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Lecturing (teaching methods) for a diverse group of students with weak science backgrounds
I just started teaching three courses at small medical training college: anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, and microbiology. Most of the students have a weak background in the sciences, and come from varying professional/educational backgrounds.
I currently end up preparing 4-5 hours for each hour that I end up lecturing. But find it difficult to keep the students engaged for the duration of the lecture. Any advice on improving teaching/ lecturing methods?

possible duplicate of How to improve myself as a lecturer?

@earthling I think this question is different in the sense that most of the students have a weak science background.

I saw that after I posted my question. scaaahu is correct--the students I am teaching have a very weak science background.

If the students don't concentrate for the full hour you could try a 5-10 minute break in the middle in which you ask them to solve some problems or discuss a problem in small groups.  Getting them to report back on this helps to make the class interactive, and you find out what they've understood and what they haven't.

I currently end up preparing 4-5 hours for each hour that I end up lecturing — Yeah, that sounds about right.

Teaching 'unprepared' students is always a challenge and prep takes a lot of time (four to five hours of prep for one hour of lecturing sounds about right...and maybe a bit low). So, overall, your numbers seem to be inline with norms.
If you want to make your teaching more effective, you should read some books about teaching (there are many). You should read this question for some ideas on improving yourself as a lecturer.
Generally, 'active learning' - where the student is the focus of the learning process (as opposed to the lecturer being the center) - focuses on engaging students, putting the load on their shoulders. Group work is particularly useful. I've seen studies (not handy) that say that in every learning situation, group learning (e.g., group discussion) always improves the learning effectiveness.
You should do more prep and you should do less in class (they should do the work in class) and they should do work outside of class. All of this needs your careful planning but some students will think they you are not doing anything...but they will end up learning more in the end.

earthling thanks..that question was very useful. Will try to incorporate group work, but have limited class time, and tons of martial to cover.

@Cerberus One thing that I've learned from experience (especially with weaker students) is that it is much better to teach less and teach it better. Good luck!

My strategy is to focus on very few topics during one class (1 or, at most, 2, depending on time) and cover them in-depth. Generally, I try to link the topics over the whole course together as much as I can.
This is a lot of work and weaker students sometimes think they see repeats (which they don't), but the knowledge tends to sink in better this way.


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Can I use a graph or figures of a paywalled paper under fair use?
I am writing a blog post citing several paywalled papers. Could I also put graphs, diagrams or photos from these papers in my blog post under fair use?
My field is medical object detection and I would like to show examples from the papers where the authors show in which cases their algorithms fail.

Whether the articles were paywalled or not, you should resolve your problem in three steps:

Content license: check if you can find a version of the figure with liberal licensing terms. The paywalled version certainly does not fit the bill… but you may find the same figure (or a similar one) in a pre-print version of the paper, under a different license.

Obtaining permission for use: even if the content is not available under a free license, the publisher can grant you permission to reproduce the image. Nowadays, many publishers use a nice interface called Rightslink. If you look for example at this random article from the American Chemical Society (which is far from being the most liberal of publishers), you can see a “Rights and permissions” link. In that particular example, the publisher will grant you reproducing of up to 4 figures of the paper on the internet, even on a for-profit website.

Fair use: the fair use doctrine is a tricky, murky area of US copyright law. It's not as wide as people generally assume. It has to be judged on a case-by-case basis: see here and there. See here a notorious case from back in 2007 which is very close to your particular case.
So, my own conclusion on fair use: it's nice in principle, but unless you're ready to hire a lawyer to double-check (or get formal training on that), just play it safe.

Meh, I tried Rightslink on like 10 papers and they always wanted $75 for publishing it for a few month only :(

Personally I have contacted the first or authors directly and asked them for permission and most of them have replied within 2–3 days. Also my librarian had advised me to refer to Sherapa/Romeo (a listing of journals and their policies). Some journals are very lenient and wouldn't mind using images if you have explicit permission from author. Important thing to note is once journal is published, the author waives away all his rights and only journal paper has rights on the work.

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How can a masters student arrange to do a thesis in collaboration with industry?
I have started a MS program in Computer Engineering. This is my first year and it is a 2 year program. I want to do a master thesis about Machine Learning (I have an artificial intelligence and genetic algorithms background from my MS but I can work on different topics within Machine Learning).
I am interested in doing a thesis in collaboration with a company in industry. I'm hoping that working through a MS with them will increase the chance they consider me for a job after the end of the program.
Do companies ever publicize masters thesis proposals for students to work on with them?

Welcome to the Academia stack exchange. I'm having difficulty understanding your question... are you asking whether any companies will sponsor your master's degree?

I am looking for master thesis proposals with collaboration of companies.

I don't know why this question was closed as "too broad". It is perfectly reasonable in scope, and has perfectly reasonable answers. I suspect it is because the previous title made it sound as if it is asking for suggestions for thesis topics (which it isn't). I reopened it on this assumption, but if anyone wants to make a case for closing it again, I'm listening.

From my experience, there do exist occasional Masters and PhD projects which are funded through industry grants; I personally interviewed for (but did not accept) a postdoctoral position based in a hospital funded by a medical device company. However, the position was not advertised as such, and the medical device company did not list this grant publicly. I suspect that any other similar positions (i.e., funded by industry) would not include this information in the advertisements.
I would suggest that you try a different tack. A number of companies will sponsor and pay for a masters degree once you've been working with them long enough. You may want to try talking to people in industry and finding whether you can take a job and then work towards your degree at a later point in time.

Depending on the country, the companies may sponsor someone before they are hired, with a contract that after the masters degree, they work for a few years

We have got many pressing topics for dissertations from various companies. They need solutions. We took the broad problems and created reach proposal and got approval from the companies. The graduate students in the Human Resource development are able to improve their problem-solving skills through the dissertation works. About 100 students completed the research. The company also provided the service of a manager. This is a win-win situation.

Where can I find proposals from companies to work with them? Are there lists of such proposals available somewhere?

I am not aware of any such, but around me, several mid- and large-scale projects are done in a very close cooperation with industrial companies, also on machine learning. Even I am employed as a post-doc on such a project, from a large part financed by a company who is also the supposed user of the results. At least in the western EU, this is a frequent model in computer science and related technical disciplines.
One way, or another, to complete a master thesis you will need a supervisor from your university. In the case there are industrial cooperation projects in the area of your interest at your university, you should speak to the local project consortium member, basically one of the professors, or senior researchers at the relevant department. To find out whether such projects do exist at your university is again something to speak about with your local professors/faculty/research staff. After all, at least in places I am familiar with, working out a master topic without a tight connection to a project/theme at the department of your university is not the way to go, most probably even almost impossible. After all, you need a supervisor and the person needs to have an interest in the work. But of course, maybe in other parts of the world than I am active, things tick differently...

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Good at coursework and learning background material, but attempts at original research go downhill. How to overcome psychological block?
Okay, so I am a math student currently on leave from a graduate program in math and computer science.
I have always been good at coursework. I ace examinations and manage good grades. I can understand and explain concepts well. All my professors have liked me because of all this.
But somehow it feels like I have tricked my way up. Everything goes wrong as soon as I take up a project or open problem or any kind of research. I start out beautifully- read and understand all necessary background instantly, get up to date on current results, impress my guides with my clear understanding. But things go down fast after that. I lose motivation, I get lost in digressions and extensive learning. Or I just slack and avoid the project altogether and somehow try to make a dignified exit.
This has happened too many times now. Each time I thought it'll all come together the next time. But nothing has changed. I have tomes and tomes of notes and expository material on all topics remotely related to my research areas. But I don't have a single original piece of research. It got so distressing that I was diagnosed with depression, OCD, etc. and subjected to medication and therapy. But somehow the problem seems beyond all that.
I really want to do research and solve problems. Even an insignificant, but original, result might greatly elevate my confidence.
Are there others who have been through this? Is this just a difficult phase some people go through?
Or am I just an idiot who's reaching beyond his level?

I am not sure about the off-topicness of this question.

I recommend the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". The great Feynman also had some difficulties in pursuing research. Note that the publish or perish burden didn't existed very much in those ages, and people focused more on what really interested them.

See How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?

"But somehow it feels like I have tricked my way up." - see “I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this” - how to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome

Do you feel wedded to pure math?  I wonder if applied math might be worth a try.  There are many different ways of doing applied math, and you might find that things aren't soo dependent on getting that original spark that has been eluding you.

The article on Imposter syndrome hits too hard home! Feels better knowing I'm not the only one feeling like a quack among intellectuals. @aparente001 I'm not actually in pure math as such. I work in computational complexity but my specific areas of interest are algebraic in nature. Also, I have tried venturing in different subjects, but the underlying problem has been the same.

It is common for an advisor to take an active role in choosing a problem.

