text:
How to approach a project with NDA in academic research
I'm currently a master's student in statistics and data science in the US. I've been doing academic research for about a year and am planning to apply for a PhD at the end of next year. Recently, I joined a research group led by a prominent professor from my university.
The project is unpaid, and we are required to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before starting. This will be my first time signing an NDA, and while I understand the importance of protecting intellectual property, it feels somewhat contrary to the principle of spreading knowledge. The professor mentioned that the NDA would mean any material produced during this project would belong to the university, and individual students would not be credited.
This project is relatively short, lasting only a few months. Despite the potential downside of not being able to publish a paper, I believe the opportunity to learn from a prominent faculty member outweights this concern. Therefore, I am leaning towards signing the NDA.
I have two main questions:

Are NDAs common practice in academic research?
How should I approach situations in the future where project credits matter, especially when I am doing my PhD program?

If you are not bound by an NDA and are able to share, any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.

Forget about what's normal-- What exactly are you getting out of this exercise?

An NDA is about protecting commercial interest. This sounds much more like an attempt to cut off potential co-authors from future papers, which is not only unethical but also entirely uncommon.

"The professor mentioned that the NDA would mean any material produced during this project would belong to the university, and individual students would not be credited.". Neither of these seem to require (or even follow from) an NDA. In many (most?) countries being employed, even for minimal pay, is sufficient for the former and absolute standard. The latter is just a big why would they do that?!? - the point of an NDA is to protect valuable information (in a commercial or similar sense), withholding attribution especially in an academic context is the exact opposite of that.

This sounds so shady that I have to ask: was this communicated in English, and was the concept really referred to as NDA? Otherwise: it's pretty standard that Universities keep the right to use whatever is invented/developed/etc. at their premises, you usually accept this when you enroll as a student, or sign the contract to become an employee. But that's absolutely not about the removal of your name from your work, and it's often explicitly written on the same IPR page that the right to publish always remains with the inventor.

@Anonymous, as Stephan pointed out, I am trying to gain 1) experience and 2) a RL for my PhD application, based on the status of the faculty. However, after reading Bryan's and others' answers, I doubt I would be getting much experience or a strong letter. I do have other collaboration opportunities that could result in publications, but I was hoping to do more during the summer. Given the short amount of time before applying for a PhD, these seem like a better option.

I was expecting to answer that you need to look at NDA in the context of what you're getting paid for excluding that time out of your "public career", but if you're not paid, it's not reasonable to ask or offer any legal commitment - one does not get to place demands on volunteer work.

The professor mentioned that the NDA would mean any material produced during this project would belong to the university, and individual students would not be credited.

The project is unpaid

RUN RUN RUN. This is not normal and absolutely ridiculous. Universities create knowledge for the public; you may be under NDA when working with an industry partner, but they must pay you well for it. Here you're not being paid, not allowed to take credit, you're getting nothing except the privilege of being abused.
It's normal for the university to retain IP rights to things you work on there, but definitely not to have an NDA like this. It's definitely against academic ethics to restrict credit this way.

In the situation described. I doubt that the NDA is valid. For an NDA to be valid, there needs to be consideration. No money, No paper/credit. Sounds more like exploitation than a real contract to me.

@Questor It's exploitative whether or not it would hold up to legal scrutiny, yes. This is not a person to trust.

I absolutely agree here. It sounds like a highly exploitative situation. You deserve better.

"Unpaid" + "a few months" + "NDA" = not good. Any two of these would be defensible: an unpaid gig for two weeks under an NDA to possibly build goodwill could be something to look at. But work for multiple months without getting paid and without being able to talk about it? No, don't do it.
Data scientists are very much sought after. You almost certainly have other, and better, opportunities that don't tick all three boxes.
Picture yourself after this internship. You apply for your next job, or actually your Ph.D. You have a period working for professor X on your resume. This is precisely what people will be asking about in your interview. "What did you do with professor X?" "We roughly did Y and Z, but I can't tell you more, because of an NDA." "Ah. Did a publication come out of it?" "It's in the works, but I don't get credit or authorship." Honestly, if I was your interviewer, I would have a very hard time determining whether you are honest - as Bryan notes, this is so far outside academic norms that it is just a huge red flag - or whether you are bullshitting me and actually didn't do anything.
So this "opportunity" can actually work against you in your Ph.D. application.

I believe the opportunity to learn from a prominent faculty member outweights this concern

Prominent people are often very busy, so how much you would actually learn from the PI may be limited. You may be mostly working with a Ph.D. student, or possibly a postdoc. Look carefully at how large their working group is before you give this argument a lot of weight.
Also, to be honest, presenting you with this option does not sound like this faculty member has your best interests as a budding academic at heart, per what I wrote above. Did they discuss how this internship would help your Ph.D. going forward? A internship can help you in different ways:

Learning tools and methodologies - which sounds like what you want to get out of this, and this is important, but you won't be able to talk about details
Publications - because any publication looks very good on your CV, and apparently there won't be any chance of that
Connections and introductions - prominent academics can help you network, but will this PI be willing to introduce you to other people if they presented you with this option in the first place?
Money - because knowledge is good, but it won't pay your rent

In the present case, it sounds like the only thing you may get out of this is point 1, and per the busyness of famous people, you might get less of that than you would like.
This does not look like a good opportunity.

I agree with previous answers that this kind of NDA is uncommon and very restrictive.
In order to add additional points of view, I would consider:

Seeking advice from a legal expert or the university's legal department to better understand the implications and negotiate the terms of the NDA.
In case she/he is a Nobel prize like researcher or similar

Assessing whether the mentorship and learning opportunities from the prominent professor might outweigh the lack of formal credit.
Considering how this project might influence future collaborations and networking opportunities within and outside the academic community.

Otherwise I would look for other projects without looking backwards.

Regarding the Nobel prize thing: I doubt that very famous researchers are particularly likely (compared to other researchers) to provide great mentorship or learning opportunities - if only because they are likely to be very busy. One might indeed benefit from their network or from having their big name on one's CV. But then again, the question is whether this really works out under the conditions of such a weird NDA. Apart from that, I'm apprehensive of the idea that one should accept unethical practices of famous people just because one might be able to benefit from their name or network.

I am a bit confused by your explanation of the situation on a couple points.

Usually when I'm consulting, an NDA is a separate contract from the IP Assignment Agreement. They are about different things.
Secondly, if you are hired as staff (ie paid on a W2) or as an "independent contractor" (ie paid on 1099), or not being paid at all, that could affect who retains the IP.
An NDA could be appropriate, for example, if you are working with embargoed or sensitive data - there could be, for example, a third party that requires your professor to get an NDA before they can share the data with grad students.

In this case, I would be very concerned if the prof is inappropriately farming work out from industry to grad students, for example. You need to make sure you are compensated fairly and not being used for unpaid labor.

The first point of this answer is probably the biggest deal why this 'NDA' probably shouldn't be signed - Things like who is credited don't belong into a typical NDA in the first place and I wouldn't want to know what other surprises this 'NDA' has in store. I've heard too often about NDAs with more unrelated things hidden in them (which likely is valid - falsa demonstratio non nocet) - Don't sign an NDA (or anything really) based on what the professor tells you about it.

An NDA between a student and their university is very uncommon, with most contingencies that may arise generally already covered by existing IP policy at a university.
There are other situations, though, where NDAs are more common -- for example, between researchers and private corporate sponsors of that research.  It also comes up with my design students for corporate sponsored projects.  NDAs may or may not address ownership of any IP developed under a project.
When a design project in my class requires an NDA, our univ. counsel eyes it over just to make sure nobody is trying to take advantage, but I clearly explain to the students that this is a courtesy, that counsel does not represent them, and that if they feel funny about signing, they should select a project that doesn't require an NDA.
Since the university is asking for this, if you feel funny about it, I suggest having private counsel look it over, or at the very least, asking if university counsel can explain the agreement to you as a courtesy (again, with the reminder that such counsel does not represent you).  If you remain uncomfortable, try to work with your mentor to work on an alternative.
You should, at the very least, COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND who the agreement will be with.  I have a feeling that it might be between you and the individual professor, who might be trying an end run around standard school IP policies.


text:
Who should I message for the status of a paper?
I need to check the status of my paper. Should I message the Editor-in-Chief or the Journals Editorial Office (JEO)?
While Editor-in-Chief who sent to me the comments of the reviewers.
Will it be a problem if I send for both the same message for inquire the status ?

Does this answer your question? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/190035/who-is-supposed-to-message-in-this-situation

I would expect that the status is on some public facing web page and that when it changes it will be updated fairly quickly.
I'd also expect that who you message at the editorial level won't really matter as you will most likely be answered by clerical staff using some boilerplate response that might be informative or not. Whoever you email will just pass the request to the journal's staff.
I'd also recommend not sending any message if it is just for informational purposes. If you have a real need to know, not just unease, then do so. But too much messaging by too many worried authors will slow down any process.

