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How honest should one be in a PhD exit interview?
I will be graduating with a PhD and so I have one coming up soon. It seems like a new trend in academia. It is usually for all graduate students who enter the program when they leave it, with or without finishing. For example: ece.rice.edu/~suman/grad_council/exit.html. It is not to be confused with the thesis defense and will have no impact on my graduation. The interview is going to be with only the graduate program coordinator in my case. I assume, though, he will share the input with others including my advisor.
I searched the web and found answers for exit interviews in the corporate workplace instead. Most of the websites seem to suggest not to be completely honest to avoid burning bridges. These websites also suggest that HR people don't make any structural changes anyways to accommodate your concern. Can I extrapolate these ideas to a PhD exit interview? Is there anything to be gained by being honest in this interview? In particular, should I be honest about the advice and guidance I received from my advisor especially if I feel I didn't receive enough attention and advice from them? I know this is a common complaint among graduate students, should I be honest nonetheless?

I have never heard of a PhD exit interview - is this for those that obtain the degree, or those that leave the program before the degree, or both?

Not burning bridges is a good principle to live by.  But do you mean your viva?  If so, then you are barking up a very wrong tree if you are even considering raising any such concerns in it.

Who is participating in the exit interview?  The answer depends on if it is administration vs. your PI.

JonCuster It seems like a new trend in academia. It is usually for all people who enter the program when they leave it, with or without finishing. For example: http://www.ece.rice.edu/~suman/grad_council/exit.html
Deleuze It's not the final oral exam. It will have no impact on my PhD degree.
@Hobbes It going to be with only the program graduate coordinator. I assume, though, he will share the input with others including my advisor.

Sigh Another bad habit imported from industry.

Are you exiting because you finished, or exiting because you won't finish?

My guess would be: They want to find out how to change things in the future to make them better for future students.  Or how to change things to improve their recruitment of new students.

I had an exit interview when I left my graduate program and I have also had exit interviews in industry.  My feeling is that exit interviews in Academia have the potential to be productive, whereas in industry, it's mostly just HR covering the company from liability.
There is probably no perfect answer, but I would say that you should be honest while remaining professional and constructive.  If you have criticisms of your degree program, try to keep them general (don't focus on your PI or your lab unless they ask about it).  My program director was very defensive when anyone criticized the program, so I was careful and tried to provide solutions to my criticisms.  I do think that he took some of the suggestions to heart, such as moving the qualifying exam so that it did not overlap with certification board exams.
In my opinion, the exit exam is not the time to bring up anything along the lines of harassment, mostly because I don't think it would be recorded properly, as random_non_bot_person mentioned.
Industry is different.  Exit exams seem to be only there to cover the company.  If you were sexually harassed at the company, HR wants to know so that they can prepare for a legal defense (I'm guessing, I'm no lawyer).  They want to know if you were fired, they want you to understand the implications of any NDAs that you signed, and they want to know that you aren't going to sue them.
Summary: Academia exit interviews have some potential to change the program, but is highly dependent on the program itself.  Industry exit exams will almost definitely not change a thing.

If you have experienced sexual harassment from a professor at your university, you could choose to report that at the exist interview. From my experience at cough Penn State, the implications of different types of reporting are not explained to students. For example, I made a report against a fellow student to the appropriate sexual harassment contact person on campus. She was understanding and made the student apologize to me and the objectionable behavior ceased. However, I am almost certain there is nothing in that student's file. If there was something in that student's file, then a person subsequently suing for sexual harassment would potentially have access to that report - increasing the consequences for the university. (the student in question was almost certain to offend again in the future)
So, lets say you are leaving because of harassment or unfair gender-based treatment from a prof. You could make that statement in an "exit interview" or, to you could make a statement to a sexual harassment contact person on campus. What you want, ideally, is a written complaint. Eventually enough of those written complaints could trigger protective behavior on the part of the university - i.e. "we need to retire prof. X or we will eventually get sued."
In the engineering industry, the opinion of your professor generally has very little weight in industry 2 or 10 years down the road. If your goal is to pursue a career in academia, this would be a very different calculation.


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PhD student target of crazy department head
I got behind in my program because of illness. My university says it's ok for me to have extra time, but the department head of my program doesn't like this because he thinks all students must get a certain time. He wants to cut my funding, which would force me out of the program. He doesn't even care that right now I am doing good work. He just wants me gone. He spreads false rumors about me to other professors. The graduate director does nothing and says it is not his place.
My adviser likes me, but I don't think he is willing to always stand up to the department head. It is late in my program and I can not start over at another university. Thank you for your advice.
Edit: Getting behind was not my fault and my adviser knew of my illness. How can I persuade the department head that he should forget about my illness and let me work now so I can finish?

@user1310503 The university says extra funding is ok too but they cannot force the department head. I need funding to continue. He has funding but he does not want to give it to me.

Have you contacted the department head to inform him about your situation during or after your illness?

@koalo If you mean illness, he knows and my adviser knew. Now he says I am behind and students need to finish on time. My work now he says is too late.

How much are you behind? How many months do you think it will take to finish your PhD and how long are you in the program already?

@koalo It will probably take another two years to finish. I was supposed to finish already.

My sympathies for your situation. At StackExchange, we need a specific question to answer, and your post does not give one. Even if you add "what should I do?" that is too broad, you need to specify what you want the outcome to be. I.e. "what should I do to achieve X?"

Vote to close as "unclear what you're asking" exactly as what @user2390246 says.

@scaaahu ok I will edit, thanks for letting me know.

Related question

Have you considered reaching out to your office of the Ombudsman/woman? Often times, they serve as the official/unofficial mediator when it comes to conflicts within an organization.

How would an Ombudsman stop the crazy behavior of the department head? There is no conflict, he just wants me gone.

@user113878 - because they can show the department head the discrepancy between university policy and their actions in an authoritative fashion.

@JonCuster I think policy is that the department head can do what he wants.

@user113878 - in the US at least there are tools such as university policy and state and federal law that may come in to play. Find them out and use them. Particularly if missing time was a result of medical issues. Between you and an ombuds you may be able to shake the right branch to get a realization that there is a potentially serious legal liability.

@JonCuster Thank you for the suggestion. I will check.

in line with the previous answer, yes you should appeal, but if you truly have a department head as opposed to chair, you might have difficulty. At least in the US, heads wield much discretionary power while chairs serve as advocates. This may be partially why the graduate director isn't helping much.
Why not make a candid, private, personal appeal to your head?  It's often the case that people can be softened when you become a person rather than just another student. Come armed with evidence of all you've done and reiterate your intention to graduate.

At least in the US, heads wield much discretionary power while chairs serve as advocates. This is entirely institution-dependent in my experience. At my undergrad, the department head did indeed wield a significant amount of power. At my current uni, the department head is more of an administrative role -- individual faculty members tend to wield as much (sometimes more, depending on the situation) power as the head does. Part of this might just be due to personalities, but I suspect it really does depend on the university/department.

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How to explain blackballing by previous program in PhD application?
I was recently forced out of a PhD program at XX early in the dissertation stage. Without going into details, XX acted in bad faith and also broke the law. So even though a good academic case can be made for re-admitting me, XX won't touch me.
The problem is that in order to avoid a lawsuit, XX manufactured a story about how I repeatedly failed to make progress despite their leniency. All additional information contradicting this story was deliberately omitted from my file and the people who know what really happened will not go on record about it.
So the only option is to enroll somewhere else. But it looks terrible to have been thrown out of a program after several years, with the official reason as failure to make progress on a dissertation. It probably also looks terrible say that XX lied about that, even though that's exactly what they did. I have good evidence, but an admissions committee is not a courtroom jury and will probably not want to hear that XX broke the law and lied to cover it up.
What can I do to address doubts about my ability to complete a PhD? Do I tell them what actually happened?

Consider that whoever you apply to does not know who to believe, you or XX. They will think: what if they end up in the same trouble with you as XX? So, whatever your strategy is, you need to think how to mitigate that suspicion. Note that, if you say your old department lied, they will think that, if you leave them, you will say the same things about them. Creating such an impression is what you need to avoid. Build your case around what you are going to do, not about the evils that befell you. Do you have arguments to convince them that you will succeed with them when you didn't at XX?

@CaptainEmacs Part of the argument would be that I made such-and-such progress at XX, which it sounds like you're telling me not to do.

Why? Of course, you can explain the progress and what you did and back it up with evidence (papers or explanations/notes). I just would not make ostentatiously negative remarks (or probably none at all) about your old department. If you demonstrate a constructive, competent and professional attitude in the interview this can work out to balance out some of the other downsides of your situation.

Listen to Captain Emacs.  He knows whereof he speaks.  I spent many years in industry before retiring to teach.  I told my troops, "Never hire someone who bad mouths a previous employer!"  The same is true for academic posts and PhD programs.