It is hard to give a good answer here, but it seems to me that you, despite being a good student, haven't learned to do research yet.
When you describe what you are good at, you describe all the things you need to be a good student. These things are all necessary to be good at research, but alas, they are not sufficient. To do research, you need to shift to a different gear.
For example: Do not read a paper thinking "How does this work?" but more "What does that mean? What can I do with it? What could be done differently?". Learn to read articles and books through different lenses, e.g. with a lens that focuses on broad understanding of concepts, a lens that focuses on fine details, a lens that focuses on open problems or possible improvements,…
Also, find a problem to work on, not a topic to learn. Ask some supervisor to provide a problem to work on at the beginning, but note that later on you should come up with interesting problems on your own.

True. I realize that myself. I have always taken comfort in the luxury of established theory as opposed to venturing into the unknown. You get the satisfaction of having learnt something without the uncertainty and lack of structure that come with original research. I am not sure if thats just plain intellectual laziness, or a latent fear/low confidence, or simply a limitation of my intellect.
"Do not read a paper thinking "How does this work?" but more "What does that mean? What can I do with it? What could be done differently?" Thats the root of the problem.

Do not read a paper thinking "How does this work?" but more "What does that mean? What can I do with it? What could be done differently?" — Don't forget "Is this actually correct? And even if it's correct, is it actually good?"

Notice the language you're using to describe yourself and your behavior. This is most likely the same kind of language you're using to talk to yourself as well.
The highlights in bold are mine.

I have always been good at coursework. I ace examinations and manage
good grades. I can understand and explain concepts well. All my
professors have liked me because of all this.

These are absolute claims. "always" and "all" are absolute quantifiers. They're great for things like logic, math, or computer science, but they tend to distort our thoughts when it comes to interpreting our own human behavior.

But somehow it feels like I have tricked my way up. Everything goes
wrong as soon as I take up a project or open problem or any kind of
research.
I start out beautifully- read and understand all necessary
background instantly, get up to date on current results, impress my
guides with my clear understanding.
But things go down fast after
that. I lose motivation, I get lost in digressions and extensive
learning. Or I just slack and avoid the project altogether and somehow
try to make a dignified exit.

"things go down after that"
Here, it might be more helpful if you were more specific.
Is it as soon as someone stops overseeing your work that you lose motivation? What kind of structure did your department/advisor provide for you - if any?

This has happened too many times now.

How many times did it happen really?

Each time I thought it'll all
come together the next time. But nothing has changed.

Really, nothing has changed? Are you sure about that? Please notice the narrative you're telling yourself. Is this claim even true? Many times, we just don't notice all the growth we've made as a student (until years later).

I have tomes and
tomes of notes and expository material on all topics remotely related
to my research areas. But I don't have a single original piece of
research.

"I don't have a single original piece of research." Many graduate students don't either.
Besides, I bet you can find some original ideas in your own work. My bet is that you're just not able to see them right now.

It got so distressing that I was diagnosed with depression,
OCD, etc. and subjected to medication and therapy. But somehow the
problem seems beyond all that.

For someone who is depressed, this is a perfectly normal feeling to have.
Does your therapy already include a Behavioral Cognitive Therapy component? If not, I'd suggest you take a look at BCT. Also, I'd suggest you listen to audiobooks or videos by Byron Katie, which is another take on the same underlying ideas. She has a lot of free materials on youtube and on file-sharing networks.

Thanks for the insights Stephan. I agree that there are more absolutes than necessary in my descriptions But I wanted to convey the main problem without being too verbose and nuanced. The broad idea is captured best by the absolutes, and it wasn't my intention to oversell my virtues nor undermine myself too much..
I did try CBT but am not sure if it was formal and complete. I'll have a look at Byron Katie. Thanks again. Always glad to hear ideas.

Other answers give many excellent specific tips, but just to pick up one point that hasn’t been addressed yet,

Are there others who have been through this? Is this just a difficult phase some people go through?

Yes, it is absolutely a phase that many beginning researchers go through.
The transition from coursework to research is a difficult one.  I remember feeling absolutely the same worries you describe for most of my first couple of years of grad school, and I’ve heard multiple other mathematicians (some very successful) talking about having felt the same way.  Finding this a large and difficult step doesn’t mean you’re an idiot who isn’t cut out for research.  This is a big new kind of skill you need to develop, and different people find it comes more or less quickly or naturally; so don’t be surprised or disheartened if it does take a while for you, just keep working at it, in the ways suggested in other answers.

Thats encouraging. Though every time I see my friends and colleagues making some progress (however insignificant), I can practically feel my heart sinking. I don't think its envy, but just agony and self-pity over my staying-at-the-same-place.
Sometimes I question whether I am throwing good money after bad by clinging on to a futile hope that I'll be able to break that ceiling. Feels like living out the gambler's ruin example. The only thing keeping me intact is my love for the subject and desire to be surrounded by it- even if I am the stupidest person in the room.

Are you too much of a perfectionist?
I wanted to make an album for 10 years.  I had all the songs written.  I had a band.  We played the songs.  But we couldn't record anything no matter how we tried.  Eventually we broke up.
My standards were too high for someone who never recorded an album.
Years later (when I heard Axl Rose was finally releasing his album after 14 years) I said "That's it, I am recording my album with what I have in the room.  It will be the output of the next 2 weeks, whatever it comes out as".
Basically, I dropped all expectations and ambitions that made it so hard to record.  But I got it done.  And then I recorded another one, and another one, and another one.  Each one got closer to my original ideal.  But I had to come up with a format to get things done, which is a completely different skill altogether.
To write new songs, I would go to a coffee shop and say I'm not going home until I have a song written.  I got new songs written after that.
When recording, I would say I have 4 hours to record this.  That's 1 hour per instrument.  If a part isn't perfect after 1 hour, I move onto the next.  I could always go back and tweak it, but at least I had a finished product in 4 hours.

One big difference between coursework and research which is worth remembering -- lecturers won't set you coursework problems which aren't possible, but many research problems are (at least where we currently are).
If you try to solve if P=NP (for example), you won't get far. If you are tackling a genuinely hard problem, it can take months to make significant progress. I will often start by nibbling off little sub-problems, and prove some very trivial results, to approach the main problem. Research ideas which are worth publishing are often months of work, of which at least 80% of which was a waste of time (but of course, you don't know in advance which 80%).
In short -- you might just be expecting research to be something where you make progress every day, and in a fairly linear fashion, which in many research areas it isn't.

+1 — expectations from coursework are a big part of the problem.


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How to choose between very good journals in mathematics?
I finished preparing a math paper, and am now trying to decide where to submit it.
I read How do you judge the quality of a journal?,
but it seems that the answers there mostly deal with how to judge if a journal is good at all.
The journals I am considering (see list below) are all very good. But how can I know how do very good journals rank?
I know my paper is not at the level of Annals,
so I considered the following journals:
Selecta mathematica,
Duke,
Compositio Mathematica,
American journal of mathematics,
Advances in mathematics,
International mathematical research notices,
and Crelle journal.
How can an author compare the quality very good journals such as these? Is there any reasonable way to use public data in order to sort them from best to worse?
Note: this question is looking for an answer about a general method, not necessarily a particular ranking of those particular journals.

Hi, and welcome to Academia.SE!  I'm going to edit your question slightly to emphasize the general "how to compare good journals" over the "these specific journals", to try to ensure that it doesn't get closed as being too specific or a "shopping question".

To the OP: Are you asking "How to select a good journal to submit my paper?" or "How to compare very good journals?"

I am asking how to compare very good journals. Of course, this will help me to decide where to submit.

You may want to add Math Annalen?

A factor many people also consider is the publisher/owner.  Compositio is owned by mathematicians, IMRN AJM and Duke by university presses (of perhaps varying ethical behavior), and Advances and Selecta by huge multinational for-profits (again of perhaps varying evilness).

What about Acta Mathematica?

Acta is generally thought of as the very top tier (with JAMS, Annals, Inventiones, though everyone disagrees on the order).  So its somewhat better than Duke and clearly better than the others mentioned in this post.  It has somewhat of a lean towards analysis.

@NoahSnyder  you are right. Usually, JAMS, Annals, Acta, Invent are considered as the top 4, followed by Duke.

Is there any reasonable way to use public data in order to sort them from best to worse?