Thanks for the answering . I checked the status as i got minor revisions and sent it at 23/9  but didn't get any response yet

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
What kind of hardships impacting a personal journey might be permissible to include in NDSEG application?
According to the prompt,

describe the Fellows personal journey to get where they are today (e.g., 1st to receive PHD, 1st to go to college, worked multiple position while achieving degree, what it took personally to get to where they are, etc…)

I am wondering what kind of hardships impacting a personal journey might be permissible to include.
For example, would underlying health conditions impacting school be appropriate? Would mental health issues (i.e PTSD) from personal previous abuse be appropriate?

Only include information directly relating to the selection criteria.  They want to see that you will contribute to the announced needs and that your research will be excellent.
It would be beneficial to say

My experience with PTSD demonstrates that I am excellent at useful skill which demonstrates I will achieve desired outcome.

It's up to you to know your personal experiences and figure out how to relate them to your strengths.
When the instructions say they want your "story," then at least for physical sciences/engineering they are being misleading.  When people in the physical sciences/engineering say "story" they do not mean a narrative or emotional argument.  A "story" is an explanation of why something is useful or innovative.

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


text:
Post docs in online/distance learning mode
For a Mathematics scholar, who is interested in Cryptography, AI and Computer Science related fields, are there any post-doc researches available to be done by online/distance learning mode?
If there's a way to do such a one please kindly advise

I also have such questions in mind.

This is considered a shopping  question on this site, thus off-topic.

I'm confused - if funding isn't an issue, what exactly is meant by a postdoc, especially remotely?  Mathematics researchers (including postdocs) work fairly independently from their advisors - why can't you just collaborate with someone (the way mathematicians do)?  And if no one will collaborate with you - no one would be willing to hire you for a postdoc either, because a postdoc is just a junior scholar you want to collaborate with to the extent you're willing to help negotiate funding for them.

Sorry @AlexanderWoo I've edited the question now. I mean are there such opportunities advertised where we can apply? I searched but I can't find such, but I thought maybe they are present in inside university notices or something. If so, then it's helpful for me to find if any of you will mention a few such universities. Else, is there a way to start a post doc even without applying? I mean is this a way: talk with a lecturer and if he agrees to collaborate, I can get enrolled with him as a post doc?

The language you use suggests that you think of a postdoc as a student. That is wrong. It is a job, a junior job, but a job none the less. So you need to think of this as a job search process, not as finding an educational institution that will take you: What do you want from the institution hiring you, and what do you have to offer. Somehow you need to bring those two together so it is beneficial for both sides.

Okay, thanks a lot @MaartenBuis. How can I figure out whether there are opportunities to do it in an online mode? What is the method to search and apply?

The same as in any other form of job search.

@AlexanderWoo, in my country post doctoral experience carries separate marks in faculty recruitment. So there is another aspect besides salary in post-doctoral position. Some PhD holder might do a permanent job in lower position (e.g. high school teacher etc) but he/she aspire to be in university/college and in which case post-doctoral experience might play a positive factor. Though I am not sure any such distance mode post-dctoral is possible.

@learner: the idea that faculty recruitment would be done by a system of marks is so foreign to me that I must suppose I understand absolutely nothing about your system and what you need.

@AlexanderWoo, it is indeed in practice. For example, in India, several faculty recruitment clearly mention one needs at least 3 years experience in post doctoral. Besides that post doctoral experience is counted in "experience section" for marks. I am sure this is somewhat is true in other countries as well.

You are in luck because most work in those fields does not need specialised equipment and can be done remotely.
Whether there exist positions that allow you to do it vary on some factors:

The degree of remote work. Postdocs in math/CS are very often (nearly always?) allowed to work from home or any other location; they are rarely expected to be in the office, but some in-person presence may be necessary. The answer to your questions thus depends on whether you are looking for exclusively remote positions or you are okay with infrequent visits to the office (visiting once a month is not unheard of, for instance).
Your role. Most postdocs in math/CS, at least in Europe, are nearly 100% research focused, which helps the case for remote work. If the position expects you to teach, TA, or supervise students, you are more likely to be expected in-person.
The group culture. Smaller groups or those that have a stronger focus on internal collaboration or social actives might be less likely to hire someone who's mostly remote, whereas groups with mostly independent members may be more inclined.

Overall, the answer depends on how remote you need the position to be, but it is possible that some positions exist that satisfy your criteria. Note, however, that no position will be marked as such: you need to reach out to the potential supervisors and ask whether they would be okay with a remote postdoc.


text:
I witnessed massive cases of corruption and cheating in my university. Now what?
I have dedicated four years of my life in a journey at a so-called "respectable" university in the Middle East as an undergraduate student pursuing my degree. In this journey, a period equivalent to half of my time spent in the university had arrived whereby unrest and protest coupled with surge in COVID cases saw our classes shift towards online learning and online exams.
It was during this period that I got to encounter countless cases of cheating and corruption among my colleagues mainly during online exams. I offer four main cases of far-fetched cheating:

In my Calculus III and IV courses, I recorded approximately 120 students cheating via WhatsApp groups by sending each other snapshots of the exam questions.

Other than the de facto method of obtaining answers to assignment questions from experts (Chegg), I have a huge amount of evidence that students hired academic professionals who would complete semester-long projects for them in exchange for adequate amount of money (and final year projects!)

The department I am enrolled in during my undergraduate studies allows for junior/senior undergraduates to take part in undergraduate research with professors who are working with PhD students. I had two individuals (who also took part in mass cheating during exams) asking me and even attempting to bribe me to do their research tasks.

Four students openly boasted about hiring experts to sit and do GRE exam for them (during lockdown period)

For (1) I sent an email to the coordinator of the course showing them all the evidence needed, for which I received a reply with an encouraging note from the coordinate vowing that they will investigate the matter. Eventually, nothing really happened and no one was disciplined.
For (2) I received a response in one instance from my instructor telling me that no cheating was eventually concluded and that all the projects were graded fairly. In other instances I did not receive a response at all.
For (4) I don't have anything other than confessions plainly stated.
Regarding (3) the only reason why I didn't report to the professor is due to what any honest student fears mostly about, which is developing personal feuds with other students that could escalate into being kicked out from their jock-dominated-social environment, i.e., forced isolation.
I must note that my country is facing a financial crisis and so my university is having a financial burden and sinking slowly. Thus, most students are dependent on financial aid that can be tossed off if a student fails or performs poorly in a course. This type of fear gives ground for individuals to rely on others to do their work or hire tutors for a couple of bucks to accomplish their work and research. This increases their boldness and pushes them to cheat more and more on an unprecedented scale.
The sad part is that professors are also affected by this financial burden and so they are embedded to their research work so much that the rope that connects a professor's support to a concerned undergraduate is cut as it is apparent that professors just "want to get the job done" and they have no time for us. Therefore, no professor seems to be taking any complaint from a student seriously.
Question 1: How should a student go on to address issues of cheating if instructors are unwilling to take these issue seriously?
Question 2: How should a student willing to disclose evidence of cheating handle the possible repercussions involving a social pressure exhibited by these cheating students towards the honest student?
I have personally developed mental health problems due to this issue and I lost motivation to study or look at my classmates as human beings. I personally am still in a state of shock knowing that cheaters got away with it (GRE!!!) in a period of 2 years and are now currently pursuing their graduate studies in top European and US universities or working in top industrial companies. This has led me to develop a grudge against my university as I feel that my university's poor response to cheating was a personal attack on me and many hardworking students.

A1. Realise it's not your job to address issues of cheating, just to report them (or offer your research services for a fee ;-). I don't get this:  looking at my classmates as human beings.  This assumes that human beings don't cheat.  Oh, they cheat. Some relief: cheaters pursuing grad studies in top unis and those employed by top industrial companies aren't likely to get very far. Lastly, it's not a personal attack.  You have given reasons for the behaviour: covid, unrest and turmoil, an economic crisis.  I'm not excusing it, just saying don't take it as a personal attack - it's not.

Are you originally from the same country?

I'm leaving this as a comment because there's too much speculation for it to be an answer. Universities (at least where I'm from) require accreditation by other organizations in order for some of their programs to be recognized (e.g. law, engineering, medicine). Those organizations are often government-funded and don't have any monetary gain from a classroom and XYZ University being full or empty. If this is your case, reporting incidents of mass cheating followed by dismissal from University administration would probably get the attention of those organizations.

This is basically every university nowadays. Even Big Shot unis have that sort of issue, even if it isn't as out-there-in-your-face as the cases you faced on yours.

It isn't every university nowadays, only those that have the wrong (often "perverse") incentives.

"I sent an email to the coordinator of the course" You sent emails to the teacher. You didn't get a satisfactory response. Are there other people you can send the proof too? His boss? HR? Director of mathematics at the university? My guess is his job hinges on teaching successfully and this kind of scandal would adversely affect him. telling him doesn't mean a real investigation was done so maybe it's time to move higher.

