, but no need to draw attention, either.

Usually, mentioning IELTS preparation/exam in the Statement of Purpose is not an effective use of space. There are a lot of other important things that you can include in the Statement of Purpose, starting from your background and how it connects to your desire to study in a particular program to, say, long-term research goals (see many questions with tag statement-of-purpose on Academia SE).
For most programs, language exams are used only as a pass/fail (Do admissions care how close a TOEFL score is to the minimum?), therefore, if you already have a passing score — you are unlikely to benefit from retaking the exam. You might want to search if there is any information about it for the particular University/Program you are applying to.

Indeed, the whole paragraph is a waste of space and time. Learning 4 days for a language exam? it's too late, language abilities develop over a long time. These 4 days taught him to work under high pressure? Hasn't he learn before during college or other exams/jobs? I doubt any evaluator will get a positive opinion of the OP through it.

Thank you for your instructive comments. Some places have a minimum of 6.5 requirement for writing. So I need to take it. I just didn't know how should I address it. Also, it was my first time asking something here. Apparently, it's not that friendly. I apologize to people who have no idea what others are going through.

@AliMoradi hope it helped. Regarding other comments, please, try reading them in a constructive way — as while I am reading them, I see that you are not addressing the raised issues (by Quora & Bryan) in your SoP if you insist on retaining the IELTS-related paragraph in the SoP. It is likely, that in the current form that part of the SoP will be read in a similarly negative light by the admissions office. Therefore, you can either not include it in the first place — or — ensure the comments raised by other participants are addressed somehow.


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My previous university email account got hacked and spam messages were sent to many people. What should I do?
I am having serious trouble with my previous university email account (Office365), provided by the university where I finished my master’s studies last year (I am currently pursuing a PhD at another university in a different country). The account is still active but I am no longer using it to send any email, although I have been receiving messages for alumni.
A few days ago, for a reason I still do not understand, a blank Teams meeting invitation was sent FROM my account to multiple professors and faculty members. The account seems to be hacked. I noticed it today when I received a notification saying that one of the recipients “rejected” the invitation. I am very confused and embarrassed.
I successfully cancelled the Teams meeting (which was automatically added to my calendar), but then, I logged out of that account (just to check my other account), and now I can no longer log into it again.
I am going to contact the university for technical support, but here is my question: Should I send an apology email to the recipients of the invitation? I want to apologize, but it’s been more than half a year since I graduated, and I no longer get in touch with any of them. And more than half of them are the ones with whom I interacted only once during my studies (e.g. to ask for an internship opportunity), and they probably do not even remember/recognize me. Also, except for the one who rejected the invitation, none has reacted to it in any way, so I am assuming that they haven’t yet seen the invitation or simply ignored it, noticing that it was mistakenly sent.
Would it be appropriate for me to send them an apology email? Or would that just end up bothering them, given that they are all busy and keep receiving numerous emails every day?
Any advice or suggestions are highly appreciated.

It's more likely that someone is simply spoofing your mail address. Anyone can do this if they know that that address is, they do not have to have access to your account (as the word "hacked" implies). This happens all the time, e.g. if your address is in someone else's contact list that has been leaked. It's weird that someone would send out invitations though, usually it's BUY BITCOIN TODAY or something like that. You should change your password but I can guarantee that tech support will just tell you to forget about the incidence. An apology mail seems excessive, people will understand.

I agree with @Peter, and definitely do not send an email to everyone. I'm a post grauduate student and get emails like this which appear to be from my supervisor or other prominent users (i.e. who have their email address public). I ignore them as I'm well aware they're spoofed, it's quite annoying to get a deluge of "apology", followed by "this is a spoof" followed by "please don't CC all"... There's a famous microsoft incident you might want to research...

It's too late now, but you can enter a message when you send a cancellation so you could have sent the apology as part of the cancellation.

"now I can no longer log into it again" may mean that either an attacker managed to complete the take-over just then (and changed the password), or that tech support or whoever is in charge already noticed the abuse and disabled the account

Contact tech support and let them know what happened. They can probably clean it up appropriately. The apology message might be better if it comes from them. In any case, ask them for advice.
Perhaps you need to pay more attention to passwords and watch out for phishing attacks.

Given the evidence in the question, the conclusion that the account was "hacked" may be a bit premature. In any case contacting IT is the right thing to do first.