Not really.  To start with, there isn't a remotely well-defined notion of ranking.  For example, it depends on the subfield (some journals attract better papers in certain areas than others), it can vary over time, and it depends on the specific goals you have in mind.  More importantly, people just don't always agree: I know some people who would argue that one of the journals you listed is clearly a better choice than the others, but they wouldn't all choose the same one.
The explicit rankings I've seen do a poor job of accounting for these factors.  At best they are mediocre (perhaps valuable as a first cut for distinguishing between journals at very different ranks, but useless for fine distinctions).  At worst they are positively misleading.
Fortunately, choosing between well-known journals like these is not so difficult.  You should look them over and try to gauge which ones look to you like they are publishing the most important papers in your area, while also asking around to get other people's opinions.  (Ask mentors of yours, ask your friends or collaborators, ask colleagues at tea.)  If there's a clear consensus among the people you ask and it's consistent with your own impressions, then you're done.  If there's a clear consensus that disagrees with your impressions, then you need to think and talk a little more.  If there's no clear consensus among several options, then it doesn't really matter which of them you choose.  After all, journal prestige matters only to the extent it is perceived to matter by the community; if the community can't make up its mind, then there is no right choice.
Carrying this out takes a little time, but it's worth it since you learn more about how things are perceived in your research area.

Could you explain the sentence "and it depends on the specific goals you have in mind"?

One case is that journal A is older and has greater name recognition than the new journal B, but those who know about B consider it superior.  In five years B will probably be recognized as better to have on your CV, but it might attract less attention than A would if you apply for jobs this year.  Another is that some journals publish papers of a broader range of quality than others (even with the same average quality).  Different people in different career circumstances may have different concerns about the extent to which a journal sets a high lower bound for the importance of their papers.

I guess for instance taking journal A = Journal of Algebra, and journal B = Algebra & Number theory might be a current concrete example.

@the L: I would say you have a concrete example from about five years ago, but it makes the point nevertheless.  Also I think your choice illustrates what Anonymous M was saying about quality: the best papers from A seem roughly comparable to the best papers from B (i.e., certifiably strong, important works), but A publishes a wider range of papers than B.

I am glad to here that @PeteL.Clark (since I hava a paper in ANT). I wasn't sure to what extent people are aware of its quality.

One important factor which the other answers haven't mentioned is the editorial board.  Given two roughly interchangeable journals, I'd expect a better experience at the one with an editor whose expertise is closer to the paper.  You're more likely to get an unfair referee report if the editor isn't close enough to the subject matter to pick appropriate referees.

Yes editorial board is important

I agree with everything in Anonymous Mathematician's answer, but are some additional thoughts.
First, there is no object well-ordering in terms of quality, in the sense that everyone will agree upon it.  This is a necessary consequence of there not being a well-defined measure of quality for individual papers, variation among referees and editors, and that the value of a paper often can't be properly assessed until years after publication.
In math, unlike some other fields, there are typically a lot of journals that would be a good fit for your article, and in most situations it shouldn't make too much difference picking one over the other.  I personally don't have strict mental ranking of journals in my field in mind when I submit, but some vague notion of tiers and it's more like, okay these are all in the same tier and I'll just pick one of them.  (I also usually have no sense of how good my papers are when I submit them.)
I would never think, oh, we should hire this person instead of that one because one has a paper in American Journal and the other has a paper in Advances.  (Note: I would not put all the journals you listed in the same tier.)  I just think, oh this person has 1-2 papers in great journals and 2-3 papers in good journals, and the rec letters are stellar.
There are some situations where rankings of journals are directly used for evaluating people (either impact factor, or Australia's letter grades, though these do not line up with most people's notions of quality), though these are relatively rare in the US, and I would only worry about this if your colleagues tell you too.
So, I would talk to some colleagues in your field, to see if they have further input.  A couple of other things you should consider are what kinds of paper the journals in your field have been publishing recently (look through some recent issues as well as at the editorial board---I often choose a journal just based on an editor--an editor who can better appreciate your work can both better choose an appropriate referee and is more likely to push for your paper to be accepted), and the general operation of the journal (e.g., some are much faster than others---see the AMS data).

I can confirm that this answer also holds in many other fields (e.g. life sciences).

To be honest, considering the situation of Adv. Math., having a paper in AJM is more convincing.

There are many different journal rankings or numerical scores that you can compare. Out of the ones I've seen, the one that corresponds closest to my own subjective impression of journal strength is definitely the Mathematical Citation Quotient (MCQ). The MCQ is listed on the MathSciNet page about each journal. I think that's a good starting point.
That said, I'll agree with what Anonymous Mathematician said: most people don't pay much attention to various journal rankings. Instead you continuously update your impressions of different journals based on discussions with colleagues (at tea, during meetings, while ranking job applicants' CVs, etc) but also based on where you see papers get published: if you see a paper appear in a journal you would've thought too strong then you'll think the authors got lucky, but if it happens several times with the same journal you'll downgrade your opinion of the journal.
PS - about the journals you asked about - my ranking would be Duke > Crelle, Compositio, Advances, Amer J Math > Selecta > IMRN. The difference between the strongest and weakest of those you listed is significant - I'd put Duke at 6th or 7th best out of all math journals, and IMRN outside the top 20.

I am very curious if others here agree about your assessment of Amer J Math, as I heard that it is regarded as a very good journal.

@theL I was also surprised about the ranking of AJM. I'd consider AJM at about the same level as Advances and Compositio.  OTOH, I would not have cared much about Selecta, which appears to be quite a bit better than I would have though. I assume this may be some subfield bias.

I think I agree now and edited the answer.

Personally, I think Advances is clearly much worse than it used to be. Publishing 500 papers a year is making it from a top journal to a 2 class journal.

I would not bother too much about this question. Both as an author and as a member of a hiring committee I just look at four categories: The four top journals, the may be 10-15 very good journals, the many journals that are well known, and the many journals which are obscure. The only discussions which might actually happen in a hiring committee is whether a certain journal is obscure or not. Here opinions are especially divided if a journal is only known within a certain community, but does not say so in its name.
So if you are aiming for the second tier, you should look at the article and compare it to articles in those journals. Apart from editors and cited/influential articles which are already mentioned, you should also check whether your article fits into the usual length range of the journal.

Don’t forget to look into the journal backlogs.  Getting accepted at a top journsl is not going to be as useful to your career if the acceptance happens only after you do your next job hunt, submit your next grant proposal, or go up for tenure.   The AMS published them:
https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/notices/201710/rnoti-p1184.pdf

I have a bone to pick with some of the posters here.
First, let me make clear that I agree with certain general premises. You should definitely take into account whether a particular journal is geared towards certain fields. As an example, if you have a truly outstanding paper in algebra, you would do well not to consider submitting to Acta Mathematica. Said journal, while top 5 overall, is geared towards analysis rather than any other field. And you should look for trends, and look at compositions of editorial boards.
Next, let me address a minor point: it is a little silly, in my opinion, that Annals is considered the best of them all, when it is abundantly clear (to me at least) that Publications Mathematiques de l' IHES is really the best. I think that Annals is simply more geared towards papers which finish-off problems, and is thus more fanciful than other top 5 journals.
Now, as to my main grievance: I find it annoying that people think that quality cannot be measured. Yes, in art for example, it is virtually impossible to measure the quality of a piece by any scientific method. Ranking the quality of journals, however, is a very different game. While we may disagree how to measure quality in principal, I put forth the proposition that the only reliable such measure is the article influence score. This thing takes into account not only number of citations, but also where these citations come from. If you look at impact factors only, you might get an approximately accurate picture of the scene, but you are liable to make mistakes in your judgement, if it is based solely on that. An example here is Aequationes Mathematicae. This journal is average at best, yet it has an impact factor of 1.0, which places it at number 58 out of the 312 math journals in the Thompson Reuters database. Its article influence score, however, is 0.465 which puts it at place number 201.
Alright, so here's a list of the top 20 journals based on their article influence score:

P.S. IMRN is nowhere near the top: it is currently sitting comfortably at place 39.

I find this answer way over-simplified. For example, how is it clear to you that the journal ranked 1 in this list is really the best? If you look at the data for 2014 it was ranked 5 with a huge gap up to number 1, so either it has improved immensely in a very short time (I assume these are the newest numbers even though you don't give a source for them), or the measure is very volatile and thus not very useful in the long run.

I only meant that it is currently the best, though I should have been more precise about this; agreed. My point with Annals is that it is usually not the best, year-by-year, but people tend to think that it is. It usually ranks number 3, with most first places between Acta Mathematica and Journal of the American Mathematical Society. The data I have provided is from Thompson Reuters, 2015 Journal Citation Reports. Why do you think my answer is over-simplified though? Do you disagree with the premise that quality can be measured?

I disagree with the premise that quality can be measured as a single number, especially within the full field of mathematics rather than a subfield.

Without wanting to get into a philosophical dispute, I venture that you have an issue with the distinction between 'truth' and 'approximate truth'. I take it as granted that virtually all human knowledge, what we consider and trust as true, is only approximate. So I consider the premise that journal quality admits quantification as a statement that admits a very good approximation. If you want to argue that it's impossible to distinguish between the top 5 journals, for instance, ok, I'll go with it. But I think that "accuracy" (however you interpret it) of the article influence score is good.

I have no idea what any of that was supposed to mean.