From what I hear your university reflects the state of affairs in the society and government in many Middle-Eastern countries at large: What Western observers would call corruption and bribery is very common. This statement is not meant disrespectful; it instead suggests that applying strict Western criteria is misguided. I suppose you have to live with the way your university and your society work as long as you are there. That is, you can initiate change in the right direction but you won't make everybody "honest" and achieve "justice".

@Peter-ReinstateMonica The way OP phrases it ("my country is facing a financial crisis and so my university is having a financial burden") makes me think OP is born and raised in the same country, so they should be well acquainted with the culture.

At the end of the day, you have very little influence over what others do and what your university does. You can write expository pieces in newspapers if you want, but the likelihood of fundamentally changing anything is relatively small, certainly if you are in a country that has bigger problems than dealing with students who cheat on an exam.
But you can (and probably should!) see things differently. The purpose of a university education is not to get a specific high GPA. It is to get an education, which if you took studying for exams seriously, you did. The point is that cheating on exams might get you hired somewhere, but if you don't actually know the material, it will also get you fired just as quickly -- both in industry as well as from graduate programs abroad. In the end, it is probably true that playing by the rules and being a generally ethical person does, in circumstances like yours, occasionally require a longer path in life. But in the end, you will be the one who succeeds in work life because you actually know stuff, whereas those around you who have cheated do not.

It's not true that cheaters will get fired. After all, just look at how many companies cheat on an incredibly large scale and get away with it for years if not decades. Not to talk about politicians... I don't think you're correct to tell people that not cheating will give you "success in work life" compared to cheaters, because it makes things worse when they find out that your statement is false.

Very well written!

@user21820 Counterexamples notwithstanding, people who are not qualified for a job generally don't last in that job. You can't typically fake your way to a PhD at a Western research university, for example (counterexamples notwithstanding again), just because you managed to get into the program.

@user21820 this is a very different case though: if you've gotten through your higher education by cheating, then you will lack the basic skills and knowledge to do whatever job it is that you will be hired to do. That will indeed very likely get you fired. Not because companies or other employers are ethical and against cheating, but simply because they like their money and won't like giving it to somebody who cannot perform the job they were hired to perform.

@terdon: You didn't get my point. Many companies thrive upon cheating; it's in their blood. I hope you don't really need me to provide examples for you where entire companies all have their employees collaborate to cheat their clients or the public. Just dig up the history of almost any large pharmaceutical company.

@user21820 I am afraid it is you who didn't get my point. Of course many people, and most certainly many for-profit companies, cheat. That doesn't mean they like it when someone cheats them, and hiring someone who cannot do their job is cheating the company. So even if it's a company that thrives on cheating its clients, it won't stand for having its own employees cheat it. Even if your job is fabricating fake data, you can't do that convincingly—and cheating needs to be convincing—unless you have the required knowledge.

@terdon: I don't have any interest in arguing, but I think you need to reconsider your views. Many cheaters rely on charisma to get a job, and are clever enough to work around their own incompetency. Many so-called programmers simply copy-paste their code from Stack Overflow without actually understanding what is happening. And some companies (e.g. British American Tobacco) deliberately hire people who are willing to cheat (others), and you're not going to know it until you start digging.

The unsaid part of this is that not only can the cheater face personal career consequences, but they also taint the reputation of the university they came from. When a clear pattern develops that graduates of university X look good on paper but don't actually know anything, companies become less and less likely to hire their graduates or collaborate with their researchers. A once-prestigious school can lose a lot of respect very quickly by not addressing problems like this.

@terdon In corporate environments, you're often serving nontechnical businesspeople who have no way of knowing if you're doing your job correctly. There are tons of people skating by on knowledge clearly below their degree without getting fired.

I think you all are quite of the mark. Y'all act like cheaters are a entire different kind of human that are predisposed to have 0 skills, 0 knowledge and got anywhere exclusively by cheating. That is just delusional. Half the courses in a university just aren't important to the work you will do in your job later on. If someone cheats through calculus and starts working in marketing, is he suddenly predestined to lose his jobs in x months? It's improbable to cheat your way into university without at least having a somewhat capable head on your shoulders.

Also, people take the path of least resistance. When cheating is a common, incredibly low risk, incredibly low effort and incredibly high reward type of deal, you'd be hard pressed to find people who aren't willing to bend their moral code unlike OP. In this kind of environment you'd have tons and tons of people who could pass this course ordinarily but chose not to because doing so would waste their time and effort for a likely lower grade.

When I worked as a trainer in the M.E. we heard about a high-ranking (i.e. "royal") cadet failing his pilot exams and the trainer being fired because of that. As a result all the other trainers walked out, on the grounds that they were not going to sanction the concept of licensed pilots who are incompetent. Big stink as a result, high-level diplomatic talks, trainers all returned to work, high-ranking cadet's non-licensed status remained as such. Point is, sometimes it is not acceptable to take on unethically licensed staff because this may seriously compromise public safety.

The purpose of a university is not just to educate the individual. It is also to certify the product it produces.

A "brand university" on CV is enough to get shortlisted for high-roles. No branded university in CV ? It can be enough to be disqualified from HR processes. If one cheated a few exams to get a degree from Oxford, will beat any other candidate from X university who did not cheat. The one from Oxford, is anyway not completely ignorant about the subject, and can go away well with it once hired. One can even learn a job while doing it - if can get it.
It is not personal attack. It is systemic inequality.
P.s. I've been regularly contacted from students in UK on freelancer sites

Generally speaking, you have put in your work and tried to expose them. Maybe the teachers don't care because it's too much work or maybe so many students are affected that they'd have empty classrooms if all cheaters got expelled. Since you mentioned  that 120 students cheated, I personally believe it's a mix of the two.
At the end of the day, will the students that cheated and proceeded into top universities and jobs drop out straight away because they unjustly got through Calculus III and IV for free? Honestly speaking, I kind of doubt it. Someone who cheats because it is convenient to do so doesn't suddenly invalidate everything they are capable and knowledgable of because of that fact. They can still have great paying jobs with their unjustly acquired degrees because not every knowledge gap is important.
You didn't cheat. You didn't take that convenient shortcut that was presented to many students during COVID-19. That is commendable and it was the right thing to do. But doing the right thing is not always rewarded and doing the wrong thing is not always punished. The ones in charge have no intention of doing anything about it which means that you can not do a thing about it. For your own sanity's sake, you should let go of the topic.

+1 for letting go of the "fair world" paradigm, and being able to at least mentally cope if it isn't.

@Stilez The just-world fallacy/paradigm, which can be succinctly thought of as "you get what you deserve".

It appears that cheating is "socially acceptable" at your university.
That leaves you two options:

You can try to change the system. Apparently, the students, the teachers and the administration are all (more or less) OK with how things currently are, so you'd be fighting all of them. Alone.

Or you could accept that, unfortunately, there is injustice in the world, and that it is not your job to fix all that. You tried your best, now move on. If you can, continue your academic journey at a place that more closely matches your moral standards. In my personal experience, cheating is taken more seriously in Europe than in the place you describe, and even more so in the US.

Sadly, this sort of thing happens.  It probably happens to a greater or lesser extent in every single university in the world.  Sometimes the culprits are caught and penalised, sometimes they are not.  I realise that you are passionate about things being done honestly and fairly.  This is very commendable.
However, there is probably not much more you can do now that you have reported the issues.  You have done the right thing and now it's time to look after yourself.  Try not to get disillusioned about the process of education - there is still, I assume, education to be gained at your university despite the corruption you have seen.  Take advantage of that, learn and understand everything you can.  You know that you have done the right thing and that you have not followed other students' unethical behaviour.  You know, you absolutely know, that you are right and they are wrong.  It may be frustrating if you see students gaining advancement from cheating, but try not to let it get to you.  You are right.  You are right.

As I see it, you have two possibilities:

You can become an activist about this issue, and figure out ways to publicize the issues, and work to imrpove the system.
You can focus on yourself, get your own stuff in order (I assume that is already the case), get a degree as well as you can, and then move on to find a job outside of academia.

(Presumably the third option - i.e. focussing on yourself and then staying in academia, is not one you are even remotely considering, since it already puts you into mental issues right now.)
There are pro's and con's to either route. Obviously, the first is harder than the second. Depending on which country you are in, it might just a futile waste of your time and energy - or it might put you into actual bodily danger. The chances of success are probably very, very tiny. Fighting corruption is usually not something a single person can successfully do, unless they are an incredibly and extraordinarily stable personality (which you might not be, as you are already developing mental issues simply by witnessing the issue).
The second solution is safe, straightforward and easy and you would have done it anyways, if you had never witnessed the corruption. It will incur no further drawbacks, and will allow you to put that phase of your life behind you and move on.
So far the choice is clear. Move on.
The only reason to fight the corruption (for you personally) is if you decide that you simply could not live with the decision to turn your back on it. If the rest of your life basically becomes impossible to live with you knowing that you did nothing, then it might just be the better path for you to indeed try and fight.
So what should you do? I would suggest to take a long and deep soul-search and really decide whether you can move on or not. Take into consideration that some things simply are as they are.