While I understand your desire not to want to wade into unpleasant (and potentially identity-divulging) details, I am having particular trouble wrapping my head around your claim that XX "broke the law."  That's quite a strong allegation to make, as there are very few laws specifically governing academic interactions.  Have you consulted an attorney about this, and do they agree that a law was broken?  If so, perhaps you should pursue legal proceedings: the fact that those who broke the law lied about it does not seem like a reason not to!

@PeteL.Clark Thank you for the question. I have talked to lawyers who agree but I do not want to sue and I do not want to discuss this. All I want is to get a PhD.

I have trouble understanding this.  "progress" is defined by the University.  If they say you are not making progress then by definition you are not.  Even if you were accumulating multiple Noble prizes per year, you would by their arbitrary definition not be making good progress.  But if you were accumulating multiple Nobles you would not care what the University says or does.  The fact that you care leads me to believe you have no notable accomplishments.

@PeteL.Clark without commenting on user1137878's vague allegations, many academic departments are in flagrant violation of the law.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheri_Sangji_case.  Professor Harran is still affiliated with UCLA.

@emory The only issue is whether I was making progress according to my adviser's opinion. I definitely was but I was put out anyway and after that my adviser changed his story. What I want to know is how to get into another program. If you think I am lying or crazy, what would convince you that I am not?

@user113878 I think you should concentrate on your accomplishments.  The more you reference your former university the worse you look.  Even if you did convince me they were crazy, you voluntarily joined their cult.

@emory You are "blaming the victim." I don't want to convince anyone of anything except that I can complete a good PhD even though XX said that I can't, because they had other reasons.

@BobBrown I have decided as an applicant to never bad mouth previous employers b/c I have limited bandwidth with prospective employers.  I want to fill that bandwidth with (1) how awesome I am; (2) subtle probing for employer awfulness.  There is just no leftover bandwidth for talking about former employers.  It is the same result from a different perspective.  A PhD application is similarly a constrained bandwidth medium.  If the OP wants to use his limited communication with the admissions committee to convince them his old university was bad then they will have no basis for which to admit.

So here's what I see as the issue you need to overcome: If I'm told that a whole department or university conspired against a student to force them out, I usually tend to think that that is a silly allegation and that the person who makes this allegation is delusional. That's because it requires that a whole bunch of people (who also happen to be my colleagues!) would have had to act unethically, as opposed to just one person coming up with claims that have no factual basis but support their self-interest in believing that it's someone else's fault.
I have no idea which side is correct in your case, but as a member of an admission committee, a story like yours would certainly not make me excited about the candidate.
So you have two options in your explanations to the department you are applying to now:

You provide incontrovertible evidence that your claims really are what they are, and that the colleagues of the admissions committee members are all unethical blokes waging a vendetta. You may not have the space to sufficiently support your claims.
You make up some other explanation that sounds plausible for why you left that program. This may include "having had personal problems that you have since overcome through personal growth", or an admission that you really did something wrong but have come to understand by now why it was wrong and that you have learned from it. In either case, the explanation ought to be credible and probably ought to address the issue at hand in some way, though it can also be a bit nebulous.

The point I'm trying to make is that leaving a program, for whatever reason, carries with it a stigma that usually falls on the person who left the program, not the program itself. It is your job in the new application to address this.

The OP didn't say anything about a vendetta, only that a university lied about someone's academic performance to prevent a lawsuit, which sounds pretty plausible to me. Schools and employers do this all the time. It doesn't even have to have been an outright lie--a misrepresentation which is slightly true is a more common tactic.

You're recommending that someone lie about the reason for leaving a program as long as the lie is incriminating to themselves? Seriously?

Thank you for the advice. Could you please tell me what would be incontrovertible evidence to an admission committee? My biggest claim is that I was making good progress at the time the program director threw me out.

@Elizabeth: The OP also claims that some relevant party XX broke the law in their treatment of the OP.  This is, at least in my experience, not something that happens all the time.  This is a bit much for an admissions committee to try to examine -- if this claim has merit, perhaps it should be pursued in the proper forum, i.e., legally.

@Elizabeth: My own experience with such things is almost nonexistent, but it is not my intention to globally extrapolate from that.  (Spending time on this site and hearing the sort of things that can go wrong for students has been quite a sobering experience.)  However: "Filing a lawsuit against any school is career suicide even if you win." That seems too strong; e.g. I know of mathematicians who successfully sued after being denied tenure and then remained at the institution for many years....

@Pete My experience both within and outside of academia is that illegal discrimination, harassment, and retaliation are appallingly common but extremely difficult to successfully prove in court even if the claim has merit. So it's entirely possible that the OP is assessing the situation correctly, but either cannot or does not want to take legal action. Filing a lawsuit against any school is career suicide even if you win.

...Moreover, speaking as the Graduate Coordinator of my department: if I got an application from a candidate who had won a lawsuit against their department, my first reaction would be "Wow, what a terrible place they came from."  The idea that a student who was treated wrongly/illegally found a way to retaliate does not scare me, because we mean to treat our students well/legally.

@ElizabethHenning -- I don't know who is right or wrong in this case. But if I see claims such as in the second paragraph of the original post, I am doubtful that the story is true (even though I know that I may be wrong). Point being that to (i) manufacture a story, (ii) suppress all evidence, and (iii) get everyone who knows something to not speak out, requires a conspiracy that involves dozens of people many of whom one would expect to behave ethically. It's like claiming that Obama will invade Texas next week to seize guns: not impossible, but could you keep everyone who's planning quiet?

Obama invading Texas is not at all analogous. It's not difficult at all for a program (or an employer) to maintain a selective and misleading record about someone which paints a highly unfavorable picture and the threat of a lawsuit is motivation. Any plaintiff's employment attorney will tell you that this is commonplace. As for other people cooperating, would you yourself really stand up to a program director who was railroading a student like this? Or would you figure it was none of your business and one grad student isn't worth fighting for?

@user113878 I agree that Obama invading Texas is a ridiculous analogy. But I dispute that one would expect nobody to stand up to a programme director behaving in the way you describe.

@user113878 -- have you ever try to herd several dozen faculty in one direction? There is no hope anyone would ever be able to tell them to all cover up anything. It's just not going to happen -- they all have (essentially) lifetime appointments, they're going to do whatever they want, regardless of what any lawyer tells them. In particular if they think that the department/university is (morally and ethically) wrong.

@DavidRicherby I think that tenured faculty show a lot of loyalty to one another because they have lifetime appointments and they care more about keeping each other happy than protecting students. Maybe some professors somewhere don't do this, all I can say is what happened here.

@user113878 -- it's a nice hypothesis, but I don't think you have the empirical evidence to back it up.

would you yourself really stand up to a program director who was railroading a student like this? — Yes.  Absolutely.

Letters of recommendation are meant to be confidential: that also includes confidential to the administration of the university at which the recommender works. Therefore, if you know people who know what's going on (your question suggests this is the case), you could ask if they could write a letter of recommendation explaining the situation.
Alternatively, you can provide details about your situation if there is a place to do so (in a cover letter or a "special comments" section in an online application). Remember that an admissions committee is not a jury—they don't need to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt; they just need to believe you're going to be a good fit for their department.

While true, if I, as faculty, was being bullied to not speak up while the department lied about a student, I would probably also decline writing a letter of reference.

If I, as faculty, were being bullied not to speak up while the department lied about a student, I would (a) definitely write a letter of recommendation for the student, and (b) resign.  Not necessarily in that order.

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How relevant can be the major corrections in PhD dissertation?
My understanding of major corrections in PhD dissertation is that there can be entire chapters to add to the presented dissertation. However for me it's very hard to understand how much these changes might actually impact the thesis.
Specifically to my situation, I negotiated with my supervisor to limit certain contents that I'm not interested in adding to my dissertation. Apparently he agreed.(1)
However, I'm afraid that these contents can pop up again after the viva, in the form of "major corrections" to the dissertation. In that case, I guess, I will have no chance to negotiate again and I can just accept them or quit the PhD, probably in the worst moment possible. (2) So, can I anticipate this to happen? How can I make sure that "major corrections" will not be used to turn my research to the personal will of the supervisor?
Moreover, since I saw that "minor corrections" could just be revised by the internal committee, I'm afraid that this can happen as well as in the case of "major corrections". But, maybe in this case the corrections cannot be that radical to change the direction of my research. Is this actually possible?
notes
(1) these contents have been forced to me by manipulative moves and have nothing to do with the thesis itself. I added some of them as a compromise to make my supervisor happy enough. I'm rejecting these contents because of the manipulation and because of my personal ethic.
(2) I would not rely too much in the other components of the committee , since they are all under the influence of my supervisor

It is unclear from this where your supervisor stands. Who is doing the manipulating?

@Buffy it would be a very long and uninteresting story, with manipulation I mean agreeing into something and ending up doing something else. As long as someone has clear tasks one can agree or not and take its decision, when these are not clear and they comes during the way by design, I believe them to be manipulations.

To begin to answer this, though, I'd need to know whether your advisor is currently on your side and supportive or not. Without that support everything becomes difficult to impossible.