It means this: perhaps it is impossible to come up with a single number as a measure to distinguish between the quality of Annals and Acta Mathematica. There is, however, a single number that can be used as a measure to distinguish between the quality of Acta Mathematica and Duke. Ditto for most pairs of Mathematical Journals.
Anyway, I'm not on here to school you.

Why the downvotes you bright fellas?

I had not actually downvoted until now. But your comments here make it clear that the answer really was as oversimplified as it felt, and that you would rather delve into weird philosophical asides (with a light condescending tone) than provide any actual arguments.

It seems oversimplified. However, I agree with you. This ranking is basically accurate.


text:
What does it mean that after withdrawal of arxiv paper 'previous versions can still be retrieved'?
I'm considering withdrawing an arxiv paper (it has some errors, I think a fresh start is the way to go) but I'm confused about the warning that 'previous versions can still be retrieved' - will these be at least as difficult to retrieve as the (soon to be withdrawn) most recent version? (I looked at a few related questions but they didn't seem to address this specific question - e.g. Substantial update of an arXiv paper, Made an arXiv submission too early; How to minimize the damage?)
If the most recent withdrawn paper became harder to find that the older versions, that would not look like a good outcome to me.  I doubt that the latter is the case (it would be silly) but I want to confirm this before going ahead.  Thanks very much.

As the meme says, "one does not simply remove things from the internet".

Here is an example of an arXiv paper that has been withdrawn.
You can see that if someone visits the non-version-specific URL, http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0848, they will see a notice that the article is withdrawn. There is still a link to the previous version(s), which they can click on to see the original paper:

If someone clicks on the link to the first version, or visits the version-specific URL, http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0848v1, they will see the original paper without any withdrawal notice.
(You can see other examples of withdrawn arXiv papers with this Google query).

Thanks, could that author add  a withdrawal notice for the earlier version?  I'm a little worried that in my case, with this set up, some one who wasn't quite up to speed with archiv might end up downloading the earlier version through failing to note the withdrawn notice on the most recent.

@user3591496 Then that would be their own research failure, not yours.


text:
Is it normal to get an angry review that does not address any point of the work?
I recently submitted a paper for publication. I was amazed to read the tone of one of the reviewers.
Previously, it was read by a pair of peers. I am completely sure that they would tell me if they found something wrong with the manuscript. Instead, their comments were positive.
This reviewer did not address any specific point of the work, just underestimated it as a whole. I could understand if his/her opinion was that the work is poor overall, but I perceive his/her comments as unnecessarily offensive.
As examples, the review contains the sentences:

It seems to the present referee that the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of molecular quantum mechanics as related to calculation chemistry.
The simple fact that the author ... and then he picks the "best" through statistics and numerology, reflects his attitude and respect towards the concept of THEORY.

On the contrary, very often my colleagues joke about (and many times we have discussed) my obsession with accuracy and scientific rigor. So, I am very convinced that the manuscript can not have an unusually high lack of rigor.
Although I have already published papers, I am inexperienced in publishing. This was the first time that I did the publishing process by myself.
I wish to know

Are these kinds of comments normal from reviewers? If so, what motivates them? I tend to think that the comments should be an objective appreciation of the work and not the author.
How are they perceived by the academic community?
Should I respond in any way?

Edit:
Just for clarification. I don't have evidence that the reviewer misunderstood the work. The only comment he/she made is the second quote that I previously included in the question. It is noteworthy to say that this point is far away from the central point or incumbency of the paper. The other thing he/she mentioned about the work is related to the title.

I have attempted to clean up this post some. Please edit or rollback if I missed your intent or messed something up.

Related (comic): Therapy

It looks like you have accidentally created two accounts. Follow the instructions here to merge them so you can edit your own post and accept answers on it.

@virmaior Thanks, my non technical english is poor.

Consider yourself lucky that you got this one specific sentence to reply to. I have seen angry reviews that had no specific criticism whatsoever.

To relief some frustration of receiving such a review, it may help to browse a bit through this website: http://shitmyreviewerssay.tumblr.com/

Isn't the second quote "The simple fact that the author examines 53(!) functionals and then he picks the "best" through statistics and numerology, reflects his attitude and respect towards the concept of THEORY." commenting on a specific point? To me it sounds like the reviewer thinks you are choosing one out of 53 models using way too few data points, or in John von Neumann's words, fitting an elephant and making it wiggle its trunk.

@Superbest Typically, picking the best result of some N results means that one is over-fitting a model to available data. E.g. consider running an experiment and saying there is a true effect if p < 0.05. Now, if you do 100 tests, there will be likely 5 false positive results. If you pick the "best" result of the 100, and make conclusions based on that, you are committing a very serious mistake.

@Superbest, I'll happy can reply to "What is a functional?" but it would be very useful if you tell me which  is your field of knowledge. Of course wikipedia helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_functional_theory , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_(mathematics) . (My case is specific to its application in chemistry).

Ah. That might be more clear in your second edit if you put the word in quotes instead of bold. Also, you write that the negative reviewer "underestimated" your paper. That normally means they thought they would dislike the paper, but in the end they found out that they liked it, which doesn't seem like what you are trying to say. In that sentence, the word "criticized" ("...it as a whole") might be a better fit.

@ToddWilcox, I am unsure in english, but I understand that  "criticized" implies giving argument. Instead, it was more like "this is bulls**t, the author is an asho...".
I would not feel offended if there are arguments against the work. I am human, I can make mistakes, I can understand that someone think that my work has sever mistakes.

"the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of molecular quantum mechanics as related to calculation chemistry" Humm...I've never written anything like this in a review, but I'm thinking now that if I ever did for some reason, then I might want to google some of the phrases from my review to see what turns up! (You may want to edit your question by paraphrasing what you've quoted.)

@DaveLRenfro , thank you for your comment. I do not realize why it can be convenient to paraphrasing what I've quoted.

Your description is specific enough (molecular quantum chemistry numerical computations) that people in this field seeing your question might tell others (in a gossip way -- "hey, look at this that I found on the internet"), and all it takes is just one such person to do this, after which it is likely that many dozens of others will then hear about your comments, possibly the reviewer. Or maybe someone will tell the reviewer that someone wrote about a bad review and the reviewer decides to google certain phrases from the referee report to see if it was his/her referee report.

Re. Edit 2: There cannot seriously be a scientific process called "numerology", can there? That beggars the imagination. If you really used that term in a paper, I would likewise flip out upon reading it. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology

Just as a note - friends, family and "close" peers are often the worst reviewers of anything. They usually don't want to insult you, or feel they are not qualified to raise issues - and therefore give blanket "All is OK" reviews.

Use of the word "numerology" may be key.  Especially if you used the word in the paper and the reviewer wasn't familiar with the term in a serious scientific context (as I and several others here weren't)?  In that case my first impression, like the reviewers, would be that you're using some inappropriate mystical methods and wasting their time, even if that's not really the case.

@DanielR.Collins , Thanks for reply. Of course I did not use that word in the paper.

@DonHatch Thanks for reply, please read my previous comment (just above it)

@user57717: I'll just point out that when you originally put the word "numerology" in boldface, with no quotes, you made it look like a term of art for your process. That's just one of many points of confusion in your writing.

It seems completely imappropriate and ill-advised for you to reproduce verbatim sentences from a reviewer report here, where you and your work could easily be identified by the reviewer/editor.

@jwg: Ill-advised, sure, but why would it be inappropriate? If anyone has the right to publish (parts of) the referee report verbatim, that would be the author of  the paper, no?

@tomasz I'm not sure that the author does have the right to publishthis report. Shouldn't it be considered confidential? As I see it is a communication between the reviewer and the editor, which as a courtesy is shared with the author. It is important to editors that referees should feel able to be honest in rejecting manuscripts, rather than for instance feel reluctant to criticise a weak paper by a prominent author.

@DanielR.Collins Amusingly, that page notes that sometime numerology has lead to genuine scientific discoveries.

@jwg: I think saying that the referee report is shared with the author as a courtesy is a gross misrepresentation. Sharing the referee report with the author is one of the key features of the review system. Excluding extreme cases (e.g. exposing deliberate misinformation or plagiarism), I would say that the report is there for the author at least as much, if not more so, than the editor. In any event, the referee is (presumably) anonymous, and I don't see how publishing parts of the report could restrict their capability for honesty.

Getting angry reviews that, in your opinion, fail to understand your work is normal. It's sadly part of the territory.
It's hard to say why someone writes an angry review. Maybe they're an angry person, maybe they had a bad day and didn't like your work, or maybe they're one of those "tough love" people and get a little harsh when they disagree about something.
Your best approach is to ignore the tone of the review. If your paper got accepted, celebrate your publication. If you get a rebuttal, try to address their underlying concerns by politely pointing out why they are wrong and you are right.
If you are certain that your work is correct and the reviewer is wrong, think about what in your paper might lead them to believe what they did. If one person thinks you did something wrong, others might too. Consider rewriting that part of the paper to clear up any misunderstandings. It may be time consuming, but it will make your paper all the stronger in the long run.
Not to make any assumptions as to your research ability, but if this is your first time submitting a publication on your own, it is entirely possible that your technique is wrong. You can be rigorous in your approach and still do things incorrectly. It may be worthwhile to approach a more senior researcher that you trust and get their opinion on your paper with respect to the review.