Consider that it is highly likely that the uni administration is perfectly aware about the situation.
Take into consideration that they might actually be working on some solution (in which case they don't need you) - or if not, that they have decided that this is the way it's going to be, for whatever reason (in which case you might not only be fighting the students, but also the management).
Assume that COVID will eventually pass, and the overabundance of remote work (and tests) might eventually go away.
Accept that cheaters will have less chances in the job market simply due to the fact that they will have less knowledge - and if this is not the case, then what was the knowledge useful for, in the first place? Then this points more to an indication that whatever that uni offers is useless (at least for jobs - which is the only spot where the test results matter).

If all of that, and maybe additional arguments from the other posts, don't turn you around, then I would suggest to find like-minded people (within or without the uni management - the first probably only if you can really trust them, and if you find a way to feel out their stance about this before unleashing tons of accusations) and figure out together how to proceed.
It would be hard to give you more concrete tips, as we know nothing about your situation. You might start by researching how corruption was generally fought in the past, in other countries/situations, and check if you find inspiration from that - I'm sure there are books etc. about that around.
If your mental issues do not go away, or become worse, try to get someone to talk about that (professional or friends, possibly far away from the uni to avoid even more issues stemming from that discussion...).
Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

Post the material online, anonymously. Then focus on your education and research. Sadly, there are "cultural differences" in how education works in different countries. - By the way, professors and administrators will not want to be embarrassed and may well try to sabotage you, which is why it's better to post this anonymously. Also, keep in mind that universities in Europe and the US aren't necessarily oblivious to this. It's not a new problem, and they may well know that academic records from certain countries are not reliable.


text:
Can someone else claim that their name should be on our paper because they have been working on the same problem?
A few months ago, in our group meeting, my advisor brought up a problem in the field that might be interesting for us to think about it. Although it was not related to my PhD, since I was going for my defense, I started to think about it with another student and prepared a paper and sent it to the advisor. He saw it (one week before the deadline) and said that another student in the group (who was in that meeting) is also interested in that problem and is working on a simpler version of it with a totally different approach.
9 hours before the deadline of the paper submission, the guy who was working on the simpler version sent me a message and said that I have to add his name (and also his wife!) to our paper because he was working on the same problem and he wants his name to be on the first paper which is about that new problem. He said that in return, he will add my name and my collaborator's name to his paper (his wife is his collaborator in his paper, although her field was not related to the problem and that is why he asked for both names to be added in our paper). I didn't have any contribution in their paper and they didn't have in ours and I didn't even know what is in their paper.
I am the supervisor of our paper and adding another two PhD students to my paper (even if we could ignore the ethics!) vanishes my role in having supervision in all parts of the paper (including the code and results), and it was really hard for me. I said that I cannot do it and we will submit our papers and see what will happen. In my whole research time, this never happened to me and it is so weird to me that why I shouldn't say no and face such complaints.
I did ask my advisor about this. He said that it was our fault that we didn't communicate about our projects, but he is okay if we want to exchange the names.
Did I do something wrong? Would you please suggest the right answer for such requests? Can he annoy me in the future?

Reply to his message with a simple "no"

This question should be tagged 'cheating'.

This is unbelievable. Of course, you did nothing wrong. Which cannot be said about the other student. He has no right to annoy you and judging from his poor communication and behaviour, we can just wish that he won’t cross your path academically anymore.

Thanks @Jan. I really hope so. It was a lot of pressure, more than what I expected.

I think I'll start working on the Riemann hypothesis. Not that I have any hope of solving it, but if anyone else succeeds I'll demand that they put my name on their paper.

@AndreasBlass Haha, I wish it had ended better so I could look back and laugh at it, but unfortunately, everything ended up in the worst scenario and I had a horrible time which made me lose my hope in a lot of people.

Working in parallel isn't collaboration. Unless the other people contributed directly to your paper then they have no right to authorship. Nor would you have right to authorship of theirs. It would be pure "gift" authorship, a form of misconduct in many (not all) fields.
Actually, though, your supervisor should have managed this better so that you didn't come to such a point within a single group. Parallel research and having someone else scoop you is bad enough (for individuals) in the general case, but it shouldn't happen in a single research group.
I don't know what you can manage politically in this situation, but the ethics are clear. Hopefully you all have something to contribute.

Re: "in many (not all) fields." I would be curious to know in which fields gift authorship is not a form of misconduct...

@AlbertoSantini There are some fields where gifting authorship to your supervisor is the norm.

@NickS Please name one explicitly.

@NickS a supervisor bringing you into a project that gives you funding, providing you a research theme, shaping the questions you answered with a publication is not being gifted a publication, such a supervisor is being recognized for the necessary steps they directly did in producing the research presented in the paper, even if they did not write one single character in the paper, they were directly involved in the results obtained (and it is very dissimilar than simply giving the code, or selling the code, or discussing the results at a conference/workshop...).

Gift authorship is immoral.

@EarlGrey Well, in my field (pure mathematics) what you describe would be considered gift authorship. My supervisor did all that, and only expected an Aknowledgement.. The papers where he was an author were papers where I did some of the proofs and he did other proofs.... I do understand that in my field we are lucky that the costs are low, we do not need large funds for experiments, and getting the funding can be essential to projects, but also I know from experience/discussions that this creates a very grey area some supervisors push/cross.

As a (former) physicist, every time I read comments here I am amazed and somewhat appalled at the way the authorship culture apparently works in pure mathematics. It's unthinkable to me to equate including the supervisor as an author with "gift authorship", if they contributed resources, direction, discussions, framing the research questions, interpretation of results, etc. I understand different fields work differently, but still it seems like there must be a lot of fighting for credit in that field.

@Andrew, actually, I never saw any such fighting for credit. It is just a convention that students in pure math are sole authors of their dissertations. Students don't usually work in teams and are usually funded as TAs, not under grants, so it is just an understanding in the field. I worked in CS after changing fields but would not have considered assuming an authorship position with my students, even though I gave direction, etc. I agree that math may err a bit in the opposite direction but it works in practice.

@Andrew, Professional mathematicians help one another quite a lot, but, unless they start out on a joint project, don't worry much about authorship even for some key advice, though it might actually be deserved. Applied math, like the sciences, has different customs.

@Andrew I have never had a fight for credit. My summer salary came from his grant, but otherwise would had came from the department, does this deserve authorship? Discussions? Well we freely discuss our projects in our field, and gave ideas (some which worked, some which didn't) but never expected anything beyond an aknowledgement for this. And this is likely the reason why people feel so free to discuss ideas/proofs, if authorship was expected for every single discussion or idea then people would start guarding the projects. Interpretation of resuts, what's that ;)....

... Now, where things could get tricky is the "framing of research question" and "direction", because if someone gives me a clear problem and the key ideas for the proofs, even if I end up filling in the missing details and write the paper, in my oppinion their contribution is already bigger than mine....For many math projects, the idea of the proof for the main theorems is the main contribution....But for other math projects, the "research question" can be something vague or even coming from the student itself (not often but not uncommon either)...

@NickS getting the funding is not easy. To get fundings you need to write a proposal, with a deep scientific knowledge of the state of the art, you need to substantiate it, you need to clearly define goals and questions you will answer with the research, sometimes even pass oral examinations. Let's not downplay the "getting funds" part: today it is extremely hard, it is not anymore that a professor or a supervisor has automatically funds for postdocs and phds.

@NickS please write down at least one field where "gifting authorship to your supervisor is the norm. "

@EarlGrey I do hold a grant, so I know exactly what it takes. Now, if I pay a student RA stippends from my grant, give them a problem and some rough ideas for how to approach it, have weekly meeting with them for discussions and help them with revisions of manuscript I do NOT expect authorship.... I am just doing my job as supervisor, and in my field authorship in this situation is "gift authorship"...  I am only expecting authorship when I need to start producing some of the proofs in the project, and trully contributing towards it (typically doing multiple proofs).

@NickS you made it clear what is (according to you and your archaic field) gift authorship, what is relevant is in which field is gifting authorship the norm (since you mentioned there are fields where it is common, write down explicitly).

@EarlGrey Note that what is considered gift authorshipin my field (see previous comment) is the norm in other fields. As far as I remember in CS, Physics,  Chemestry just to name a few, funding+set up clear problem+regular meetings+proofreading the final manuscript is usually enough to grant the supervisor authorship...

@EarlGrey, wow, interesting how you are appalled (literally raging) that some fields hold their senior academics to stricter ethical standards than your former field, a bit similar to how some people are outraged at vegans.

In general I'm amazed how people list "providing funding/resources" as a ground for authorship as if there were nothing wrong with it. A supervisor is not providing funding, he's managing it on behalf of the funding body. Demanding authorship in exchange for a decision made in that capacity is as wrong as it gets; much worse than just "guest authorship".

@Kostya_I "A supervisor is not providing funding, he's managing it on behalf of the funding body". This is at best an offensive downplaying of the efforts required to write proposals, at worst a clear misunderstanding of how funding works in the current state of things ...