The first step is to reset your password, not just on this account, but everywhere that you use the same password or have easy to guess passwords.
Then contact your IT support for advice. They will handle the communication to your alumni.
To avoid this, or something worse happening again I would recommend using a password management application, these do more than just store your passwords, they can also randomly generate complex passwords that you will never need to remember.
Activate multi-factor authentication on every account that allows it.
Search the Microsoft website on how to recover a hacked or compromised Microsoft account.

Would it be appropriate for me to send them an apology email?

The problem is that somebody else sent a useless automated message.  If you send another automated message, this will not help the situation.  So no.

I don't think "automated" means what you think it means

Were you perhaps going for "unsolicited" instead of "automated"?

@DavyM No.    ......

If you still have the list of recipients of those team invitations, consider sending a message to them immediately to warn them. Viewing or accepting such invitations could run the risk of getting a virus or revealing personal data on a phishing website. This is the case when every minute counts, since a warning is only good if the recipient sees it before opening the spam message.
Apology is generally a good idea, but in this case you actually shouldn't sound too apologetic. You don't want to sound guilty and make people assume this incident is your fault, when in fact it may be someone else's.
And make sure to resolve this quickly: either reset the password on the account if you still need it, or contact the IT and ask them to disable it. An apology for the spam message followed by more spam doesn't look good.

Ditto on using a password manager.  Dashlane is a free one that gets decent reviews - get the browser add-in(s) and the phone app and you'll have access to your passwords from all of your devices.  Another thing I would do is check all of your email accounts on https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see if they've ever been involved in a large data breach.    I would recommend signing up for alerts from that site as well.
Remember - don't reuse account passwords.  You can lose access to multiple accounts that way like dominos.

Sending an apology for compromised-account spam would likely only make things worse, especially since your university's email admins may have been able to delete some of the messages before the recipients even saw them.
If you cannot log back into the account, it's possible that IT saw suspicious activity and froze it, but it's also possible that someone maliciously changed the password.
Aside from immediately contacting your IT department for help and following their advice, you should change your password, change your password on any site where you use the same password, and thoroughly check the settings on your account for any unauthorized changes, such as an auto-reply message, email signature, or forwarding address with unfamiliar contents.


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Is it appropriate for employers recruiting students to ask professors for syllabi of their classes?
Since graduating I have maintained contact with a number of professors at my university and have gone back on recruiting trips. I check in on the courses being offered from time to time and have noticed several have changed.
Can asking for information or syllabi on classes be rude or inappropriate now that I am formally recruiting at the university in a professional setting?
EDIT: To clarify, I am not recruiting for the University, I am recruiting for a private company at the University's career fairs, etc.

When I was a student I didn't have any trouble getting a syllabus from an instructor when I was in the process of deciding whether to take a course.  But recently, helping my son choose courses, I've noticed that it is getting harder to get syllabi.  I got the impression there is a growing trend to keep the syllabus close to one's chest.  Which seems ridiculous to me -- but you may want to take this into account.

I don't see why it would be an issue.
I've been in a similar position in the past - recruiting at the university that I graduated from. On every trip, I made it a point to visit the department office to catch up with the department chair (who was a professor when I was there), the academic advisers, and the professors. I never asked for a syllabus for courses, but I did make it a point to talk about changes to course content. I felt that doing this would help me stay closer to the department and college, but also would make me better at recruiting and interviewing since I would have a better understanding of what the students were learning in the classroom.
I would encourage you to, somehow, stay in touch with changes to the classes that are core in the departments that you recruit from so you can be a better interviewer. I would also encourage you to share this information with HR and hiring managers so they know the capabilities. If there are new courses or new content, it could make the hiring process for interns or new graduates easier.

@JoeStrazzere The question asks if it's OK to ask a subset of people. Should you limit yourself to the professors that you took courses from? No, probably not. But is it OK to ask for information from them if you've maintained contact with them? Absolutely, and it should be encouraged.

Can asking for information or syllabi on classes be rude or
  inappropriate now that I am formally recruiting at the university in a
  professional setting?

In most universities in my part of the world (the US), there is a recruitment/placement/career fair office. That should be your first stop, rather than going directly to the professors themselves.
These are the folks who can get you the information you need, or can tell you how to get it, without bothering the professors themselves unless necessary.