Thank you very much Ric. I did not emphasized before correctly.  I edited the question. The referee did not addressed anything about the paper.  That was what impressed me more.
The other reviewer had some concern, that I find debatable, but I respect his position, also he suggested a good improvement. I'm planing to make some points more detailed to stress something that can be missed, and I also add few calculations (that takes me just 2 or 3 days) that he asked to be able to publish the manuscript. I consider that suggestion valuable and good for the completeness of the manuscript.

But, I can not reply. The editor decided automatically to reject the manuscript after the reviews.

@user57717 I'm sorry it was rejected outright. Best of luck with it in the future.

"think about what in your paper might lead them to believe what they did". Yes, this. Even entirely incorrect criticisms can be useful, as they may imply that you have not expressed yourself as well as you thought you did. It's no good just being right, you need to convince others as well.

I would like to present an alternative view. Some authors may feel that the reviewer is being angry, when they are in fact just being critical. I'm not saying this applies to your situation, but I think that in many cases, this is worth considering.
The role of a reviewer is to critically evaluate the manuscript. They need to make a recommendation about whether the manuscript should be accepted, subject to revision, or rejected. They also need to identify the problems with the manuscript. Most reviews are blind reviews. Reviewers are typically busy people, who are not being compensated for their work.
Thus, the role requirements and incentives of a reviewer emphasise being critical and making a sound judgement. There is limited incentive for spending extra time being tactful or polite. If they feel that the manuscript is clearly inappropriate, they may not spend lots of additional time providing detailed comments about smaller issues.
In addition, the fact that the process is often double blind or the reviewer does not personally know the author, also means that the reviewer is less clear on the motives of the author. If they perceive a fundamental failure in the manuscript, they may think you are wasting  reviewer time: i.e., you should have worked on it longer before submitting the work, or they may wonder whether you are shopping a manuscript around to many different outlets.
Of course, there are plenty of arguments for why a reviewer should be polite and constructive even when they are identifying critical problems. However, it's not their primary goal.
Then there is the psychology of the author who receives a critical rejection. The author has invested a huge amount of energy into the manuscript and reads a set of critical comments from a reviewer who seemingly fails to notice all that is good in the manuscript. In daily life we rarely encounter the brutal honesty associated with a critical reviewer. The author also often wants to believe that they have done good work and their manuscript is good. Thus, the author may perceive the comments of the reviewer as inappropriate and "angry", when in fact they are just being critical.
The reviews you get on your manuscript are going to vary in quality, informational content, and so on. Very occasionally, you might get a malicious reviewer; much more common are slightly incompetent reviewers, or rushed reviewers, or brutally critical reviewers; or some combination of those three.
However, most of the time even with very negative reviews, you have the opportunity to think about how that impression was formed. Could you have made your arguments clearer? Could you have framed the paper differently? Is there a critique that this reviewer is raising that you could present a counter-argument to in the paper? The point is to learn something from the critique, and the thing you should learn is often implicit. It's not always the overt point made by the reviewer. Ultimately, there are many journals and most journals send articles out to more than one reviewer; so even if the reviewer is wrong, if you are right the manuscript will ultimately find a home.

The double-blindness seems to depend a lot of the field. I've never seen a double-blind review for biology, for example, but CS submissions are often double-blinded.

To me this sounds like the devil's advocate. The anonymity behind reviewers allow them, if they are not honest in principle, to just fire out comments to dismiss others. I believe it is unhealthy for the system and progress in general, in addition to be unethical

Is it normal this kind of comments from reviewers?

It is quite common to get hostile reviews. They are not supposed to be angry, usually it is expected that reviewers stay calm and dispassionate as a matter of professionalism. Sometimes they don't.

If so, what motivate it?

Maybe you have made some glaring errors that are so bad the reviewer was infuriated. Maybe they just really don't like you and decided to find some flaws just to ruin your perfectly good manuscript. Maybe they were having a bad day and felt like taking it out on something. Who knows?

I tend to think that the comments should be objective appreciation of the work and not the author.

Reviewer comments don't have to be objective. One key point of reviews is whether the paper is interesting and important enough to be in that journal. Importance and interest are of course subjective notions.
Likewise, if the author seriously misunderstands the existing theory of their domain, this is a valid criticism. At best they need to rewrite the paper to avoid saying factually incorrect things, at worst their whole work is unfounded. This is of course assuming the author actually did misunderstand something important - oftentimes people say you misunderstand something simply because they don't like what you propose, not because you actually misunderstand it.

How are they perceived by the academic community?

You're not supposed to write angry reviews, this is considered unprofessional even if justified. However, in science many people have strong opinions about things, and these people may like seeing someone scolded over their pet peeve. They may publicly claim they disapprove of the behavior, but secretly support it.
That is to say, don't count on the editor saying "What a jerk, he's bullying the poor author for no reason". He might as well say "He sure showed that fool! Well done!".

Should I respond in any way?

In your example, the reviewer seems to take issue with your fundamental approach. I'm not familiar with the field, but when many competing methods for solving a problem exist, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to examine them all and pick the best one. Of course, if one picks the best by picking the one that gives the results most supporting one's hypothesis, that is circular reasoning with little scientific value. The "best" approach should be chosen on independent criteria.
Since the reviewer says "numerology", I would guess that they consider your approach unscientific in this sense. They appear to imply that you have simply tried several methods until you got lucky and found one that coincidentally supports your claim, not because your claim is correct, but because several of these methods have probabilistic errors, and this one happened to give a chance misleading result. If this is true, then you might want to follow a more rigorous approach to choosing a functional (whatever that is). If it is not true, you should take steps to convince the reviewer that your results are in fact genuine and not coincidental - a classic example can be found in multiple hypothesis testing.
It sounds like you believe the criticisms are unjustified (and otherwise you would probably not submit this question). In your brief excerpt, the reviewer's tone also seems quite hostile, so it's hard to imagine what you could possibly do so wrong that they got so angry. In that case you have a reviewer being unfairly hostile. Your best option is to provide arguments supporting your position, and hope that the editor will take your side. You could complain (to the editor) that the reviewer is being unfair, but that could make you look just as bad, so I wouldn't recommend it (but I also wouldn't recommend against it). A more constructive thing would be to ask the reviewer what you could do to address their concern: If they are sincere, they should suggest a reasonable change that will fix the problem and make everyone happy. If they say something unreasonable like "Scrap the paper, scrap your research, go back to school and retake chemistry 101" then it will be obvious to the editor that they are biased; even a sympathetic person will be put off by such arrogance.

Thank you for your reply. I add some info. in the answer, I wish to know your thoughts.

@user57717 Considering your edits, I have no idea why the reviewer could have been so upset. There is nothing in your description that indicates the approach was atrociously unsound or unscientific. Sounds like the reviewer was just looking for someone to get mad at.

This answer is based on mainly one small detail in your question: The fact that the word theory in the quote of the review is written in capitals. Judging from the quote only, it appears that the reviewer was addressing exactly one point of the paper: its theoretical depth, which he considered insufficient. Does the journal in question have the word "Theory" in his title? If so, it's probably better to select another one for publication.
@Ric wrote that you can be rigorous and still do it incorrectly. I'd like to modify that: You can be rigorous and do it correctly, but still use an experimental approach and not a theoretical one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but investigating 53 samples (in your case functionals) and then picking the best according to some measure sounds very experimental to me.
Have you considered the possibility that the reviewer just picked an incredibly bad way to tell you that your approach does not fit the standards / expected contents of the journal? Maybe he recently received a lot of papers he considered "unworthy" and eventually got frustrated about "everyone wasting his time"? Maybe he just had a bad day?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I approve of the review as is - in the situation I describe in my answer, a simple "does not meet the scope of the journal" would have been both more helpful and less insulting. But reviewers are people, too, so unfortunately, such things may always happen.

Thank you. Yes, if that was the point of the paper yes, I add some info. in the answer, what do you think?
I considered many alternatives. But I preferred to read the guesses of more experienced people.

If the paper does not the meet the standards of the journal, it seems a very bad idea to reject it saying that it does not meet the scope of the journal.

Re: "Does the journal in question have the word 'Theory' in his title?" -- Looking at the question edit history we can see that indeed it does.

