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Best practices when allowing exam cheat sheets
Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal-arts college in the US.
I am currently teaching an applied mathematics course for about thirty students with business-related majors, and I want to give them the opportunity to use a sheet of notes (a.k.a cheat sheet) on their first exam.  I am concerned about the implementation of this policy; specifically, I want to ensure the following:

This policy is as beneficial to student learning as possible.
I close any loopholes that could lead to unfairness or some other unforeseen problem on test day.

Some things I have already anticipated:

I will give the students some starter material that they should include on their note sheet—important formulas, critical concepts, examples they should definitely be prepared to see, etc.
Rules regarding the size of the notes are precise: Students may have a single sheet of 8.5" × 11" paper (or smaller), and they may write on either side of it.
The notes must be handwritten as this requires the students to process the material. (See this question for more discussion on why I believe that ultimately helps my students.)
I will not give a student their exam until they have removed everything from their desk except their note sheet and calculator. (I do not want them searching in their bag/book/folders once they have begun the exam.)

That leaves me with the following questions:

Should I require students to turn in their notes to me before the exam?  After the exam?  Is their anything to be gained by me reviewing their notes?
Would it be better for me to simply give them a formula sheet that I’ve prepared?  I know that this will help the students who are too lazy to bring a notes sheet, but I feel like that’s on them.
Are there other problems I should be prepared to confront?  I want to do everything possible to avoid difficulties on the day of the exam.
Is there research that supports/discourages the allowance cheat sheets?  Am I actually doing something that’s ultimately beneficial to my students?

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

You might specify if "either" means one side only or both; as it stands, it's ambiguous.

There is no way to cover every eventuality, but what helps is to have a clear paradigm as to what cheat sheets are supposed to achieve.
Then view every decision you make regarding your exam in this respect.
My paradigm (which may align with yours) is:

I do not want to gauge the students’ ability to blindly memorise stuff and recall it in a stress situation because it is not relevant to their lives and not what my course is about.
  The cheat sheet thus replaces the procedure of blindly memorising certain stuff.
  Moreover, what they write on a cheat sheet is a good emulation of what they have available through Internet searches, reference books, and similar in their non-exam future. (After all, they may just keep the cheat sheet.)

Applying this, I would add to your points and answer your questions and concerns raised in the comments:

Memorising is your benchmark for fairness.
You cannot avoid slight unfairness to some students (see below for some examples), but as long as your process is more fair than relying on memory, you have won.
Communicate your paradigm to the students.
This way, you avoid that students use the cheat sheet in misguided way that is detrimental to them.
Moreover, by teaching them the spirit of the rule, you reduce the chance and strengthen your position in case of any rule disputes and allow the students to answer certain questions about the rules themselves (do not rely on any of this though).

Would it be better for me to simply give them a formula sheet that I’ve prepared?

The most important part of memorising before a classical exam is structuring and reiterating the relevant knowledge as this strengthens the actual understanding of concepts (which is what your exam should be about).
Making the cheat sheet handwritten replaces this.¹
Provided cheat sheets are not good for this.
The same applies to machinally created cheat sheets, as they can simply be created by copying and pasting.
In a perfect world, restricting the cheat sheet in size would not be necessary – you cannot prevent students from blindly learning the entire textbook either.
However, it does prevent students from wasting their time – before and during the exam – with an overly extensive cheat sheet.
Moreover, it may increase the perceived fairness of the process.
Finally, there will always be some idiot who manages to blindly copy the solution to every exam task ever given for the subject.
On the other hand, make sure that whatever size limit you give suffices for the content the students should need, so you do not inadvertently reward those with a smaller handwriting, better eyesight, finer pen, etc.
Giving them slightly more space than they need is not a problem; giving them much more space is.
You cannot avoid that some student just fills the cheat sheet with solutions to exercises or previous exam tasks.
However, such a behaviour should not be rewarded:
Make sure that the pool of possible tasks is sufficiently large.
If you cannot do this (e.g., certain parts of theoretical physics have a notoriously low number of exam-suitable tasks), your exam may not be suited for handwritten cheat sheets – but then it is not suited for eliminating the advantages of memorising either.
Handwritten cheat sheets will pose problems to some handicapped students. (Just like memorising is bad for people who have issues with memorising or anxiety.)
Ensure beforehand that every student can voice such problems so that a reasonable alternative can be found for them.

Should I require students to turn in their notes to me before the exam? After the exam? Is their anything to be gained by me reviewing their notes?

This does not agree with the above paradigm:
You cannot control what students memorised for the exam either.
It may be helpful to verify and helpful to evaluate your approach to cheat sheeting by collecting the cheat sheets anonymously, but this deprives the students of re-using their cheat sheets².