This may be good in general, but this is about the specific case where the asker attended the university and continued to be in contact with professors following graduation. If you have that close contact in your network, you should use it.

I agree that you shouldn't avoid them. But your first stop should be people that you personally or professionally know. They could make the appropriate introduction or point you to the right people in other groups if you ask them for some help.

If you are recruiting for the University, it would appear to me that asking this question is appropriate to your job and position within the University. Ask away.


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Is it common practice in the US for students to propose master thesis topics themselves, or do labs have a list of topics to pick from?
I'm currently doing a masters in electrical engineering (image and video processing, machine learning, etc.) at a renowned European university.
For my masters thesis, I'd like to go to the US (or Canada).
Now, at my university (and at a lot of European universities) it is usually the professors that create a list of thesis topics. The students can subsequently pick one.
However, during my search for suitable thesis topics I could pursue in the US, I didn't find this kind of lists.
Is it common practice for students to propose topics themselves to relevant labs and hope to get them approved?
Or could anyone shine some light on the usual procedure to find a thesis topic and advisor?

Related: How is a research direction determined between a graduate student and their advisor?

It's usually somewhere in between: the thesis topic is negotiated between the student and advisor.
Usually an advisor will have some topics already in mind, and can suggest them. The student can also suggest topics in which he or she is interested, and the advisor can decide if they would be appropriate. In the end, of course, they both have to agree.
It could also fall closer to one end of the spectrum or the other, depending on the advising style of the advisor. Some advisors might insist on one of the projects they have in mind, as they may not have the expertise or interest for any of the student's suggested topics. Or they might think the student's suggestions would be too easy, too hard, too obscure, etc. Other advisors may not have many topic ideas of their own, or consider that it is good experience for a student to find their own topic.

Funding can be a key factor.  If the student is funded by a research grant than the advisor will typically insist that the thesis fit closely with the program of work in the grant.  If the student is funded by a scholarship or teaching assistantship then there's typically much room for the student to propose a topic.

Is this kind of negotiation also common in fields like experimental physics, where setting up an experiment might need the involvement of several people and buying equipment?

So, taking this information into account, it's probably best if I contact some professors asking if they would be interested in advising me on a thesis in a certain domain, without being too specific about the topic?


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Continuum from collaboration on homework to copying
Some of the work I grade does not seem to be copied verbatim, but also seems close enough that one student or another is being a parrot and does not totally understood what they are saying. My students are working under a collaboration policy similar to the example on this page, which says "Peer collaboration is highly encouraged. It is a highly efficient and fun way to learn [statistics]. However, your homework must be entirely your own work and in your own words." If Alice and Bob discuss problem 3, shouldn't I expect Alice's words, mathematical notation, and problem-solving strategies to appear in Bob's writeup? Please advise me on how to reconcile "collaboration is great etc." with "homework must be entirely your own work."
I have browsed all the other questions tagged grading and a few besides; none seemed relevant.

Yes, the policy was set by my supervisor, who is running the course. Thank you for the citation.

That is why I have a rule that for each homework a group of students is selected "at random", and asked by the TA to explain what they turned in. The grade of the interrogation replaces the homework grade.
Rationale is that I really don't care (too much) if they copied from the Internet, got it in an obscure book somewhere, or worked it out in a group. I want them to understand, and this forces them to at least be somewhat familiar with the solution they hand in.

We ran this policy in even a very large course (500+ students) with a great deal of success.  It requires a pretty significant investment, but it both helps catch plagiarism and gives you a good idea of how well everything is being understood.

Excellent idea. Will do this from now on.

I would be concerned about fair assessment. I am suspicious of bias from knowing a student's identity, and it really helps me grade consistently when I have written submissions: I like to backtrack, rethink, and revise. Maybe I could revise your method in a way that works for me: perhaps a short written in-class quiz rather than an "interrogation?"

@eric_kernfeld, a face-to-face confrontation allows to probe deeper than a quiz. There are often different ways to solve a problem, so asking about the specific solution turned in is exactly the point. Besides, just a handful is selected each time and there are enough homeworks to get each a fair chance at having to explain their work, so the end result of any bias is limited.

I am still concerned I might hold different students to different standards, but I am accepting this answer because it addresses exactly the question I asked.