@EarlGrey, sure, it's a lot of effort, so what? It's an effort spent competing for the right to manage public money, akin to running for an office. But after you get that right, it's still public money, and demanding bribes or personal favors in exchange for allocating it is literally a crime. An authorship which otherwise would not be warranted is clearly an example of such personal favor.

@Kostya_I I agree on the philosophical level of the public money being allocated to researchers. Unfortunately in reality there is already someone managing the public funds, so the researcher receiving them has no responsibility on them (see the numerous examples of public money badly spent in research) and they are simply spending them. Additionally, your point is moot when the research money is coming from a private institution (I do not understand how the hypothetical exchange money4publication is not corruption with private money, btw).

@EarlGrey, PI have a lot of say in how to spend it, such as whom to hire, what to procure, and certainly can be liable for corruption. My point is that if something is prima facie illegal, it's hard to make a case that it is ethical. The private money edge case only strengthens the argument against the "he provided funding" authorship: suppose one of the authors is a philantropist who funded but did not participate in the research - I think most would consider authorship inappropriate.

@Kostya_I You are welcome to address your points to the  CS, Physics, Chemistry communities (just to name a few) where funding+set up clear problem+regular meetings+proofreading the final manuscript is usually enough to grant the supervisor authorship.
I am sure that there archaic point of views, where the scientists are heremits whose purity from society and social dynamics can be preserved: very good for them, I let them enjoy their ivory tower.

@EarlGrey I'm not sure what should I ask. I can read, e.g., the APS or ACS guidelines, and they are both pretty clear that what you describe does not merit authorship. I also would receive a lot of answers from people engaged in this kind of activity vehemently assuring me that because they do it, it is ethical, which is of no value.

@Kostya_I you are referring to some societies, have a look at the comment from https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/182917/can-someone-else-claim-that-their-name-should-be-on-our-paper-because-they-have/182918?noredirect=1#comment491594_182918 , I have no personal connection to these communities.

Did I do something wrong? Would you please suggest the right answer for such requests? Can he annoy me in the future?

You did not do anything wrong. In your life people will often make unreasonable requests of you. Learning to say “no” is a useful skill, and one of the elements of that skill is the knowledge that “no” is a complete sentence. That is, the right answer for such requests is simply “no”. A more polite version of this will read something along the lines of:

Hi [name],
It’s nice that you also found the problem interesting and are working on a paper about it. About your question, I do not need to be a coauthor on your paper, and am not interested in adding you as a coauthor on mine. Thanks for the suggestion though. And good luck with your conference submission.
Regards,
user137927

I think it would be better to explain why you are saying no - as Buffy said, the reason is that the other person didn't contribute - rather than just saying "no" on its own or "I am not interested in adding you."

@gib when the request is very unreasonable (as this one clearly is) it is often better not to explain the reason for the “no”. That is a key point of the “no is a complete sentence” principle.

But the person making the request is a student and probably doesn't understand that it is unreasonable

@gib sometimes the best way to help someone understand something is to let them think about it and figure it out for themselves. Regardless, OP has no responsibility to help the other person understand anything.

The best way to help the person in this case would be to tell them the reason, which would only take a few seconds. If people only helped others when they had a professional responsibility to do so, the world would be a much worse place.

@gib sure, and if people didn’t write comments that contain an obvious straw man fallacy, the world would be a better place. It’s pretty clear I wasn’t advocating for “only helping others when you had a professional responsibility to do so”. That’s your interpretation, which I reject.

@gib >>probably doesn't understand ... "in return, I offer you an author spot on my paper"  Yep, the other student understands.

@Dan Romik It wasn't a straw man argument, it was a general statement, just intended to imply that I think OP should be helpful to the other person, even if they do not have a professional responsibility to do so. I stick to what I said in my first comment.

@mcalex Yes that part does look suspicious, but they are a student so I still think they probably don't understand the issues.

@gib they understand enough to think "two wrongs makes one right". A clear no will stop their brain&heart wandering into the realms of unethical things.

@DanRomik I see no harm in including a sentence of explanation here, while I do see possible harm in omitting it. Why do you still prefer the latter?

@Neinstein there is a type of person who won’t take no for an answer, and offer objections to any explanation you offer them, requiring you to clarify your explanation, which they will then refute again, and so on ad infinitum. Arguing with them is exhausting and pointless. After you go through this a few times you learn that in some situations just saying “no” without giving any opening for debate is the best way forward, for both sides. This is one of those situations IMO. But if OP wants to give an explanation and see where that takes them, then sure, they’re not risking very much.

+1 to Dan's point above. In fact, these comments present a fair example of the possible give-reasons trap.

The "trap" is avoided by giving the reason once, and then refusing to engage further. That way, you educate someone who honestly doesn't know better (which is, sadly, possible), without falling victim to any traps, help-vampirism, or extended discussions.

@CodyGray if only it were that simple. My point is that if you give an explanation N times and then refuse to engage further, for any value of N greater than 0, the type of person I was referring to will come away very angry because in their mind you gave them N completely invalid explanations, each one more invalid and dishonest than the previous one, and then abruptly cut off the debate, probably because you couldn’t face their overwhelmingly convincing rebuttal arguments. N=0 is the only value that avoids this effect. This has been my experience at least.

Well, this is a mess.  Normally, people in the same research group are supposed to collaborate and keep each other informed of what they're doing.  Clearly, that failed pretty badly here, and I'd say the fault is shared by you and your advisor:

You say that the initial meeting where your advisor brought up the problem was a few months ago.  It's not clear how long after the meeting you started working on the problem, but presumably it was at least several weeks ago.  At that point, you should've told your advisor what you were working on, and preferably also informed other group members directly e.g. in a group meeting.

Even though your advisor apparently only found out about your project when you sent them your finished paper a week before the submission deadline, they should still have arranged an immediate meeting between you and the other student(s) working on the same problem, instead of waiting for the deadline to pass.

That said, given that your advisor didn't arrange such an emergency meeting, you should've taken it upon yourself to immediately contact the other student and discuss the issue.

More generally, the fact that this whole chain of events came to pass makes it seem like communication and collaboration within your research group is pretty dysfunctional.  While good teamwork is part of everyone's job, ultimately the team leader — i.e. your advisor — is responsible for ensuring that it happens.

As for the issue of "exchanging authorship" at hand, I agree with the other answers that you technically did the right thing here by refusing it, since the other student (and his wife) hadn't actually contributed anything to your paper.
That said, I would say that you also did the wrong thing in letting events get to that point in the first place.  Ideally, you would've informed your advisor when you started working on the problem, and they would've arranged for you and the other student to work together, so that the resulting paper(s) would indeed have enough contribution from both of you to justify coauthorship.
Also, by refusing the offer, there's a risk that you may have made an enemy — possibly a life-long one.
The other student almost certainly didn't see their offer of "exchanged authorship" as inappropriate under the circumstances, or they wouldn't have made it in the first place.  As such, they're not likely to take your "no" reply as "no, that would be inappropriate", but rather as "no, we don't want to work together with you, we'd rather just scoop you and take all the credit, f*** you very much".
That said, there may not be much you can do about that now.  An honest face-to-face talk with the other student might help, especially if you start by admitting that you screwed up by not involving them in your work earlier, and that you do genuinely want to collaborate with them in the future.  Or not, but at least you can say that you tried.

Thank you for your answer. I agree with you. I didn't know what they are working on. When they asked me to exchange the names, I immediately said that in the future I will provide all of our codes and results to help them, but can't add their name because I spent so much time on it. But he said it is the first work with this problem and it is important to him to be their name in it. I even asked if they have published something before, we can cite it, but he said that he had planned to submit it to conferences but for some reason missed it. The only choice he left was adding the names.

I absolutely didn't know what to do at 3 AM, 9 hours before the deadline. I cannot even say that our work is better than theirs. None of us knows what is in the other paper. But it seems that my advisor said to them that our work is good and it makes them angry. Although my advisor several times said that they are not interested in our approach at all and their approach in PhD is totally different. The only problem they had was being the first one who propose a method for the problem.

You could have added the alternate approach to your paper as an addendum of sorts, and then you guys could happily be co-authors on the resulting paper. But 9 hours before the deadline makes that genuinely impossible. Maybe alluding to an alternate approach being worked on by another member of your group and mentioning them as (x. xx, unpublished observations) would have worked, and left the other approach as something much less likely to get scooped by others in the future.

This. There would have been one more potential "rescue point": whereever that deadline came from, deciding to let that deadline go would have gained the group time to resolve the mess, sleep over the trouble and then calmly sit together and decide on a strategy for the paper(s). Be it one big paper with all authors, two papers with actual contributions from all authors, two papers with the original crews respectively submitted at the same time to the same journal with a cover letter explaining that there are two independent papers, or even something else.

@user137927 Both approaches Tamoghna suggested would've been the ideal solutions. But as he said, these simply weren't plausible 9 hours before the deadline. This is not your fault: the other student should've contacted you in time, or the supervisor should've told him about your work in time. It's unreasonable to expect the author to  make such changes within such a short timeframe.

