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Can I challenge a paper already published in a peer reviewed conference/journal?
I recently came across several papers in the area of Information Extraction and Data Mining which seem to have passed the review process even if they (1) use some new terminology without describing it, (2) replicate some old and popular technique and just describe it in a new way, (3) use new datasets without releasing them publicly or describing them in detail, (4) confusing language that doesn't seem to describe the methods... and much more.
Why challenge them? Such papers give these people a kind of leverage in situations where number of publications count rather than quality of genuine work. They also encourage, let's say, 'pseudoscience' within the scientific community - or fraud, as those more experienced among you say.
I've faced situations like:-

Someone hired me from a freelance site to implement a previously published paper. The paper doesn't adequately describe the novel methods they claim. I spend a week on it but don't get paid.
Similar situation but the implementation's accuracy doesn't match the claim.
In a semi-academic gathering (tea time in a summer school), a discussion turned into a debate. Though I wasn't involved in it, one of the others said something which I pointed out as being logically wrong. It turned personal and one of them claimed that they knew better because of having twice the number of papers than me. Later when I read their papers I found that they didn't contain any ideas that would count as a genuine research.

I guess some of you might have been in similar situations before. Yes it doesn't matter in the longer term; but it is hard to avoid some situations like this and I think it might be hampering the research community as a whole.
Here are the exact points of my question:

Should we confront such publications? Would we get anything out of it?
Is it even feasible?
How can I do so? What actions are possible in such cases? What is the best course of action?

p.s. Yes citations matter more than just throwing papers - but such publications also get citations from other equally content-less papers published in similar conferences.
pps. Most of these papers are from less-than-tier-3 level conferences but still published by top publishers like IEEE and Springer.

What action are you hoping would come of your "challenge"?  Retraction?

@NateEldredge I guess I must add one more line in the question. What all actions could be there?

Your best bet is to replicate and publish the replication with a sound explanation of why the original research was dodgy. This, of course, is expensive. I can't go around replicating and disproving a larger, better-funded, more experienced team's lazy work. If there is a significant amount of bad work in a specialised field, explain the general issues with it, propose a new methodology, and apply it in a case study to show its benefits.

I spend a week on it but don't get paid. - You should always get paid for your time. You may want to revise whatever contractual agreement you send them in advance for your work, as well as be sure you know what you're making, (and they know what they're getting), before you start working.

Academia is a game. Some people who aren't good at research are good at playing the game. Many areas could improve their credibility, for example, by not publishing an article without the raw data, or not publishing an algorithm without an implementation. But there is massive resistance to this, because it would expose too many academics as frauds.

Best way is to not give value to these people. For example, If someone says I have double count on number of papers the discussion ends there. Infact why did the discussion even went this way. A better group to get involved in would be where there is stimulating discussion on important topics. For me, once I am sure that someone with wrong fundamental want to continue argument and is not interested to understand/listen to what someone else has to say. Again discussion ends there. Great way to save everyone's time. :)

I think you have to further examine your motivation for wanting to “challenge” these substandard papers.  All of the following are reasons which are suggested in your question.

You feel that contentless or decisively problematic publications bring down the quality of the academic community as a whole.
You feel that the people who are publishing these works get too much credit.
In particular, they are holding themselves up as superior to you.
Specific people – e.g. you – suffer when you try to rely on publications which do not do what they promise.

This is a lot to answer, but I’ll take a stab at it:

This is a disturbing trend in the world of academic publication.  I now get more “journal spam” emails than all other spam put together (well, counting only what makes it into my inbox).  One can no longer assume that an academic publication is reputable, legitimate, or sincere in any way without having prior specific knowledge of the people and institutions involved.  I think this is a terrible problem, but it's well beyond my pay grade.  I do not have a solution in mind.

The best revenge is living well. In line with point 1, there is an increasing segment of the worldwide academic community in which people, in order to maintain their very low-paying academic jobs, simply must meet a certain quota of authorship.  No one cares about the content or quality; in many cases there is no infrastructure there for them to evaluate the content if they did care.  This is very sad.  At an individual level, what seems best to me is just to get out of this part of the academic community.  In many cases this is best accomplished by relocating to a different part of the world where the academic infrastructure exists.  You are not going to get a job at a research university in the United States by having 50 bullshit papers: that's just not the way things work here.  However, if you are a scholar in India, you can get offered a job in the United States (or Europe or Japan or...) on the basis of your work: it just has to actually be very good.

The person who tells you that he’s right and you’re wrong because he has twice as many papers as you is on the one hand an asshole.  On the other hand, he’s splashing around in a pond that you want to get out of: I can assure you that there are many academic environments in which who's right is not decided by counting publications.  You sound like a serious person: get yourself into one of these environments.

This seems to open up another can of worms, but relative to point 1 above: you simply cannot uncritically take publications at face value.  To be honest about it, you can do this to a greater or lesser degree according to the level of trust and esteem you place in the author, the journal, the institution...but doing this at all is a compromise we make only because we are finite beings living in an imperfect world.  Learn to develop a “nose” for what is correct and what is problematic.  Definitely do not accept a work-for-pay situation which is predicated on the assumption that an unvetted academic work does everything that it promises!
In general, I would say that point 4 is a good reason to challenge papers: if you sstumbled by relying on a paper or can imagine another serious, reputable person doing the same, then you owe it to the community to try to get the word out about the defects of the work.  But as above you should also understand that part of being a good academic is knowing what looks good and what looks bad.  There is an ever-expanding sewage sea of worse-than-useless academic papers.  You can't take responsibility for getting rid of all of them.  But you can teach yourself to avoid the unpleasant experience of being submerged in this sewage sea, and you can teach your colleagues – and, as you get older, your mentees – how to do the same.

Good luck.

I appreciate your analysis of the situation I presented. Especially when you say "there is no infrastructure there for them to evaluate" - I believe you have a good experience of seeing the world and knowing what's right and what's wrong. Yes ALL of the publications I've pointed to are from people/universities which are below par than those of the papers I usually read. And last paragraph in the answer was, in a way, the most feasible solution to the problem.

I will add my different perspective on the OP's question. @PeteL.Clark answer pretty much covers completely the one side of the story: The OP has discovered some legitimate inconsistencies / mistakes on published papers and wants to make thing rights for the community.
But as we know there is always a second version to each story. Let's discuss some of those aspects as well.

Someone hired me from a freelance site to implement a previously
  published paper. The paper doesn't adequately describe the novel
  methods they claim. I spend a week on it but don't get paid.

This does not prove that the paper does something wrong. The assumption that one programmer can implement a method described on one paper that may build on several other papers within a week, is unrealistic / naive. CS scientists may spend 3-12 months working on a paper that may build on previous works that required several other months to implement. A CS paper is not a standalone piece of engineering that needs to describe everything. If it is based on previous works, it only needs to say what it does in addition to previous works. Therefore, in order to fully implement a method described in a paper, you also need to implement all previous methods this paper builds upon. And this takes months to years for newcomers to the suggested area, even if they are good programmers. In other words: Being a good programmer does not guarantee that you can implement every CS scientific paper there is.

Similar situation but the implementation's accuracy doesn't match the
  claim.

Again that does not guarantee that the paper has done something wrong. Perhaps the OP has done a wrong implementation of the created method. I find very strange the fact that the OP, assumes first that everyone else is wrong and has total confidence in his work, abilities and implementation, even if they contradict published work by many other authors. Assuming everyone else is wrong and my code / implementation is always correct, is not only a characteristic of cranks but contradicts the basic principle of software engineering: All codebases have bugs and first you should look for bugs in your codebase and then look for bugs elsewhere.

...which I pointed out as being logically wrong. The guy turned
  personal and claimed that he knew better because he had twice the
  number of papers than me. And later when I read his papers I found
  that the papers din't contain any ideas that would count as a genuine
  research.

What does  logically wrong means? Did you manage to do experiments and prove things over a tea table? Good for you. And what is this? "The papers didn't contain any ideas that would count as a genuine research". What is genuine research? Is this another version of the No true Scotsman argument? If I do not like someone else's research, I can belittle it by saying that it is no genuine research?

Use new datasets without releasing them publicly or describing them in
  detail

Again, this is the standard argument of newcomers. "Freely release your code and your datasets so I can use them but I will keep my code by myself so nobody steals it". The main argument is "You have already published your work and I have not, so you must help me". Again, this line of argumentation is wrong. An author has the exclusive right to share or not share his code or datasets. And has the OP asked the authors to give him access to their code or datasets? The fact that someone does not release the code publicly does not mean that if contacted, he will not share.
Conclusively, in most CS PHD students meetings I have encountered, there is always the "purist" guy who insists that he is only interested in A* conference publications, he only wants to do top publications, he is working 2 or more years in his "seminal" paper, most works of his peers is mediocre (as the OP described "not genuine research") and he will never work on incremental papers, since publishing something less than perfect is not suited for him. Unless this guy is exceptionally talented (which is easy to tell by his previous publications) this is also the guy that needs 7 years to get his PHD (if he actually gets one) and has an average  h-index of 2, when finishing. Please, do not be that guy (unless you are that talented). Focus on publishing your original work, instead of trying to find errors on everyone else.

your answer was amazing from the totally different perspective. Yup there may be some error from my side (I'm the OP). But the papers in the stories I mentioned were peculiarly un-implementable. It wouldn't be fine to mention the papers or authors here and ridicule them publicly but let me give a gist to explain the situation and where your primary assumption went wrong:- comment follows....