¹ In fact, my own memorising process for exams (that required me to do this) was to write a cheat sheet for everything I had not memorised yet, check my memory with this cheat sheet a few times, write a new cheat sheet with the remainder of what I had not memorised, and so on.
² My cheat sheets¹ are probably the most useful written thing I kept from my own studies, but then I have not revisited them yet.

One could always specify that certain things, such as problem solutions (or even sketches thereof), are prohibited.  Of course you then have to police that, and one day deal with denying a student a mostly-by-the-rules cheat sheet because of some violation. It's then a judgment call if that's worth the hassle (your own time and happiness are important, after all).

@zibadawatimmy: More importantly, you would again give advantage to those who just memorise problem solutions and similar. If sketches of problem solutions help with your exams, some students will memorise them. Depending on the subject, these may not even be a bad thing: After all the skill you (should) want to teach is applying the scheme. What you want to avoid is that they just paste a solution without understanding a thing about or being able to translate this to a different problem.

About the 'handwritten' part, I'd like to point out that enforcing it may not be taken well. I sure dislike writing by hand, especially if it is something that I'm supposed to be able to read later. There's quite a few other arguments on both sides, I just wanted to point out that you should think about the option of letting the students type the cheatsheets on the computer if they wish so.

@lucidbrot: I sure dislike writing by hand, especially if it is something that I'm supposed to be able to read later. – In that case forcing you to train it seems a good way to increase your happiness during a written exam as well as that of whoever has to correct it.

@Wrzlprmft Arguably yes.I don't usually have a problem of reading my writing, but every now and then, something is unclear. But I don't think it's the task of an exam to teach handwriting. Also, a more important reason for me to write my notes digitally is that I can easily keep them and search through them for keywords. About half of the lectures I attend require handwritten cheat-sheets and I scan them all to pdf files to keep them for later use, but text recognition is not yet working perfectly

@lucidbrot It is reasonable to expect a minimum adequacy in communication skills, including the ability to write legibly and understandably.  And if you are writing something you may wish to come back to, you should train yourself to review your own writing soon afterwards in order to fix the less comprehensible scrawls so that they will be clearer after the immediate context has faded from memory.  Now if you have a disability that impedes your ability to achieve that, you could go through your student disability office to request accommodation from the professor.

@zibadawatimmy wait, there's a misunderstanding somewhere. My point wasn't supposed to be that I cannot write legibly. One of the things computer-written notes make easier is changing them when reviewing them - just what you propose.

I had one professor who would routinely give open-book, closed-note exams. He also said that we were allowed to (in fact, encouraged to) write whatever notes we wanted on the pages of the book.
His reasoning? He figured that most students would discard their notes at the end of the term, but some would at least keep their textbooks. And pertinent formulas and such would be scrawled inside the front and back covers.
I’ve not adopted this practice myself, but you mentioned the benefits of having students assemble their cheat sheets. This allows them to do so, but in a way that might be beneficial even beyond your class.
Of course, this means your questions will need to be suitable for an open-book test – but that’s another can of worms.

+1: Not a bad idea, though these days many students seem to "rent" the text book for the semester and give it back to the provider at the end. There are also more electronic books than before, so it's hard to know whether the student is accessing an electronic book or Google without sitting beside them all the time.

@PeterK - I'm afraid you're right. I hadn't thought about that. It seems like today's rentals and ebooks could well render this strategy obsolete.

Regarding your first question:

Should I require students to turn in their notes to me before the exam? After the exam? Is their anything to be gained by me reviewing their notes?

Have the students turn in their note sheet with the written portion of their exam, then give it back to them after the exam is graded.
Keeping the notes with the exam sheet means there is little overhead, but it gives you the option to get a general idea of what students are writing down and may help give context when grading a particular student's exam.
Even if you choose not to review the notes, collecting them with the exam allows the students to eventually keep the notes without giving them the ability to write confidential exam information on their paper and possibly use it to help other students cheat.

There's another reason to have them turn them in. Some students will write down the questions from the exam on their note sheet. If they take it with them, you've given them a copy of the exam questions (or at least some of them). Maybe you're OK with that, maybe you're not. But you're potentially allowing it.

Why don't you include the students a bit more in the process, rather than just providing a dictum?
Start out by explaining the pedagogical virtues of having them prepare a note sheet. Avoid the word "cheat sheet", as it gives poor connotations. They are, in fact, not cheating.
Tell them that the written exam will be adapted to the length of the note sheet. If the length of the sheet allows them to copy the book verbatim, the exam will essentially be like an open book exam.
Ask, in class, for suggestions: How long would you like the note sheet to be? Write down all suggestions, and set up an online poll with a deadline. Pick the one with most votes by the deadline, no extensions or excuses.
Have the students prepare the sheet a week before the exam, and organize a Q/A session based on the sheets. Have the students prepare sheets, and perhaps bring your own suggestion to how you would make a sheet, but tell them that sheets organizing knowledge are per definition individual. Allow the students to compare sheets (in groups if there are many students) and discuss among themselves.
In this way you will have facilitated a process where the students feel ownership themselves, and they will hopefully also learn a lesson in organizing knowledge.
I have tried the above procedure with success.