@Buffy sorry, now I understand... presumably the supervisor in not on my side. (things might be different and more complicated, but for the moment would be hard to consider them)

I don't see how you can get helpful advice about what revisions you might be given from somebody who has not read your thesis and discussed it with the examiners.

@AnonymousPhysicist I didn't ask for a review of my thesis. I just ask, in general terms, what is expected to do with major corrections of dissertations.

And my response is that general information is too vague to be useful.  There just are not any generally accepted standards for PhD dissertations, or even for who will evaluate them.

https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4478/13240

I have to say I agree with Buffy. Easier just to accept in the end that you have to please the people with the power. Particularly if your supervisor, and your whole thesis committee/examers agree. More than that - adding stuff you think is unneccesary to appease some outside assessor is the daily bread and butter of academia, where reviewers are always asking for things the author thinks is unreasonable.
I'm still not sure what system you are working in, but the way you talk about viva's and thesis corrections makes me think you are in the UK or a similar system. Note that while in the US, I don't think corrections following the defense are common, in the UK almost all candidates are asked to make correction before being awarded the degree.
Corrections at my university come in three flavours. You can read the details here:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.435461!/file/Guidance_Notes_for_Examiners.pdf
Your univeresity should have something similar.
The extracts for minor/major/rewrite are below.  Note in all cases the phrase "to the satisfaction of the examiner(s)". The examiner decides how relevant the corrections are. The examienrs decide if you have done enough. There is no negotiation. Usually one of them is nominated to make the decision. Usually the internal for minor or simple major corrections, both the internal and external examiners for more substantial corrections. Once you are at this point, you more or less have to do what the examienrs say if you want your degree. You might have a case if the corrections required of you are outside the bounds of the grade (i.e. if they asked for new reserach, but called it major, rather than rewrite), and there is an appeals process. But I have never heard of a university over turning the judgement of an examiner.

That the degree be awarded once specified minor corrections have been completed to the satisfaction of the examiner(s)
This option may be chosen where the examiners are satisfied that the thesis meets the requirements for the award of the degree, but where there are minor weaknesses or editorial errors that must be rectified before they can recommend the award of the degree. The nature and extent of the required corrections must be genuinely minor in nature such that they can reasonably be completed within a period of three calendar months from the date the candidate receives notification of the required corrections from the examiners.
The candidate will be expected to make the corrections without undertaking any further original research. The examiners are responsible for providing the candidate with the details of the required corrections and must stipulate which of the examiners will be responsible for approving the corrections prior to formal recommendation of the degree.
That the degree be awarded once specified major corrections have been completed to the satisfaction of the examiner(s)
This option may be chosen where the examiners are satisfied that the thesis has the potential to merit the award of the degree for which it has been submitted, but does not yet satisfy the requirements for award and contains deficiencies that are in excess of editorial or presentational corrections. This may involve re-writing sections, correcting calculations or clarifying arguments, but should not require the candidate to undertake any further original research. The candidate will be granted 6 months to complete the required corrections from the date the candidate receives notification of the required corrections from the examiners.
The examiners are responsible for providing the candidate with the details of the required corrections and must stipulate which of the examiners will be responsible for approving the corrections prior to formal recommendation of the degree.
That the degree be not now awarded, but that the candidate be allowed to submit a revised thesis after such modification of form or content as the examiners may prescribe, WITH/WITHOUT oral re-examination
This option may be chosen where the examiners do not feel able to make a recommendation for the award of the degree at this time. The thesis requires substantial corrections in order to meet the requirements for the degree, but the examiners feel  that the candidate is capable of revising the thesis, to their satisfaction, within one year.
The candidate is required to formally submit a revised thesis within one year and the examiners must indicate whether the candidate must undergo a further oral examination. Examiners are asked to consider whether an oral re-examination would help the candidate to justify the additions or alterations that are to be made to the thesis. Where the examiners’ original recommendation specifies that a further oral examination is required, this should take place, regardless of the outcome of the examiners’ preliminary assessment of the resubmitted thesis. The examiners should provide the candidate with full written details of the required revisions to the thesis, normally within two weeks of the oral examination. The same examiners will normally re-examine the candidate.

I'm going to accept this answer because it clarifies the formal process and the agency of examiners. My university does not have these guidelines, or they do not share them. Indeed, it seems like many regulations are made ad personam. Anyway, yes, the system should be similar to UK.

"in the US, I don't think corrections following the defense are common"  I'd say that in the US pretty much anything could happen with respect to corrections. https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4478/13240

I'm in the U.S.  All I had to do is correct a few spelling errors -- I had the wrong version of principal/principle!

From this and your other questions, I think you want a fight you can never win. If I remember correctly, you have actually already moved to a different institution and it is just a question of finishing your degree so that you can move on with your career.
When a king has life and death power over you and makes a demand, the only response is "Yes, your majesty". And you say it with a smile. Even that may not be sufficient, but any other response has a guaranteed outcome.
I suggest that you write the thesis in such a way that the advisor will accept it. Even, dare I suggest, accept it gladly. Fair it is not. But, you will get to live for another day.
I don't know exactly how your viva will work or whether you get a chance to respond to any objections made. I hope so. And make the required changes to please the "court". But if not, and the deck is stacked, don't present them with an excuse to condemn you.
If the situation were otherwise with your advisor being on your side and major revisions suggestions made at the viva (in the public session, not written comments later), I would respond to the reviewers that we (my advisor and myself) considered those and rejected them already for the reasons...
But that doesn't seem like the situation here. Bowing before a tyrant isn't pleasant. But, perhaps the "madness of the king" will be obvious to others.
I suspect that, having seen the worst of academic advising, you have some incentive to do a better job of it yourself, provided that you get the chance. Get past this hurdle, however you must. Good luck with it.

It makes sense... but the thing that for me is more frustrating is that: it is not enough to just write and pretend that you are believing to the same things that someone imposed to you, but you also need to defend them! It's something like: stab yourself and pretend you like it. I could be fine in writing something, sending it and forgetting about it, but the fact that I'll also have to defend it, is a violence that I hear it could just happen in dictatorships. Anyway thanks for this reality check.

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Literature review and originality
Everyday there are hundreds of papers published worldwide in every single area of study. I am mostly interested in architecture and environmental psychology.
A question arises how to assure that we select relevant literature review? or how to assure the originality of research?
For example more recently I am conducting a research on primary school children's perception of an ideal school. I am analyzing children's' drawing. Even my primary analysis reveals statistically significant differences between girls and boys. There are some studies conducted on gender differences similarly.
So how to assure the originality of the research when there many papers written in this area and despite reading over 100 papers there might be those that we are not aware of?

One would argue that if a good faith effort searching for this effect doesn't yield results, your paper will bring new knowledge to the community, even if there was an obscure, older article covering it, but no one knows about it.

And as always, your paper can always shine on its own by doing very rigorous analysis, providing insights, etc. even if the main result was reported elsewhere without your knowledge.

@Davidmh, there is the definite risk that a novice does not know keywords, etc., so that what is "obscure" to them is well-known to experts, etc. It would be unfortunate to "reassure" people that a good-faith effort is sure to be adequate, etc. That is, a good-faith effort is beyond moral reproach, perhaps, but still does risk being incompetent from a professional viewpoint, for many different possible reasons. In particular, getting expert advice is surely indispensable (rather than only acting in good faith...)

@paulgarrett true, but I think asking relevant experts falls inside a good faith effort.

@Davidmh, I agree, it would make sense to suppose that a good-faith effort includes asking experts. However, from some decades of observing grad students and postdocs in the U.S., in math, apparently this is nearly uniformly not the case. Don't ask me why...

It's not clear if your question is about doing a literature review to support an empirical research project (e.g. in studying children's school perceptions, you want to do a literature search to assure that no one else has done the same thing you are doing, or you want to learn from similar work that others have done) versus if you want to do a standalone literature review (e.g. you want to review and discuss all research that exists related to children's perceptions of an ideal school). Please clarify which of the two you mean; this would help people give appropriate answers.

It all accounts to got much effort you believe you put in to your work.
Doing a good review isn't at all easy. It involves a whole lot of work to

collect relevant studies
collate them to groups
assess originality
connect the dots
produce illustration
coherently present the information

If that isn't enough, getting permission from authors and publishers to reuse relevant figures is another hassle. To add on, it would be an ordeal to manage 100+ references without a reference management system like LaTeX/BibTeX.
The point is that as you go through this process, you'll notice that your skill would gradually improve over time. I'm actually  going through this process at the time of writing this post. I came across a couple of double publication, extensively overlapped concepts, and inconclusive studies. These sort of items are the ones I filter out.
Hope this helps.

All the above assumes you're in possession of relevant keywords and such in the first place! And there is absolutely no guarantee that a novice will be, nor that the internet can help you if you cannot reach a certain thresh-hold. Expert advice is the only thing approximating a guarantee of not being completely foolish and overlooking things that all experts know about... but that use different words than a novice might guess.