@Neinstein: I'd say it is the OP's fault to some degree, because they could've and should've told their advisor that they were working on the problem sooner, instead of leaving it until the paper was fully written and there was just one week until the submission deadline. But in general, apportioning blame is not a very productive exercise — it's better to discuss together what everyone involved can do to prevent the problem from happening again, whether it was their fault or not.


text:
Do you include references in your CV?
Some people do not list references/referees at the end of their CV, and simply quote references are available on request. This is more convenient to me for two reasons:

Normally, no reference is contacted without permission, so, it is not necessary to be included in the CV.
Depending on the purpose (application, proposal), you may want to introduce other references (more relevant to that application). This is the reason that some job applications need separate list of references.

On the other hand, including famous persons as references shows your connections and background. In addition, the audience might be suspicious why hiding possible references!
Which one is preferred and more reasonable?

In my opinion references are transient. I would expect anybody asking for my reference to do so for each time the reference is requested. the reason is that I would want to know for what I am providing reference and also because I am keen to make the decision to be a reference under my own control.
Hence, i see no reason to provide references in a CV in some permanent way. For each occassion the CV will be used it will of course be possible to add names to the CV but then only for one-time use. It is after all not complicated to edit the CV.
To add a line "references are available on request" would be a big no-no for me (this applies to all aspects of, for example, an application, not just the CV). If you have an application, it should be complete and provide all material and information you want in support unless the application makes it clear some information should be added upon request.

If you keep a generic CV on your personal website or a job search website profile, then it can make sense to add the notice about references, though if you don't have it and you get contacted by a prospective employer, they'll still ask you anyway. I doubt they are not going to hire you because they were to shy to ask for references themselves ;-)
The main reason not to add specific references to a generic CV is that you can't tailor them. If you go for a teaching position, you might want to give the name of the dean at that private college where you lectured for a summer as a reference, whereas if you go for a research position, you want your Ph.D. supervisor as a reference as well as that important guy in some other university that you briefly collaborated with, etc.
Also, when you name references for a specific application, it gives you a chance to let your references know to who to potentially expect a call from. It will help your references (and thereby you) to talk about aspects of you that are relevant to the job you're applying for.

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


text:
Does requesting to speed up the application process affect its outcome
I got an offer for a PhD position which, due to my financial status, I can only accept if I am awarded a scholarship, which is currently in consideration. Recently, I received a job offer which has to be answered before the scholarship announcement date. I cannot delay on that because there are few other potential candidates for that position. Although I find it interesting but it's OK if I turn an offer down as I currently have one already. Moreover, the PhD is much more important to me. So my question is whether asking the university to speed up in their consideration affects the chance to get the scholarship. If it's possible, can someone let me know how the university deals with this situation?
I cannot easily quit a new job early as it has a fixed-term, more like minimum-term, contract because I will receive 3 months of overseas training at the beginning so they don't want me to leave too soon.

The answer could, for all I know, depend on the country, so could you maybe mention which country the university is in?

@Tara: The university I'm applying to is in the UK

Asking to speed up the process will not hurt your chances. They may not be able to speed anything up, but if they do/don't, they will not hold it against you. Likely what they will do is take a look at where you stand and then be able to judge if they can definitely fund you. If so they will tell you. If not, they will tell you they don't know yet. They also might tell you it is unlikely. Something like you are currently ranked 25 and we have funding for 8.

You could accept the job offer, and quit your job if the PhD position works out. Especially during your trial period at that company it is surely ethical to quit, this period is meant for you to see if you like the company and vice-versa. If you find something more to your liking, switching jobs is normal. After your trial period you probably have some kind of period you need to stay after resigning, say a month. The PhD will probably not require you to start the second you get the scholarship, so you have ample time to deal with the last bits at the company, and start at your PhD position a month later.

These decisions are made by committee, with set meetings, and likely some agreement on a quorum. Especially now, as people ramp back up to start the year, I doubt you will get much traction asking for your case to be expedited.
Does not hurt to ask, but do not expect anything. It won't impact your odds if you do. People understand students are anxious, and they won't be vindictive.

My guess is that how the university will deal with a request to speed up the decision is simply to ignore it. It is unlikely to affect whether you will be successful, but its also unlikely to speed up the process.

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


text:
Journal rejects my conference-to-journal extension, saying it's copied from previous publication. What should I do?
My understanding of short conference papers being extended to journals was that I should have at least 30% fresh results and content (read that in answers to this question here). I had a short 4-page paper published and presented as a poster at a conference in the past year. I had extended the work, had plenty of fresh results with me, and decided to send it to a journal. I would say I had at least 70-80% fresh content and results.
I was surprised to receive a reply from the Editor that my manuscript was been rejected without review. The reason given by an editorial board member is

A non-negligible part of this manuscript (~1000 words) has been copied by a previous publication of these authors.

And, thus, he suggested that the manuscript be rejected without review.
I agree that some basic data pre-processing modules are the same in both papers (coz why would they differ!). Some introduction and related work part is also the same. Rest, the manuscript is fresh. My manuscript is easily 9000-10000 words. 1000 words just make 10% of that. Keeping in mind that "30% fresh content" rule, I thought I was playing pretty safe. But this response has disappointed me :(
My  questions:

Should I bother to write to the Editor, asking for clarification? Maybe I can just ask whether the editor bothered to read my cover letter (where I had clearly mentioned the previous paper and the overlaps with this paper).
If yes, how does one usually contact the Editor? The emails sent by the journal do not come from a personal account. Will it be wise to write to him directly?

After this rejection, I may submit it elsewhere. But what if it gets rejected on the same grounds? Should I consider re-writing my manuscript and making it completely different from the previous paper?

Did you look at the specific journal's author instructions? That's always much more important than a general rule you saw somewhere...

Did you literally copy/paste 1000 words? If so, that is self-plagiarism! You should have rewritten it.

@Andrew Didn't find any specific instruction in this regard in their guide for authors  :(

Actually, the rules of the journal you link to say: "Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint, see http://www.elsevier.com/sharingpolicy)". This could be interpreted as that journal not allowing extended version of previously published papers. (On the other hand, you say your previous publication was a "poster paper", which is sometimes called "poster abstract" and spans something minimal like 2 pages - please clarify.)

On the other hand, a very superficial Google search quickly brings up a 2014 article by this author that appeared in the same journal and that is said to be "an extended version of our CODASPY'13 conference paper", even though there does not appear to be any mention of that fact within the paper itself.

@O.R.Mapper Yeah, it was just 4 pages (double-column, ACM format). This manuscript is 20 pages (single-column, Elsevier format), and fresh results. That was sufficient "fresh content" by my logic :(

I think O.R. is suggesting they found a match with this paper, and that is the reason for rejection

@MaartenvanWesel: No, I am suggesting two possibilities: In my first comment, I point out that I am not sure whether they want to support the model of publishing "extended versions of conference papers" at all, as their guidelines mention nothing about it. In my second comment, however, I point out that they have actually done so in the recent past, and they did not seem to apply very strict requirements about how the paper needs to point out it is an extended version.

I work in this field.  Yes, you should contact the Editor to ask them what their policy is on submissions that are based on a prior conference publication -- but ask very carefully.  See the last two paragraphs of this answer before writing to them.  In particular, I suggest contacting the Editor-in-Chief.  It's fair game to write and ask them what their policy is, regarding whether they accept journal submissions that are an extension of a conference paper and if so what the requirements are.
I looked through the guidelines for authors for this particular journal, and I have to say, it's not clear to me what the expected policies are.  Therefore, I think it's entirely reasonable to contact the Editor-in-Chief to ask for a clarification.
I can't tell you what this journal's policies are, but I can give you my impression of what a common policy in this field is.  It's not uncommon for journals to allow publication of a journal version of a paper that was previously published at a conference.  Yes, one common rule-of-thumb is that the journal version of the paper should have at least 25% new content.  Of course this is a subjective judgement call, but it gives you a rough idea of what to shoot for.  Also, the journal version should be "archival-quality" (e.g., the definitive reference; polished, high quality, well executed).  But this can potentially vary.  There's no requirement that every journal has to subscribe to this particular policy -- it's up to each individual journal to decide on its own policy, and it would be entirely fair for any particular journal to choose something different.
For an example of the 25% requirement, see the ACM's policy for submissions to ACM journals: http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/sim_submissions/
Do note that what matters is not the percentage of words that are new, but rather the percentage of intellectual ideas.  We measure the contribution of each paper by its "delta" over previous publications, i.e., by the new intellectual content of the new ideas that have not previously appeared.  That can't be measured by counting the number of words that are new.
In journals that do allow you to publish a journal version of work that previously appeared at a conference, I would not expect any requirement that you have to rewrite or rephrase every sentence of the previously published work.  (It's not clear what purpose that would serve.)  You are of course expected to revise anything that can be improved, but there's no requirement to paraphrase or reword your own writing just to avoid having the same words in the same order.
Your question was a little unclear about how the previous work was previously published.  In my experience with reputable conferences in this field, the most common kinds of papers are: "papers published at a conference" and "papers published at a journal".  Less commonly, there's "posters presented at a conference" (usually does not come with a paper that's considered published), and occasionally "short 1-page or 2-page paper published at a conference with a poster presented at the conference" (the 2-page paper would be considered published).  If you're referring to the latter kind of publication, then I would not have expected that to lead to outright rejection of your journal submission without consideration of its merits.  But who knows?  It's up to each journal to determine its own policy.
So, given that the publicly available web pages of that journal aren't entirely clear, I think it's perfectly reasonable to email the Editor-in-Chief and ask them what the policy is.  You can point to your submission and explain the situation if you want.
However, it's extremely important to avoid conveying any implication that you feel you've been wronged, that their decision was inappropriate, or any other form of criticism.  The purpose of this email should be solely to gather information about what the journal's policy is.  Once you know their policy, then you can consider what to do.  But don't write to the Editor-in-Chief to complain or dispute or appeal the decision.  That just sets up an adversarial situation that isn't likely to yield any constructive results.  You might want to write a draft email, sit on it for a few days, edit it to remove any hint of disappointment or criticism, then give it to a senior colleague to read, and follow their guidance.
And you can also treat this as a learning experience.  If you do decide to submit it elsewhere, you can check what their policies are on this sort of situation before submitting.  If it's not clear from their web pages, you can contact the editor in advance to ask.