I don't allow "cheat" sheets of any type - also with success and having tried using them, with all the issues mentioned above : miniscule writing, complete questions / answers etc etc... Oh, for the days where all that was needed was a pen, pencil and a set of Log tables - provided of course...

Najib: A note sheet which minimizes the effort and gives the best grade possible IS the best note sheet. We are talking university education here. It is not unreasonable to make the students take some responsibility for their own learning.

@nabla You seem to think the grade is the end-game of education, in which case you miss the point of education entirely.  The cheat sheet does not exist to give you a better grade.  Ideally, you get the same grade on an exam-with-cheat-sheet as you do on an exam-without. The point of the cheat sheet is to focus a student's studies on what the instructor deems to be the important stuff, so that they more sharply hone the knowledge and skills they will need most in the future.

"You seem to think..."

Oh for the days that to do your job what was needed was also only a pen, pencil and a set of Log tables.... Actually no, scratch that, progress is good  ;)

Your students are liberal arts students, they won't gain anything from memorizing the formulas, so I think what you're doing is not bad practice at all.
Even as an engineer, I rarely need these formulas in my life (last I needed a formula was about a year ago), and even when I do, there are sites such as Wolfram Alpha or Wikipedia that will give me a hand.
Anyway, as for your points:

Should I require students to turn in their notes to me before the exam? After the exam? Is their anything to be gained by me reviewing their notes?

For what reason? Do you want to increase your workload, just to see if they wrote down entire questions? Taking the papers is somewhat like homework with additional steps, I suggest leaving them with the students. Even if they just throw away their sheets right after the exam.

Would it be better for me to simply give them a formula sheet that I’ve prepared? I know that this will help the students who are too lazy to bring a notes sheet, but I feel like that’s on them.

Just prepare a bare-bones formula paper, and hand them out (or post them online) a week or two before the exam. If they can't even be bothered to write those down, there's no point in trying to force it down their throats.
Also, just giving them a pre-made formula sheet would be disadvantageous towards the people who can memorize the formulas but can't remember where or how to apply them. Letting them prepare a sheet is better, in my opinion, since they can just write down what they're bad at and come to the exam with that part.

Are there other problems I should be prepared to confront? I want to do everything possible to avoid difficulties on the day of the exam.

There can always be problems but in my personal experience, people are mostly content with the "you can bring one sheet to the exam" method, and there will always be problems that arise in the moment, no matter what method you use for the exam.

Is there research that supports/discourages the allowance cheat sheets? Am I actually doing something that’s ultimately beneficial to my students?

There are more than just a few that you can find by just searching for cheatsheet on exams research via your favorite search engine.
Some examples are: here, here, here and here.

In addition to other answers, I would like to point some practical problems with individual hand-written cheat-sheets:

The rule that only hand-written cheat-sheets are allowed should be very clearly stated and enforced. In my experience, in every test some student show with photocopied or printed cheat sheets. Enforcing the rule means actually forcing them to take the exam without a cheat sheet and it usually amounts to failing them. If that's what you want, you must need to be prepared.
Some students will bring somebody else's cheat sheet. At best, they will have hand-copied it, at worst they will just have borrowed it from someone on another group or another year. That defeats the purpose of not allowing printed or photocopied cheat sheets.
On the other hand, if printed or copied cheat sheets are allowed, most students will carry the same model - hopefully a collaboratively made one, but more usually just copied.

At worst, in places where there are academies to prepare exams, students will carry a cheat sheet prepared by the academia teacher, be it printed or hand-copied.
In the end, I think reality defeats good intentions and there is very little advantage on trying to only allow hand made own cheat sheets instead a of providing an standard cheat sheets or allowing any cheat sheet (hand-written or printed) and limit only size.
In addition, for some topics hand written notes are problematic. I remember a statistics lab test where students could bring a cheat sheet with R code but most of them had little formatting errors that rendered the code unusable. Copy-pasting the code instead of copying it by hand would have prevented that problem.
In summary, when I want to allow cheat sheets, my favourite options are:

Giving them my cheat sheet. I print them to prevent customization, but I publish the cheat sheet in advance to allow students to familiarize with it.
Allowing full access to the course material or a large part of it. Nowadays, that's easy in computer based tests with computer based material.

In my courses I adopted the option of preparing the formula sheet and providing it. I provide it in advance so students will know what they will have available and need to know how to use, but with the exam I provide a clean copy. My field has a professional certification exam and a formula sheet is provided. I have found the process useful and without problems.


