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Should I admit students who are waitlisted for my class?
As an instructor at a large university, you will sooner or later have a waitlist for your class. Is it better (for you) to admit those students into your class or do you better keep the enrollment limit firm?
I favor the latter because it reduces my work, however marginally. What's more, it might improve the attitude of your students towards your class if there is more demand to take your class than you offer.
Is there a different perspective or a refinement of the above?

Hmmm. If you keep them out will they learn to love you since  you are in such high demand or hate you for being uncaring about their needs. But you don't talk about the scale. Does it change from 30 to 33 or from 30 to 80?

Are you talking about a waitlist for an individual class (e.g. one imposed on a particular tutorial session because of a limited number of computers in the room), or one imposed on enrolments on a degree as a whole (e.g. only 200 new Electrical Engineering students each year)?

@nick012000: single classes. Thanks.

I don't know your circumstances, but fire code may be a consieration. Don't want 350 people in a 300 person lecture hall.

Is this class taught face-to-face or online? If face-to-face, are there limitations on seats, desks, computers, lab workstations, or any other resources?

Do you have a teaching assistant?

In my department for lower level courses I have no control over the enrollment of my classes.  For upper levels, it's rare the the capacity maxes out but here's a general way I would look at it from an instructor and/or administrator.

How frequently is the course offered?
There's a huge difference between a course only offered every year or two, and every single semester.
Is the course required for graduation?
If not, there's far less reason to give the override.  If so, why stand in the way of someone's graduation (particularly if they're a senior)?
Are the other sections of the course full?
If the course has multiple sections, why don't they take one of those?  If there is a legitimate reason they can't (a required course at the same time) I might be more inclined, if not, they can take it the other one if they really want it.
Whose student is it?
My department has one to let majors and minors always take the classes, but those who are not in our department will only get it in exigent circumstances (must have course to graduate).  This is because we are penalized if our majors don't graduate on time and we need to always make any marginal spots available first and foremost to them.
Is there a general policy?
Your department may have a policy for this.  If so, use that.

I don't think that there is any benefit to intentionally reducing numbers to increase demand later on.  If your class is required, people will take it because they have to, not because it's popular (your department has created an artificial demand).  If your class is not required, then students will just find a different class and not bother with yours another semester.  The demand for a non-required class only tends to go up if it has the reputation of being easy, fun, relevant to other majors, or some combination thereof.

What's the difference between twice a year and every semester?

@Maeher oops in my head I was thinking once every year or two.

Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks.

I favor the latter because it reduces my work, however marginally.

This reasoning is selfish - you're doing what's marginally better for you, but can have significant negative effects on the student, especially if they e.g. end up having to delay graduation.

What's more, it might improve the attitude of your students towards your class if there is more demand to take your class than you offer.

I don't know about others, but in my undergraduate experience, if I'm unable to take an elective class because of limited spots, I take some other elective instead. The next semester, I don't go back to take the original elective and move on to more advanced electives. If most students act thusly, this might not have as much impact as you would like - your students don't come back the next year.
On the other hand if it's a core class, then this shouldn't change anything since everyone has to take your class anyway.
Should you do it? That is a question about your personal moral values. Me, I'd take on as many students as I can until I hit capacity. Once every student's experience (or my other responsibilities) starts to suffer, that's the time to stop taking more students. Your values might differ: e.g. you could argue that the objection in the first paragraph above is invalid because if one accepts it, it would also be an argument to donate $10 to a charity such as Médecins Sans Frontières, since the impact on oneself is marginal but it can seriously impact the life of someone in a third-world country.

In my experience, a fair amount of enrolled students never show up at all, or the stop showing up after a while. So if you have some more on the list, admit them, in the end it will be better to have some people sitting there and listening, than talking to one or two who still attend.
In my experience a waiting list is only needed if you have to organize rooms with limited capacity. The rest will sort itself out.
And in the end, it's your job to teach, the more people you teach, the more people will know your topic. That should be the incentive of a teacher. Not the amount of work. But that might be my take on the issue.

In my experience a waiting list is only needed if you have to organize rooms with limited capacity — In my experience, classroom seating is rarely the most limited resource; grading time and office hours are the most limited resources. — And in the end, it's your job to teach, the more people you teach, the more people will know your topic. That should be the incentive of a teacher. — Easier said than done.
It's easy to lecture to more people, but lecturing is arguably the least important part of teaching.  And teachers also have to sleep.

Yes of course it depends on the kind of lecture you have. If its mostly frontal presentation and an exam in the end, i think the most reason to limit the number of students is still the room size. If it is more of a seminar, then the number of students are equivalent to the time needed. In the posted question it sounded more like its more of a convenience to limit the number than a need. Of course you have to sleep, but as i can only state from my experience, i never lost an hour of sleep, no matter how large the lecture was, from 5 to 100 students. But often we had tutors helping out.

Expanding on the previous answer: I still prefer to educate as much people as possible. It takes more time and resources, but that is still the prime reason for a university to exist. I had a lot of colleagues (and even professors) moaning about teaching, but i think, if you don't like teaching, you are in the wrong place. Go to the private sector or a non teaching research institute, but if there is teaching involved in your position, TEACH! Teaching is so important, it bothers me if teacher don't like to do it. I may be ranting and not focusing on the question anymore. sorry

@JeffE: " In my experience, classroom seating is rarely the most limited resource". That depends on the location and university system. Try to take a psychology freshmen course in France for example.

@Sango I'm currently teaching a junior-level algorithms course with 360 students.   Please, do lecture me again about convenience and my commitment to teaching.

@JeffE Did i do that? I replied to the Asker, not to you. And i ranted about other professors and colleagues i had and know (and afaik, that excludes you), not about you.

It depends on how many people are already enrolled in class, how many TAs you have and if the course is mandatory/important for the students from your department (I suppose it is not a gen ed class)

I favor the latter because it reduces my work, however marginally.

If this is a mandatory/important class, that reasoning is worrisome. You should talk to the department, get more TAs the following year and put the "marginal" workload and some more to them. If you are teaching using slides and having more people in class just changes the amount of grading you have to do, get a grader (TA), it usually can be done even after the semester has begun. If you have a gen ed or that focus on student from other departments (if it is not mandatory for those students), then you could probably stick to the student limit without a problem.

What's more, it might improve the attitude of your students towards your class if there is more demand to take your class than you offer.

If your class is mandatory, people will plan ahead to enroll in it and you will still get all sorts of students. If it is not mandatory, people usually have a sincere interest in the subject and you will just be limiting the number of people learning (through your class) the subject.

Regardless on the number of alumni the work doesn't change much since you can automate much of it.
Example: In my country, first semester classes can have 60+ students and the teacher have no control over that, but later classes often have 'listener' students, which ask the professor to come in and be a part of the class even if they are not enrolled with said professor.
It comes down on how to consider such in your big life and career plan.
Advantages of accepting more students:

Grateful students give better reviews.
More students raise your profile and status in large as a teacher capable of tutoring many.
More chances you'll be considered for project coordination or
tutoring, which leads to possibility of grants
Chance to use the students as test subjects for research (bigger study population)
Chance to get the students to help create extra materials that can be
used for future courses, reducing your work.
More experience

Cons :

More work at first until you automate things
More responsibility to alumni
Could cause bad sentiment with other staff that feel you are 'stealing' heir prospect students

General suggestion:
Take as many students as you can and make the best of it.

Regardless on the number of alumni the work doesn't change much since you can automate much of it. — Yeah, right.  Pull the other one.

Automation is easily achieved. You can use moodle or google classroom for teaching materials that you can get the students to do. Exams? google forms and sheets. Assistance? use QR's on real time. Revisions? use software for plagiarism. Ever heard of learning AI's to detect where students are struggling?   If you cant or never though about it  that doesnt means its unachievable . Consider it as an area of opportunity for you to improve.