You're right about the keywords, @paulgarrett; it took me half a year to just figure out the keywords. It's part of collating the studies into groups. As time progresses you'll also find the urge to add more groups too.


text:
Is it better to focus on relearning mathematics fundamentals or learn material as needed to understand research papers?
I am working toward a PhD degree and my major involves lot of mathematics. The problem is that my basis of math is not very strong but after putting a lot of time I can understand the theorems, lemmas, corollaries in the published papers. Sometime I wonder should I start learning the basics again or should I read the research papers only to make my math strong. If I start from the basics then it may consume lot of time however it may help me understanding things better and in applying accepted ideas to more general problems. On the other hand if I learn through research papers then my knowledge will be limited to only the problem I am working on and new ideas of solving the problem may not fluently come into my mind.
In essence which of the following strategy is better in your opinion

Start learning from basics.
Learn through published research papers during the literature review.

Can you be more specific as to the field of research and type of math it involves? Those with a background in that field may be able to provide specifics, while those with a more definitive math background, external to the research area, may have another perspective that is also helpful.

@DMlash Its wireless communication. The research is not defined yet however currently I am reading papers related to queuing theory and optimization.

Are you just going to use the results, or do you need to develop your own?

@Davidmh ideally I would like to develop my own. But its quite impossible for me right now. I just want to use the already existing results in some way but I want to learn their basics before I can apply them

Why not both?
If you aren't explicitly a mathematician but there is a lot of math used as a tool in your field to solve problems (this is often the case with my field), it is understood that some people are stronger in the math than others. The whole point of having a field where people of different educational backgrounds work together is that you don't have to be an expert at every sub-skill and sub-task - you can have your own unique strengths without starting over at the fundamentals for every subject in play.
A strategy that I've found works very well is read some literature to see what techniques are used by others in their related research. If a technique comes up a few times (like, say, applying Dynamic Time Warping to analyze a time series), read into that bit to get a better high-level understanding of it - how it is used, it's strength and weakness, when it's not appropriate, etc.
At this point you may find that the technique just isn't relevant to your research - so you can probably skip it for now and move on. Sure, you don't understand it from top to bottom - but you just don't have time to learn everything in infinite detail! However, what if the technique seems really useful? Well, some people don't bother to understand it at all and just blindly apply it, because well other researchers have so it's probably fine. I'm not at all fond of this, and I would humbly suggest it leads to bad science, unreliable findings, and missed opportunities.
So if a technique seems useful to you, learn some more about it. Try to delve a little more deeply and find out just what the technique seems to actually do. What do some of the variables mean? How is the calculation performed overall - how does it behave based on some inputs compared to others, and why? Again, you probably have limited time, so don't feel you have to prove everything from first principles.
Next, you still have some time to advance your understanding of the fundamentals. So especially as you read through the literature and useful techniques, what area is really hard for you? Is probability stumping you, or calculus, or dynamic programming, or are the notations and implicit variable meanings alien to you? Reserve a little of your time - perhaps a few hours a week at most - to strengthen yourself on the most fundamental issues. Perform a trivial calculation by hand, or read a textbook explanation of the notations used.
I've found the biggest pitfall is thinking you have to understand everything from square one right at the very beginning, and I have to fight the tendency to get sucked in to minutiae. But then often as little as a few days pass and suddenly I realize I have a far better understanding of something than I thought I did, and it wasn't really as hard as it seemed at first.
Now this works for me, and for plenty of other people I know, but I cannot say it will be the best for you, in your field, with your personality and own unique traits and talents. As always YMMV - find what works best for you!

Thanks a lot Brian. This is answer that I expected. I wanted to do it exact way you mentioned but I was not sure if its the thing done by other researchers also. As you mentioned you also does the same thing therefore I have more confidence in this approach now. Thanks again for clearly elaborating on it.

It will not be very easy to learn a broad subject in mathematics by reading research papers.  Books which cover the subject starting from the basics will be more cohesive (for instance, regarding notation and terminology) and will leave you with more approaches to solve problems. If your major requires a lot of mathematics, hopefully you can identify a specific area (like analysis, geometry, probability, etc.) that you need, and find a good text that synthesizes a lot of the research.

The way I see it, the answer to this question really depends on your particular circumstance... To find out where you stand, you could seek someone to assess your mathematical ability.
Could you approach your advisor or a colleague about this? Ask someone with a strong mathematical background who understands your line of work to probe you. They could point you in the right direction for what foundational theory is necessary for your success, leading to book and even chapter recommendations.
I totally support building up the basics. I'd probably be driven towards that route, but realistically, your priority ought to be to further your work in the most effective way possible.

authors: Лара Синельникова


text:
will lack of experience make it impossible to change my subject of study?
I'm 33 years old and I have my master's in physics from a relatively good university in my country.
I have 6 years working experience as a foreign commercial executive which I hated every minute of it, but I needed to make some money. I have to add that I have visited different factories in different countries during the missions I went.
About two years ago, I resigned and diligently went for learning everything about electronics and microelectronics which were always my desire. Now, I feel quite confident in embedded systems programming and everyday I study so hard whatever related to digital electronics but I have not yet applied for a job in this field.
I know this is what I always wanted.
I have average grades in university and good GRE.
What are my chances to get admission for PhD in electronic engineering in one of US universities?

Actually we have a question about the age and academic admissions which may help you with first part of your question: I want to do research but I'm too old for a PHD. I think it would be better to narrow your question and focus on the second part which is about experience and I did not find a question about it on website.

Age won't matter much.
"Experience" may matter. Any program has prerequisites, and there's really no way to jump to PhD without that essential knowledge.
I don't think you're going to get into the PhD program without first getting a Masters or having equivalent work experience. The Physics background plus independent study may be able get you into a Masters program.
I suspect you'll have better odds if you do the Masters in your own country, and then apply for a PhD program (in the US or elsewhere).


text:
How to react to a student who provides very critical comments about your teaching in a student evaluation survey?
I am a teacher in an institute and I teach English as a foreign language to students in an 8_week session. At the end of each session, the students are required to give their opinion about the class and the teacher.
One of my students who attended all the classes and I corrected at least 20 writings for her has written something horrible and of course has ruined my rating by saying: "What we learn depends on the teacher. I recommend teacher X, but I absolutely and strongly reject this teacher who does not know anything about teaching (meaning me)." She has also written her name on top of the paper.
She never, ever, complained about my teaching method during the time we had class together and this sudden unfair comparison has gone on my nerve. I have taken a photo of what she has written about me and it is in my mind to email it to her and ask for her explanation.
I have signed no contract with that institute and I have received no teacher training courses. I have teaching experiences somewhere else and that was why they invited me to teach. But their unfair system of evaluation at the end of each session will definitely have effects on my payment and if it continues like this, I will no longer be able to continue teaching there.
I am REALLy thinking so deeply about what I could have done wrong. My last session assessment was 20% higher than an old teacher who is teaching there for 3 years. Another serious problem I have with this issue is the "comparison". I teach Reading and Writing and my colleague teaches Listening and Speaking. Of course, I have never met the other teacher. But, he has read this bad comment about me. Why should I lose my face in front of a colleague, because of an "unfair" judgement?
Is it good to react like this, or I should keep silent about her unfair judgement?

I'm surprised the student feedback wasn't anonymous.  In any case, don't act rashly.  Pretty much every (college) teacher has to accept that there's always going to be at least one person who unequivocally hates them.

well, I am thinking a lot about it. During the past days, I am thinking about what I could have done wrong in their class all of the time, and I cannot find anything to deserve such reaction. I do not mind if this "one" student hates me. The common problem in this institute is the constant comparison they make among the teachers. And, having a nuisance like her in the class is enough to make the rest negative.

You might find useful some answers here: Anonymous Student Feedback: Moving forward from abusive comments.

You should also be aware that student evaluations -- either positive or negative -- are not the be-all and end-all of the quality of your teaching. Other metrics include peer evaluation and self-reflection. Peer evaluation is something I've found particularly useful in my teaching.

Maybe I'm mistaken with this, but every time I see the title of this question, I stumble over it and wonder whether it is supposed to be ranting instead of rating.

@NajibIdrissi: It's common to require, say one day each semester, a colleague to sit in your class and have a discussion with you and file a report on what they saw. This has been required at community colleges in two different U.S. states where I've taught. My current college is a lot more formal about, and I'm appreciative of that.

Are you sure she wrote it? Maybe someone else wrote her name at the top?

Student evaluations are very common, and where I've taught it was standard to give the student the option of signing their name (and those comments where made part of the permanent file, I think). Also, I have some alarm bells about a teacher of English having at least 4 misspellings or grammar errors in their original post.

What is "written sth horrible" supposed to mean? I think you made a typing mistake.

@zibadawatimmy From a student's point of view, you're correct.

@Pharap: sth is a common abbreviation for something (which has meanwhile been expanded in the question text).