@eric_kernfeld, yes, I'm concerned about bias too. But bias is unfortunately unavoidable. I'm willing to be (a bit more) biased if that translates into better results (in understanding, not necessarily in grades) overall.

-1 Despite being accepted, this doesn't answer the question at all. The TA is not in a position to set a policy such as this so the advice is irrelevant. They asked for advice on where to draw the line between collaboration and plagiarism and this answer doesn't address that even slightly.

@DavidRicherby, I answered under the assumption that OP is in a position to set policy (or at least suggest such). I don't see where the question just asks to draw the line you cite?

@vonbrand The question asks how to reconcile the facts that collaboration is encouraged but plagiarism is forbidden. I paraphrased that as "where to draw the line between collaboration and plagiarism".Perhaps that wasn't a good paraphrase but I don't think you address reconciling those things.

This is one of the reasons that for certain assignments I have been moving slowly away from grading homework individually to grading on completion and posting solutions and/or having students discuss answers in groups in class (that will be different from the ones they may have worked on the homework with).  As vonbrand notes, the idea isn't so much for them to get the solution, but to understand the solution.  If they just copy it without understanding, they may get some credit on the homework, but they'll bomb other forms of assessment that are more heavily weighted.
But if you really want to encourage collaboration while making it clear that work needs to be done individually you could specifically design the assignments around that idea.  Each assignment could have collaboration-friendly questions and individual-oriented ones.  The instructions could then say something to the effect of "You may / are encouraged to work with a partner on questions 1-3.  Then do questions 4 and 5 on your own.  If you check your work with your partner afterwards, please make corrections in a different color ink".  This would codify the final two steps of the me, we, y'all, you progression in the one assignment and would still allow for them to check their work before handing it in and help them visualize missteps so they can avoid them down the road.

"If they just copy it without understanding, they may get some credit on the homework, but they'll bomb other forms of assessment that are more heavily weighted." We do observe this phenomenon in my class.

+1 for ideas to separate individual work and collaboration and make visible the different results.

I think one of the problems is in a real collaborative setting, each participant already knows what they're doing in their respective role. If you assign a building-block problem that a student has to work out to learn the concepts and principles that underlie everything, you run into a problem. I don't think collaborative assignments are the place to learn the material. I think they need to be the place they can exercise application and critical thinking. Some thoughtful assignment design is then critical here. At least then they can work the fundamentals to exhaustion if they cant answer.

It really depends on the nature of the work and the established guidelines for grading that type of work. If it's a class of physicists in graduate school who are expected to find solutions to complex problems and collaboration is expected in determining the missing pieces to the puzzle, then there really can't be any serious expectation of wildly different proofs. If their collaboration failed on a problem because everyone counted on one member's interpretation, then it will be obvious that their collaboration was ineffective and none of them deserve all of the points for that question. Some members may choose not to collaborate and be better or worse for it. But, based on how you've presented this, it would seem it's just a matter of whether the answers are correct or not.

As a grader, if not otherwise constrained by the lecturer for the course, you should be free to assign marks based on how much you feel the student understood and conveyed accurately the solution. In almost all pieces of written homework I've seen so far (mathematics), it has been easy to distinguish between those written by students who understand and those by students who don't. Especially those who copy tend to make serious logical errors elsewhere.
I am particularly strict with omission of key deductive steps when solutions to other problems show incompetency. Accordingly, you can give the bare minimum marks possible, marks which you are certain that the student deserves. And then you can tell students that if they feel they deserve more marks they are welcome to come and see you to explain their solution in person. By doing so, you simultaneously provide unbiased grading but the face-to-face interview for those who dispute the initial grade allows you to judge more accurately the deserved grade. Usually the students who do not deserve more marks will not be so daring to come and pester you.

I'd have to take exception at "t has been easy to distinguish between those written by students who understand and those by students who don't". That is just too subjective. Besides, it may be that who wrote the answer did understand, but they aren't the one handing it in.

@vonbrand: I've been teaching mathematics for a long time and I stand by what I said. And nearly the whole second paragraph deals with the harder cases. In my experience, students who really know their stuff will almost surely dispute their grade if they felt it was unfair and they are explicitly allowed to dispute it. As for instances of cheating, that is why I said "I am particularly strict with omission of key deductive steps when solutions to other problems show incompetency.".