This is an excellent answer! Great to have some advice from someone working in this field. Yes, i meant a short (4-page) paper published at a conference with a poster presented at the conference.

So you wrote in the cover letter that the work is an extended version of a conference paper that accompanied a poster presentation.
Apparently, this information got missing somewhere. Also this information should actually be in the paper, as Maarten van Wesel already wrote, as the later reader should be also be made aware of this.
So, judging from your post, the only thing that you did wrong was not to note this in the paper itself (please add a comment to this post if this assumption is wrong). What then went wrong in the journal's workflow is that the paper was rejected due to copying rather than asking you to add such a note in the paper. A possible explanation is that checking for plagiarism is done by the publisher's office beforehand, and they actually never saw (or read) the cover letter.
I think that it is fair to write a letter to the editor, mentioning that (1) you already wrote in the cover letter that you submitted extended work, and (2) you are of course happy to add a note that this is an extended work of [Previous work].

On a related note, there may be a small copyright problem. You may have already given an exclusive licence to distribute your work to one publisher with your earlier paper. If you now copy a good part of that work, the new publisher may see this as problematic. While many publishing agreements nowadays explicitly allow reuse of the work in extended versions, not all of them do, so the new publisher's office may suspect that this is not the case for your earlier paper. Coincidentally, many extended versions of papers are actually completely rewritten, which circumvents this problem altogether. Whether an extended version should be a full rewrite is yet another discussion, which we probably don't want to pursue in this thread.

You should have clearly indicated in your paper (for instance as a note to the title) and in you letter to the editor the publication of the conference paper, how it is titled, and that it is available online.
If you haven't indicated this, get on your knees and explain this to the editor. Promising you will correct this on a new to submit manuscript

I am not sure that I understood clearly your question, but as far as I understand, you have the exact same paragraphs in some part of the two papers (i.e., copy and paste ?).
If this is the case, maybe you should take the rule "X% of old content allowed" as a semantic rule, not syntactic. So this means 100-X % new results, but almost 100% rewriting of the old stuff.

When a conference and a journal are closely linked (e.g. same publisher, overlapping editorial boards, the journal kind of being suggested as a "regular" place to follow-up on some of the conference papers), this is not necessarily true; "extended version" can indeed mean "largely the exact same text as before + some new, additional text and information". It is very journal-specific whether this is actually the case, though.

I've never heard of any requirement to re-phrase all of the sentences when you take a conference paper and extend it to prepare the journal version.  In other words, I've never heard of a requirement to rewrite 100% of the text.  A journal might or might not allow submission of extended versions of a conference paper -- but if it does, it would strike me as quite odd to require re-phrasing 100% of the old text.

I am not saying that this is a requirement, but an editor still has the final decision on papers, and it could make sense for an editor to avoid copy pasting of large part of previously published papers.

I have had this experience too. The journal that rejected my work also had other papers which were extended versions of conference papers so it was completely inconsistent. I recommend simply ignoring this journal from now on unless it is really the leading one in your field.  You could first write a polite letter to the editor pointing out the unfairness in your case but I wouldn't be too surprised if it doesn't help.
Of course you shouldn't be publishing with Elsevier in any case. See https://gowers.wordpress.com/category/elsevier/ and http://thecostofknowledge.com/ for example.

I know this journal. It's a solid, reputable journal in the field -- not something you'd boycott for being disreputable. Better to write to the editors to ask for the journal's policy, treat this constructively, and look for opportunities to learn from the experience.  Writing to the editors to point out unfairness is not likely to yield constructive results.

No, do not argue with the editor that rejected the paper.  Yes, send it to another journal.  (Of course reference the "poster paper" and explain the differences.  This benefits no only the journal you submit to, but also potential readers who have already seen the previous poster paper.)

This answer seems to oddly lack any justification for the advices it provides.

We generally prefer answers that provide reasoning, arguments, or evidence to back up their conclusions.


text:
Choosing between a PhD and a graduate entry level job
I am currently doing my Masters thesis in Germany and am a non-EU student. I will be finishing soon and then will get an 18 month job search visa, using which I can stay in Germany and look for jobs. My major is space science and it has been a long term dream to do a PhD as I am more inclined towards research. During the last two years of my master's program, I have been working as a student/research assistant at various university and research institutes, hence I have a work experience of 2+ years, including my bachelors internship at a space institute.
However, I am confused if I should directly take up a Phd after my master's degree (since it has been on my mind forever and see no point in waiting if eventually I am going to pursue it) or should look for some jobs to have a full time working experience ?
I could spend the entire year of 2022 searching for jobs in my fields of interest but there is a high chance that I might not find one due to corona uncertainties, hiring freezes in many institutes and companies, companies not willing to hire people on work visa and so on. Therefore I might end up wasting time where instead I could have started with a PhD.
I would really appreciate all help to gain better clarity.
There is a similar question here but in my case I do have some work experience that amounts to 2+ years. Hence, would that be sufficient to pursue a PhD ? As most of the answers in the other question suggested working after MSc. to gain some practical knowledge and basically how everything functions in a real-world project.

That helped. But in my case, I have some experience with the industry and university-related projects through my bachelor internships and part-time work during master's. So I was wondering if that would be enough to pursue a Phd ? Also like in the link you provided, I share the same concern of becoming too comfortable with the job and getting rusty with my educational concept while completely neglecting upskilling at the job.

Searching for a job, gaining some experience, and searching for a PhD position might be difficult. There is a clear answer here if you want to do research, then do your PhD now (if you have an offer). Even after PhD, you can get a better position in the industry.
But, working as a HIWI for 2 years and doing a PhD both are different things. Have you been involved in the paper? As a HIWI, you have to work on a specific parts of the paper like literature paper, coding but as a PhD student, you have to done it my own.
There is a thumb; grab the position which you have now until if you want to take a risk.

So I don't have a direct offer on any position as of now but I know a few places that offered me different positions last year (like full time research jobs or a Phd) but could not take it then as I still had to finish my master's degree. As a HiWi I was involved in different areas but that was not specifically with an aim to publish a research paper. Also I have not published anything yet. Also your last statement is not clear for me.

If you want to do research, do a doctorate. Don't delay. I think the advice about having job experience is mostly wrong, except for very applied fields.

@Iqope54 I would suggest you apply for PhD now and try to publish your master thesis at some conference/workshop. It will you to grab the position.


text:
Include a mistake that cost extra when asking for reimbursement after faculty interview?
I was interviewing for a faculty position in a large city. When I was done I took a taxi to the airport... the wrong airport! I ended up taking another taxi to the correct airport and catching my flight. However, the second taxi ride was around $100.
Should I include this when asking the school for reimbursement, or just pay out of my own pocket since this was my mistake and makes me look like an idiot?

Assuming they liked your presentation, and consider putting you on the shortlist, but are not sure at which position compared to some other candidate; now, reflect, which impression this makes.

You made a nontrivial mistake which is also quite costly.
You ask them to cover that mistake of yours.

Even if they would be willing to do so (and assume it would be eligible at all, which is also not clear - why should they reimburse you for your mistake?), consider how this comes across.
Unless you really are in dire need of the money (and it's not clear you are going to get it anyway), it's probably the wise thing to let things be.

In general if I make a mistake on a work trip, I would expect the employer to cover it (because there is always a risk of making mistakes when travelling). But you are correct that in an interview situation, it is to the candidates benefit to just cover it himself.

@jpa Exactly. Mistakes happen - but even then, I'd rather err on the side of me covering mistakes and ambiguities; in cases of audits, this puts you in a much stronger position. Most certainly, in a job interview, you do not want to be seen as stickler for details when larger things are at stake, because that is also an indicator (among others) how you will prioritise things in the department.