@AdityaJoshi There is no need to give actual details. As a rule, I would only care to implement methods in papers from a) reputable authors I know b) from reputable conferences (not necessarily top but good ones) and never really cared for obscure workshop papers. These criteria will filter 99% of most junk papers.

yup! I think that's my takeaway from this question.

The assumption that one programmer can implement a method described on one paper that may build on several other papers within a week, is unrealistic / naive. – As far as I understood it, the OP spent one week on the paper and then decided that it was not implementable given the lack of information. While this might still be due to mistakes from the OP’s side, it does not sound too unrealistic to me.

@Wrzlprmft well this is true for the first example. On the first read, the paper was simple and easy to understand. While reading in depth I realized there were several new 'concepts' the authors mentioned that were not described at all, and Alexandros and I had been discussing that in the now deleted comments.

An author has the exclusive right to share or not share his code or datasets. — Many computer scientists (like me) believe that researchers have a responsibility to publicly share their code and data.  Unfortunately, your attitude is more common. — You have already published your work and I have not, so you must help me — Indeed, that is precisely what research is for: helping other people.

@JeffE While that's an ideal to strive for, reality isn't always so nice. Sometimes publishing data would violate privacy expectations or even laws. On the code side you might use some proprietary libraries or tools you don't have the right to publish. Still I'd like scientists to publish as much code and data as possible.

@JeffE: I agree with CodeInChaos; that's an unreasonable expectation for datasets.

I should say "... researchers have a responsibility to publicly share their code and data whenever practically and legally possible".

A somewhat "indirect" challenge is to is to publish your comments on a website such as PubPeer.
It has been historically used to comment mostly on papers in the area of medical research, but it also hosts discussions regarding papers in computer science.
A full list of the journals that have comments regarding specific papers is available on that site as well.
In case these discussions point to substantial flaws in a paper, they can be forwarded to the journal editor/publisher.

Good link. I encourage people to up-vote the Pubpeer add, since there are a number of questions about pointing out bad research.

To answer the question from a more technical point of view: Some journals allow you to publish comments on papers (though I learnt from the comments that the prevalence of this practice varies strongly depending on the field). They usually are like regular publications, having citations, figures, tables and whatever you need and being subject to peer review. Depending on the size and relevance of the criticised paper, such a publication might also be a regular paper.
In your example where a method’s accuracy didn’t match the claim, you can probably publish a comment on this, substantiating your opposing claim with data or similar. Something similar goes for methods that are identical or very similar to existing ones without crediting them¹. However, I consider it unlikely that a journal will publish a comment on the inadequateness of a method’s description. In all cases, it might be sending an outline of your comment to the journal and ask if they would publish it.
Now, given the huge amount of bad papers out there, you could spend all your life writing comments exposing fundamental flaws in papers in your field. Unfortunately, there is no financial and little academic credit for doing this, so it is rarely done. However, if you already spent some time on trying to make use of a paper, you may already have most of what you need to publish such a comment and you may consider it worth your time.
Some modern journals (e.g., Plos One) also have online interfaces for instant comments that allow for criticising a paper with much less effort.

¹ Consider the possibility of an independent discovery though.

"Most, if not all, journals allow you to publish comments on papers (I do not know how this works for conference contributions)." Definitely not all.  Whether it's "most" depends on your scope.  In my field (mathematics), it is very rare for reputable journals to publish comments on papers written by anyone other than the original authors.  (I am not defending the practice, but just pointing it out.)

I have never seen a computer science conference accept or publish "comments", except for a few extremely rare errata submitted by authors.

I second JeffE's comment. 95% of the journal papers that I see in CS are either published by Springer, by IEEE, or by Elsevier. None of them allow comments. This should be the same in many subfields of CS. Actually, this was already discussed here (comments of the original posts): http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/32406/reference-on-the-authors-willingness-to-receive-public-online-feedback-on-thei

@DCTLib: That question was more about instant comments as mentioned in the last paragraph (at least that is how I understood it). Anyway, you seem to be right about journals accepting comments not being as prevalent as I estimated. I amended my answer.


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Citation after etc word
I have a question regarding proper usages of a citation number after the "etc" word.
So the sentence goes like this:

This is a random sentence about words and etc. Here is another
sentence. Now If I would like to cite, should the number in brackets
be before the dot, or after?

Option 1:

This is a random sentence about words and etc [1]. Here is another sentence.

Option 2:

This is a random sentence about words and etc. [1] Here is another sentence.

I have no idea which one is correct. I would appreciate all help!

Aside from the comments from @astronat and apnorton about avoiding etc in a context where you would be citing something, the et in et cetera translates to and.   So you would never ever say "and etc." because it's like saying "and and"...

If the typesetting is screaming this badly, it's often a good idea to take it as a sign that there are better phrasings out there and that the paragraph could use some reshaping.

@Fred Douglis this is a very good point. Compare to the similar &c.

Latin abbreviations (etc., i.e., e.g.) are bad style in general. . Writing "random sentence about words and so on [1]." is already strictly better. All other revisions suggested also apply.

@Blaisorblade [citation needed]. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style discourages "etc." specifically but doesn't seem to discourage other Latin abbreviations.

Sorry I retract: I was thinking i.e. and e.g. specifically, and they're only agreed to be often confused and misused. I've been taught to avoid them because they're confusing: abbreviating a foreign language doubles the understanding effort. But I agree multiple style choices are acceptable.

The full stop indicates that etc. is a contraction of et cetera. This means that the citation should come after the dot:

etc. [1]

If this is the end of the sentence, put a second full stop after the citation:

etc. [1].

As an aside, my old English teacher told me that using etc. is bad form; if you have other things to list, be explicit and list them. If not, don't waste space with the pointless filler. (However, I myself have often broken this rule.)

+1 especially for the last paragraph.  If you're using "etc." in academic writing, you need to be more specific.

I agree with the 'bad form' point.  To me, if an author uses 'etc', it simply says 'i don't know', or 'I'm too lazy to list the items for you'.

Yes, except a few journals have the reference after the full stop rather than before, in which case you shouldn't have two (if etc. ends a sentence you would only have one).  This is perhaps more common with a superscript citation style.

Using "etc" at the end of a list makes explicit that the list is not inclusive. This might be because a few elements are omitted, in which case one can argue that they should be added. However, the full list may be simply too large for the paper - laziness is not the only reason to shorten it. The list might not even be finite - "The prime numbers, 2,3,5, etc. have the property ...". If you omit the "etc", you would be talking about just those 3 prime numbers. (Of course I'm using prime numbers as an meta-example here, no real paper would need to have examples of prime numbers)

@MSalters Though in most publications (academic writing in general?) it is more common to see something like "We have studied cats including, but not restricted to, feral kittens, siam cats and calico cats." instead of "We have studied feral kittens, siam cats, calico cats etc." This involves mentioning the "category" you are using, which is not obvious with the etc (would dogs be included because this is about pets or is it just cats that have been studied?)

@skymningen: Critical difference there: the list of cats you studied is a finite list. There I would agree with the above-mentioned opinion of listing them all. It would be another matter if you stated "Previous research on feline diets covered feral kittens [...], Siam cats [...], and calico cats [...]." (quoting other sources than yourself).

It wasn't meant to be a finite list. Thus "including but not restricted to". There are many breeds/types of cats that could have been studied. Persian cats, neutered male cats, cats with diabetes, ...they are all cats, but there isn't necessarily a finite amount of subgroups of cats. Maybe it was a bad example. Let's say "We plan on studying cats, including but not restricted to (list)." Then the final decision of the selected cats is not made yet, there are many options but they definitely will be cats.

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How to write references in a Report and Research paper?
I am about to submit my master's thesis report and writing a research paper along with it to submit in CHI conference. While writing I got stuck when I had to mention the references. Here, I have few questions for while referencing the material in the report and research paper.

How to add a research paper references in the end of the report as
well as in the research paper? Basically I am asking the format of
reference. There are so many format and I don't know which one to
use.
How to add a website references in the end of the report and
research paper? Again I am asking the format.
How to mention these references in the paper or report? What I mean by this is how to include these references inside the report and research paper?

I have read couple of papers and I am extremely confused what to use where
   and how.
EDIT:- I forgot to mention here that I also wanted to reference the images I used in the report or research paper. I am not sure but can we reference the images as weblink. Also how to mention the images with reference in the middle of the text?