You can't please all of the students all of the time. If every single review were negative, that would be cause for self-reflection on your teaching method. One negative review? That's just someone you weren't able to reach, didn't click with, or even someone who just plain didn't like your class for their own reasons. There will be others (sadly). Do you best and remind yourself that you are doing your best and that all of your other students feel that you helped them.

@O.R.Mapper Evidently I'm not up to date with all this modern text speak.

@Pharap: I think this particular abbreviation has been around in dictionaries for decades ;)

@O.R.Mapper First time I've seen it used.

I upvoted @neuronet 's comment, because the same thing happened to me in an office environment.  Someone wrote a very strong opinion in the company (AT&T) weekly newsletter, and signed my name instead of his.

Apart from this one student, what did your other student evaluations generally say? "If [my evaluation] continues like this, I will no longer be able to continue teaching there." Really? Just due to one student? I find that hard to believe. Did you check with other staff?

You said,

this sudden unfair comparison has gone on my nerve

It sounds like this negative feedback has provoked some strong emotion in you, and understandably so.
But asking for an explanation is not likely to be helpful at this point. This isn't a constructive comment that can potentially lead you to improve your teaching - it's just an insult. Students take out all kinds of frustration in their teaching evaluations. If you ask a frustrated student to explain a comment they made (most likely) out of frustration, you are unlikely to gain anything constructive. The most likely outcome is that she'll unload more frustration on you.
The best reaction to this kind of feedback (assuming it's an isolated incident, and the rest of your feedback was reasonable) is to re-read the positive feedback you've received, remind yourself that you're a dedicated teacher who works hard to help your students, and put the non-constructive feedback out of your mind.
If this is an isolated incident, I wouldn't worry about its effect on your ranking within your institution. All instructors will occasionally receive some negative reviews, no matter how good they are at teaching.

Brilliant. Re the unconstructive feedback, I think it would make sense for OP, in the first place, to have mentioned to h class about giving constructive feedback. If any of the students wanted to express frustrations, they will make their feedback constructive and then 1 OP's pay will be reduced fairly, if it will be reduced 2 OP has the chance to improve

@BCLC Notice that for older students (say 2nd year on), the willingness  to give constructive feedback depends a lot on how much their possibly constructive comments have been taken into account in previous years. So, sometimes, you can get insults from students just because those before you, or the faculty, didn't listen to their constructive comments.

@MassimoOrtolano I don't follow. How will they know if their constructive feedback has been taken into account when it's already the end of the sem?

@BCLC Because students talk across years, and sometimes retake classes too. Though maybe not in detail, they have the idea of whether their remarks are generally taken into account or not (at least this is my experience). If they feel that these are being dismissed by the faculty, they can either stop giving feedback or start writing poor feedback.

@MassimoOrtolano really? If there are 20 students in a class who give feedback on a certain prof, will all those 20 students necessarily ask or find about that prof w/in the next year? i imagine only 2 of those students will really care. most will probably just not mind that prof

@BCLC Yes, really, at least in my experience. Call it "radio university". It's like, as a freshman, you come to know the good and the bad of most of the faculty, even though you just enrolled. And this happened even in the old internet-less age. Notice also that OP's students are foreigners who might come from countries with different university traditions, and giving feedback might be something new to them (e.g., when I was a student 25 years ago, student's feedback was not officially collected, and, actually, it largely  consisted of insults written on the toilets' walls).

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

You will always (assuming that you did your job generally well) have the odd student giving you a low rating. Assuming that the rest give you a good feedback, this is an outlier and usually will be seen as such.
If there is no concrete and reasonable criticism in the evaluation, you can always - if it is used against you by the department - emphasise to them that no concrete problem was pointed out; on a concrete criticism, you would be happy to improve certain aspects or else, you would stick with your model because of this and that reason.
I understand "reasonable criticism" to be one that can be amended or else, whose amendment would trade-off against other aspects of the course which would suffer instead - in the latter case it is your call as a teacher where you believe the balance should be or you can consult with the programme tutor.
I recommend to not attempt to engage the student. The student has not given you a chance to fix the problem while there was still time, you do not need to give them the chance to fine-tune their criticism to harm you further. If no concrete (and reasonable) criticism was made against you, it is likely the student just poured their own frustration and anger on you; there's nothing you can do about that. Don't let yourself be infected by it.
That being said, I usually try, early in the course, to engage the students into informal feedback to get a gist of what they need - more speed, less speed, more detail, less detail. At the point when you get the official feedback, it's too late for them to profit from it.

Is it good to react like this, or I should keep silent about her unfair judgement?
It's not unfair judgement.  It's just judgement.
If a student thinks you're a bad teacher and you had no idea they felt this way, then maybe you are a bad teacher.  You need to have more awareness of your students, and don't try to blame them for not speaking up about how they felt. That's not how most people, let alone students, work.
Maybe you should take the criticism as an opportunity to evaluate yourself. Taking some actual teaching classes would a good first step.

+1 because poster presumed it was unfair. this isn't clear at all.

I would also suggest that you really try to not take it personally, because it may not truly be anything personal, but rather a reflection of the student's character.  Looking back at the time when I was a freshman, I recognize I was a complete self-centered, entitled idiot in so many ways.  I remember writing a terrible and long-winded (anonymous) review of an otherwise skilled and attentive English teacher (or so I can say looking back on it) purely on the basis of my having had a particularly rough and stressful week, combined with my teacher having given us about 5 times more writing assignments than all my friends got with their teachers.  And so, feeling strongly resentful at this extra workload, and not caring about learning in those days, I took it out on this teacher.  It was in no way personal, but only a sign of my own immaturity and stupidity while having a bad day.  I still feel bad about it.  Consider that your review might be something similar.
Were all your other reviews good?  Perhaps wait and see if this bad review negatively impacts your pay or assignment, and if so, only then bring anything up about it, and contrast it with your otherwise good reviews.  And if nothing comes up, forget it.  If you have a regular pattern of unhappy students though, then there may be reason to reflect on your own teaching style, and perhaps even ask this student what she would have preferred you do differently to improve the course (don't ask what you did wrong).

Are you supposed to know that it was her? Does she know that you know? Only if the answer to all of the above is Yes would I even consider approaching her to seek clarity on the subject. Even then, be mindful that you're in a position of power over her and it's easy to come across as a bully if not careful. (Mind you, I'm not justifying her approach.)
You didn't tell us what the consequences of "ruining your rating" might be.

I find this part intriguing: "She has also written her name on top of the paper."
Did everyone write their names, or is she an exception?
If the latter, you have to consider the possibility that she did not write this review at all - that someone else wrote it, and signed with her name as part of some elaborate trolling against both you and her. (I'm assuming you can't recognize her handwriting).
Whether this observation actually helps making sense of the situation, I don't know.

Do not confront her, especially when you are upset about it. She has finished the class (likely has left the school entirely if it's a short-course language school). Your relationship with her is over. It is simply not appropriate for a teacher to pursue a student demanding an explanation of her review of you: feedback should be mediated by the school.
Unfortunately, the review itself does not contain any information you can act on. "Does not know anything about teaching" is probably intended as an exaggeration for emphasis. None of your other students formed this opinion. No doubt your employers think otherwise or they would not have employed you. If they want to request that the student give further details about her unusual opinion, and perhaps ask whether she would like to make a more formal and detailed complaint about your teaching, then they can do so (and if she wants to she can say no). That's not so bad as you chasing the student down on your own to complain about her opinions, demand more information, or try to persuade her to admit that she's wrong.

their unfair system of evaluation at the end of each session will
  definitely have effects on my payment

Then your dispute is with the employer, not with the student. If they unfairly deduct your pay as a matter of rote, and not based on their own fairly-conducted assessment of your teaching, then they are the problem.

if it continues like this, I will no longer be able to continue
  teaching there.

Perhaps so. If the school is using negative reviews as an excuse to short-change you, rather than as a means to get detailed information to use to improve your teaching (and hence also theirs), then perhaps you are much better off without them. But you should be looking to the school to improve its processes, not looking to the students to help you avoid the consequences of its poor processes.

I feel that you should keep silent or at least not ask her for any explanation. You thought her the best you could. Maybe she could not actually grasp whatever you taught. You should see it in a manner that the rest did not say in the same way she did and so as every other person needs to improve you too need to. But one comment or a bad rating does not make you a bad or a weak teacher.

I hope this helps.

Really no need to add a comment to an answer that you hope it helps. :) Even if it is nice.

@neuronet :It is for the person who has asked this question to tell me whether it was helpful or not. You do not need to intervene in between and atleast not tell me wht should be done as all of us are trying to help the person out. And secondly i was not trying to be nice. I was just trying to find a remedy out. And please do not comment at all if you do not know how to.

I'm just letting you know you how the site works. People show appreciation by upvoting, that's the whole point of all these sites. Stuff like "me too" or "hope that helps" is considered noise.