Not every course is susceptible to automation.  Homework in my classes consist of design questions, for which students submit a combination of free-form pseudocode and mathematical proof.  These cannot be auto-graded. Automatic grading of general-purpose English writing is notoriously awful, and this is specialized technical English. (And as evidence that I'm not just being lazy: Nobody teaching similar courses at other universities auto-grades either; even MOOCs on this topic use human graders.)  Now excuse me, I have to make sure 360 homeworks get graded correctly.

You can always automate things in a course. Perhaps not everything all the time but there are plenty of possibilities. an open question is always hard but you could instead grade characteristics of a design question automatically and jsut check the final question yoruself or have it be graded by other students. For inglish you need to vectorize your word sample and then teach your A.I. to grade the correlation grade betwen words. And lastly, 360 HW? youa re either giving too much HW or proving that a teacher can handle quite many students.

@deaga Sounds like you have a lucrative business plan. I wish you luck where everyone else has failed.  (And I'm teaching a class of 360 students; I can't exactly assign fractional homework.  Fortunately, I have a relatively large course staff working for me; hiring, training, and managing them also cannot be automated.)

360 students work perfectly as an example case of completely viable managing a large number of students. Thank you for the example that validates the answer. I would also suggest to look at industries for some modern H.R. solutions. Academia can be slow to catch up, especially regarding technology.

No, my example does not validate your answer.  Your answer is not "teaching a lot of students is good" but rather "teaching more students is always better; just automate".  But I am already stressing the available resources in my department to the limit (not to mention my own time and expertise), and automation is not possible, despite the claims of deep learning hucksters. Accepting even more students would be impossible.  I could not teach 500 or 1000 or 10000 students without sacrificing quality more than I already have.  My resources may be generous, but they are finite.

The qestion is: 'Should I admit students who are waitlisted for my class?', The answer is 'yes'+cons+pros. Your answer is also 'yes', + evidense of the viability of teaching hundreds of students. Therefore, The 'yes' answer gets validades by practical evidense.

I strongly disagree.  If I had a waiting list this semester, it would have at least 50 people in it, and the answer to the question "Should I admit them?" would be a resounding NO!, based on hard-won experience, which I've summarized in my previous comments.

@JeffE The question has been satisfactory answered, with example and evidence provided. I invite you to post a question of your own to ask how you can improve your capacities, providing your current methods and resources available, so that the community can help you out.  Otherwise, if you seek to just argue, then please present the conversation in the META.


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Summary high School Mathematics in the USA
I am a young postdoc at a large crowded university in the USA. Also, I am not from the USA, so my school experience has been very different from the high school experience of my students.
Since I am teaching mathematics classes, I wonder whether there is a good and comprehensible summary the American students have seen in their high school mathematics classes.
Given the fractured education system in the USA, good and comprehensible may be mutually exclusive, but the question is worth a try.

I think this would be better on MathEducators

There is a well-known phenomenon:  If you ask them "Have you seen topic X?", they will almost always answer "No."  That can happen even if topic X was covered just last week.

Do you perhaps mean comprehensive and not comprehensible?

Your institution probably has a math placement exam; you could ask to take a look at that, to see what kinds of things your students are expected to have covered to achieve various scores/placements.

I write as someone who has taught calculus/linear algebra to first year engineering/science students in the US and Spain. In a typical European system (and probably most of the rest of the world) a student studying a technical area (science, engineering, medicine) in the university will have seen in the equivalent of high school a full year of calculus and a full year of some sort of matrix calculus course that involves using Gaussian elimination to solve systems of linear equations. In the US even a student studying a technical area may have seen in high school neither calculus nor matrices. Probably more students will have seen calculus than not, but very few will have seen a systematic treatment (meaning using elimination, involving formalizing parameter counts in terms of rank and dimension, etc.) of the solution of systems of linear equations.
For example, in Spain one can reasonably assume that first-year engineering students know that the solutions of a system of $m$ linear equations in $n$ variables depend on $n-r$ parameters, where $r$ is the rank of the system, and, moreover, that they can compute a parametric description of these solutions via row reduction. This material appears on the exams used to determine placement in the university, and is covered in the last year of high school. One does have to review this material in a first semester linear algebra class, because they probably do not know it as well as they should, nor have they seen it presented with much sophistication (their understanding is purely operational). In the US, teaching engineering students (the situation might be different teaching math majors) one cannot suppose familiarity even with the matricial representation of a system of linear equations, nor even that students have seen systems of linear equations involving more than two variables (which they were taught to solve "by hand"). Also linear algebra would usually be a second or third semester course, not a first semester course.
The conservative assumption is that US students entering the university have seen no linear algebra (to the point of not even knowing what a matrix is) and have not learned much more than very mechanical manipulation of derivatives and integrals. With non-technical students the conservative assumption is that they do not know basic trigonometry and with polynomials can do little more than factor two variable polynomials. It is also important to remember that their backgrounds are far more heterogeneous than they would be in many other systems. The US "system" is not a system at all, and it is a mistake to assume uniformity of preparation. Moreover, even for nominally well prepared students the expected level is less than what it is in many other countries. On the other hand, the flexibility underlying this heterogeneity also means that an occasional talented student will have studied outside the standard curriculum, and will have learned linear algebra, vector calculus and more, but often that student gets channeled into level appropriate courses in the university too.

will have seen in the equivalent of high school a full year of calculus and a full year of some sort of matrix calculus course that involves using Gaussian elimination to solve systems of linear equations. Don't want to argue against but I have been teaching last year in a Northern European university (Informatics) and a good percentage of students did not know what Pythagorean theorem is, not to say about Calculus, Algebra etc. One even asked me what is that trick that puts two fractions on a common denominator. Most of them didn't know basic induction.

@PsySp: Good point. Having spent two semesters in Northern Europe, I believe that their education system is really washed down. My general impression is that Dan's answer gives a good description of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. With the smaller countries in Continental Europe, it really depends.

@Ambicion from my limited experience, it seems that within EU there can be some very large variance in mathematical education in high schools, depending on the country of origin. Some countries have notoriously difficult high school system, which is reflected on the selectivity and admission process in universities.

Some high school students take the equivalent of a semester of calculus.  For some, the highest course is Algebra 2, which does trigonometry and transformations, mainly.  There is practice graphing functions, finding the inverse of a function, that sort of thing.
If the student is interested in math, science or engineering, it's likely s/he will have taken "Precalculus" which does some analytical geometry to get students ready for the first semester of calculus.
Sadly, high school students in the U.S. almost never learn any linear algebra.
You could take a look at New York's Regents tests and EngageNY materials.
Generally, some statistics are taught in each year of school.

So, e.g., systems of linear equations are generally not part of the school curriculum? Thanks for your reply.

My 14yo is currently solving 2x2 and 3x3 systems, but they don't do row reduction.

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Video editing software for pre-recorded lectures
I am planning to record lectures. My lectures will be slides or notepad with voice-over.
I am interested in a simple to use video editing software. The major things I need to do is

Cutting out a few seconds
Freezing the video for a few seconds
Speeding up or slowing down certain parts
perhaps do a completely different voice-over

The software should be as portable as possible though I am using Linux for the most part.

You might find something here: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4680/72855

Adding subtitles is also useful.

Shopping question? Is "video editing for lecture recordings" different to video editing for other purposes?

@Flyto: we have a long-standing exception for software that is useful to a wide swath of academia.

@cag51ah,ok then.

I have found Kdenlive to be a very good video-editing solution on Linux. It is free and open-source, with an active help forum and good documentation. It probably has many more features than you will ever need, but I didn't find the learning curve to be too high as a new user.