Look at how other theses do it, ask your supervisor, other students that are somewhat ahead, ...

Most conferences with peer-reviewed proceedings specify a particular format for their papers.  Among other things, such a format generally constrains you to a particular manner of presenting references, answering all of the questions that you have.  To find this information, you typically need to find the call for papers and then look down near the end somewhere in the submission instructions, where there will typically be a link to a standard format specification.  Most will provide both a Word template and a LaTeX template, as well as a PDF example of what things should look like.
CHI is no different, and their formats for this year may be found at this link.

Adding to Jakebeal's answer, get a few papers from the same journal (ideally in a field near yours). That might give hints on how to handle e.g. discussion of previous work (how much detail), and other such non-explicit rules.

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Is attending a more expensive and prestigious foreign university a good financial investment?
Here's the question: is university a sound investment? I'll be clear, since I know that this situation and this questions are experienced by many people. I'm going to face very soon the choice of where to go attending my Msc courses and obviously, after having decided which universities suit my tendencies better, financial considerations come on the way. I don't want to hear considerations like "yeah,it's all about your dreams, if you really want to go there then it's a worthy investment" because let's face it, even with your dream job life with 1000£ a month isn't easy. I'm not even complaining about how this world can be elitarist due to the high fees and life costs, I'm just pondering the best opportunities.
The choice is between staying here in my country where costs are way lower or trying for the upgrade in the best (and expensive) foreign university (namely I'm now considering Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and Eth). I was wondering then if the 20000\50000£ investment is justified by a better salary and effective enhanced working chances? And in case of the decision to pursue an academic career, is it amortised in a reasonable amount of time?
Has someone experienced this path or similar one and can tell me something about it?
Just to give some feedback: I'm from one of the good italian universities and with grades making possible a decent (hopefully) prospect of career even here, either in or outside the academic world.
EDIT since it might be useful, I'm studying mathematics and planning to have my master in applied mathematics. The options are to get a specialization in financial mathematics or a general applied mathematics Msc that could yield to further academic continuance or to job in industry.

Presumably this depends on so many factors: degree, your alternatives, where you plan to work afterwards, the nature of your career plans. Are you asking the very general question or did you want to frame it in terms of a particular degree, job plan, etc.

The universities you have listed have a great deal of funding/scholarships available. Including for international/EU students. Especially for research based degrees in STEM subjects. You should apply to every scholarship you qualify for. Note that the deadlines for scholarships are often much much earlier then the admission application deadlines.

Yes I was considering this.. As I said in the other comments, I'll try to get one and then I'll ponder with all the cards on the table

Ok, I have answer to this as I did finish all my higher education in the UK, and still living/working here.
Money Buys you a Place But Not a Future: Yes, you can spend money and get to very decent universities; but:
Exceptions: The Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh are very wealthy and well known and funded, so they don't care much about anyone's money to be honest; however this might differ based on your field. But, the general rule, don't count on getting a place over there by flashing money.
University: Not so many universities currently looking for hire from postdoc level, yet alone PhD level. There is a mayhem over this, just talk to an academic living in the UK.
Conclusion Back to your question, no by paying extraordinary amount of money you will not get a better financial future compare to finishing your studies within Italy.

thanks, very clear. Maybe you misundertood me though. The investment I was talking about isn't to get INTO the university, for me the investment is the payiment of the fees and the living costs. I can't afford these, let alone paying to get in (which I wouldn't do in any case). What about repaying in case of being luck and getting to a Phd and going on with academic career? Do you know anything of the environment?

And sorry for being insistent but do you really think that an external employer would look at my Padua Msc the same way he would consider a, say, Imperial College Msc?

@Nicolò Yes it does not differ that much, and you will save loads of money!

@Nicolò I'm sure you can't get academic job easily here after a PhD (3-4 years). It is almost close to impossible.

My take: Get out of there with the least possible debt/expenditure, take advantage of all the internships, research, etc. you can get your hands on, and network fiercely with the uni. faculty for recommendations. Regardless of the institutions reputation, if you can pull the above off you should be for all intents and purposes set for success. (applies broadly whether you're grad or undergrad)

In fact the idea that's coming up to me is to apply for the universities I'm interested in and then decide whether to go or not mostly based on the scolarships I get.. if all goes wrong (meaning, no one decide I'm worth some money) I'll have to ponder very well, considering the fact I wouldn't like being economically insecure/dependent till my 30s..

In short I believe this all depends on which country you would like to work in and what sort of industry you would like to aim towards. I can't really comment about academia jobs as I have little experience with them, though I would edge towards the view of: the greater the prestige the greater the opportunities.
Speaking from experience within the UK job market outside academia related jobs however, I would say that having a prestigious name on your CV underneath your education section will certainly help you to get your foot in the door (get noticed), and these universities do have great industry related relationships that can help you even more to get noticed, but when it comes to business line interviews/assessment centers/competency based interviews/aptitude tests, solely having Oxford University on your CV/Resume will not help you in the slightest and it will be your skill and ability that is being focused on here.
It is worth pointing out that I personally believe studying outside your home nation (after undergrad) gives you a broader range of learning and perspective that will surely not go unnoticed by any prospective employers, regardless of the prestige of the foreign university you attended.

Good point of view.. it's just that while outside you can find a salary adequate to your abilities, I know for sure that here in Italy the prospectives for applied (not to talk of the pure) mathematicians are just ending up programming all day for software industries (and then wasting your former efforts and studies) or doing a poorly paid job... And it's sad


text:
What would happen if I took my professor's accusation of cheating to court?
I was caught cheating during an university exam. The professor promptly failed me for the class. If I decided to take this issue to court, claiming that the professor has no evidence of my cheating, could I get away with it? At the time, there were no cameras in the room, and the professor did not take a video or photo of my cheating. In this scenario, who has the greater power, the student or the university?

Suppose a burglar is caught picking a lock. The policeman promptly cuffs him. If a burglar decides to take this issue to court, claiming that policeman has no evidence of his cheating, could he get away with it?

The regulations / policies of the iniversity may state something along the lines of « evidence of cheating - based on eye-witness accounts - can lead to a grade of zero for that assessment or course until it has been discussed at the exam board ». « Students may be able to submit a letter of appeal to the board, which will be heard. » As students sign acceptance of the institutions policies and regulations they may have to accept the decision of the exam board.

@SolarMike Nothing technically stops it from going to court, probably.  In the US you can always try to take these things to court (Tom Brady had a similar agreement with the NFL, for example; still went to court). But the court is unlikely to bother with it for long if the judge isn't convinced that the plaintiff has a reasonable shot at proving that a law or the contractual terms and procedures were violated. Arbitration results that are "wrong" are often upheld because procedures and terms were adhered to. Courts are too overloaded to risk all arbitration cases falling to them.

Yes, in some countries you could due someone for farting while standing next to you... But the point about correct procedures is good.

@zibadawatimmy: generally (in the UK at least) you cannot appeal either court judgements or arbitration on grounds of factual error, unless you can show that new evidence has come to light. This isn't about courts being overloaded and not wanting the work, it's the way the legal system works.

@WanderingChemist Yeah, that's pretty much what I said.  And I'd say it's about both.  Arbitration didn't exist in a functional fashion in the US until the 20's, and has only expanded to the "if you've looked at a box of Rice Krispies, then you must go to arbitration if you ever try to sue Kellogg's" state of today by a number of expansive rulings by the Supreme Court and the practical inability for an already underfunded and overloaded judicial system to resolve these disputes themselves.

If somebody saw you cheating and is willing to say so, that is evidence. Photos and videos are not the only form of "evidence".

While the details of the answer depend on the particulars of the university and the country, in general I expect that a student would not be able to get very far with such a case.
The basic problem is that an accusation of cheating and an administrative sanction within the policies of the university is not generally a matter of law, and thus there is no reason that a court should be interested in involving itself. The student would thus have to find some sort of basis for claiming that some law is actually being broken (e.g., discrimination, defamation) or that a contract is being violated (not likely). One can imagine cases in which this is actually upheld (e.g., a professor who systematically blatantly overlooks cheating by white students while carefully monitoring black students), but in the case of a basically reasonable professor who caught a student cheating, it seems unlikely that the student would get very far in any reasonable courtroom.
In short: a guilty but litigious student might be able to cause a lot of annoyance and expense for a professor and a university, but would be unlikely to receive satisfaction in court.

@NajibIdrissi There are almost always still going to be many levels of university policy to go through before one could get to the point of actually making it a legal issue, since the university will have procedures for dealing with potential code violations, appeals procedures, disciplinary and review procedures, etc. And even then there may be questions of whether it actually counts as an enforceable contract. That doesn't stop you from trying to sue, but it does mean that you will likely lose, and might even get slapped with penalties for frivolous suit (depending on jurisdiction).

“The basic problem is that an accusation of cheating and an administrative sanction within the policies of the university is not generally a matter of law.“ - well in Germany at least that would be a violation of the Grundgesetz (the basic human rights or sth like that). Many university teachers think they are law, but no, this is just wrong.