@jpa's point is particularly important in that even if you're in an unfamiliar place (or even language) by going for an interview you're saying your capable of living and working there, while on a business trip you haven't necessarily chosen to go to that particular place.

@Magicsowon Or as CEO, and then he can sue for added bonuses ;-)

I'd certainly pay $100 to prevent a potential employer I really wanted to work for from finding out I got lost on the way back to the airport.

@Shufflepants why is it so embarrassing to get lost?

@jpa: perhaps "the candidate's benefit to just cover it himself or herself"?

@GregMartin Yeah, would have fixed it but comment edit period had already expired.

@CaptainEmacs: As an employer, you also don't want to be seen as a stickler for detail during a job interview for the exact same reasons. "We'll fight you tooth and nail about your travelling expenses" will deter good candidates.

@gnasher729 Audit procedures are not always under control of the academic staff, and candidates know that. Besides, as a future employer I wouldn't think twice of reimbursing the travel expenses of a candidate, but I would really expect from the candidate submitting an extra expense due to their error to be apologetic and ask whether this extra cost would be eligible. Perhaps that's anyway the best way to proceed if one does not mind showing one's absentmindedness.

@emory I didn't say it was embarrassing. But I have no control over what kind of crazy or silly things some employer might see as signs of unpreparedness or incompetence. I am similarly not embarrassed by anything on my facebook account, but I similarly wouldn't want it to be public for any potential employer to browse through and find something to pique their own personal biases and pet-peeves.

I actually made a much worse mistake when interviewing for the job I currently have (I booked the plane ticket for the wrong month), and paid a few hundred dollars out of pocket to make the change.  I don't actually think it would have made a difference, but I was honestly too embarrassed to even try to ask for it.
The risk/reward difference is such that it's probably better to just keep your mouth shut, but I do find the other answers oddly ignore a crucial issue: there is no unitary "they" who is both making a decision about your job and the reimbursement.  Of course, it comes from the same institution, but not really the same people.  Your reimbursement will probably go directly to a secretary, and be signed off on by the chair without her/him even really looking at it. At my own institution, I doubt anyone would even notice if you sent in both receipts (maybe the secretary would think it was odd for a moment, but s/he has other stuff to worry about).  Of course, there is some chance that it would be questioned, or go over some limit, and then maybe the secretary would mention it to the chair (or the chair might notice the bill being unusually high), and maybe the chair would mention it to other people in the department.  That is the risk.

Or you are asked to send it to the chair, which not rarely happens.

I would expect the person reviewing the expenses claim to have a rough idea of what things ought to cost and to query things that are far outside that range. If a plane ticket usually costs $700, having an $800 ticket probably won't be a problem because ticket prices vary a lot and we're only talking 15%. But if the taxi to the airport is usually, say, $50 and there's a claim for that plus another $100, that is far from the norm (300%) and would surely be queried. I'd be very surprised if a secretary at a UK institution authorized that without checking higher up.

People talk, and a secretary or staff member probably talks to the decision makers in the department constantly. I haven't heard anything about faculty, but I have definitely heard of prospective graduate students who lost favor because they treated department staff rudely, even if all the professors loved them. If the charge is unusual enough, you could definitely become "that one candidate who must have taken a cab all around the city."

@BryanKrause: "a secretary or staff member probably talks to the decision makers in the department constantly" - It depends a lot on the university administration whether the travel expenses people and the researchers in a department are anywhere close and in any position to talk to each other. Of course, the possibility does exist.

@O.R.Mapper Certainly; in my case everything is reviewed by a departmental specialist before entering the black box of academic accounting and benefits that eventually spits out a check; I'm sure in some institutions the middle step is skipped. For the OP, I just think this is a case where one shouldn't bet heavily on an idea that it will just slip through the cracks, especially for only $100 vs a job.

When do you need to submit your expense report by?  Is it possible to delay submitting your expense report until after they have reached a decision?  This may allow you to submit the expense report with the expense without it impacting your ability the secure the job.
Looking at whether the expense is valid is an interesting question but in my experience, things like this are a cost of doing business.  The University always has the option of not accepting your expense report if they don't think it is a valid expense.

Considering the importance of the interview for your career and the amount of money involved, I'd suggest you pay it yourself. You probably earn that amount of money in less than 1 day (correct me if I'm wrong), and getting a new interview may require more time than that.

Under the circumstances I'd say the extra cost should be paid by whoever booked the cab. If you booked it, it's your error: having them pay for it seems neither fair nor advisable. If they booked it, it's their error: having you pay for it is not fair.

I'll agree as long as you mean the organization, either the single person organisation that is me, or the large organization where I have the interview, but not for example the lowly employee who booked the taxi ahead. So once you are employed, every mistake you make is the organization's mistake.

Of course, I meant the organization. Thank you, I was imprecise in my comment.


text:
My side project got accepted to a conference and my advisor is not involved in the project. How can I find travel funding?
My side project got accepted to a conference and my advisor is not involved in the project. How can I find travel funding?
My advisor has kind of discouraged me from having side projects (but doesn't forbid me), and doesn't have a lot of money in general, so I would be afraid to ask him.
The main person I am working with on the side project is no longer at the university (he is now at a different university).

Also see How would an undergrad fund a conference trip with a single author paper? and Travel grants for International students in the US? for other sources of travel funding.


text:
Geographic differences in bioethics and effect on experimental research in biology
Cultural heritage may have influenced views on life, consciousness, etc. Does it mean that bioethics is different in different countries? And does it mean that e.g. in  Israel (Jewish culture) it is possible to carry out experiments forbidden in India (Hindu culture)?
More generally: How do bioethics vary in different countries?

Please follow this procedure to merge your accounts so that you'll be able to edit your own question, and comment on the answers.

The short answer to your question is yes, there are differences in local laws related to bioethical concerns in different countries (and even different states in the same country).
For example, consider the difference in local laws related to stem cell research. According to Wikipedia (I don't know how up-to-date this is):

These laws have been the source of much controversy and vary significantly by country. In the European Union, stem cell research using the human embryo is permitted in Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands; however, it is illegal in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal. The issue has similarly divided the United States, with several states enforcing a complete ban and others giving financial support. Elsewhere, Japan, India, Iran, Israel, South Korea, China, and Australia are supportive. However, New Zealand, most of Africa (except South Africa), and most of South America (except Brazil) are restrictive.

More broadly, the International Compilation of Human Research Standards (compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) lists relevant laws and guidelines on human subjects research around the world.
Regarding

does it mean that e.g. in Israel (Jewish culture) it is possible to carry out experiments forbidden in India (Hindu culture)?

Civic and legislative systems are highly complex, as are the degrees and the ways in which they are affected by cultural and religious influences.
So reducing Israel to "Jewish culture" and India to "Hindu culture" is not a particularly useful way to reason about what is permissible in each country.

It does not, since the fundamental ethical desideratum is whether the research subject understands what you are doing to them, and can freely decide whether to participate. It would not be unethical per se to have Jewish subjects eat pork, as long as they understand that is what they would be doing, and have the capacity to make a decision (e.g. comprehend the language, have adult mental capacity, are not coerced). There could be a factual interaction between local law and ethical considerations, for example participation in a particular experiment in a certain country could, by law, threaten the well-being of the subject because of oppressive laws in that country, in which case the case could be covered under the rubric of excessive risk, but the relevant consideration isn't religious or cultural differences, it is what the local laws and related risks are.

it is what the local laws... are - It's my understanding that the question asks whether some countries have differences in the local laws related to biomedical experimentation due to cultural differences. As far as I can tell, this doesn't answer the question.

That isn't what the question asks: perhaps that was what the OP had in mind, but there's no mention of law.


text:
How would teaching during the last year of a postdoc be perceived on the academic job market?
How would large and small research schools, master's only schools, and liberal arts schools all look at a post-doc who did 5 years of research and a 6th year of teaching + post-doc at ~50/50? This would be in physics if that matters.

Do you mean 5 years of research only followed by 1 year of teaching only, or do you mean 5 years of research only followed by 1 year of teaching + research? And are those at the same institution or separate institutions?

the 6th year is teaching and post-doc research. The teaching would be at a different institution than the post-doc

I'm assuming you're asking about applying for faculty positions, so I tagged it as such. If not, please [edit] to clarify what kind of jobs you are asking about.

In my, undergraduate-only department we aren't looking for teaching experience as a check box on the incoming CVs, we're looking for evidence that the candidate likes teaching. Because that's what we're hiring someone to do. Of course, if you haven't logged some time in the classroom then there is no way for you to know, but we are perfectly willing to listen to "When I was a TA ..." stories to get a sense of how the candidate thinks and feels about teaching.
And of course, we're looking for a research background that will give you a chance of doing something here, but with five years of post-doctoral research you look good on paper. We'd want to hear you talk about getting some research done with limited resources.

A big problem with the CV-filler scenario for the OP is that faculty job searches often initiate in or before the fall of the 6th year; that is to say, having taught for not even half a semester, the OP would have really little credibility if he/she tries to tell "When I was a TA" stories.