My favourite here is ShotCut. Personally I've found it easier to use than most other free options.
Although speeding up / slowing down, while possible, is not very straightforward.

I've been very happy with OpenShot. Free and open source, works on Windows, OS X, Linux. I had a problem at one point and the developer community was very helpful in diagnosing and fixing it.

If you're not scared of a little code, I recommend ffmpeg. It is cross-platform, feature-rich, and great for batch mode (e.g., re-encoding hundreds of videos). If you're using Linux, I assume you'll quickly figure out the ~6 main shell commands, and then you're good to go. The downside is that you have to determine and type out the timestamps for every action, so if what you're doing involves lots of manually-determined timepoints, you may want a different solution for that part of your workflow.

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Joint authorship for rewriting and extending an existing article
I have got into contact with a fellow researcher at a conference, discussing a preprint of his. It turns out that his research complements mine, and I would like to see his research published so that I can (officially) use it.
However, the draft needs some reworking before published. He offered me to make this a joint authorship if I would finish this work. Having taken a look, the topic intrigues me - I could probably rewrite it considerably and contribute some additional results.
Is this acceptable by academic standards? -or- How can I ensure that my contributions are strong enough so that joint authorship is rock solid justified? Is it recommendable to note the original preprint explicitly in the final draft or to the journal editor? The field is pure mathematics.

Yes, it is acceptable by academic standards. If the original preprint is publicly available, then, you should cite it and you should explain how the extended version improves upon it, otherwise, there's nothing to cite and no explanation to give.

This is an absolutely normal and exemplary case of collaboration.
Work together on the final article and, if you meet the normal criteria for authorship in your field, then you should be an author. If not, you can be in the acknowledgements.
As for the preprint: if it is a separate standalone document like a tech report, then cite and state that this is an extended version. If it in a service that supports updating like arXIv, then you should end up with an updated preprint with your name on it in any case!

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Ghosted by my research collaborator: how to get them off the project?
We have been a few postdocs in a reading group on a specific research topic, sporadically meeting up (via Zoom) for over a year now.
This started out of scientific curiosity and none of us is terrible familiar with the topic. Our ulterior motive has been to set up a paper in the end.
Problem: one individual in our group, Person A, has been ghosting both of us for several months now.
We have been friends for several years but roughly since the beginning of the year, that person has stopped reacting on my attempts at communication. The last time we happened to run into each other at a department picnic, that person has avoided any communication with me, even avoiding eye contact.
I don't know what happened and speculation is rather pointless. I'm wondering more concretely how to move on with the research side project of ours.
The remaining two of us would be able to set up on something on our own. Considering Person A's behavior, I'd rather not see them on the project (personal gut feeling).
How do we get Person A off the project without committing unfair conduct in the eyes of the research community? I believe the inaction on their side is already a quiet retreat from any collaboration, but they could later on claim to have been pushed out by us against their will.

Ask them if they still wish to continue, and, if not, you indicate - in a kind tone - that you are interested to continue without them. Any reason why that's not possible?

Probable duplicate: Co-authors on a study have cut communication, what can be done?

Sounds to me as if this particular individual (i) was part of your reading group but has effectively dropped out, and (ii) is not a collaborator on your side research project. People's interests and energies drift. Keep moving, I expect the broader research community will judge you lighter than you think.

@CaptainEmacs: their input in our reading group discussion was rather shallow, I don't want them to claim cooperation pro forma but then become effectively non-contributing again.

@Ambicion So, you want to drop them silently? That's possible, but you should brace for fallout, depending on their personality and expectations. I usually prefer clear communication, but sometimes that's not possible. I guess the decision is yours.

If I understand what you have written, you can just drop them. A reading group, hoping to produce a paper in the future, doesn't yet have significant intellectual contributions to that  paper to say who should be the authors of what.
Once someone has earned authorship of a paper, they can't be "dropped", though some would call that a controversial statement, especially when someone doesn't continue participation to the end. But that is to avoid charges of plagiarism.
But the comment of Captain Emacs is helpful. Ask them if they wish to continue or wish to withdraw. Tell them that you need to make progress and will do so without them if necessary. It is possible, however, for someone to take a minor role, not making actual contributions other than comments on the work of others. That may not earn authorship status, but it can be a bit subtle.
If they don't reply to your request then assume they no longer wish to contribute and continue without them. Be prepared, however, for a future request to rejoin. Evaluate that request if it happens.
But meeting to learn about some topic and working on a specific paper are quite different things.

From your description of the behavior of the other person, I'd guess that they have other issues much more serious to deal with than continuing with the collaboration. Don't take it personally. They may be needy.

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Extension work to a paper which is currently under review process : Is it good to communicate this?
I have submitted a paper for a math journal and it is currently under review for the past 4 months. Meanwhile I have come up with an important work, that directly builds on top of that paper, which I thinks increases the importance of current paper, when looked in the light of this new work. I can say that this new piece can be a good extention work to my paper increasing its value.
My question is, can I write to the Editor in chief, who has been communicating with me, about this new development. If so, would it speed up or have positive impact on the review process of the currently sumbmitted paper? Or does it also mean that editor may ask me to take back my current paper, add this new piece of extension and resubmit.
Or Should I submit this new piece of work as a separate paper to same journal, even when the current paper is still under review?
In any case, is it a good idea to communicate this to the editor in chief?

I would suggest putting the new results into a new paper. There is no reason to notify the editor unless you plan to withdraw the current paper.
The current paper will/must stand on its own. If it does, then it will be published and the new results give you a new publication, perhaps.
But if your current paper is rejected for some reason, then is the time to think about integrating the new results with the old, which really would tend to increase the value.
I think the outcome is probably better if you wait and continue work, rather than creating a possibly confusing situation for the editor.

Thanks for the answer. I like the "it should stand on its own". But does it not improve, if you already know whats coming next, based on it?


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'Big shot' scientist offered me collaboration in a meeting. How long before I write to him?
I met an important scientist in my field in a scientific meeting last week. We agreed that I should write a project draft and send it to him, so we could set up a collaboration. Because I want to take as much advantage as possible from this opportunity (I am a PhD student), I want to be very careful with the project draft that I sent him. But this week I have been very busy with other work, and I have not been able to write the draft. My fear is that the interaction will 'cool off' as the days past. It's not been a week yet, and I am planning to write this in at most 2 more days. But in general experience, how long is it ok to wait before sending an email like this?

5 minutes, but not before he left the table

It will not cool off that quickly. Doing it right is more important than doing it soon.
If you are a PhD student you must talk with your mentor/supervisor before establishing a collaboration or even sending this draft project. You don't know the political background.

This is about a professional relationship; so, as soon as possible you can finish your task, you should send him/her your email.


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Master Thesis - use of cover illustration
I'm currently writing my master thesis and would like an opinion on whether or not to use a cover illustration on the thesis.
I've noticed many students around me do not take the time to make the cover page attractive (e.g. a simple title is all).
What is the "standard" convention regarding the cover page of a master thesis?
Note that I have no restrictions from my university.

The primary reason for not having a "pretty cover" is simple: practicality.
Keep in mind that many schools will have "official" copies of the thesis bound; for archival purposes, and to keep production costs down, the covers don't typically have illustrations, but are usually monochromatic standard bindings. The cover art would therefore not be obvious to anybody looking at the thesis—and the low traffic for theses means it's usually not worth the effort to produce it.
However, as Chris points out, if your school doesn't have a policy, you can do what you'd like. On the other hand, I'd focus on the quality of the material presented in the thesis before worrying about the cover art!

Obviously the content comes first :-) This is more something I would do after the content is completed, however, you point out some compelling reasons not to bother!