This was a painful experience for you.  Use the helpful answer from ff524 to reduce the level of pain... and then do something constructive:
Think about how you can improve your effectiveness and your responsiveness to student feedback.
Keep in mind that effectiveness is a two-way street.  Communication and teaching involve TWO people -- a great deal depends on the receptiveness of the student, and the fit between the two people.
You can provide informal opportunities for student feedback throughout the course; and you can provide formal opportunities at various points.
For example: in the beginning of the 8-week session, ask the students to share with you, and each other, both in writing and in class discussions, what they would like to get out of the class.
And finally... seek out opportunities to improve your command of your subject, and to improve your pedagogy.  One good way to do this is to observe classes, and reflect on what you think works best in teaching.

She never, ever, complained about my teaching method during the time
  we had class together (...) it is in my mind to email it to her and ask for her explanation.

Can you talk to her instead? Emails can get misunderstood and you cannot read her expressions and feelings about your classes. If she didn't even miss one class, never complained before and you didn't notice any contempt from her part, there is probably something else going on...
Do not accuse her, you can simply ask her what or where you did wrong and you're likely to have a more positive feedback. From that new feedback you can act accordingly (e.g.: further explain the situation to the school management).

You could email the picture to her tutor/future employers (cc'ing the student in) so they understand how rude and unhelpful she was.
I don't agree with this "let's be nice to students no matter what they say or do" nonsense. They should understand that actions have consequences.

In the US, sending this to employers would be illegal (FERPA violation)

Even if not illegal in the OP's location, it might be considered unprofessional and/or contrary to institute policy. And remember the only evidence you have is a name anyone could have written on the feedback form.

Building off of ff524 and Patricia's comments, such behavior could be construed as harassment and completely in contradiction to the purpose of student evaluations. If any instructor can use unfavorable evaluations as ammunition to destroy someone's prospects - career or otherwise - there is a larger problem than a passive aggressive students. Plus, you decrying the coddling of students, this one in particular, operates under the assumption that the OP isn't a bad teacher. We don't know about OP's methods, and if they work for some that doesn't mean they work for everyone/negates any criticism


text:
Can I enroll in a 2nd University after deferring admission from 1st University?
I have been accepted to my dream MS program in a top ranked US university. But I could not get the visa. From where I am, there is a problem getting visa if you do not have University funding.
Since, I couldn't get the visa, I am deferring this admission to the Fall 2019 (they do not accept Spring deferrals). Since it is such a long time away, and I have already waited a year, I want to apply to a funded program for the Spring 2019 semester and continue there till next Fall and then transfer to the first University from Fall 2019. But will enrolling in another program during my deferral make my deferral void?

I will guess that only the institution can make that determination. You can ask, of course. But it is possible that your visa will have problems in the future also. So it might be best to make sure you keep other options open.

Note that you will also likely burn a bridge with the 2nd university - if they knew you intended to use them as a temporary stop on the way to the 1st university they would never admit you in the first place (particularly with funding). As for the concerns of the 1st university, what does the deferral agreement say?

I still haven't deferred my admission, so I don't really know what my deferral agreement says. I will ask for my admission to be deferred after I take another visa interview. I am just pondering about the options open to me. Thanks


text:
Plagiarism: quotation from videos course or conference
You know that there is large of youtube videos that talking about science (you can find conference videos, researchers recording research Methodology in a videotape, etc).
Let say that I am preparing to write an article for an international journal, and I take some of the phrases from what they saying, I used plagiarism software to check these phrases and I get  Excellent, your content is 100% unique. is this can be classified as plagiarism?

Plagiarism is not decided by a software. Plagiarism is the knowing use of others content/research and pass it as yours. So yes

According to your question, you're "tak[ing] some of the phrases" from the videos. If you do not cite them, then you are guilty of plagiarism, since you are presenting the ideas and words of others as your own, which is essentially the definition of plagiarism. It doesn't matter that the text isn't written out. Stealing someone's oral statements is just as bad.


text:
ADM: Not Assigned Under Review
I recently submitted a paper to the international journal of adaptive control and signal processing Wiley. The statute of the paper is:
STATUTE:
ADM: Not Assigned
Under Review
Can someone tell me what exactly this means?

Given only these details, I suspect only the staff of the journal will know. Have you seen other statuses for papers submitted to this journal? For example, who is usually the ADM?

A previous question asked about "ADM" and the accepted answer noted ADM probably means "administrator."
Thus, your paper does not have an "administrator" assigned, but is currently under review (i.e., peer reviewers are currently reading your manuscript). The exact answer of how many reviewers is journal and editor specific.

Depending on the particulars of how the journal operates and how much of the review process it makes visible, this is likely to mean one of two things with respect to the standard journal workflow:

Most likely, the journal simply reports "under review" for all manuscript that have not yet received a decision.  In this case, it probably means that your manuscript is still undergoing initial processing and hasn't yet been assigned to a handling editor.
If the journal gives finer-grained status information about the workflow (e.g., "assigning reviewers", "under review", "waiting for decision"), then it would likely mean that the paper is with reviewers, but that something has happened to require a change of handling editors, which is now ongoing.

The first is much more likely than the second, particularly if the paper is recently submitted.


text:
What if I get assigned to teach topic I know nothing about? Do I have any discretion in what I teach?
I'm a tenured professor at a national public university.  I was just on a two-year leave of absence (to do a startup) and I'm now returning to the university.  I was just informed I'm going to have to teach a class on X.  I protested that I don't even know what X is, but my chair said "sorry, we have no one else to teach it."
I am tempted to just refuse to teach the class, both for my own sake and the sake of the students.  I've scoured the faculty handbook, but it says nothing about teaching assignments.
I'm sure this varies by institution, but what's your perception?  Does a faculty member have any discretion in what he/she teaches?

Having been in this situation of teaching a subject I didn't know anything about, I found this book helpful.

Also see: How to teach a class that I've never taken?

On the positive side: they won't be in a position to criticize you for teaching badly or "from the book". After all, you are saving their day, and beggars aren't choosers. I was in a similar position as a TA, being assigned to grade an advanced class I knew almost nothing about; I tried hard but never got beyond the second problem set, and there were no consequences of any kind.

It depends.   Presumably, as a tenured professor, you have expertise in a broader subject, not just your specific area of study.   It's not unreasonable to expect a professor of mathematics to learn/teach about algebra even if they have focused on some other area of mathematics.   It would be less reasonable to expect a professor of mathematics to teach a psychology subject.

Is this a graduate class? Or undergraduate? Is it introductory or advanced?Presumably as a professor you have enough background that you can be expected to learn the subject matter before the students do and then teach it to them, right? It's not like they're having you teach history in a physics class, right?

If it is an undergraduate class, it is surprisingly easy to keep a chapter or so ahead of the course. Think of it this way -- if you were an undergraduate taking this course, and you knew everything about the broader subject that you know now, you would almost certainly find the course a somewhat easy "A". Students who are heading towards an easy A often find themselves helping fellow students who are struggling with the material more than they. You get to help these struggling fellow students -- and you actually get paid for doing so.

Possible duplicate of How to teach a class that I've never taken?

@Peter: Mathematics is unique among subjects in that every professional mathematician ought to be able to pick up a good introductory book on any subject and teach from it without much prior expertise in it. Of course, it makes no sense to ask someone to teach an advanced course in an area he has hardly any knowledge in.

@user21820 - the OP explicitly avoided saying anything about the subject, or what level the class is.  My point is that, depending on what s/he is a professor of, it is quite reasonable for a school or department to expect a professor to teach classes outside their particular specialisation.   Mathematics is hardly unique in that regard - and I simply used it to illustrate the point anyway.

My department once asked (not ordered) me to teach a linear programming course because the people who knew the subject were unavailable in that term. I agreed, figuring it would be an opportunity to learn linear programming. It worked out OK, mostly. My only regret was that I skipped some apparently inessential material early in the term, only to find much later that it was needed after all. Certainly the course would have been better if it were taught by faculty with lots of experience in linear programming, but the students learned from me, and there were no complaints. Do thou likewise.

@user21820 can you explain what you mean about math being “unique among subjects”, or why you have this belief? It seems to me that your claim that “every professional [academic in discipline X] ought to be able to pick up a good introductory book on any subject [that is part of discipline X] and teach from it without much prior expertise in it” is true for many other values of X (particularly physics, computer science, various branches of engineering, and I can’t say for sure but I would guess lots of other disciplines).

@DanRomik: Yes it's true in every academic discipline, but to vastly different extent. I would have no trouble picking up a good textbook to a graduate-level mathematics course, simply because all mathematics is founded on logic, which comprises a very significant part of any field in mathematics, and all complete proofs are 100% indisputable. This is simply false in other disciplines, where experience and knowledge are very important and rarely is anything absolute. Anyway your comment supports my point, since you said "particularly ... various branches of engineering". =)

Does a faculty member have any discretion in what he/she teaches?