@DonQuiKong Would you care to elaborate?

@jakebeal administrative “sanctions“ (or whatever) are “Verwaltungsakte“ (disclaimer: there's still some discussion if single grades are, but grades for a complete course are) which means they are treated the same legally as if any other state office took some action (like your tax return) and can be taken to court equivalently. One of the basic laws here is freedom to choose your profession. Grading without probable explanation or reason or discriminatory would therefore be against that. (I don't know the equivalent English terms to make this sound more precise)

@DonQuiKong The question is not about grading without a reason, but is about whether a student could use legal means to avoid normal punishment for cheating.

@jakebeal reason = prove.

Looking at the actual code on cheating from a German university, I find that it says a student who cheats on an exam may be marked "insufficient" (which sounds equivalent to failing, in context). If the student wishes to dispute, the university considers the case and provides a written statement of reasons within two weeks. No legal proof required, just reasonable execution of internal procedure.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

This, independent of the law, sounds like a fast way to make enemies. You will make enemies with the Professor for taking them to court, the University for taking their staff to court and by-passing internal regulations (that could have punished potential misconduct by themselves!), some students and who knows! (recall that academics have rather big professional networks!)
It might sound like a good idea to 'enact justice', but there are a lot of 'problems' in academia that can best be solved from within academia.
So, don't sue your profs unless there are no other alternatives ('not suing' is often a reasonable alternative)


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Will CS programs look favorably on an older applicant who already has a PhD?
Let's say a recent math PhD in his early 30s realizes he's unlikely to land another postdoc after his current one ends, and he decides he really liked being a grad student and he really doesn't want to grow up and get a real job. He also really likes theoretical computer science and computational number theory.  Do you think computer science PhD programs would be weirded out by the fact that he already has a PhD, or would it be an asset, or neither?

Related: Is doing two PhDs a good path?

If said hypothetical math PhD put themselves forward as a candidate for the reasons stipulated above: really liking being a grad student, really liking theoretical computer science, and having limited capacity to make use of a PhD in mathematics, I would have lots of concerns about their viability as a master's candidate.

See also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1836/when-does-one-go-for-a-double-doctorate and other questions tagged [tag:second-degree].  Keep in mind that a lot of institutions will, as a matter of policy, refuse to admit anyone as a PhD student who already has a PhD in the same or similar field (math and computer science are almost surely "similar" for this purpose).  That may give you some indication.


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Does it still make sense to reply to not so recent publications? Is there a cut off?
When is a publication (paper or book) considered to be a recent publication? Does it still make sense to reply to publications, even if they are not so recent, or will it look silly to respond to something someone else has written 40 years ago, (assuming the debate surrounding this topic is not considered to be of prime importance anymore)
I am not talking about referencing that work, but directly responding to it, published in the same journal, entitled (for example): A response to X...
My field is Political Science / Political Theory.

Can you clarify what you mean by "respond"? Do you mean a response that is published in the same journal (usually with a title/subtitle of "A reply to...")?

Yes, sorry. Something along these lines.

Some journals have cutoffs (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine is 3 weeks). What is your specific field? This also depends upon your target journal.

It does happen in mathematics.  "A new proof of ..." or even "A counterexample to ..."  In that case, the longer ago, the better.

Generally I would say this depends on the state of the field - is a 'response' wrapped in the literature since the original article? Have even the original authors moved on in their thinking? Does anybody care anymore? The older it is, the less likely a 'response' would be, given all the other things that might have changed.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to specify your field.

My field is Political Science / Political Theory

What is an advantage of an answer over a paper that specifically focus on the given problem, but also acknowledge others addition in the last 40 years?

I was sent a reply article like this to referee recently, and I hope my experiences will provide from guidance.  The original paper was in theoretical physics and was published in the early 1980s.  The journal editor who contacted me informed me that, as a matter of procedure, they would normally send the submitted reply to the author(s) of the original paper as well as one or more additional referees.  However, the journal had actually been unable to locate the original author, because so much time had passed.
One of the key questions the editor wanted me to address was whether it was worth publishing this reply article now, more than three decades after the first publication.  I read the short reply and determined that its criticism of the original article was technically correct.  The paper had misstated the precision of an inferred constraint by about a factor of two.  However, I still advised the editor that the reply was not important enough to publish.
The reasons for this were several, and if you are interested in writing a reply to an older paper, I would suggest you think carefully about whether analogous arguments could be made against the publication of your own work.  The first reason was that the error was relatively minor.  Yes, it was a genuine error; but no, the major results of the first paper were not materially affected.  The second reason was that the original paper had not had a significant impact on the field; it has less than five citations, and none of the papers citing it made use of the erroneous result.  The third reason was that, because of more recent work, the old results had been superseded anyway.
If you want to reply to an influential work, which you felt has made some kind of logical or methodological errors, there may be valid reasons to publish your reply, even if decades have passed.  However, if the errors are minor or the original work's influence on the current state of the field is small, I would not suggest that this would be a good use of your time.

Just one point to add: If you found a major error in an influential work that got published decades ago, then you should ask yourself "Why has no one else found it yet?" It might be that you are really the first to see it, but if it is old, had a lot of influence and it is a big error, chances for this are rather slim. So if you feel that you are in this case, double- and triple-check all your arguments.


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Reference private resources in paper
Some of the deliverables of a project I'm working on are of a private nature (due to commercial reasons) and will not be released to the public. Would it be acceptable for a (conference or) workshop paper to reference one of those deliverables?
To give some more background, part of an algorithm on my paper is based on work described on one of those private documents. I need to acknowledge that somehow.

Are the deliverables of private nature due to national security reasons (as opposed to other reasons, e.g., commercial IP)?

@MadJack: Some deliverables are of private nature due to commercial reasons.

part of an algorithm on my paper is based on work described on one of those private documents. I need to acknowledge that somehow.

The algorithm has not previously been published, so you can claim that it is an original contribution of your paper. You can acknowledge the project in your acknowledgements section.
Problems might arise if your paper and the private document have different authors. In this case, you should seek permission from those authors to publish your paper and you should acknowledge the contribution of those authors.


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What is typically expected of a conference session chair?
In this recent question, the OP there describes a situation where they were assigned to be a session chair without being asked to do so.
After reading the above question, and having never chaired a conference session before, I wonder if I would be adequately prepared to take on such a task. For sure, one would expect the conference organizers to fill in the details upon request, but it'd still be useful to have an idea of what to expect; this would all be taking place at well-attended (electrical) engineering conferences.

What is typically expected of a conference session chair?

what have you seen the chairs do during these occasions...? -- To be honest, I've never really paid attention to what they were doing. @NajibIdrissi

It should be quite comfortable and recline slightly.

Possible duplicate of Offer to chair a session - how should I decide whether to accept?

As a chair, it is a good idea to find and meet your presenters before your session, especially if you don't know them. Few things are more embarrassing than introducing a speaker you don't know, then asking "Uhm, is professor X actually in the room?", only to see X stand up in the first row right in front of you.
You should make sure that the presentations are available and easily found on the presentation computer, e.g., on the desktop.

Both of these are really joint responsibilities of speakers and the chair.

Make sure that there is paper on the flipchart and that the whiteboard is clean, and perhaps wipe it down between presentations. It's also considerate for the next session if you take charge to leave the room in a presentable state, with a clean whiteboard or flipchart etc.
If you notice that a speaker is new at the conference (maybe a first time presenting grad student), it's nice to make a little small talk with her or him and make them feel welcome. Works wonders to reduce the jitters.
Sometimes a speaker will have handouts. You should take charge that these are distributed, so the speaker can concentrate on the talk.
Similarly, sometimes you should hand out feedback forms, or remind everyone to vote on their conference app, or other things, depending on the conference.

Overall, the theme is: make the session easy on the presenters, and enjoyable for everyone.

About the first point, up to a few years ago, a well-known conference in my field used to organize so-called speaker's breakfast, where the chairs could meet the speakers.Unfortunately, these breakfast were usually around 7 am at the conference venue, to everyone's discomfort, and the tradition has been abandoned. As for the other points, in twenty years, I've never seen a whiteboard used at a conference nor anyone distributing handouts, but this probably depends on the field and on the size of the conference.

@MassimoOrtolano: I guess it does depend on the field. I sometimes do see someone using the whiteboard or flipchart for spontaneous additional work, graphs, derivations or similar, typically in response to a question. And I have seen people give out hardcopy with an outline of their talk.

Disclaimer: As usual, there can be different traditions depending on the field. I'll answer on the basis of my experience in a relatively small field, that of metrology, which is between physics and engineering.
The session chair is usually chosen among experienced researchers for the following reasons:

At least out of courtesy, they are expected to ask questions when nobody else has one, and this usually requires deep knowledge and a sufficiently broad view of the session topic.
At the beginning or a the end of the session, they are expected to outline the direction of the research about the session topic, taking into account the presented results.
They can better introduce most of the speakers if they already know them.