One possibility is that there is a language barrier causing your work to be misunderstood, or even possibly offensive to a certain person's sensibilities. I do note that your original post here had many English errors, which made it hard to read in places, up to and including the "Violence" claim in the title (which is, strictly speaking, a totally false claim, for example).
It sounds like someone else was handling your prior papers; maybe they heavily edited the language? And I'm guessing that your peers share a common first language with you; perhaps the reviewer does not? One recommendation would be to make sure that you have a native English speaker review your future papers before sending them out.

There could be multiple language barriers. It could be that the reviewer is also a non-native speaker and didn't realise that their tone was quite so harsh.

Answering the question in the title
A lot of papers submitted for publication are garbage. They do not advance science, not have they been written with this goal. Often they are incoherent, illiterate, confused, or 'cargo cult' imitations of actual scientific research. Many of these garbage papers are submitted to prestigious journals where they waste the time of prominent and experienced referees. These people consider their time to be valuable. Therefore they might get angry if asked to review such a paper, particularly if the paper is not the first one they have encountered. This might well be the main reason a referee gets angry when writing a report.
Should such a person get angry? Well, they are entitled to their own feelings, but they should probably not express their anger in an unprofessional way, in the text of the report. Some people argue that rudeness has a positive benefit, because it discourage the submission of garbage papers. However, I think most people would disagree with this. Certainly the free software community has reached a near-consensus that it is counter-productive to be rude to people in the related area of patch submission and code review. Linus Torvalds, who was previously one of the best-known proponents of 'flaming' people who submit bad code, has spoken out strongly in favour of codes of conduct which forbid this type of rudeness.
Your review
However, I am not sure that the examples you quote could accurately be described as 'angry', unprofessional or rude.

It seems to the present referee that the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of molecular quantum mechanics as related to calculation chemistry.

Papers do get submitted by people who do not understand the fundamental problem of their field. If a reviewer believes that the author does not understand the fundamental problem of their field, what should they write in the report? It is obviously very important for them to communicate this belief to the editor. I think they should write something very much like the above. Note that the reviewer makes it clear that this is how things seem to that reviewer, and does not present it as fact. Thus they leave open two possibilities - that the author does understand, but has not successfully communicated, or that the author has successfully communicated, but the reviewer has not understood through some fault of their own. To me, this sentence does not seem angry or unprofessional. However, it does make it clear that the reviewer considers this work to have little merit.
Your paper
I don't know anything about your work. However you should see this report as at least a strong piece of evidence that your work is of very poor quality. It might be a convincing piece of evidence or not - certainly you might want to consider the possibility that this referee is better qualified than your colleagues to decide this. If you or your work do not meet the basic standards of academic research, then perhaps you work in a department with colleagues who also do not meet these basic standards, who are impressed by your rigor, but whose opinion is not trustworthy. On the other hand, if you know that your work is serious, important and new, then you should disregard the review. It could be that for whatever reason, the referee does not himself understand the fundamental problem of the field, or that he holds an very unorthodox opinion as to what it is. (In this case he was a bad choice of reviewer.)
Note that one of the main reasons it is considered to be a bad idea to be rude and angry to people who submit work of little apparent merit, is because of the chance that there might be a mistake. It's of course extremely hurtful, upsetting and demoralizing to have someone misunderstand your work and reject it without appreciating the reason it is genuinely worthwhile. For someone to also feel on top of this that they have been insulted is really a terrible outcome.

"If your work is garbage and you are a clown..." This seems a bit much.  Could you perhaps rephrase with more tactful language?

@PeteL.Clark yes.

It does happen, but it is unprofessional on the part of the reviewer and in my opinion, also unprofessional of the editor for letting this through in this form. The first line in your quote is a harsh criticism, but for all I know, might be fair. But when the reviewer accuses you of using numerology, that is deliberately offensive (assuming that it is not literally true)!
It does happen and it is unfortunately not as rare as it should be, but it is not the norm. There's not much you can do about it now that the paper has been rejected. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and submit it somewhere else. Consider also leaving a review of the journal on https://scirev.sc/

when the reviewer accuses you of using numerology, that is deliberately offensive – One should at least consider the possibility that the reviewer confused numerology with numerics, not that this would make this review much better.

Maybe this isn't the case in chemistry, but in math we referee to things as "numerology" all the time without any negative connotation.  I've probably referred to aspects of my own work as numerology.  It suggests that something is "just how the numbers work out", and I don't have a deep underlying reason for it.  But again, possibly field-specific, and in context here it does sound more negative.

One line of your question was a "tip-off: "This reviewer did not address any specific point of the work..."
What bothered the reviewer wasn't what is in the paper, but what isn't.
"It seems to the present referee that the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of..."
"The simple fact that the author examines... reflects his attitude and respect towards the concept of THEORY."
(I deliberately stripped out the technical language to get to the core of the complaint.)
It seems that the reviewer has very strong ideas about what should go into such a paper. And you didn't have them.
Maybe he has a point. Or maybe he has an axe to grind.In either event, it seems like you and he are on different "planets."
I would ask more senior people in your field (particularly those who can identify the reviewer by his distinctive style) which it is. The answer to the  question of whether his concerns are germane or bogus will tell you whether or not this is normal.

particularly those who know the reviewer-- Surely the reviewer's identity is not known?

@ShaneORourke: "Officially," yes, But the reviewer's style is so distinctive, (places a great emphasis on theory, has a disrespect for "statistics and numerology," gets way off topic), probably makes him (or her) fairly easy to identify. At any rate, the experts will know whether the reviewer's concerns are germane or bogus.

It seems to the present referee that the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of molecular quantum mechanics as related to calculation chemistry.
The referee has to call it as s/he sees it, and render their opinion accordingly. That is what is happening here, and in an appropriate tone. Going by the general mood and phrasing of the question alone, I tend to suspect that the referee has somewhat of a point.
The simple fact that the author ...
Well, what? The dot-dot-dot would probably indicate to me what's going on here.
and then he picks the "best" through statistics and numerology, reflects his attitude and respect towards the concept of THEORY.
Yes, these are fighting words. The mention of numerology is damning. The ref is signalling here to the editor that the MS is basically sheer crackpottery. That last bit with the capitalised THEORY indicates that the ref is outraged and lets their anger show through. Yes, this is inappropriate and actually undercuts their point -- if they are correct in their assessment, which I surmise they are.

Unfortunately it is quite common that authors receive negative feedback on their work, however this is often based around a misunderstanding or just a difference in opinions. What one might consider the right theoretical/scientific approach, might be perceived as the worst by others. I and probably others reading/commenting this topic have a hard time answering your questions the right way hence we haven't read your article nor the angry review. We can only guess and reply based on "feelings" etc.
Reading the newspaper online OFTEN shows angry reviews / comments by people that simply doesn't share the point of view that of the author. In my opinion this is what develops our written skills etc and this is what papers are about, bringing different topics for discussion?
If you want a more direct answer, please submit your article and the negative review. That would help a lot!


text:
How to convert courses and hours (from a non-european university) to ECTS?
I'm getting my "Licentiate of Computers/Systems" degree soon, in Argentina.
The degree is composed by 40 courses of 68 hours of lectures each. On top of that, you have to add the time you spend on assignments, studying for exams, etc. Depending on the course, you might have to spend from 30 hours to 250, but of course, this depends on each person.
You are supposed to take 5 courses per semester if you want to get the degree in 4 years (full-time).
I don't know how to convert my degree credits/hours into ECTS, given that, if I understood correctly, ECTS points do include studying and assignments hours.
I'd appreciate if someone could enlighten me. Please, let me know if more information is needed in order to calculate the ECTS.
Cheers.

If you're getting a degree in Argentina, then you should be concerned about the eligibility/mapping of the actual degree, not on the ECTS of individual courses.
ECTS of individual courses would apply if you want to get a degree in EU but have some of your earlier courses of an unfinished degree to count towards that new degree;  However, if you want to continue studies in, say, a masters programme then you'd enroll based on your Licentiate degree as whole, and none of the courses would be spearately treated.
In any case, if you need 'proper ECTS conversion', then you'll most likely need an official statement about that from the institution giving you the degree, not anyone else.