Informally/unofficially: yes, they should have some say in it -- it would be weird for them not to be at least asked about their preferences. Formally/officially: how could they?  If five or ten or thirty or one hundred faculty members each insist that they must teach Y and/or cannot teach X then with very high probability there will be no way to make everyone happy.  Scheduling classes for a university department is a huge pain in the butt no matter what.  (I have never done it myself and would never do it...because it's a huge pain in the butt.  However, my current job of Graduate Coordinator is laterally adjacent to this position and close enough for me to see how difficult it is.)  If you don't give department figures at least some amount of authority over the faculty members on matters pertaining to the department as a whole, then there is an ever present threat of devolving into anarchy.
More crisply: be careful.  Outright refusing to do one of their core job responsibilities is the best way for a tenured faculty member to get in serious trouble, up to and including getting fired.  Based on my own practical experience, it would be a bit over the top for someone to get fired after having pulled this once, but the point is that you'd be standing on shaky ground.  Moreover, outright refusal is not a very helpful position:

both for my own sake and the sake of the students.

I just said that doing this is probably not in your own best interest.  Moreover, how is it in the interest of the students?  If you really just refuse, then what happens?  I guess the chair books you to teach the class anyway and you don't show up...this is not helping anyone.
So what should you do?  Talk further to the chair and other faculty.  The chair is trying to solve an administrative problem: find someone to teach X.  As with most academic administrators, he is doing it under severe constraints: apparently no one else has an open teaching slot.  So he has found the best "local solution" to the problem: assign Professor Fixee to do it.  You should have at least one in-person conversation with the chair and go over the following two points:
1) Help him understand why his proposed solution is a bad one.
He doesn't seem to be looking at the fact that you have no knowledge of subject X whatsoever.  Maybe he thinks you're exaggerating to get out of an undesirable teaching assignment.  You have to let him know the truth and explore some of the implications of this with him.  (By the way, could it be that you are not actually uniquely unqualified to teach subject X -- maybe nobody else knows any more than you?  Maybe their one expert in subject X left suddenly?  It's possible...)
2) Help him "widen the problem-solving window" to include other solutions, and take on some of the effort in solving the problem yourself.
Let's assume you are literally the worst person in the department to teach subject X.  So who is actually more qualified to teach it?  (You do the work in figuring that out.)  Okay, so why are these people not teaching it -- presumably they are already loaded up with teaching assignments or other professional obligations.  Can you arrange a swap with one of these faculty members?  If so, do it and present that to the chair as a solution.
TL;DR: If you go to an administrative figure and say "Sorry, what you've asked me to do just won't work; please fix it," their answer is much more likely to be negative than if you say, "What you've asked me to do has some serious drawbacks; I'd like to propose that we do this instead."  In my experience when two faculty members come to the relevant faculty administrator and say "We'd like to swap classes X and Y" the answer is usually yes.  Why not?  It creates no new problems for them to solve.

Thank you for the extensive and well-considered reply.  I said "for the sake of the students" because I believe they deserve someone who's at least nominally competent to teach a class they've signed up for.  A lot of these students mortgage their future to be in the classroom and they deserve better than someone reading from the textbook. :)

Last para is the best - you never know, some other colleague may be "stuck" with a mediocre choice for them and keeping quiet - they could be really happy to swap with you... As said the Director or whatever title will usually do the swap : very rare that they will "shove" those courses down your throats "that's what I decided now go..."

@Fixee you won't just read from the book - if you care this much you will add something : examples, flavour etc...

"because I believe they deserve someone who's at least nominally competent to teach a class they've signed up for." Me too.  My point is that simply refusing to teach the course does not help at all to fix this.  Also, as I said, for all I know there is no one else more competent to teach the course than you.  If so...well, you gotta do something.  Maybe postpone the course to the following semester or year and get someone who can teach it.  Maybe start learning X now so that two months from now you'll do a halfway decent job?  I don't know exactly what the situation is...

@Fixee invite experts (could also be local researchers) who could give lectures on specific topics, on top of reading from the textbook

A word of encouragement from someone who's taught subjects I knew almost nothing about prior: For many subjects it is possible to do an acceptable job reading a couple chapters ahead. This obviously becomes more difficult for higher course-level classes or more specialized/technical subjects. But as an older, PhD'd, likely above-the-average-undergrad-IQ person, you have a lot more skill/experience in how to find out what to learn, how to learn quickly, and how to apply yourself to study than an undergrad. Yes it isn't optimal, but the class can still absolutely be worth their time.

Thanks for all the supportive and helpful comments.  More than likely I'll just end up teaching X and try to do a good job at it.  Of course I'll then get dinged for not writing enough grant proposals or doing enough research. :)  Ah well... :)

@Fixee - Well, actually, as long as you have that face to face conversation Pete suggested, and then, if no alternative has been found, give in GRACEFULLY, you'll get a lot of brownie points out of this experience.  (When you cash them in, do that gracefully too.)

"Moreover, how is it in the interest of the students?" - how is it any more in the interest of the students to have someone with no knowledge teach the course? The student can read a book and learn as they go just as much as the teacher can. If I were the student, I'd rather do that (stay at home and read the book) than be mislead into believing the teacher knows the subject, and thus waste my time attending lectures. The whole point of lectures is to add value to what you can get from a book. I'd be very upset if I knew my university (to whom I am paying huge fees) was doing this.

@JBentley: First of all, as has come out in the comments, if an instructor agrees to teach a course, they will make some preparations in advance so as not to literally begin the course with no more knowledge than the students.  But "The student can read a book and learn as they go just as much as the teacher can." In the vast majority of cases, a Professor in department A would have a significant advantage in teaching any course in department A than a student taking the course: the Professor has after all spent his professional life studying subject A....

...Finally, you should not underestimate the effect that the trappings of a course -- syllabus, assigned readings, lectures, homework, exams -- have on most students' motivation.  It is of course relatively common for students to miss lectures if they feel they are not getting much out of them.  They still do homework, take exams and so forth.  If the OP simply refuses to teach the course, then none of this takes place.  Of course I agree that having a very unqualified instructor teach a course is not a good outcome, which is why I explored several other possibilities in my answer.

Oh dear. This is definitely a tricky situation, and I would advise you to proceed with the utmost caution. Let me start with an anecdote to illustrate how such situations can escalate into a very unpleasant series of events.

Once upon a time, in a university far, far away, the following events happened:

In a department D, the department chair C assigned a senior professor P a class X, that professor P believed he was not qualified to teach.
P informed C of the problem and asked to be relieved of the assignment and to be assigned a different class instead.
C refused P's request, citing as the reason "as a faculty member of department D, you should be qualified to teach any of the core material, including class X, if you spend an adequate amount of time preparing for the assignment".
Not knowing what else to do, P made private arrangements for his postdoc Q, who was familiar with the material of class X, to give the lectures in class X, with P remaining nominally as the course instructor, and Q not being paid for his work and not having any official authorization to be involved in instruction of the class.
C found out about this, and P got in very serious trouble.

Now, to address what you wrote:

Does a faculty member have any discretion in what he/she teaches?

No. In every university I am familiar with, the department chair (or their delegate, e.g., a vice chair or a committee) makes decisions about teaching assignments, and faculty are required to teach what they are assigned. At my institution, "failure to meet the responsibilities of instruction" is a violation of the faculty code of conduct and can result in disciplinary action and other bad consequences (including, in severe cases, termination of employment).
With that said, a competent chair will certainly at least consider advice and suggestions from faculty on such matters.

I protested that I don't even know what X is

Forgive my cheekiness, but if you don't know what X is, can you credibly claim to "know nothing about" X? What I mean (based on a literal interpretation of your statement, which I can't say for sure is the right interpretation) is, isn't there a chance that when you find out what X is you'll realize that you actually do know something about it? For example, if I were assigned to teach database design, my first reaction would be to make the correct statement that I don't know what database design is; however, I suspect that if I did look into it, I might discover that it does relate to some things that I know, so that the statement "I know nothing about database design" is not completely true.
The reason I mention this is to point out that if I were the department chair, I might be more inclined to listen to someone with a request like yours if they showed me that they had made some effort to learn what X is, and make an estimate of the amount of effort it would take them to teach the class effectively, before making the request. Saying "I don't even know what X is" sounds like a knee-jerk, panic-induced reaction, so I may be more inclined to dismiss such a request and counsel the person making it to simply do the work of preparing for the assignment adequately. After all, we have all taught subjects on topics that we weren't 100% (or in some cases even 50%) familiar with at one point or another, and learning more about a subject you're assigned to teach is considered part of the normal work of an academic.

what's your perception?