In addition to what the others mentioned, in the Q&A:

Steer the Q&A: keep audience questions fresh, focused and constructive, avoid non-questions, rants, ad-hominems, personality clashes, know when a back-and-forth needs to be (gracefully) taken offline vs when it doesn't. Know when to let things roll and when to change the topic.
When needed, generate discussion If the speakers did not engage with each other (or the audience), try to compare and draw parallels, ask questions on where they differ, mention stuff from other sessions (if relevant) or publications, generate an interesting and lively dialog then sit back

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Recommender used an online template for my recommendation
I've contacted a professor who I have taken 2 courses from and who has known me for over a year. I asked him for a recommendation letter and he agreed to write one. The moment I got his letter, I knew it wasn't entirely his words since he doesn't have a good command over English. So I ran a plagiarism check and found he took paragraphs out of this letter that is freely available online: https://www.eduers.com/reference/template/
Now, I'm a bit concerned about this. If the graduate admissions run some plagiarism test on this letter, this would almost certainly be flagged and that might void this letter entirely and reflect poorly on my entire application.
The way I see it, I have 2 options:

Contact another recommender
Somehow let my professor know about his plagiarism and request a new letter. (Not sure how I could address this via email appropriately!)

To address the first point, unfortunately, he is my 3rd (last) recommender so I have no one else to go to. Regarding the second point, he does not have a good command of English, so I'm not sure if he would be able to express his thoughts concise and precisely. And finally, I cannot have a face to face discussion since I'm not in the same country as him now, so the only practical interaction is via email.
That's my current situation, any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

While this is not ideal, I really doubt they will run a plagiarism check on a recommendation letter. If asked by the committee directly, I assume the professor will say that they think that of you and that its a genuine letter(as in, its what they want to say about you). I assume that if they discover its plagiarized, it mainly reflects bad on the profesor, not you.

Do LORs have expectations of originality?

The problem isn't so much the plagiarism, but that the letter is generic. The best letters include examples of interactions between the student and letter writer. Consider this paragraph

At a personal level, Jane is a well disciplined, industrious student with a pleasant personality. She went well beyond the course requirements in the quantity and quality of her project, putting in a lot of extra research and attending office hours every week. Throughout the course, Jane demonstrated great perseverance and initiative. She was not only interested in and motivated to learn the material, but put great work into assimilating it to her own experience and developing her own ideas about each ethical topic that we discussed.

Were are the personal details. How did Jane show that perseverance and initiative? Did she just come to office hours, or was their a memorable interaction about Ethical Relativism? The best letters are personal. The template is nice in that it touches upon the important topics for a letter, but it still lacks the details that readers want to see.

You overthought. I would just let it go and submit the letter as is. Most of the recommendation letters for PhD admission should be blinded to the applicants. You can apparently see the letter in your case, which actually is a bigger concern than the letter's originality.

Ok,
The problem is your Professors not yours.
If it was me, I would 100% send the letter.
You cannot be penalised for plagiarism if it wasn't you.
Also, there is absolutely no incentive for the school to run a plagiarism check on the email.
One piece of advice I can give you is DO NOT mention this to the professor that gave you the letter, they're probably very busy and they still got their point across.
Best of luck with the application!

Unfortunately, I've found when asking my supervisors for reference letters and similar they're often very generic (to the point where I once had a letter where my name was not swapped out for whoever it had been written for previously!). I wouldn't be too concerned, the recipient will no doubt be expecting a fairly generic template anyway. Academics are asked to write hundreds of letters of recommendation, references, etc., so it stands to reason they'd use a generic template. I very much doubt as others have said that a plagiarism check will be run on this letter, all they want is confirmation that X Prof/Doctor recommends you. Having worked in higher ed admin this is usually little more than a box ticking exercise.
Good luck with your application! :)

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Evidence that 'spoon-feeding' is bad or otherwise for learning
What research has investigated the influence of 'spoon-feeding' on learning?
By 'spoon-feeding' I mean providing extensive information about topics that will be assessed.  This related question discusses one example, which is the provision of model solutions to maths problems, after grading.
A quick search reveals a few articles, blogs and forum posts, which offer opinions along such lines as spoon-feeding being less effective because of not engaging students' interest, or because of not encouraging critical thinking, problem-solving, research, and so on.
My question is whether any serious research has investigated the outcomes of spoon-feeding.  For example, some research might have found an optimum amount of information that ought to be provided to students to maximise their performance in assessments as well as their ability to solve problems for themselves.

Can you explain what you mean by spoon-feeding?  For instance, here are a couple of related questions: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13908/19607 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/37961/19607

Is there anything else I can do to improve this question?

An observable (in my field, mathematics) fact that clouds the issue is a belief system about "teaching" (at college-level and graduate-level) in which "keeping secrets" and having "surprises" on exams is somehow rationalized as being a good thing. As a supposed corollary, letting-on what exams will cover, etc., is rationalized as "bad". Some sort of "Spartan" mythology. So one finds many, many comments, if not scholarly sources, advocating (what amounts to) cryptic explanation and secret-keeping because "it's good for the students". "Teacher" as antagonist?

Based on your definition, I think "spoon-feeding" is the wrong word--"teaching thoroughly" sounds more accurate.  There is research on the Moore method/Inquiry-based learning (IBL) versus traditional lecture.  But perhaps this is the wrong site for your question anyway--as you're asking for education research.  Possibly Mathematics Educators SE or Cognitive Sciences SE would be a better fit?  (Note I'm not actually familiar with these sites.)

For those self-motivated learners, clearly you need to give them enough information to pique their curiosity enough to invest the time to study more outside of class. Give them too little and they will feel overwhelmed. Give them too much and they do not feel the challenge. Daniel H. Pink wrote about this in his book "Drive" (he refers to "Goldilocks tasks") which is about motivation (including motivating students though not limited to students). Clearly the "right amount" of information needed to pique one student's interest could well be more or less than that needed by another student.
That said, I think you are asking the wrong question. The goal must be to get the student to engage with the subject. Students already have so much information at there fingertips. The problem is not that they do not have access to the information, the problem is that they do not acquire the information. If they don't read the book or notes or watch the video or pay attention to your lectures, they will not get the information regardless of how much "food" you put on their spoon.
Today, the general consensus is that student engagement is key to learning and active learning is a powerful tool to improve student engagement. Active learning is not about how much information you give, it is about how you give them information (for example, discovery-based learning).
As one man said a long time ago "ya gotta wanna" meaning that one must have a true desire in order to excel. So, the issue is about motivation overall.
That said, one could ask a question, when students are engaged and asking questions about a task you have given them, how much should you answer directly and how much should you guide them to find their own answers? In this case, the discussion would move to quantity of information but it would seem that the answer to "what is the right amount" must be unique to each student or at the very least dependent on the quality of the group of students overall.
In the school where I teach I have different levels of students (different programs) and one group (weaker, less self-motivation) requires much more information to get them interested in solving problems. That is, I must get them 90% there before they will try much in the way of research. Other groups I only need to give them 20% there and they are happy to do the work to get the other 80%.

This does not answer the question as asked, which is about the existence of research.

Which is why I referenced Dan Pink who does meta-analyses.


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My internship mentor would not write a recommendation for me, should I include the internship in my statement of purpose?
I'm finishing up my MS and getting ready to send out PhD applications, and I am not sure about a particular item that should be included / or should not be included.
I spent a semester at a high profile government office (I was strong-armed into a position I did not apply for) doing something that was related to my area of interest.
It was ultimately "unsuccessful" since the person who was "mentoring" me was adverse to writing me a recommendation. But my MS-supervising professor who wrote me a recommendation for the position seemed surprised when I suggested he not include it in his own letter of reference. I'm hesitant to mention it, but am a little concerned about a gap in my transcript that just reads "Professional Practicum".

Why cannot you just include this internship in your CV/statement/etc without having a letter? No one is going to think that you lied about this internship.

@AlexeyB. I agree. But in case someone asks for the letter it might look bad and suspicious. Although I list my internship (without a letter), though I declare that I do not have a letter of anything for it, except if someone really wants to know I can show the emails and codes and stuffs.

@phoxis You don not have to declare anything. No need to put emphasis on something that makes you uncomfortable. Also. What exactly did you ask from your internship mentor? To be a reference, i.e., someone who can be contacted for a letter? Or to write a letter and send it to you, so that you include it in the application? Some people would agree to be a reference, but would not want to send a recommendation letter to you.

@AlexeyB. At least in US, applicants never see their own reference letters; the writers send them directly to the departments to which the student is applying.