I'd like to provide a counter to the "content is what matters" advice. Of course the content is what it's all about, but I think that a great many people in academia underestimate the importance of presentation.
Look at the way people decide whether or not to read a paper. They look at the title. If that suggests that it's interesting to them, they read the abstract. If that's interesting enough they read the introduction and maybe the conclusion, and so on. That means that of the 4000 or so words in the paper, the five that make up the title are the most important. You're fully justified in spending as much time on the title as on 1000 words of the description of your method. The presentation of your paper is not just gloss, it determines the size of your audience. If your presentation is bad, your results have to be really exceptional to find even a small readership.
This translates directly to your Master's thesis. A nice cover shows that you care. What's more, the largest group of people that will come into contact with it, will only pick it up, look at it and put it back down again, without even really reading the title. Your cover illustration is the only opportunity you have of communicating with them and enticing them to read the title properly. From that, the summary, and from that the first paragraph of your introduction and so on.
Don't mistake presentation for gloss. Academia is all about communication, and communication is worrying about the details.

I agree that it is important to care about your products but I doubt many of us pick out a thesis because it looks nice. In many cases they are not publically available and if they are you most likely search for key words on the internet to find it. Thus, I think the cover is for the bookshelf and to have something to be proud of yourself and to show family and friends. If a thesis is publsihed commercially as a book things look different of course.

That's true, if it's found on the internet, the title is what matters most for pulling people in, and the cover is less important. Unless of course, someone is reading your thesis to get an idea of your potential (say if you're applying for a PhD position). Then a cover can help a little to show commitment.

It's your thesis, and if your committee approves it with beautiful cover art, then you're all set.
For professional theses, the standard is a plain cover with pertinent details about the thesis.  Departments or universities generally have a template document or provide specific guidance, but if that isn't true for your school, then I wouldn't worry about it.
Bottom line: I would discuss it with your advisor, and other committee members.  If you want it to be a surprise to them (not advisable), then by all means give it a shot.

Yeah, there are no real rules but seeing what @aeismail pointed out I don't think I'm going to bother putting in the effort.

For many students, there are strict guidelines that describe how a thesis can be formatted. If you're not restricted by guidelines, and if you have the time and inclination to have your thesis be a beautiful object, there's no reason not to.
Although the content matters much more than any amount of fancy layout, great presentation can make a difference. As in food, the first bite is always with the eye.


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Are journals interested in reviews of books that are several years old?
It seems that most book reviews are published within a year of the publication of the book. I assume that the more recent the book, the more interested a journal will be in publishing a review. But at what point do journal editors begin losing interest in book reviews? When the book is 6 months old? 12 months old? 3 years old?
I recently came across an unreviewed book that is a couple years old; I am wondering if any journal would be interested in my review of it.

It would probably take special circumstances for it to be "interesting" to a publisher, such as fresh interest in the book, or, at least, the topic of the book. This might be the case in a fast moving field.
If you can find a way to ask an editor if they have any interest, you can try that. But you can also submit a review and take your chances. It might happen, or not, depending on many factors up to and including the need to fill a few pages in an issue.

Thank you. So what is the general "cut off" point? 1 year?

@Doubt many/most journals that publish reviews include these details on their information pages or simply say to contact the editor about reviews. Timelines depend upon fields and journals.


text:
Semester units versus credit hours
This graduate policy handbook states

"A master’s student may transfer up to 4 semester units or 6 quarter
  units of course work completed as a graduate student at another
  institution."

In this context, does "4 semester units" refer to 4 credit hours or 4 graduate courses?

Did you try emailing the department?

Almost certainly the former, but only they can give you a definitive answer.

"Semester units" are up to the definition of the school. Some people call a "unit" one course; some people call a "unit" a fraction of a course.
For example, just among the US schools that I have been affiliated with (or visited for an extended period of time):

Yale: 1 semester course = 1 unit
Harvard: 1 semester course = 1/2 unit
Princeton: 1 semester course = 1 unit
MIT: 1 semester course = 9 or 12 units
UConn: 1 semester course = 3 or 4 "credit hours"

So you definitely need to consult the individual school catalog to see what system they're using.


text:
What does a plus sign mean in journal abbreviations?
On this journal title abbreviation list, some abbreviations are followed by a plus sign (+).  For example, "Thermophysics and Aeromechanics" is abbreviated "THERMOPHYS AEROMECH+".
What is the significance of the plus sign, and is it to be included when creating a reference list?

Web of science doesn't explain it on the page you quote, but you can find it in another page with detailed explanation: "The plus sign on this last abbreviation indicates that cites to the original language journal are unified with cites to the translation title"
From here: http://wokinfo.com/essays/cited-title-unification/

If that is the case, then I presume the "+" should not be included in the works cited.

No don't use the + in actual references


text:
How substitutable is Statistics for Mathematics in graduate admissions?
In some undergraduate programs, "Statistics" courses (including probability) are listed under the "Math" department. In others, they are "cross listed" with Math courses. And in some others, they are listed as entirely separate disciplines.
Switch over to the admissions department of an American graduate school, with distinctly separate Math and Statistics departments. The informal requirement for admission to the Math graduate program is ten Math courses. But a particular candidate (yours truly, perhaps), has "only" eight math courses, but two statistics courses also. If you treat those as "math" courses, the candidate has ten. The relevant GPA is 3.5; four A's and four B's in Math; one A and one B in Stat. The candidate's GRE score is about 60th percentile for your program; letters of recommendation are solid, but not outstanding.
How might various American graduate programs look upon an application where two statistics courses "replaced" two math courses? Suppose it was four statistics courses; two As and two Bs? People in your school believe that Statistics is "soft" Math, but in the latter case, the candidate has two "extra" courses, FWIW, and maybe some extra preparation and demonstration of dedication.

Pure or applied math? Not a mathematician so I can't make any definitive statements, but my first thought would be that it wouldn't fly for pure math but might work for applied math depending on the concentration area.

Best to ask the admissions department and, they would,if necessary, contact the relevant professors to check. The professors can then decide.

I am answering based on a "compendium" of comments on my earlier post, and elsewhere.
First of all, the substitution of statistics for math courses is more likely to be acceptable in an applied, rather than pure, math program. Statistics can be considered "applied," math.
Second, role-playing the admissions officer at a graduate "pure" math program, I would look at the type and quality of the of the undergraduate math courses, rather than just their sheer number. I can think of three distinct cases for the eight math course program.
Case 1: The "eight" math courses consist of 12 credits of calculus (either three courses of four credits or four courses of three), two "foundation" (proofs) courses, plus linear algebra, and differential equations. These are all "intermediate" courses, and there are no "advanced" courses in real or complex analysis, number theory, abstract algebra, etc. This is the least likely to be acceptable.
Case 2: They eight math courses consist of three courses (9 credits) of calculus, one course (three or four credits) of linear algebra/differential equations, plus real analysis, complex analysis,  number theory and abstract algebra, or four "advanced" courses. This is most likely to be acceptable, with or without the stat courses.
Case 3: The eight math courses include nine credits of calculus, nine of intermediate math (linear algebra, differential equations, "foundations") and two of the following: real analysis, complex analysis, abstract algebra, number theory, etc. This is an "intermediate" case, where the statistics courses might make a difference:
Case 3a: One course in probability and one course in statistics. These are "intermediate" courses that don't add much to the case of two advanced courses.
Case 3b: Four courses in probability and statistics. Let's say that they are Probability I and II and Statistics I and II. The II-level courses include elements of combinatorics and logic, "advanced" level courses. As an admissions officer, I would likely give credit for three, or even four, advanced math courses.
Different graduate schools will have different acceptance criteria of course. Some will accept all of the above, others will accept none of the above, and some will accept "some" of the above. But perhaps placing the various types of background on a continuum is helpful.