Based on the above analysis, I would make the following suggestions:

Question your assumptions. Maybe you are used to teaching subjects close to your expertise that you are very familiar with, so by comparison, subject X feels like something you "know nothing about". However, being a professor does not entitle you to teach only subjects you're an expert on. It is quite reasonable that once in a while you will be assigned to teach a subject you are not an expert on, or even one you know only a little about and may need to do some hard work to reach a sufficient mastery of before you can teach it well. Obviously I can't say if your assessment that you know nothing about X is correct or not, but certainly I would advise you to do some due diligence on the subject and think hard about whether your extreme "know-nothing" assessment is really a reasonable one, before taking any further action.
Talk again to the department chair. If after step 1 you still think that the chair's decision is gravely in error, go and talk to him/her again. Maybe the previous discussion happened over email, so talking in person might have better results. Come prepared with a thorough analysis of why you are the wrong person to teach the class. As Pete Clark suggests, maybe come prepared with an alternate plan of who can teach the class instead of you.
Recruit allies. Before or after talking to the chair, talk to some of your other colleagues, both to get a sanity check on whether your perception is correct, and to get their support in case they agree with you. Having support from a few of your colleagues (especially ones who are influential or well-respected within the department) might make the chair view things differently.
Consider formal action. I wouldn't recommend this, but if all else fails and you still believe the assignment imposes an undue and unreasonable burden on you, most institutions would have mechanisms such as a formal grievance procedure you can file against the chair. This would make particular sense in a situation where you feel the chair gave you the assignment out of spite or bias. From your description of the situation it sounds to me like you wouldn't have a winning case, but I don't know enough to say for sure, so it's something to think about and/or consult other experienced colleagues who can consider the details of the situation.
WHATEVER HAPPENS, DO NOT UNILATERALLY REFUSE TO TEACH THE COURSE. If you can't get the decision overturned using legitimate means available to you (as described above), under no circumstance should you take matters into your own hands and fail to perform the assignment (as the person in the anecdote did, with bad consequences). Instead, in that unfortunate scenario I suggest taking the following steps:
a. Make a reasonable, good-faith effort to learn the material of the class as well as anyone with your background should be expected to do in a reasonable amount of time (where "reasonable" is probably more than you think you should have to spend learning the material of a class you are assigned to teach, but less than a person who truly "knows nothing about X" would need in order to teach the class as well as an expert in the subject).
b. Show up for all the lectures and teach the class (and perform all other duties related to teaching the class) to the best of your abilities given the reasonable effort you've made preparing.
c. Document in writing your expressions of disapproval of the chair's decision to assign you the class. This puts any ultimate responsibility for the decision on the chair, if and when students complain that they are being offered inadequate instruction in the class from someone who doesn't know the material well enough. It should also allow you to sleep well at night - ultimately this will prove that you did everything you could to protect the students' interests as well as your own.

Good luck!

This is great advice, but I want to at least mention that in central Europe your story is basically the default teaching mode in many universities - professors get teaching assignments, they then assign the entire course or parts of it to one or more of her/his staff, while credit (and formal responsibility for grading / quality control etc.) is largely retained by the professor. Of course I don't think that this is true for Fixee, but I think it's not unimportant to mention.

@xLeitix thanks, good to know. While there is indeed some similarity, it sounds like in the system you’re describing, the professors are delegating their responsibilities to their staff with the knowledge and approval of their institutions. This was very much not the case in the anecdote I was referring to.

@DanRomik Indeed, at least unofficially everybody knows. In reflection I am also not sure whether this is true in mathematics quite as much as in the sciences.

As many people have pointed out, you are more than capable of studying the course material, if it is in any way related to your area of expertise, and learning enough about it to teach undergraduates.  (Undergraduates with poor instructors teach each other the course material all the time, for example.)
One thing that will help you is to stick fairly closely to the official textbook for the course, perhaps also studying a few other standard textbooks for perspective, so that the students have the ability to make up for any areas you are weaker in.  And if students ask background questions you can't answer, it's OK to say "this is my first time teaching this class and I don't have all the answers, but I will look into that and let you know at the next class."
Nobody else seems to have pointed out what seems to be an important factor: Returning from a two-year leave of absence, you are presumably at the bottom of the pecking order when making class assignments; professors also presumably have dibs on teaching the course they taught last semester if they enjoyed it and got good student evaluations.  Other class assignments were probably also made, officially or unofficially, while you were away from the university.  You are simply the last available resource to fill out the course schedule before the university has to resort to hiring temps, who may be even less effective instructors than you.
However, whatever the outcome, do NOT take it out on the students.  I once took a junior-level CS class taught by a research professor with more tenure than the Dean.  He made it very clear in a thousand ways that he considered our class and its material beneath him.
-o- At that time students very carefully managed their schedules to only take one programming class per semester.  He decided our class would be more interesting with programming hardware simulations.  In a language he had written himself, for which there were no outside resources.
-o- In spite of clear University guidelines specifying otherwise, he refused to tell the class how much various assignments were worth, saying we wouldn't work hard enough on things that were weighted lower.
-o- Rather than publish the date of the midterm in advance, again as clearly required by University regulations, he announced at the lightly-attended class the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, hours after the dorms had already been locked up for the break, that the midterm would be given the Monday after Thanksgiving.  25% of the material on the midterm was based on new material, not in the class syllabus, introduced at that single class.
Again, this was a research professor who brought millions of dollars a year to the University.  Students who complained were told that nothing could be done.

I would recommend reading "Teaching What You Don't Know" by Therese Huston. Within a few pages you'll see how this is a very common situation for many professors and teachers of all levels. The book will guide on how to proceed with good strategies for teaching what you don't know and how to enjoy it.

Yes, you have discretion on what you teach just as you have discretion over whether you continue to work there or not.  If the University wants to have teachers teach subjects they don't know, then either they are making it a challenge for you to learn it, or they have no educational standard.
When you got your Doctorate of Philosophy, YOU became the authority.  The term connotes (if not denotes) that there is no higher authority.  Perhaps the chair is suggesting that you don't know your field well enough, or perhaps they're being cheap -- you have to figure which one that is and hold them to a standard you believe in.
If they're not willing to be held to such a standard, then go talk to the Dean.  Go to the Provost if you have to.  If, by the end of your exploration, it turns out that they don't meet your expectations of quality, get out and save yourself a lot of disappointments.

A PhD doesn't mean there is no higher authority, it means there's no further qualification a single university can really give to demonstrate the completion of learning, as everything after it is the discovery of new knowledge and hence the next stage of learning will never truly end. That's entirely besides the fact that academic knowledge is not employment hierarchy, and there is definitely authority above just being a PhD holder.

@Nij:  says who?

I do not think the word “discretion” means what you think it means.

@DanRomik:  ah, thanks for pointing out a sloppy use of the word.


text:
What are the academic job ranks in Sweden?
Recently I read about a position as "universitetslektor" in a Swedish university. I did some research to figure out what this academic rank means. In my understanding  it is similar to a lecturer in the British system. What I could not figure out is if "universitetslektor" is a permanent position, or if there is a qualification after which this position becomes permanent. Also, does  universitetslektor refer to lecturer or to senior lecturer. What would be the analogue in the US system?

Could you link to an open position?

@PaulHiemstra: Here is the link

@A.Schulz: "Tidsbegränsade anställningar 2013-03-15 – 2013-12-31".

@JukkaSuomela: Okay, but my question was not about this particular position, but about positions of this type.

In general, «Universitetslektor» is the closest the Swedish system has to an «associate professor» in the US system, and is close to a «lecturer» in the British system. The more junior rank would be «Biträdande lektor», and the more senior «Professor».
There are some subtleties in play here though; most importantly for the linked position is the phrase «tidsbegränsade anställningar». This means that the position is for a limited time only — they are hiring from March to December, supposedly to fill an urgent teaching need. The limit in time signals several things. One of them is that it is likely to be important to shoulder the teaching required — it might, depending on the department and their situation, for instance be difficult to buy out teaching time with research funds. Another is that it comes with none of the tenure guarantees usual «lektorat» provides. Since the position is time-limited, it will evaporate at the end of the time, to be replaced with a different position if the department finds the funds to hire again.
The hierarchy to figure out how the ranks work would be something like:
Tidsbegränsad anställning: Time-limited appointment. Not subject to tenure-like employment protection.
Adjunkt: Adjunct teacher. Needs not have a doctorate. Fills a teaching need.
Biträdande lektor: Similar to tenure track; usually time-limited to 4-6 years, at the end of which a review takes place deciding whether to upgrade the position to...
Lektor: The most common of Swedish University teaching/research positions. Obligated to teach, but can usually trade teaching time against research grant money. At every University I have ever interacted with, these come with an obligation for a certain amount of pedagogical qualifications — and if you are hired without pedagogical coursework in your CV, you may have to spend large swathes of your first year studying higher education pedagogy.
Professor: Similar to Professor in the UK or Full or even Named professorships in the US. It used to be very rare — one or two per field wasn't uncomomon; but since 1999, Professor is a possible target for promotion from Lektor, which increases the numbers. Before the 1999 reform, a Professor could not be fired, even under usual Swedish employment protection rules.
In summary: «Universitetslektor» is an essentially tenured position. They all come with heavy-looking teaching loads, but it is common in Sweden to reduce teaching loads with grant money. «Tidsbegränsad anställning» is a non-tenured and likely to be teaching-heavy position.

Unrelated, but I thought the british "reader" was the equivalent of US "associate professor"