I am addressing exactly the case stated in the question: "close enough that one student or another is being a parrot and does not totally underst[an]d what they are saying.".


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Can a high school student involved in a college credit program get an arXiv endorsement?
I'm 16, homeschooled, and I am taking dual credit at LoneStar. If I wanted to write a paper, unlikely, but I've toyed with the idea, would I be able to get a suitable endorsement from a mathematics teacher at LoneStar? I was considering submitting on arXiv.
My guess would be no, but I don't know much about how this works, so I'd be interested to learn more.

Endorsement is not a service offered by a college, like academic advisement or career placement. Endorsement is an indication that the endorser knows you and believes you are not a crank, or has read your paper and believes it is a reasonably appropriate paper. It's not like just by having a connection to the college, you could automatically be eligible for an endorsement from a professor there.
A program through which high school students can earn college credit does not necessarily give its students increased access to mathematics faculty. So this "connection" may or may not be of use to you in gaining an endorsement. Instead, I recommend reading What to do with research results while being in high school? and How to find an arXiv endorser for suggestions on what to do with your paper, should you choose to write one. The latter explains how to find names of people who are eligible to endorse in a given area. (There may or may not be anyone in the college you are connected to who is eligible in your area.)

No, I meant could someone from the college faculty be eligible to endorse me? I'd know them, and they might actually help me out.

@Zach the question I linked, "How to find an arXiv endorser" explains how to find names of people who are eligible to endorse papers in a given area.

Oh, sorry, yea that means I probably couldn't, LoneStar is a community college. Who knows though, I might get lucky ;)

@Zach some community college professors do active research. Alternatively, they may be able to make a connection for you to someone who is an active researcher in your area. Can't hurt to ask.

authors: h4m_ τεχνοκρατ


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How to deal with my own sloppy research published when I was an undergrad?
I am a grad student in computer science. Having read many research papers and having worked with an adviser has made me much more aware about best practices concerning presentation and reporting of results in published research.
I have also published a paper when I was a junior in college. Looking back at it now (its been around 2-3 years), compared to the standards set by papers I have read, my work is very sloppy.
More specifically, I have typos in one or two places and an equation is incorrect (I maximize for x when I should be maximizing for x and y). Also, my evaluation is based on very little data (though I do point out that it is very preliminary and further evaluation is needed) and the metrics I have used to evaluate the described technique do not adequately demonstrate that my method is correct or better performing. The evaluation was added after the reviewer comments and therefore was not checked.
Typos aside, as an undergrad, I was ignorant about best practices when it came to reporting results in that specific area. This is partly because me and a friend of mine wrote the paper over the summer without any involvement from our university or professors (I am not making excuses and I do hold myself accountable for these mistakes).
The paper is rather embarrassing since it does not really represent a significant step forward and is presented very sloppily. I love research (I'm planning a career in research) and I feel that it does not accurately reflect my current research rigor. I don't like it showing up in search results associated with my name.
What would you suggest is the best way to deal with this situation? I'm most worried (been stressing about retractions and the like...) by my lack of sufficient data and invalid metrics, as well as the possibility of future employers seeing it.
Note: I just want to point out that I do not believe that the core idea of the paper is wrong, but the way it is presented along with its evaluation. It's also been cited a few times (I fully understand that this is no guarantee of validity).

So you wrote a bad paper before you received any training in writing papers. That's not a big deal. Just move on, nobody will care about the undergrad paper.

"What would you suggest is the best way to deal with this situation?": Forget about it and move on to new research, your future won't depend on this.

Publish a follow up in which you briefly acknowledge the deficiencies and take the work itself to the next stage, if there is one.

I strongly disagree with @MassimoOrtolano.  Don't forget about it. Learn from it.

Thank for the comments! It's made me much more careful about what I write in a paper and how I write it. Also, I will forget about it in the sense that I wont keep worrying about it :).

Perhaps it shows how much you've learned since then... and isn't academia supposed to be the pursuit of higher learning? Einstein wasn't born with the theory of relativity.

Just don't worry about it, and keep doing your current good work.
It's pretty cool that you were able to publish a paper at all as an undergraduate.  Anybody who notices your old paper will primarily notice that.  The sloppiness will reflect much more on your senior co-authors (who should have been expected to know better, and educate you likewise) than yourself.  And if you didn't have much more experienced co-authors, so much more cool and understandable.
Do good work now, and the sloppiness of your undergraduate paper will simply fade into insignificance.