@JalapenoNachos: The site gives a "self learned" badge for people who ask a question and answer it with a score of plus 2 or better. In this case, I drew inspiration from the comments and other answer, and also from people I talked to off site. I did not "know" the answer when I first asked the question, but I "found out" later. You can see the influence of others in my answer.That's why I called it a "compendium" of other sources.

This can only be answered by the university in question, probably at the level of the math department. It might depend on the specific statistics courses that you want math credit for. As you say, statistics overlaps with math a fair amount and many of the courses depend on a mathematical outlook and way of thinking.
In general, though, I think you are more likely to have them accepted than rejected, but you still have to face the fact that there will be a lot of other applicants for whom no exceptions need be made. So in a competitive place it might be the competition with those having a more standard background that will work against you.
But you have to ask them, and, as usual, you need to make your own case for why you will be a success. The evaluation depends on many things not just a bit of bookkeeping.


text:
Is there a more positive term for "desk rejection"?
I wish to ask a journal's editor if my manuscript will be "desk rejected" (for, if not, it will be peer-reviewed).  He and I both know what that means, but I'd rather say it without prejudicing my submission.

This seems like an X-Y problem. If you are trying to figure out if this journal is an appropriate venue, or about bureaucratic requirements, then you can ask the editor (or someone else in your field) without referencing your paper. If you are worried your paper is not good enough, then asking the editor is likely inappropriate.

What are you trying to do?

If you've already submitted your article but the status remains "Submitted to journal", you could ask for an update on the status of review.
If you've already submitted your article and the status has updated to something like "Reviewer invited", then your article is likely not being desk rejected because if the journal was desk rejecting, they would not be inviting reviewers.
If you've not submitted your article and are wondering if they will desk reject it, you could ask whether the journal is willing to consider your article.

Just submit it. If it will get immediately rejected, it will... The time it takes to do that is probably less than the time it'd take to respond to your email, and perhaps the editor's feeling a need to explain. Indeed, what do you hope to accomplish by asking? For that matter, the editor might decline to give any opinion until you submit, and then, again, you've wasted other peoples' time (and your own).

This is mostly true, although I have a friend who got a desk rejection after waiting one year. It might be relevant to ask if a journal has a reputation for this type of behavior...


text:
Is it necessary to include and update the status of a paper on arXiv once it has been accepted for publication in a journal?
Let's suppose you write a paper and you post it on arXiv. If a paper is sent to a journal for peer-review, should you always include this information in the paper comments (including the name of the journal where the paper was sent)?
If the paper is accepted, is it necessary to include in the comments that the paper has been accepted for publication in... (and include the name of the journal)? Or it is better to wait until the paper is published and then include in the comments "Published in... [name of the journal]."?
I understand that it may take some for a paper to be published once accepted.

I would wait until it's published so you can update its status with exact information. To see is to believe.

arXiv has dedicated fields in metadata, see To add a journal reference, DOI or report number to an article.

My practice is to replace the initial preprint with the postprint as soon as it is accepted.  After it is published (electronically), I go back and add the DOI and such.  The reason for this is that the paper is often significantly improved during the refereeing process, and I'd rather have people reading the improved (postprint) than the original preprint.

To other people reading this answer: before you upload the postprint, check here if you have the rights to do so --- journal policies may vary a lot in different areas.

@FedericoPoloni Anyway, one always can (and should) place DOI reference. And, when it is not possible to put final version, it is good to mention it explicitly in the comments (e.g. "differs from the published version" or "as close to the published version as legally possible").

I believe you should never include "Submitted to Journal of Blah"; it conveys no information and it's tacky. (And just because Terry Tao does it doesn't make it okay.)
I won't post a new version of a paper just because it has been accepted. However, if I do upload a newer version, I'll include in the comments "Final version, to appear in Journal of Blah" (here is an example from one of my papers).
Once the paper is published, with page numbers and everything (which can often be years -- my paper above was accepted in April 2010, published January 2013), there is a form you can use to add the journal reference and DOI to the arXiv page. Conveniently, this does not generate a new version, so there's no reason not to (you can see this on my paper above -- the reference and DOI were added last week, but no new version of the paper was generated).

Thank you for your comments. What about if one doesn't update the preprint and include something like "The results in this paper will appear in..." in the comments anyway? I believe this would be OK as long as referees didn't point out any errors in the paper, otherwise one should update the preprint in order to correct them.

Updating the comments causes a new version to appear (and a new mailing to be sent out), whether or not there are any changes to the paper itself. I prefer not to do this any more than I have to.

@Juan: even if the referees found no errors, if they suggested small changes (or you made other changes yourself) it is best to update the arXiv version to include them, as suggested by David Ketcheson.

I want to disagree with the first paragraph: "Submitted to Journal of Blah" does convey information, namely, it conveys information about what you think about the paper, in the form of where you thought it appropriate to submit.  (My CV used to omit that information, and I was advised to include it, for precisely this reason.)

I agree with @Henry.  Especially if you are on the job market or up for tenure.

I think Tom Church is right that it can come across as tacky, but if you are on the job market or up for tenure, then tackiness is a risk worth taking.

If you are on the job market then you have letter writers who can write "they submitted to blah blah"...you just have to tell your writers where you submitted (which you should?)


text:
How to explain why I don't have a reference letter from my supervisor
I have an upcoming interview for an academic position and I anticipate being questioned about the absence of my PhD supervisor as a reference. I would like to address this proactively and professionally.
The story: I completed my PhD two years ago and transitioned to a postdoctoral position at a different institute. When requested to write a reference letter a while ago, my PhD supervisor suggested co-authorship on two of my current research papers—despite having made no substantive contributions to these works. I respectfully declined this request, as it would have been inappropriate to add an author who did not contribute to the research.
Question: How should I approach discussing this situation with the selection committee? Would it be better to provide a direct, unfiltered account of what occurred, or should I carefully navigate the conversation to avoid direct criticism of my former supervisor? I lean towards the latter approach, as a straightforward critique might come across as overly accusatory, particularly in the Canadian academic context of the university I'm applying to.
Additional note: I have enough reference letters from my MSc and my postdoc supervisors and a co-supervisor.

Also consider that you might never be asked such a question, I also never requested recommendations from my PhD supervisor, and nobody has ever asked about it.

Rather than your MSc supervisor, is there anyone else beyond your PhD supervisor who could attest to your PhD work ? That's the classic way to sidestep the issue.

Rule No. 1: don't say anything bad about past employers unless it's already publicly known.

I feel your story with the supervisor ends prematurely. You declined. How did they react? Was there some fallout? Did you even ask him about a reference letter?

@quarague I would judge the PhD supervisor's behavior unethical. I would not ask for a reference. No fallout necessary.

Your PhD was two years ago and you have a more recent reference from your postdoc advisor. Nothing needs to be said about not choosing your PhD advisor as a referee. If I were on the selection committee, I wouldn’t even wonder about it unless your PhD advisor was so famous that even dropping their name would open doors — and that seems unlikely if they are scrounging for unearned co-authorships.
If anyone does say anything, it should be your postdoc advisor in their reference letter, not you.

Myth vs. Reality. The myth: a recommendation letter is used to gauge the merit of the candidate. The reality: a recommendation letter is used in a post hoc fashion. If the hiring official is enthusiastic about the applicant – they'll find positives in the letter to support their positive decision. If same the hiring official is unenthusiastic about the applicant – they'll search for something, anything, including a missing letter from a PHD advisor, to support their negative decision. Bottom line: don't give a recommendation letter more weight than it truly has. And yes, that's in biomedical fields. Perhaps especially in biomedical fields. Good luck.