It is actually quite common that internships are not the source of reference letters to graduate school. The ideal letter writer knows about you and your work in an academic research setting, with longer periods of time being better - and also ideally has worked with lots of other students, and thus can meaningfully compare you to the "typical" student.
Internships relatively rarely will meet all of these guidelines, and students are generally advised to stick with professors or other similar professional researchers - so to not see a letter from your internship mentor would not be at all unusual. It would perhaps only catch someone's attention if the mentor would otherwise have been an ideal candidate for a letter (a prominent professional researcher in the field and former professor, for instance) - but even then, if your letters are otherwise good from well-chosen people I can't imagine this really being a problem.
My main concern is how you speak of the position. If you or your letter writers mention it - or if only your letter writer mentions it and you didn't include it in any of your materials - that could cause an issue, as it would look a bit odd. If your PhD admission process includes pre-admission interviews at all, I could see that being something you are asked about. If you are asked, how will you respond? Saying your mentor refused to write a letter for you and that it was a position you didn't really want in the first place would raise a number of red flags.
It's something you did that's relevant and took up a significant block of your time, so list it honestly and focus on the positive - the opportunity, whaty ou did, what you learned, the experience you gained. If you feel like you have something to hide - or you are actually trying to hide something - that's extremely likely to come out in other ways and negatively effect how you approach the application process as a whole.

It was at one of the more well known NASA offices, so it was a "professional research oriented". Although the person that mentored me, it was his first time I the role, so I'm sure he hasn't been exposed to many students.

Agree with the speaking about the position issue and I do not share the OPs assessment of the internship being "unsuccessful". You are expected to learn, if you can honestly say what you did well and what you did not (and what you have learned from it) that would (IMO) come across as more mature and better than trying to drop it.


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Who owns things bought with research funding after project ends?
In my research group, some time we use our funding to buy things required for our research. They can be pretty cheap (e.g. books) or quite expensive (e.g. machines).
When the funded by the project is over, I wonder who will own those stuff.

In the US, at least, there is a generally clear distinction between two classes of things bought with funding:

"Capital expenditure" items are individually identified in a project budget, e.g., "36-node computing cluster" or "Materials for building prototype robot".
'Overhead' or 'Material and Supplies' items are more routine items that are not individually identified, but are considered part of the routine cost of business, e.g., office supplies, laptops, laboratory reagents.

Capital expenditure items are typically owned by the funder, and their disposition at the end of the project is at the discretion of the funder.  When this is the US government, it is called GFE - Government Furnished Equipment.  In most cases, the funder lets it stay at the institution (effectively giving it to them), but not always.  An institution might even be required to give the equipment to another researcher.
Overhead items are generally owned by the institution that is executing the project, and are often owned by the institution in general, rather than being associated with the particular project. These typically further break down into two sub-categories: tracked, and untracked.  Tracked is things like laptops, that many institutions still consider expensive enough to keep track of who they give them to and (at least theoretically) ask for them back eventually.  Untracked is things like paper and staplers, which are below the threshold where the institution cares.  Again, typically all of it technically belongs to the institution, but in practice many institutions will let somebody keep a low-value 'personalized' item such as an old laptop.
The exact definitions of which things go in which categories depend on the institution, the funder, and the particular contract, but this covers most of the typical cases.  Make sure you check particular regulations and customs with any particular institution before taking anything, though!

While GFE status used to be the norm, we are seeing more and more that agencies don't want computer equipment specifically on the books. If they retain the title, then it's up to them to pay to dispose of it when it has reached the end of its useful life. Our grants are, more and more, coming with provisions that give explicit title up front to the institution for many kinds of equipment purchanses.

@BillBarth That's lovely to hear, though I haven't yet had the experience---probably due to the fact that at a company we typically are under the more restrictive forms of funding rules. Eventually, they do catch up with the times.  I remember 10 years ago budgeting individual laptops for grad students on a grant...

Also, the latest rules interpretations lead to requiring that 100% of whatever is bough on a grant needing to be used for the grant and nothing else. Pretty much means no more laptops for students.

@BillBarth Your institution can't categorize laptops as expendable office supplies, in with the staplers and copier paper?  That's what most of the ones that I have worked with do... it's a pretty accurate view of a normal laptop too, I think.

I think that might not audit well.

@BillBarth That is in fact exactly how my institution has instructed us to categorize computers.  On the other hand, I also can't buy expendable office supplies with grant money; I have to use unrestricted ("Indirect Cost Recovery") funds, unless I can argue that I'll only use THAT pencil for THIS grant.

Oh, IDC return has much less restrictions on it than direct grant dollars. That's your institution's money to cover overheads including laptops for students. I was only talking about direct grant money. It used to be much easier to put a laptop directly in a grant, but the agencies have been pushing people to move that over to indirect. Most PIs don't see much of the indirect since their institutions keep the vast majority of it to keeps the lights on. IME, 25% IDC return to a department is on the high side, and the chairperson usually takes a cut of that, too.

The funding agreement or regulations by the sponsor will usually clarify this. In most cases, it can be expected that the legal institution where the project is run buys these things and also owns them after the project. In some cases, the sponsor may own expensive equipment himself, so that it can go with the PI when changing affiliations.
I've also seen regulations where the sponsor only pays the depreciation of long-lasting equipment during the runtime of the project, so the institution would have to cover for the remaining costs.

Research contracts are generally to institutions, not to individuals, so major equipment belongs to institutions.  Often, though, the big equipment often leaves with the investigatop if they change jobs.  The idea is that in the normal course of business, gear will move both in and out of the university, and things work out over time.


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How to turn down a MSc supervisor after we had already agreed to work together?
I applied to a university in Canada for a MSc. As part of their requirements, I needed to have a supervisor in order to be granted admission to the program. So I did contact a supervisor and he took me in as his student with the condition that I brought my own funding. I said yes. However, the university has not yet offered me admission, I am still waiting for their decision.
This was not my only option of course and last week I got accepted to a MSc/PhD program in a Max Planck university in Germany. Because it is much better ranked and students are given a monthly stipend, I took the offer because I thought it was a better option for me.
How do I reject now the professor who accepted me on Canada? Should I tell him the truth? Is this a very bad move on my side?

There's no need to be ashamed of your decision. Anyone reasonably reasonable (excuse the tautology) understands, that as someone at the beginning of a career, these decisions will heavily influence a good part of your life, so you're in your right to be picky (as your career advances, it'll probably become harder to back out of agreements)./ontopic. Offtopic: The MPS is cutting back on funding for MSc, though PhD students are funded. If possible, try to negotiate a contract, not a stipend. They are different, and a proper contract offers much better conditions in Germany.

Skip the "better-ranked" part (don't be petty); say you couldn't hold up your end of the bargain - to find your own funding -, and Max Planck offered a fully-funded position. I don't foresee any issues or grievances after a short, to the point mail to this sort.

Very diplomatic. However, bear in mind that the prof may decide to offer a stipend then, to counter MPI's offer.

@Captain: Good point, but either that makes a difference, and OP does prefer to go to Canada then; or you can always react "oh no - now I've already firmly committed to MP..:what a shame" (given that it was based on securing funding, the original offer was conditional; MP's isn't, so you can weasel something like that). In any case, I doubt that's going to happen, although it might of course.

@CaptainEmacs I hadn't thought about the possibility of them offering a stipend! Thank you.

@gnometorule yes jajaja I just mentioned the "better-ranked" part in this forum. I would not mention that on an email to either the professor or the university. Thank you, I was really worried about me being forever "branded" as someone whose word is not trustworthy or something like that.

Do inform the professor as soon as possible. I have had students sign on with me, and then disappear on extremely short notice. Since I only advise a set number of students a term, I had already rejected other students because of workload. I'm not mad when people let me know what is up as timely as possible.

I followed the advice of the answers above and I sent the corresponding emails to the professor and the program administration office and everything went great!
The professor just answered with a short "thank you" and a " wish you all the best", which is a lot better than what I had expected (i.e. a very angry response!).
The program administration office also thanked me for letting them know as soon as possible and even asked me what were my reasons for not choosing their university.
To anyone who has the same question as me, be sure to let them know about your decision as soon as possible.


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Whether to mention contributions on Stack exchange in Statement of purpose (SOP) for MS/Phd application in US?
Assume that a student has a continuous involvement in any community of Stack Exchange.(consider 1,000+ reputation).
Does It has a positive impact to mention this involvement in order to show you are passionate about that field? I am asking this because the Statement of purpose has a great impact on your MS/Phd application.

I have never heard of anybody doing this! But, let's wait and see what others have to say.

Take into account that Stack Exchange, especially Academia.SE, might not be widely known in the general academic world, see, e.g., this meta question of mine. It might be well known in certain specific fields (e.g. CS or Maths), but totally unknown in other fields.

I argued forcefully for the admission of one of my current PhD students on the basis of his participation on cstheory.SE.  But I didn't notice because he mentioned his participation in his SOP; rather, I recognized his name from his contributions to cstheory.SE.

1000 reputation is like 2 or 3 good answers.

I think it is worth noting that in fields like data science, participation in online communities is positive.