In my case, I want to get the Licentiate degree and then go for a Master's in EU.
I thought I could get my ECTS based on the amount of courses and hours I had to take. I'll wait for some more answers before choosing this as correct, so I can see what other people think. But this is useful. Thank you!


text:
Is a professor allowed to ask me what grade I got in a previous class?
I'm a student in Michigan, in the United States. I've just started a class for which a previous class was the prerequisite. The professor of my current class asked that I give him my grade for that previous class. (This was an e-mail sent to me and all my classmates.) I don't like the feel of it. Does he have any right to that information? Obviously he isn't going through the system to get the information, and I feel like it's because this isn't on the level.
On further research, I found the FERPA website. It declares:

Generally, schools must have written permission from the parent or eligible student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, FERPA allows schools to disclose those records, without consent, to the following parties or under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31):

School officials with legitimate educational interest;

There are additional parties/conditions, but this is the only one that even comes close to my situation. Another reference I found is Huntingdon College's General FERPA Information, which defines a school official as:

a person employed by the College in an administrative, supervisory, academic or research, or support staff position;

There are other definitions, but again, this is the most applicable to my situation.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

In the US, federal student privacy laws (FERPA) dictate that schools restrict access to student educational records, so that only those with a "legitimate educational interest" can access them. Most universities interpret this such that the student's academic advisor can automatically see their full transcripts in the student record system, but not every professor of every class the student takes.
However, just because access is not automatic, does not mean that it is not allowed. If a professor has a "legitimate educational interest" in a student record, then they may request access to that record. (For example, from the student's academic advisor.) "Legitimate educational interest" will be defined in the school's Student Records Policy and in their annual FERPA disclosure. For example:

A school official has a legitimate educational interest if the official requires the information for the purpose of fulfilling his official duties, including but not limited to:

performing a task that is specified in his or her position description or contract agreement;
performing a task related to a student’s education;
performing a task related to the discipline of a student;
providing a service or benefit relating to the student or student’s family, such as health care, counseling, job placement or financial aid;
maintaining the safety and security of the campus; or
participating in or conducting studies, evaluations, or assessments of educational programs.

Finally, as the student, you are permitted to disclose your student record to anyone you want. Someone with no educational interest in your record - e.g. your parent - could ask you questions about your educational records, and you would be free to disclose that information or not.

To this I'd add that a professor, at least generally, has a "legitimate educational interest" in a student's grade in a prerequisite course.  The student who just barely scraped by the prerequisite is different from the student who aced the course.  The former is likely to need more help.

It seems like the discussion of FERPA clouds the key idea here, which is the instructor is asking a student how well they performed in a prereq course. Of course, instructors have a legitimate educational interest in student performance in prerequisite courses (!).

@MadJack The OP seemed to think that the professor was doing something wrong because he wasn't "going through the system". I was trying to explain why the system is set up the way it is.

@MadJack Legitimate is very subjective. The definition I connect with in this sense is "accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements". This may be a matter of course for you, but appeal to tradition and I don't mix

@skia.heliou That would make those articles incorrect. Obviously a piece of law that states [omissis] under the following conditions (34 CFR § 99.31): School officials with unlawful educational interest; is not a valid piece of law. Hence the term legitimate as synonym for lawful is just noise and would be safely removed from the article leaving a more neutral educational interest.

@Bakuriu That's nice

@skia.heliou "Legitimate education interest" is not defined in statute, but the school is required to state how it defines "legitimate educational interest" in their own policeis. Look for you a "FERPA policy" or "Student Records Policy" or similar at your own institution. I added an example to the answer. Certainly a professor inquiring about a grade for a prerequisite course for a student in their class would quality as a "legitimate educational interest" according to every definition I have ever seen.

@MadJack and ff524 and BobBrown: I have yet to see anyone provide a legitimate educational interest that the teacher has in knowing the prereq course's grade. "He might need more help" does not allow the teacher to violate FERPA. Knowing the previous grade provides plenty of potential for abuse but little potential for anything lawful or helpful in any way. A simple "Would you like extra help?" question would be superior to a "What was your grade in the prereq course?" And I have yet to see any other reasons the teacher may need this. Please supply some.

@Aaron The simplest reason is that instructors very often have to make sure each student have completed the necessary prerequisite courses with a certain minimum grade; not doing so can lead to programs being at risk of being in violation of, for instance, various accrediting board standards (this can lead to programs losing their accredited status).

@Aaron If an educator accesses a student record for reasons related to educating the student, it's not a FERPA violation. "I want to know who needs more help" is a legally valid reason. So is "I want to assess the overall preparation level of the class, to decide how much time in class to allocate to review." So is "I want to know if we should restrict Advanced Basket Weaving to students who earned at least a B in Elementary Basket Weaving next year." There could be other ways to answer those questions, but accessing a student record to answer them would certainly not be a FERPA violation.

@Aaron "Legitimate educational interest" excludes idle curiosity, but not much else.

@ff524 But doesn't that (about idle curiosity) mean that a tutor (or even a friend of the student, for that matter) can go to a student's advisor and say "I'm requesting Bob's grades so that I can better tailor my tutor services to him," and have their request fulfilled without violating FERPA? And that is just an example off the top of my head; I am sure I could think of worse ones that are more murky than that. To me, it sounds like you guys are suggesting FERPA provides practically zero benefit to privacy (assuming the school did not provide grades for idle curiosity before).

And my above comment is coming from a background as a college teacher where I recall FERPA being taken much more seriously and strictly than that, in my personal experience. The colleges I worked with were afraid of the possibility of violating FERPA privacy, some administrators even afraid of violating it accidentally. You guys sound like there is nothing to be afraid of, save for negligent idle curiosity, which should not have been tolerated to begin with. If you are correct in your laissez faire interpretation, you could let schools know they don't need be nearly as careful as they are.

@Aaron No, the "legitimate educational interest" reason for accessing a student record only applies to a "school official" (typically someone employed by or under contract with the school, who accesses the record for a "legitimate educational interest" reason related to their job).

There are very few things, if any, that professors are prohibited from asking. Asking some things (e.g., sexual orientation or marital status) might get a professor in trouble if a complaint is raised and the professor lacks a good reason for asking for the information. While asking for and obtaining previous grades could lead to a FERPA violation (or some other misdeed), I doubt a department chair would ever reprimand a professor for asking.
Now for why the professor might be asking for the grade, sometimes it is easier to ask the student then use the online system or go through the department administrator. Most likely, they are asking about the grade as a potential conversation starter. The issues they want to talk about possibly depend on the grade you got. For example, asking a D student if topic X was covered probably does not make as much sense as asking an A student. Asking a C student if they understand topic X might provide more insight than asking an A student.
I would suggest you just tell them the grade. If you are really worried tell the professor you don't like discussing grades but would be happy to talk about the content of the course.

How do you type with boxing gloves on? ;)

@skia.heliou DELETED

=D So yeah, this is still a matter of knowing my options before going in. I understand there are a lot of students and this is a research university, but being judged by numbers and letters got old a long time ago for me. Perhaps this is my preference for direct communication over derived notions

@skia.heliou for you direct communication is more efficient, but for the professor with 100s of students derived notions might work better.

Exactly. Which is why this boils down to knowing my options when I talk it over with him

As I commented elsewhere, I think there are better ways to get that information and feel of the class than asking for previous grades. I think that it is just as likely that "It can help me feel out my class" could be an excuse and cover for "I'm lazy. At the end, I'm just going to give them a random grade within 1 or 2 steps of their previous grade." I have known multiple teachers who have done things like the latter, or worse, but none that I recall who did the former.

@Aaron sure they could be doing something bad with the information, but it doesn't mean they cannot ask. If they really are that lazy, then I am not sure it is advantageous to make yourself out to be the difficult student.

@StrongBad I did not say they cannot ask. Any human can ask any other for anything. But I argue that is bad form, and the teacher has no legitimate educational interest in that information in the strict and intended sense of the term. "I think I could teach the class better" is not a legitimate educational interest in data that's otherwise banned. Professor could say he could teach the class better by being relaxed if the student with fairest hands gave a massage before class; maybe true but very bad form and unnecessary. Teacher can get what they need other ways, like day-1 anonymous quiz.

When I was taking a class that required a pre-requisite and our teacher asked for the grade we got in that class he was ultimately trying to gauge his students.
He wanted to gauge how well everyone in the class understood the previous material. Based on the grades we gave him became a deciding factor on whether or not he would briefly go over the previous material the first week of class or just jump right into the new material.
I don't know this teacher but typically teacher's like to get a feel for the students that are taking their class. If a teacher can gather a better overall understanding of the students in the class they could use that information to better teach their students.

You said you don't like the feel of the situation, but as someone with hardly any facts I would suggest turning it around and saying something like "We both know that grades are somewhat arbitrary - what specific information are you trying to get at via my previous grade? If you're concerned that I am lacking a skill or set of knowledge that is crucial for this class, I'd be glad to answer more specific questions regarding my abilities/knowledge, and work with you so I can remedy any deficiencies in my previous coursework that we might discover together."
This way, you don't go straight to federal regulations in the event that the request that they're just taking a poll to see who might need extra attention/help (i.e 'don't make a federal case over it [unless it's necessary]').
But obviously if they are demanding your grade, and won't reveal why, then consider reporting it to the department chair/ombudsperson/etc. You can probably do this even if you got a good grade and you decide to share it with the instructor to get them off your back.