Reality: over my years serving on numerous search committees, there has been a significant shift towards stricter HR oversight, and prolonged discussion of every candidate, which has now included their letters. Unfortunately, yes it does not look good when you lack a letter from your doctoral advisor, especially if you are in your first postdoc, just a few years out. This signals that there was a problem because your doctoral advisor should be your biggest advocate. The further you get away from your doctoral time, and build more professional contacts, the weight decreases.

@R1NaNo HR is like the plague: no brains, best avoided :D

Different panels operate differently. I've been on panels that contacted referees before finalising the short-list to interview, so the referee comments were a big part of our first impressions. I've been on panels that contacted referees to help decide between two leading candidates after interviews. And I've been on panels that operate as you say, contacting referees only after the real decision has already been made.

@AH May ask what is your background and experience in academic hiring committees? Your answer paints a picture that is very much unlike my experience (tenured professor at R1 where my main service has been interdisciplinary hiring committees across the college of science and engineering).

@Karl Yes HR has certainly made things more difficult, but I think the overall outcomes for the applicants are more fair. Also, I can appreciate that departmental and college HR liaisons present at our meetings have resulted in very consistent meeting schedules and we have stayed on task way better than before. It has also held faculty accountable that previously did not pull their weight on such committees. So yes, some issues aside, especially in dealing with people who are not subject matter or field experts can be aggravating, the overall outcome is positive (in my opinion).

In my 30+ years of experience (math, R1 university), the reality is a mixture. Most faculty involved in the hiring process are simply unable to judge candidate's quality. (Typically, because their area of research is too far from candidate's work.) Accordingly, they look for other ways to evaluate the candidate: Which college/grad school/postdoc  did they go to, where did they publish, who wrote their recommendation letters and what did they say in the letters, and the order of these items varies greatly.

Well you made it to the interview so presumably it’s not that important for the hiring committee.  Moreover if the committee is really worried they can contact your PhD supervisor.
If asked you can just state that experiences with more recent supervisors are better representatives of your best output at and enthusiasm for research.


text:
transition from academia to industry
I am currently doing a post-doc in pure Math [teaching and research] in the US. The academic year 2014-2015 will be my last postdoc year and I am currently considering my next employment possibilities.
For several reasons, I am considering a job outside academia in Europe [I am an E.U. citizen], for my next employment. As I know about nothing else except for my research in Pure Math and teaching of Math, I could use as much advice as possible regarding this potential transition from academia to a non-academia job. I have read through the many related questions and answers. But I still could not find answers to the following questions.
(1) How early in advance do you have to apply for a job outside academia? Let me provide a bit more details: I really need employment as soon as my current one ends, b/c I need the money to support my living expenses. So I cannot really afford to spend more than one or two months without employment. I am asking this, b/c for academia jobs one typically applies one year ahead of time, things are standard and clear. But not so clear to me are applications outside academia.
(2) Given that I know nothing about programming right now, what would my chances of getting a programming job be? In other words, would I get some sort of PAID training in programming?
(3) Any sort of comments/advice regarding working for a publishing house? [such as: salary?]
Thank you.

A lot of this is obviously highly situation-specific. I'll mention a few points that I think are likely to apply to someone in your situation, but it's quite possible that there are reasons why this or that wouldn't apply in your case.
As a general note, finding a job far from where you are is difficult. Combining an international move with a career change will compound the difficulty. While a lot of companies will accept phone interviews, some will insist on an in-person interview, and the ones that don't are likely to select a candidate that they've seen personally all else being equal. Having some positive connection can often tip the balance towards you: “he comes with a recommendation from Prof. X, the last candidate who did was great” is a lot better than “he comes with a recommendation from Prof. X whom I've never heard of”.
Most companies have little long-term visibility. In France, most programming jobs have a 3 month latency (if I resign, I'm still supposed to work for the company for 3 months, and if I'm fired, the company still owes me 3 months (or more) of salary), so it's common to say “if you hire me I can come to work for you in 3 months plus 1 week”. Even 3 months is considered a long time: companies that are hiring usually want someone ASAP and ask if you could possibly come to work for them sooner. Anything beyond that would be unusual. Most companies have no idea who they'll want in 6 months.
I advise you to research teaching jobs in your desired locale. Even if you don't intend to stick in this job, plan to spend a year teaching as a bridge.
There are plenty of programmers on the market. Programmers, per se, are not in high demand. Good programmers or programmers with specific skills are in high demand. Your lack of programming experience is a definite minus, but the PhD in math can be a plus in the right place. Most employers will start with a certain stereotype of what a PhD in math with teaching experience would be: a quick study, autonomous, good at explaining things, but untested at teamwork and unlikely to have internalized the practical aspects of shipping code now rather than when it's working to perfection.
(Personal story time: I did a PhD in theoretical computer science, and then switched to a job in industry. I think I was hired for two reasons: my PhD advisor knew the person who recruited me (so his recommendation carried a lot of weight), and they basically told me “you know nothing about our business, but you have some background in the general domain, you can absorb new material quickly and write it up in terms that people can understand. We have a tech writer position.” After a few months I switched to a position that involved coding.)
With a PhD in math, you should look for domains where your math background will be useful, even if it's unrelated to the math you did in your PhD. Finance is a possibility; there are high-paying jobs there, and this is one of the few industries where you might start out applying your knowledge of differential equations and probability and learn coding on the job. A number of engineering jobs involve computer simulations based on mathematical models of physical phenomena. Arithmetic might lead you to cryptography, but that involves more specialist knowledge. The list of examples could go on: there are plenty of niches where a math PhD might fit in, and they tend to value their employees well because of the relatively rare skills they require; the flip side of the coin is that these are all small fields and there aren't openings every day.

1) You should start applying for jobs about 9 months before your current job ends.  Most employers will want you to start immediately, or within a few months, and might favor candidates who can do so.  Starting 9 months ahead is basically allowing time for the job search process, application processes, the interviewing processes, and employer decision-making processes.  All of those can take much longer than you'd expect (and much longer than is necessary).  You might be very efficient in your processes, but employers can be very slow in communicating with you, starting the interview process, and (worst of all) making hiring decision.
I say "about 9 months" because this is a very rough estimate.  You might do well to start a year ahead and you might succeed by starting 6 months ahead.  But don't start 3 or less months ahead.  There are many factors you can't control and you are not in a position to go many months without income.
If you get lucky and get an interview 9 months before you are available, someone might ask why you are interviewing "now".  Just tell them your job search plan and your priorities.  If they can't hold the position open for 8 months, then move on.
2) I'd say that your chances of getting a programming job are about zero if you have no previous experience or training in programming.  There are just too many other people who have it.
Your best chance is to apply for jobs that require PhD in Math and where you'd work in groups with programmers.  For example, you might find work in the field of cryptography as a mathematician and then get training and experience in programming along the way.  Same goes for jobs in Econo-physics (quant finance & trading).
If you have one year before you change jobs, I'd recommend taking one or two introductory programming courses -- Python and R are good choices.
You should also build social network relations with as many academic-to-industry mathematicians as you can, so you can learn who is hiring and how that maps back to your particular knowledge and skills.
3) I'm not familiar enough with (technical) publishing to know salaries.  I was recently a technical editor on a book, but that was a contract position and the pay was low for the hours I put in.

I think your chances for a programming job are literally zero without a related education or experience, and taking a Python class won't change that.

@xLeitix: I agree that taking a Python class won't increase is chances of getting a programming job.  I was suggesting it so that he would be starting down the path now rather than waiting until later, and also maybe increasing his his chances of getting any industry job with his pure math PhD and background.