My rough answer would be that you need to convey to your reader:

What SE is.  Many people think of it as a place to cut and paste answers without thinking too hard, but the community side isn't as well known
How to indicate your interest/passion.  The reputation number is fairly meaningless to an outsider.  Possibly a statement like 'contributed daily for 5 years' has more weight.

Personally I'd view it as a plus but not a massive benefit.  It would be more remarkable at undergrad entry to show engagement in the subject, but at masters/PhD level I'd assume you're already engaged.  It does show interest in teaching which could be positive (eg if you're likely to be a TA at some point).
I'd weigh carefully what you convey by this statement against the space needed to convey it: it may be there's a more impactful way to use the space.
[Disclaimer: I come from a UK perspective.  Other countries may be different]

From a US perspective too, listing a 1000 rep is unlikely to be helpful. Something that goes onto your SOP should probably involve hundreds of hours of dedicated work; it should be hard and compelling. Perhaps you could weave it into your technical narrative-- listing a discussion you had here that is particularly relevant to the rest of your SOP.
Academia.SE would probably not help at all, unless your PhD was centered around education. I would suggest that you weave it in only if you can find some posts which were significant contributions on the Electrical, Computer Science, Math, Physics SE (basically the area of your PhD).
Most programs do allow you to specify a web page (though these are often ignored). If you're planning to include one, you could add a SE flair and link it to your SE network profile.
EDIT: Yay!

I would argue that in itself, participation in Stack Exchange is not a major benefit nor hindrance to getting into graduate school. What is important is demonstrating that you are engaged and well-versed in the norms and culture of academia, which participation in SE.academia could possibly demonstrate. Is there some way for you to show that your participation in SE enhanced your ability to perform research, or communicate with like minded individuals? Listing "1000" Reputation on StackExchange Academia is unlikely to produce your desired results, however, a short paragraph in your Statement of Purpose, something along the lines of "Engaged with diverse, multi-national academic populace through popular website 'Stack Exchange Academia' for over 2 years helped me to develop the professional communication skills necessary to become a highly effective researcher, as well as developing a professional reputation as someone with high-quality questions and problem solving abilities".

Your suggestion will now appear on hundreds of SOPs ;-)


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How to respond to an unsolicited offer to publish work I have posted on arXiv?
Approximately one year ago, I submitted some of my research work to arXiv.
Recently, I got an email from Lambert Academic Publishing saying that they are interested in publishing this work and stating that their services are free of charge for authors.
I don't have much idea about different journals and publications. It would be great if someone can project the benefits of moving to publish in such academic publications. As arXiv already provides open access, is there any need of publishing somewhere else also?

Generally speaking, if you publish in more journals, more people will see it. But be careful there is no problem with double submittion.

@GautierC "Double submission" refers to submitting the same material to more than one journal. While there are, as I understand it, fields in which putting something on the ArXiv makes it ineligible for journal publication, I don't think that's generally referred to as "double submission". (And, in many fields, such as pure mathematics and computer science, it's considered completely normal to put papers on ArXiv before submitting them to a journal.)

@GautierC This site is full of people who are pros in the field of research. It's specifically for people who are pros in the field of research. Please don't post speculation when there are plenty enough people who can post facts.

Short answer to title: Ignore, add to spam filter.

As you become established as a scholar, you will receive more and more of such invitations, most of which are either scams or trash publications attempting to trick you into giving them content.  A small fraction, however, will actually come from legitimate colleagues who are inviting you to a special issue, editorial, or similar such opportunity.
Thus, when receiving an invitation, you should thus begin by evaluating the quality of the venue and the person who is inviting you, just as you would if you were choosing where to submit without an invitation.  Be aware, however, that some disreputable publications will lie about the identity of people involved, and that some careless academics may have been tricked into lending their name to disreputable publications.
In the specific case of Lambert Academic Publishing, I will note that they appear on Beale's list as well as a number of other highly critical analyses, including on Wikipedia and this site.  You can make up your own mind about their credibility, but I wouldn't recommend soiling your C.V. by publication with them.
Finally, to answer your question about arXiv vs. other publications: being in arXiv is fine for being accessible and citable.  If your work is good, however, I would recommend submitting to a reputable peer-reviewed journal.  If you are published in such, it will improve the reputation, notability, and value of your publication.

Good answer.  Another reason for legitimate solicitation for submissions: when people are starting new journals.  Also, in my experience legitimate invitations won't usually ask you about submitting work you've already posted online---it will just be a generic invitation for your future work---so that's another red flag.

As @Kimball says... Don't do it. It's a con.

"you should thus begin by evaluating the quality of the venue and the person who is inviting you" - see How do you judge the quality of a journal? Also, How to identify predatory publishers/journals


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I have agreed to do undergraduate research in a lab, but then I found another lab that seems more appealing. What are my obligations?
I am an undergraduate student in a European University (for privacy reasons, I will not reveal any personal information that may identify me).
I am interested in research, and a month ago - or so - I have contacted a Professor from Department "X" at my university, asking whether I could be integrated in any research group at the Department. The Professor set an appointment with me, showed me the installations, the labs, the material, ... I really liked Department "X", but their research is not what I was expecting. At Department "X", they work on the field that I like, but it's not what I was expecting: here's an analogy - I wanted to study snakes, but instead of actually studying the snakes' behaviour/their genes, at Department "X" they study the effect of external factors on snakes.
Still, because at my university I wasn't aware of anyone else studying snakes - or any other animal -, I said I was interested. I've been given a few articles to read, to catch up on the latest news about snakes, and also the methodology to study snakes. She (the Professor) is expecting me to work there soon.
The problem is that I have met a Professor, who works at Lab "Y". At Lab "Y", their research is top-level, probably one of the best labs in the country. During a talk with the Professor from Lab "Y", I mentioned my interest in animals, specially snakes, and the Professor told me about his job at Lab "Y". They do not specifically work with snakes, although they also do research on snakes sometimes. The research at this lab is much more specific and they have papers in the best journals in the field (unlike Department "X", which - although their research is not that bad - is much inferior to Lab "Y").
Now I am not sure what to do. I feel like I am obligated to work at Department "X" - after all, I have made a commitment with them. Furthermore, because it's a department from the university, it is close to me, I can go there in my free time easily, and I actually hope I will be able to teach a few classes about snakes if I stay with them. However, if I choose Lab "Y", I will be in another environment, where top-level research is made. On the other hand, the lab is around 1 hour (by public transports) from my house (it is not at the university).
For that reason, I would like to hear some advice from experienced academics like you.

Maybe it will help if you can find a replacement for the job you are giving up.

Unless you have formally signed some sort of agreement to work in the lab of Prof. X, you do not have what amounts to an actual obligation to work in that lab. If you so choose, you could say that you've found a better offer and work in the lab of Prof. Y.
Now, it should be pointed out that even though you've made a commitment to Prof. X's lab, if you choose to honor it (and personally, I would lean toward doing so), it should also be noted that such a promise does not mean you are committed to work in Prof. X's lab exclusively. It is entirely common for undergraduates to bounce around between different positions until they find something they like. Most faculty understand this, and so it shouldn't be a big deal in the long run if you decide to work in Prof. X's lab for six months to a year before trying out Prof. Y's lab.


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How often do popular academic books use unacknowledged ghost writers and is this a form of fraud or plagiarism?
My impression is that the use of ghostwriters is common and sort of accepted / an open secret in some contexts (e.g. books by celebrities or politicians).  I'm curious if others have that impression, but that's not my main question...
My question is about academics writing books meant to popularize ideas from their discipline.  Under what conditions would this would be viewed similarly, viewed as less-virtuous-but-still-acceptable, viewed as unacceptable/fraudulent/plagiarism, etc.
I'm thinking of books like "The Selfish Gene", "A Brief History of Time", or "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets".  EtA: these are purely hypothetical examples.

I'm interested in the answer to this question, but I'm also wondering if you can point to any evidence of ghostwriting, e.g. a case that's well-known? I've never heard the ghost of a whisper that Selfish Gene or Brief History of TIme were ghost-written. (Freakonomics, for example, is an open collaboration between an economist (Levitt) and a journalist (Dubner)).

There isn’t a ghostwriter in existence who could have written any of the books in your example. The nature of these books is that they are the distillation of some academic’s entire career of thinking deeply about a subject. Writing something like this is not some kind of grunt work you can delegate to a shadow person. Conversely, academics who have something interesting to say are perfectly capable of writing their own book, and don’t need a ghostwriter in the way that a business person, athlete or celebrity does. So basically this question is based on a false premise.

@DanRomik using a ghost writer doesn't mean that you don't contribute any of the content yourself.  See Freakonomics and others (Book of Why) for counterexamples to your comment.

@capybaralet those aren’t counterexamples. They do not involve a ghostwriter.

@DanRomik I think a ghostwriter is not necessarily somebody who writes the whole book, but somebody whose contribution merits authorship but is not listed as an author. That these authors decided to collaborate with journalists in writing these books indicates to me that they found it useful and were able to delegate significant parts of the process to another author.  This is why I say it is a country example to what you said in your comment.