How could one notice that the paper was written as undergraduate? That's not often written on the paper itself and not all readers will check the OP's CV?

@Taladris The concern is that it will reflect badly on the author. In a context where a reputation of the author's body of work is being formed, it seems likely that the reader would be considering multiple of the author's papers, in which case it's obvious that this is the earliest. Even non-undergrad first papers can be expected to be of lower quality.

First of all, your situation is not so unusual: in fields where student-only publications are common (like mathematics and some branches of CS), a lot of academics have one or two publications from their undergraduate days.  These publications are virtually guaranteed to be significantly worse than all of their other publications.  If you don't believe it, consider the logically equivalent form: "It is virtually guaranteed that the time you spend in a graduate program will significantly improve the research you do and publish."
I think a lot of people are vaguely embarrassed by their undergraduate publications: e.g. in mathematics most undergrad-only publications are in unusually undergrad-accessible fields like graph theory.  But then a majority of pure mathematicians go on to study and work in much fancier fields and even (unfortunately, to be sure) to look down upon these areas.  But although undergraduate publications can be embarrassing compared to later publications, they are impressive when compared to other undergraduates: a student-only undergraduate publication puts you at the head of the class.
For your paper in particular you sound more embarrassed by some slipshod details than by the work as a whole.  It also sounds like you received some subpar refereeing and editorial work: in particular, asking for extra content and then not looking at the extra content is lazy.  It can be surprising sometimes what apparently (and even actually, most of the time) reputable journals can publish.  (You might think that each paper published in a serious journal would at least have a flawlessly grammatical title.  You'd be wrong.  But I digress...)  What's done is done, but there's a lesson here: assuming that whatever someone else lets you publish is going to make you proud is sometimes an oversimplification and sometimes an outright error.
I would say that for the most part you should just work on feeling good rather than bad about this.  The one thing that may be worth actual action on your part is making clear to interested parties that this was an undergraduate publication.  There are some obvious clues to this for those who look.  In my field (mathematics), up until very recently a majority of graduate students did not publish papers, so it's rather common to see gaps of approximately five years between a mathematician's first publication and all later publications.  Even a gap of a few years followed by a steady stream of publication creates that impression.  You should certainly have a webpage, that webpage should certainly have a CV, and that CV should certainly clearly demarcate your undergraduate years.  If you feel strongly enough about it, you could list that paper separately on your webpage / CV / publication list in a category called "Undergraduate Papers".
Afterthought: if you think the flaws in your paper will cause trouble to researchers in the field, perhaps fixing the paper in some way might be in order.  You could post an edited version of the paper on your webpage, and if someone cites the paper you could refer them there.  But ask a more experienced academic before you do this to get a sense of whether it's really necessary.

Curious: is research-level graph theory really undergrad-accessible? Or is it somehow more likely to contain "easy" problems than some other field of math?

@mrm: I think graph theory at all levels is much more accessible than most other parts of mathematics.  For instance, I believe that the following is one of the most important results in graph theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson%E2%80%93Seymour_theorem.  It is understandable to anyone who has taken an undergraduate course on the subject.  Which is not to say that this is an "easy" theorem, obviously.

@PeteL.Clark Thanks for the advice and suggestions! About the flaws - I feel that we explained the main idea reasonably clearly. My main issue was with the evaluation since the results could be misleading if you don't account for the size of the experiment. But we clearly state that our evaluation is preliminary, the higher numbers are probably due to the restricted scope of the experiment and that a more rigorous evaluation is required. So, I'm thinking that it is ok.

Write an erratum (it is mostly the wrong equation you have to worry about, the typos I am afraid you will have to live with except where the materially affect the meaning or intelligibility of the sentence). Email the erratum to the editor of the journal with a polite request that it be ran.
(These online days the erratum can be placed alongside your paper. There are some reasons to do with integrity of archival material that mean you will not be allowed to change the published online version, unless it is one of those hyper modern journals that explicitly countenances "versions".)
I published a paper when I was an undergrad! And I discovered an error when it was in print. I came clean with the editor and the corrected version could be published as the first and only version. I am still quite happy with the paper.