Thanks to MrMeritology and xLeitix for the helpful advice and comments.

I question the idea of searching for jobs in industry 9 months in advance. Most companies have no idea who they'll want to hire in 9 months' time. Even 3 months is a lot, anything more is going to be rare.

Here's how I arrive at 9 months: 1) Assume 3 month process from first company contact to you and their final decision; 2) Assume 1 to 3 months before you get your first good reply from your applications or networking; 3) Assume you get rejected a few times, even where you are a perfect candidate; 4) Add a few months buffer at the end.

If he finds a good opening at the start, and then gets a job offer after a 2-3 month process, then he'll be asking to start in 6 months, which is definitely a stretch but not unthinkable.

Are you saying the chances are zero because he already has a PhD and he would not be considered for senior jobs? I had an undergraduate degree in math and was hired as a junior programmer having only had a couple classes in programming.

@kleineg - No, it's not because he has a PhD and would be considered too senior. Even to be employed as a junior programmer requires some programming skill. He said he knows nothing about programming.

I was employed out of college knowing one programming language, which I was not going to be using... Mainly because the company wanted to grow in a way that would require people with math skills but in the meantime they needed me to pick up the slack by learning to program. I did code clean up, documentation, and testing for about four months then I took on more of a developer's role which led to me being the main developer on one of our major projects after about two and a half years.

But it should also be noted I was not paid particularly well until I had moved into that role, it was good for what I was doing but I was very junior at that point. And sometimes I did feel hampered by my lack of coding experience, I sought to mitigate that by self study and making myself the go to for any sort of math question.


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Is it possible to edit the names of Bibtex entries on Google Scholar?
Question as in the title. If I have got a Bibtex entry such as
smith2019apples

can I change it to, say,
smith2019pie

?

It is unlikely that this is specifically documented anywhere, but the answer is almost certainly no.
Article entries in Google Scholar, which contain the BibTeX link, are based on information crawled by Google on the web. This itself cannot be changed by you, even if you are the author. This is also mentioned in their help page:

The description of my article is wrong and I am appropriately
irritated. How do I correct it?
We apologize, and we assure you the error was unintentional. Automated
extraction of information from articles in diverse fields can be
tricky, so an error sometimes sneaks through.
Please write to the owner of the website where the erroneous search
result is coming from, and encourage them to provide correct
bibliographic data to us, as described in the technical guidelines.
Once the data is corrected on their website, it usually takes 6-9
months to a year or longer for it to be updated in Google Scholar. We
appreciate your help and your patience.

The articles on your profile, for which you can edit some fields, are connected to these existing Scholar entries.
It appears that Google Scholar uses the format <last-name-of-first-author><year-of-publication><first-word-in-title> for its BibTeX entry names. Since you cannot change the title in the original crawled Scholar entry (which would not make much sense in any case), it is unlikely that you can change the BibTeX entry name either.

Yes. When you export the .bib file, you can run a script (Python, Ruby, shell, other, your choice) over it to transform the name Goggle Scholar gave it to whatever format you want after you download it and before you check it into your source code repository. If this is something that you do frequently, a script is really the only way to go. This isn't necessarily easy. There are some parsing libraries out there, but they all seem to have some issues which you might have to fix or fix the output of (by hand or with another script).
What you can't do as @GoodDeeds points out, is change what Google Scholar calls it in their records since that's a programmatic construction itself that will consistently give it the name you are seeing until that code is changed by Google.


text:
Do teaching evaluations improve from high participation rates
Do teaching evaluations tend to improve from high voter turn-out?
I think that teaching evaluations are naturally answered by people with strong opinions or who are invested in the class. Many students don't answer the evaluations because they don't care.
I presume that if you could force them to answer the evaluation questionnaire, then many would just be yes-men and answer favorably.
Is there reason to corroborate or invalidate that line of thought?

What helps imo to get  more meaningful evaluation is that something happens with them. Eg when I was a student, I had profs who said "it doesn't matter what you write, I will throw it away without looking" and others who made the Impression that they want to improve their teaching. The latter got more meaningful evaluations from us.

Define what you mean by “improve” — improve along what metric? More favorable? More useful? More representative?

More favorable, as in percentage who answer favorably. I believe it is consensus that student evaluations of teaching are subject to too much noise, gender bias, race bias, personality bias, the list goes on.

There are too many forces here to expect any clear trend.
It depends on who forces them, I think. You are probably correct that when they are optional, only the most invested will be likely to participate. But if the instructor forces them, then some, taking it as an extra task for which they see no personal benefit, might react badly. I'm assuming anonymous responses, of course.
If the system, somehow, forces them then those less invested might still be annoyed, but not at the instructor. Whether you get honest answers, however, or chaotic, playful, anarchistic ones or helpful ones would be worth looking in to, but there is probably no real way to do the experiment.
However, the comments are likely to align, more or less will with how pleased the students were with the course and the instructor's helpfulness than otherwise. But this might not give overall trends different from the current situation you find.
But in particular, I don't see any forces that suggest "yes-men" behavior.
But turn it around. If you do a really good job or a really bad job your participation rate will probably go up.
Humorous aside: Or, you could bribe them somehow to participate so they see a personal benefit for answering. Tricky to do a bribe that doesn't itself slant the results.

At my institution, it is common to reward students with extra points if, say, 90% answer their evaluations. So it seems to be common knowledge that higher participation is beneficial for the instructor.

I have no idea why this was downvoted twice with no corresponding explanation.


text:
Cases of plagiarism in mathematics
Are there known cases of plagiarism in mathematics? The writing practices in mathematics are clearly different from the writing practices in the humanities. In the latter area I roughly know how to characterize plagiarism because examples are known. But I do not know how plagiarism is possible in mathematics, except for blunt copies of text.
Do you know about examples how plagiarism in mathematics looks like?

One anecdote: someone cut and pasted bits of the PDF copy of one of my old papers (arXiv version) into the Word document that constituted their paper, which also cut and pasted bits of my abstract that referred to things which were not present in their plagiarized version. It was pretty inept, to be honest. The journal in question deleted the paper from their website but never made any official acknowledgement of plagiarism

I've had an experience similar to that of Yemon Choi; paragraphs of my book were pasted verbatim into a submitted paper.  I think they were subsequently banned from submitting papers to that publisher.  Of course, this is not public knowledge as there is no need for it to be.  I imagine there are many such anecdotes.

Many examples can be found on retraction watch: http://retractionwatch.com/category/by-subject/physical-sciences-retractions/math-retractions/

I was recently plagiarized for the first time, earlier this year I think. And I'm kind of a nobody in my field (Banach spaces). So if someone's going to plagiarize me, they'll plagiarize anyone.

@BenW: The better known the plagiarized work the more likely the plagiarism is to be detected. A typical motivation for plagiarism is to add to publication counts, and the typical plagiarist has little interest in having the plagiarisms read, so the natural tendency would be to plagiarize little known but respectable (so republishable) work.