@capybaralet sounds like you're moving the goalposts of your question. Well, anyway, I've stated my opinion and stand by it. I don't have anything to add at this point.


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Can I disclose a conflict of interest with some professors from a particular university in responding to comments?
I have been given comments for a major revision from a respected journal. But suddenly, I guessed with a high probability that a person who is a long time adversary of my supervisor may be behind this comments and he won't be satisfied no matter what I do.
What should I do? Can I disclose a conflict of interest with one or two professors from a particular university not to be a referee? What may happen?

Conflict of interest must surely be stated before reviewing commences?

Can't we send conflict of interest in cover letter plus answers to comments at the same time?

I've added the word 'been' into the first sentence, which changes the meaning completely, but from the context, I concluded this is what you meant. Please feel free to roll back otherwise.

Is this double-blind review? As answers mention, this might change the appropriate answer.

What is the conflict of interest? I don't think personal dislike is one

@cactus_pardner, no it isn't.

@AzorAhai, I talked to my supervisor, he said if that particular person is a referee, he will reject anyway.

@AzorAhai, yes, I think personal dislike from some years ago exists between them.

I don't understand. What will your supervisor reject if this person is a referee?

But suddenly, you somehow guess with a high probability that a person
  who is a long time adversary of your supervisor may be behind this
  comments and he won't be satisfied no matter what you do.

You don't need to satisfy the reviewer. Obviously it makes life much easier if you can get the reviewer's endorsement, but ultimately the person you need to satisfy is the editor.
If the reviewer has requested revisions, and you can satisfy the editor that you've done everything they asked for, then it's going to be hard for the reviewer to argue against acceptance. My recommendations would be:

Seek clarification on anything ambiguous in the reviewer's comments. (I recently got one that simply said "the graphics are very poor and need to be improved" - rather than spend a long time trying to guess what the reviewer wanted, I asked the editors to clarify what was needed.)
Where you can reasonably do so, make the edits that the reviewer has requested.
Produce an itemised response that lists what you've done in response to each of the points they raised. If you can show that you've addressed all the points they made, it's then very hard for them to argue against acceptance. Even in a non-hostile situation this is a courtesy to reviewers and editors since it helps them understand how you've changed the document.
If you disagree with some of their recommendations, look for non-adversarial ways to frame that.

Number 4 there is complex, so let me unpack that a bit. The idea is not to say "you're wrong so I'm going to ignore this", but rather "I can't respond to this issue in the way you recommended, but here's how I can respond to it".
For instance, in my recent paper I proposed a model that involved a set of random variables with distribution N(0,theta^2). One of the reviewers said something along the lines of "presumably this should be N(1,theta^2)?"
My initial reaction was "no, that's wrong, you've misread it" - and they had misread it, 0 was definitely the correct value. But what I ended up going with was "I've modified the form of the model to clarify why N(0,theta^2) is used instead of N(1, theta^2)".
Part of my reason for making this change was that the reviewer comment showed me that my working wasn't as clear as it could be. But it was also a diplomatic decision - I wanted to show that I was willing to take their feedback into account, even when I couldn't implement it as suggested.
If you're lucky, this sort of approach may help disarm possible reviewer hostility. But even if it doesn't, it shows the editor that you're receptive to comments, and minimises the grounds on which the reviewer can object to your paper.

Thank you very much. I assume you too disagree with   disclosing conflict of interest issues.

@user85361 At this point, yes. As Massimo Ortolano has said, doing it after seeing the reviewer's comments may look like you're just trying to avoid work. The editor might also be justifiably peeved about not being told this before they expended time and social capital on finding a reviewer.

I'd advise against such a move, which can be seen as a way to avoid a complex revision.
Usually, at the time of submission, journals allow the authors to specify non-preferred potential reviewers, either directly through the submission management system or through the cover letter. If you think that someone can be strongly biased against your work due to a conflict of interest, that's the time to voice your concern, not after the review.

I would not do something like that and would similarly discourage you from doing that. There are several reasons why you should not do so:
1) You are assuming that you know who the person is. While you may have some confidence - there remains a probability that the reviewer is not who you have in mind.
2) You are also assuming that the reviewer knows your identity even though I am assuming it is a double blind review.
3) There is a further assumption that he/she will act against you deliberately because he has a bone of contention with your supervisor.
I know academics can be catty but I think you can trust the journal process and academics generally, to be impartial (generally speaking).

I don't see any indication here that the review is double blind.

I am assuming that if it is a 'respected journal' they would conform to a rather basic academic standard of 'double blind'. But I know nothing about the specificities of his situation so I could be wrong.

Whether double blind is standard is entirely dependent on the field.

Indeed, that's why it is an assumption.

Right, but you are stating it as fact, even though it is only your assumption (it might be an entirely reasonable assumption, but we don't know yet).

Edited to reflect it as an assumption.

@MHL, Thank you for your answer. The journal is not double blind. How can I find double blind journals in my field?

@MHL, I feel the journal is impartial, but how can they notice that this particular reviewer isn't impartial? and harshly adversary.

@MHL: in my field (theoretical computer science), respected journals are not double-blind.

@TobiasKildetoft I wonder how double blind a reviewing process in today's super specialized academia can ever be. Half the time you only have about 5 people who could conceivably perform the review.

In my field (social science), one struggles to find a journal that is not double-blind. I suppose you could (1) speak to your colleagues and people in your field to suss out the which journals are such and (2) manually search the journals in your field and read the 'author submission' guidelines.

Now that you know that the reviewing wasn't double-blind, please remove the aspects of your answer that refer to that. The fact that your field is double-blind is irrelevant; many fields are not and your advice to seek out a double-blind-reviewed journal simply is not practical. For example, none of the high-quality journals in theoretical computer science is double-blind so, for me (I'm not the asker), double-blind reviewing just isn't an option. Your value judgements about single-blind reviewing don't help to answer the question.


text:
Are transfer credits transitive?
Is transfer credit transitive?  If B accepts credits from A, and C accepts credits from B, will C accept credits from A, provided a student transfers to B before coming to C?
I have transfer credits at my current, American, university.  Some of them are from a previous American university, some of them are from a foreign high school, and some are from online classes.  If I transfer, will the university I transfer to accept my current transfer credit just as it does any credit from my current university?
Something I'm looking at now is online classes from Saylor.  I'm just afraid that even if my current university accepts ACE credit, if I transfer, these credits may not follow me.

What is ACE credit?

The American Council on Education (ACE) has a program in which they evaluate non college training and make recommendations to colleges about what credit should be given for this training.  For example, a person who served in the US Army might have attended military training courses in electronics, and ACE might recommend that these should be considered to be equivalent to 12 credit hours of coursework in electronics engineering technology.  Institutions aren’t required to accept ACE credit, and the OP has good reason to worry that his ACE credit might be accepted at another institution.

In my experience, in the US, universities generally transfer credit from where it was originally earned.  The fact that school B transferred credit from school A is does not ensure that school C will accept the credit.  Furthermore, school C will generally require a transcript from school A.

The only valid answer you will get is from the institution you are applying to. They likely have policies about all sort of such things. As a pure guess it would depend on the individual institutions that granted the credits originally and their reputation.
A "receiving" institution might be fairly open to this if they have reason to want you for other considerations. But ask and you will learn.
In the US, at least, don't look for common policies. Within a State university system there may be rules about transferring from one such institution to another.

In fact, they hire so many people to endlessly make policy it will blow your mind


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How do I prepare for another application?
I applied to a Master degree in Computer Science, however my application was not accepted. The university that I applied to is one of the top ranked my field and I do intend to apply the following year.
In bachelor I completed my degree as an average student with a 14 grade (out of 20) within 5 years, when the course duration is just 3. This is obviously a thing that I can no longer cope for, nor one that I feel guilty of. I will also take less priority than the students that take the bachelor in that same country.
Those are the reasons I believe there should be a lot of candidates that take preference over me, however I can still try by improving my TOEFL test. Last I time I tried I took 76 out of 120, while I stated the score I took on this exam I thought it would be best to not include the certificate of the exam, so it wouldn't be taken into account.
The application to this university was taken into two phases and I preferred to get my application earlier on the 1st phase so I could get a small advantage on the time (Although I am not sure if they give preference to applicants from the 1st phase).
I can also appeal about the decision taken, I would like to know why exactly I didn't get chosen over the last 10 applicants, so I could improve my application and increase the chances of being chosen.
How can I prepare for my next application? (How) Should I appeal to the decision  taken?

TOEFL score is something which generally does not matter other than you just have to cross that barrier.

Appeals are only for situations when misconduct is suspected.  Do not bother filing one.  Did you consider other universities?  Did you ask the university what sort of applicants they are looking for?

@AnonymousPhysicist I did not apply for other universities this year and I currently don't have enough conditions (€) to apply to other universities that I considered. I just asked that and they told me that they are not able to give me more information on how the candidates are assessed.