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What is the cost of an endowed chair in a medical school?
What would be a typical cost for a donor to start up an endowed chair for a professor (an MD) in a medical school?  Are there ongoing costs?

For a fully endowed position, multiply the expected salary, benefits, and research funds by 20x to get an approximation.
If the researcher is making $250,000 in salary and benefits and $250,000 in funding for their lab, then you would want around $10,000,000 endowment minimum (salary and lab numbers chosen for ease of calculation rather than proximity to reality).
This assumes a 5% per annum draw on the endowment, which is both conservative and average. A university with better fund managers could draw 8-10%; a very conservative institution or a place that wants to grow the endowment endogenously might only draw 3-5%.
And as @Dawn notes, for some positions not all position costs are paid entirely out of the endowment, and thus may require a smaller investment. For example, some endowed chairs might only receive 30% of their salary from the named endowment and the rest from general funds. If that were the case in the above example, the endowment would only have to be at the $3 million level.

RoboKaren is right that the annual expected outlay is 5% of the value of the endowed fund. However, many universities allow for endowed chairs that do not cover the full cost of a faculty member's salary and lab. At some universities, the required amount to start a fund is also rank-specific (assistant prof/full prof/dean).
If you have a particular institution in mind, you may be able to find the information on the costs to start and endowed chair on their website. For instance, Duke's policy is here: https://dukeforward.duke.edu/ways-to-give/endowment/endowment-giving/
The amount for an assistant professor at Duke is $1.5M. From my experience with development, this is roughly consistent with other universities.
Ongoing expenses should not be required. However, some universities have policies which allow donors start the chair with have of the amount funded. In this case, the donor would continue to make payments to cover the other half of the amount on some mutually-agreed-upon schedule.


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is there a usage called "Full Professor"?
I would like to know if the usage of "Full Professor" is valid or not as my language ability does not let me decide on this particular thing.

Yes. The highest level of professorship is "Professor". The title "Full Professor" is often used to distinguish from other lower rank positions (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, etc).
(Edit after Henry's comment)

At least at many institutions, "Professor" is not a shortening, but the actual formal name of that rank. "Full Professor" is usually an informal term used to distinguish the actual rank from lower ranks which are sometimes informally called professors as well (and where "Professor" may appear in the title, like "Associate Professor").

It would be good to clarify for the OP that you generally wouldn't refer to someone as "Full Professor Smith", only "Professor Smith" - such as in person, in an email, etc.. Professor Smith may hold the position of "assistant professor", "associate professor", or "full professor" as a job title, but in all cases their honorific professional title is just "Professor".


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How long after completing a Postdoc position should one forfeit first-authorship for unpublished data?
Usually Postdoctoral Fellows do not have the Intellectual Property (IP) for the data they collect during their positions. When a Postdoc finishes their role, research institutions can potentially use their collected data for funding or publish it. In some cases, Ive seen manuscripts prevented from submission, and then 'reangled' by the PI with the PI then put as first-author, which is arguably unethical although probably legal.
Given a Postdoc is still actively working on the data after completion of their Postdoc position, at which point should they forfeit their 'rights' to be first-author, if ever?

Thanks. I know what you mean. I only mention it because an institute can use this because institutes can claim IP if there is a legal dispute

In brief, whether the PDRA is still employed at a university or not, does matter not one iota. They maintain whatever rights they had indefinitely.
When discussing IP, what matter to most universities is patenting, and attribution of the work to their university. Universities only care about publication with respect to those factors.
The PI probably does not have the right to prevent the PDRA publishing their work, unless the PI has truly qualified as an author in their own right. A financial or an administrative relationship does not confer any authorship rights. To have qualified as an author, the PI must have made a genuine and significant intellectual contribution to the manuscript beyond "supervision."
Since the PDRA certainly did make a significant intellectual contribution, they have a veto over any submission. They have this in perpetuity. The PI has no right to seize a PDRA's work and repackage it, unless the PDRA consents to it.
If the PI submits a repackaged manuscript without the consent of the PDRA, they have committed fraud. They had to sign that the PDRA agreed to the submission, and if they did so fraudulently, that is indeed fraud.

Thanks for your answer. Do you know if this extends to grant applications? Can unpublished data of the Postdoc be used by PIs without offering coauthorship on the grant applications?