Here's a fun example: https://geombina.uccs.edu/?page_id=88

Plagiarism of profound and significant results in contemporary mathematics research seems to be close to nonexistent.  It’s antithetical to the culture of the discipline and the likelihood of success is remote when the spotlight is bright.  Around the more dimly lit edges, however, it can and does happen from time to time as attested to in the comments.
I’ve encountered it myself.  In 2012, after publishing some results in matrix analysis, I contacted an academic who was doing research on similar topics who I thought might be interested in some of my results.  I summarized my results and we had a brief exchange and our correspondence ended not long afterwards.  A few years later, in 2015, I attached some appendices to my full-text version of the 2012 paper at researchgate.net to help assist readers of the paper with illustrative examples and related MATLAB code.  Upon posting it, I noticed that someone at the same Spanish university as the academic’s co-author had almost immediately downloaded the updated full-text.  Then, later, in 2017, I came across one of their publications that took the same novel perspective, had nontrivial mathematical overlap, and similar MATLAB code generation results as my 2012 paper with appendices.  Notably, there was no citation for my 2012 paper listed among their references.  Instead, they (Lebtahi and Thome) had trotted out their results as if they had come up with it all on their own, apparently assuming I wouldn’t notice this violation of academic integrity.  I sent an email requesting an explanation, and after more than a year and a half of attempting to work something out with them (and mostly being ignored), I’ve largely accepted that no meaningful action will be taken on their part, and attached yet another appendix to the article full-text detailing the transgression as I see it [if interested, you can look over Appendix E by accessing the full-text link accessible from here].  As to what their motivation was, I can’t say for sure.   Was it tied to career advancement?  A struggle for tenure?  The idea that they could lift results from a relatively obscure journal without offering credit and get away with it?
At any rate, unlike priority disputes (which still happen from time to time), accusations of plagiarism that relate to the central core of mathematical research seem to be largely a relic of the past.  Perhaps the most famous mathematical plagiarism accusations were hurled during the acrimonious debate between Newton and Leibniz on the development of calculus.  Although a number of historical accounts suggest that this development was independent on the part of both parties, there are several indications that Leibniz was less than forthcoming about his knowledge of the research results obtained by others.  One fascinating discussion about this appears in the excoriating book review that Brian Blank gave in the May 2009 AMS Notices (Volume 56, Number 5) for the book “The Calculus Wars”.  As one example, on page 609, Blank points to evidence that suggests Leibniz’s Tentamen de Motuum Coelestium Causis was based on his uncredited reading of Newton's Principia.  This book review is superbly written, and provides interesting details about this historic mathematical event.  For those interested in the calculus controversy, I highly recommend checking out the review.

Consider contacting Prof. José Alberto Conejero Casares who is the director of the dept of applied math at  UPV Universitat Politècnica de València where Lebtahi and Thome are.

The American Maths Society has been caught:
A plagiarised book on maths history.
Another notorious case concerned an Eastern European academician in the bad old days. He began with a bit of self-plagiarism, re-publishing his own works in English language journals. But then he moved on to translating and publishing as his own papers from Russian journals. He was exposed when a Russian mathematician, on moving/escaping to Paris, discovered that his best theorems had been stolen. I think the AMS published an analysis of the whole sad affair.

Yes, there have been. One case is publicly documented here: http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/%7Egumm/Plagiarism/index.htm and another one documented at http://de.vroniplag.wikia.com/wiki/Ry that is a doctorate in chemistry containing much mathematics. The book has been withdrawn and the doctorate has been rescinded.

Are there known cases of plagiarism in mathematics?

Yes. Retraction Watch has a searchable database.

Do you know about examples how plagiarism in mathematics looks like?

A search for (PHY) Mathematics with +Plagiarism of Article OR +Plagiarism of Data OR +Plagiarism of Image OR +Plagiarism of Text found 72 articles on 29 December 2018. Browsing these would provide example of plagiarism in mathematics.

Some obvious examples could verbim that looks like:
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/8b5j7h/heres_the_paper_that_the_theorems_in_wrights/
Other non-obvious but famous case is the (suspected) plagiarising of
Perelman's proof on Poincare Conj.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/28/manifold-destiny
https://projecteuclid.org/download/pdf_1/euclid.ajm/1175789085
Two established mathematicians admited that they "forgot" to read about a famous "theorem widely understood by the experts in the field". I will leave the judgement to yourself.

How is the Perelman case related to plagiarism?

@TobiasKildetoft There were two mathematicians who claimed that they proved Poincare but later withdrawed the claim. All their Lemmas used were taken from Perelman's work, and all the useful Lemmas were already proved by either Perelman or someone else. They proved one of the Lemmas indeed but it is not useful in the Conjecture. They cited none of the sources.

Plagiarism in mathematics is much similar to plagiarism in programming. People often try to manipulate the original equations to make them look like a new one.
Quite possible that people try to change variables or try to write the same piece of code in a different language. Same goes for core mathematics.


text:
Should I keep generic reference letters from my supervisors?
As for reference letters, I have come across distinct policies.
Some recommend to only give a reference letter for a particular application - it might be tailored to the particular position which the applicant soughts for.
Other do not seem to have a problem with providing generic reference letters. I personally prefer this one, because it is clearly less work for all parties involved.
So, which kind of reference is appropiate to ask for from your supervisor? Which one is socially accepted? (I am a former student that needs a letter of reference from his former professor).

Let me answer the question in the title.

Should I keep generic reference letters from my supervisors?

No.  You should not keep copies of reference letters, generic or otherwise.  Your supervisors should send whatever letters they write directly to the jobs to which you apply.  Those letters should never pass through your hands at all.
It's entirely up to your references what kind of letter to write.  You should always ask for strong letters individually tailored to each position you apply for, but there's no way to make anyone do that, or even to check whether they have.  Ultimately, you just have to trust the people you ask to do a good job, which implies that you should only ask people you trust to do a good job.

It can be reasonable to ask for letters tailored to specific kinds of jobs but unreasonable to ask for letters tailored to specific jobs assuming that you're applying to many jobs.  Many people are already writing dozens of letters a year, so writing say 10 different letters for one of those people is clearly unreasonable, but two could be fine.  For example, if you are applying to both tenure-track liberal arts jobs and research jobs then you may want to ask certain recommenders for two different letters (e.g. for your teaching letter, or if your thesis advisor co-supervised an undergraduate research project with you).

TT? That's not an abbreviation I'm familiar with (or is that a typo?).

TT = tenure-track.

This is a fine approach, but make sure your references know which letter to send where. When I get only research letters for a teaching position, I tend to ignore the candidate.


text:
One of my students has a Master's degree but was offered admission to another Master's programme. What could be reason?
One of my former undergraduate students (overseas student), whom I still have contact with, has got a Master's degree from a very, very prestigious US university.
That student recently applied to a lower ranking US university for a PhD program. They send a rejection for the PhD program but offered an admission into their Master's program instead (almost the same field).
What could be reasonable motivation for such an offer? I suspect they didn't read my student's application properly, or it's just rejection that comes with a generic just-in-case offer of paying tuition fees?

Master's programs often charge tuition and they are often profitable.  It is quite possible finances were a factor.
Some universities are greatly reducing PhD admissions owing to lack of money or delays to the graduation of current students because work was disrupted by the pandemic.

Have you got evidence for the second paragraph?

@Buffy I saw announcements in the press that some PhD programs would accept nobody this cycle.


text:
Author's institution and contact information incorrect in a journal publication
What problems could arise, legally and professionally, if the author's contact information and institution are incorrect on a published scientific article?
For example, suppose the review process starts while the author is at institution A. Then the author moves to institution B, and the review process finishes long after, and the author simply forgets to update the information.
Do journals care? Do institutions care? Please note that I am not asking about funding acknowledgements.

No, nobody really cares. A footnote with your new address is nice, but people can find you.

The institution that supported you while you did the research would like to be mentioned...  If you want to hear from readers, it is good to show a working address.

@GEdgar, that is probably the basis of an answer. Same for Jon Custer.

Nobody really cares. If you want to insure yourself against any unlikely claim that the paper was published by some other person who happens the same name, my suggestion would be to make sure you have an ORCID id and associate that with your name -- which is something you should be doing anyway.

@Roland: I am curious: how do the bean counters spend their day? Scanning the publication list of every department member, including PhD students, looking at every Arxiv submission for proper attribution of the institute? Again, I am not asking about grant attribution.

The reality is that the bean counters do not care about an individual paper.