I agree (as @Bob Brown states), he could be scoping out students for people who need more help or less. He could also be choosing who to ignore as they aren't worth his time, or any number of things. I don't know him, and when something strikes me as off, I go with my intuition. In this case it's a matter of wanting to know my options before I go into negotiation

@skia.heliou While grades of a single students can be arbitrary, from my experience if most students in a large class got a C- in pre-req, the class on average is much less prepared to handle the second course than if most students got an A-. And this information can help me teach from the beginning at the level of the class. And note that if I ask this information from the entire class, I really don't care what YOU did in the previous class, I care in general how most of the class did in the previous course.

@NickS Something I've done in the past is to make up a very short quiz covering the topics that should already be known. If students are concerned about doing that, then I have told them they can feel free to submit it anonymously. Sometimes I have even said up front "You don't need to sign your name to this quiz that I give on day 1; it's just to see where the class is at."

@NickS On the other hand, if you want aggregate statistics rather than data about individuals, then you can anonymize it: for example, you could ask everyone to put a slip of paper into a hat with their grade in the prereq class with no identifying information on it. Or you could follow something like Aaron's idea. That said, in something like office hours, you might ask this of a student to help you know where to begin answering their actual question (because their question may really be rooted in something which is not exactly embedded in the question itself).

@Aaron Yes that is an idea which works in some classes, but not in all. There are quite a few classes where a 10 minutes and even a 30 minutes quiz cannot give me enough info about how much students really understood in the previous class. Last, but not least, one of the OP's complains is that the grade doesn't truly reflect how much the students understood. If that is the case, and multiple exams and assignments are not enough to paint the picture, how can a small quiz provide the same information (I know, I am just playing devil's advocate here)

@Ian Yes, that is another solution, but how effective is it. Asking them to drop a piece of paper in  a hat while holding the hat raises concerns of anonymity. And if you leave the hat outside your office, and ask them voluntarily to drop the info you need, I would be really surprised if the number of students doing that passes 20%, and I am being generous here.

@NickS Perhaps a 10-30 minute quiz doesn't tell you as much as you'd like, but it tells you more than a previous grade. It depends how the teacher perceives you. When I was a student, got A- in a class I struggled in and barely understood - thought I was in danger of failing; the A- surprised me as I was expecting F or D. I've done near perfect in others and wondered why I got B- when I was sure I aced the class completely, only to get lame excuses why I didn't deserve an A. Grade depends on teacher perception and your relationship as much as how you actually do; it's a vague metric. +1'ed btw

@NickS If all you are looking for is an aggregate compilation of the previous grades, a link to an anonymous Google survey in the email is perhaps even a better solution.  It take almost no time to do and more students are likely to just do it if it is requested in such a way.  In addition, these surveys will do aggregations for you instead of requiring the professor to go through each email and keep a tally

@PunPun1000 In theory you are right, in practice here is what happens: my University moved to completely online student evaluations. They don't allow us do paper evaluations anymore. And since this was implemented, the completion rate is usually 20% or lower, with 20% being achieved only if I mention multiple times in class that they should complete them. And the evaluations are as easy to complete, if not easier, than google surveys. And on the top of the small completion rate, if one compares the new evaluations with the old, it is typically the students which either really liked or hated..

the class which fills them. The data so badly screwed in two directions, that it becomes completely meaningless. While it is not the best approach, students will be much more compelled to answer to an e-mail from the professor then complete some anonymous survey on the website. An in class Quiz, and again I am basing the answer on my experience,  will get a much better response rate and better data than an online survey, but since it should not be graded and the students need to know that, the students will put very little effort into it. And as I mention, this is not always an option.

To ask such questions in the U.S. is, at least, ill-considered. The obvious possible sense of it, in the best-case scenario, is out of concern whether students are adequately prepared. But, to my mind, knowing prior grades does also have great potential for prejudicing expectations on the part of the instructor. Deflecting the question would be in everyone's best interest. So, no, teachers should not ask this question (in the U.S.). And even their interest in knowing the quality of the preparation of their students, while understandable, is slightly beyond what is appropriate, except as aggregate.
EDIT: in response to one comment, I am not suggesting that grading might be unfair. I am suggesting that students often rise (or sink) to expectations expressed (possibly subtly) by teachers, etc.
Further, first, in the U.S., FERPA seems to indicate that current instructors are not automatically entitled to access to their (current) students' prior grades. Ok. Doesn't say they're not allowed to ask, but, again, the instructor will know who declined to give the info, and students may worry about that, too, since if they decline, this creates an impression, etc.
Rather than asking for the (anyway, in my opinion, dubious) info of "prior grade(s)", why not do a diagnostic/review quiz or quizzes? This gives better-quality information, and avoids all sorts of potential psychological issues.
Again, even if the instructor's intentions are good, asking for prior grades has too many problematical aspects, and a better quality sort of information can be acquired otherwise.
So, "can they ask": sure, I guess. Should they ask? I think not.

Would prejudiced expectations be lowered expectations or something else?

@ScottH., I'd imagine it could be many things. Possibly lowered expectations in a good way, or lowered expectations in a bad way. That is, to take it to extremes, presumption of success, or presumption of failure. After all, in the end, there is no truly objective measure of "success"... so it can be redefined to either include or exclude almost any given individual. Not to mention the non-objectivity of "grading" in upper division math courses, for example. (Notwithstanding the (ridiculous) pretense that "rubrics" successfully objectify everything... )

Ok, thanks for the reply.  I'm struggling to reconcile my thoughts (that perfect information would be better for everyone involved, and that lack of strength in a prereq will come to light regardless) with the objections that have been given.  I guess that I haven't thought as much about human weakness coming into play.

Some people grade blind - even in the U.S., where it is not standard. I'd be more concerned about the information being requested by email than its being requested per se. There are legitimate pedagogical reasons for wanting to know this kind of information. This answer is too sweeping in its generalisations.

@cfr, I'm not referring necessarily to potentially unfair grading, but to the effect on students of expectations of a teacher, in terms of learning and so on: it seems that often people are affected by others' expectations. Even if previous performance is described "in aggregate", this can develop "expectations", which have an effect.

Your answer makes a sweeping generalisation about asking being inappropriate. But there are sometimes good pedagogical reasons to ask. One way or another, teaching requires figuring out what people already know and how well they understand and can apply it. How else are you supposed to help people learn?

@cfr Teaching does require figuring out what students currently do and don't know, which is exactly why it makes no sense to rely on a single piece of ambiguous information from a previous term.

It is certainly not the end of such investigation, but it can be a legitimate starting point. Especially if you wanted a general sense of where a class as a whole was starting from.

Have you considered not answering? This is an information you may or may not want to give out, and if he does not have access to it, you do not have to provide your previous grade.
From browsing this SE i have come to the impression that professors sometimes tend to not anser e-mail either, so it probably wouldn't come off as rude.
Like you stated in a comment, he either could be looking for people who need additional help or he might be checking out who is worth his time and who is not.
In any case, if you did score an acceptable grade, it wouldn't hurt to tell him after all ;)

Maybe he only wants to find out the approximate background of the students, which will tell him how many details he should give. With the students refusing to give the information, his most natural choices would be to start the class assuming that all students understood perfectly the subject in the pre-req and skip over the easy steps or go over everything. The first choice is bad FOR STUDENTS if most students in the class barely got a C-, while the second choice is bad FOR STUDENTS if they all aced the previous class. With the extra information, it would be easier to decide...

the level of details needed, while without the Prof would only get the background info from the Midterm exam...

The professor of my current class asked that I give him my grade for that previous class. (This was an e-mail sent to me and all my classmates.)

If the question feels intrusive, you don't need to answer.  You might respond

I feel well prepared for this course and I'm looking forward to building on previous knowledge and skills during the coming weeks.

It sounds like the instructor didn't explain his motivation for the question, and if so, I would encourage you to let the department take a look at his email.  However, the safest way of preventing administrative bumbling that might result in retaliation would be to wait until the end of the semester.
It's very possible that the instructor made an honest mistake but meant well, and would benefit from some departmental guidance.
However, if the instructor's intention was for students to share their previous grade with the whole group, that would be different.  In that case I would inform the department immediately.
By the way, this has nothing to do with FERPA.  FERPA doesn't protect you from intrusive questions (you might have been thinking about employment laws that protect job candidates from intrusive, irrelevant questions).  FERPA protects you from disclosure of your protected information without your consent.  For example, FERPA would protect you from this instructor obtaining your previous grade from a fellow professor, a secretary, or an administrator, and giving that information to someone inappropriate without your consent (for example, giving it to another student in the class).
The Department of Education has a page called "Model Notifications of Rights under FERPA for Postsecondary Institutions," which says

A postsecondary institution may disclose PII [personally identifiable information] from the education records without obtaining prior written consent of the student to other school officials, including teachers, within the [School] whom the school has determined to have legitimate educational interests.

This means that if your instructor can convince someone on staff with access to your previous grade to give it to him (which I would guess would not be very difficult), then he doesn't need to ask you.