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How to delete a duplicate google scholar account?
I have moved to another University and created a new google scholar account here.  However, my old account at the former university still shows up and I get "you have a duplicate account" message.
Here's the rub:  I am no longer at my old university so I CAN'T LOGIN to that old account in order to delete it.   Google takes me to an authentication page for the old university for me to login.
So, I'm wondering how to delete that phantom account?
Thanks!  -Karl

Have you contacted Google?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the OP should contact Google.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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Writing bachelor's thesis as a front-end developer(computer science)
I am a front-end developer and I find it extremely difficult to find a bachelor's thesis topics since all the computer vision, machine learning, data mining stuff is done in languages other than JavaScript. I feel like the fact that I am a frontend developer limits me to topics like front-end JavaScript framework comparison, responsive web application design etc. But I just don't feel like these are good research topics.
Is there any advice/topic suggestions you can give me?

You know that it is fully expected that you may have to (gasp) learn new languages and technologies while doing your Bachelor's thesis, don't you? Most of the Bachelor and Master students who I supervised had no prior knowledge about the programming languages they were using in their thesis. (And besides, I cannot help but find a somewhat practically-oriented computer science major that has graduates who have only ever used a single programming language somewhat fishy.)

You could easily extend your possibilities by learning another programming language. Since you are already familiar with the underlying concepts, it should not take too much time to learn something like C, Java, or whatever is common in your field.
I would also do this apart from your thesis. This gives you a lot of new possibilities also after your thesis in your future career.
However, I recommend you to learn a new language before you start your thesis, otherwise you might run out of time or achieve only limited results. But that depends on your personal situation and how much time you have left.

It's worth to know related technologies as frontend usually needs some backend and AJAX is not so old technique. Even backend can be written in Javascript (Node.js), it's limiting if you don't know Java, .NET, Python.
Javascript in it's current standard ECMAScript 5 is not nice language and you may end up with lot of antipatterns and it's worth to look for reasons why there are proprietar solution Angular, React mixing HTML, Javascript and inventing new things like Shadow DOM or a way to standardize new ideas in ECMAScript 6 and HTML standard and (by my opinion better) frameworks like Aurelia or Ember.
It's also worth to look into visualization API- E.g. WebGL with it's 3D capabilities and support among browsers is better and better. Inspiration could be one of early public application: Zygotebody (https://www.zygotebody.com).

@Keelan It's bachelor thesis. I doubt that anybody expects advanced research. But comparing recomendation of standard HTML and ECMAScript 6(represented by Aurelia/Ember/...) with proprietar solution (represented by Angular/React) may be fair topic for such thesis.

@Keelan: Neither have I (comparing technical standards as such), but I have seen plenty of Bachelor and Master theses that contained a practical component (i.e. a prototypical implementation) with any set of fashionable and not so fashionable technology stacks.

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Bachelors thesis on my desired topic already written by previous years students
There really is only one topic that I find interesting, useful and that I have alot of knowledge of. However students of previous years had already chosen this topic and written Bachelors thesis on it.
How bad would it be if at least half of my thesis was already researched in previous years thesis?

For anyone wondering - I ended up improving on the work the previous students had done with a more practical approach and examples/experiments.

Unlike dissertations, bachelor’s theses need not be on an original topic or advance the frontiers of knowledge (although those goals are desirable!). A bachelor’s thesis is intended to show that the student is capable of synthesizing information to produce a useful result via research in some form or another.
So unless the school has a requirement that topics cannot be repeated, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to produce a work on a similar topic. That said, your work should not be identical to the previous work (which you should cite and discuss in your thesis!)

Doesn't that mean one should not repeat a topic but it's okay to keep working on a topic if the prior results are unsatisfying or leave room for more? I think there's an important difference.

It might be looking at the problem with a different technique or strategy, or coming up with new evidence or insights. It need not be an actual improvement.

In my opinion it's not a professional way to look at the concept of research. In most of the cases, researchers try to improve upon other related researches (usually conducted by community and their colleagues). This fact actually helps us to have a better understanding about the whole problem, and also the solutions other researchers tried before.
In my opinion you can start reading your colleagues' theses to get to know their research, their novelty and their ideas. After that you are well equipped to start with a new idea to improve the topic your colleagues also worked on previously.
But keep in mind for a bachelor student the most important things are building a good background based on the courses you took and also trying out the standard methods of research (on a topic you are really passionate about) without considering the real novelty or quality. Though it is really nice that you care about such matters.

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How to prevent Google Scholar from merging two different papers?
I have two papers published at the same IEEE conference (at the same year).
Since they have been indexed in GS, they are being merged every few days. That is, I manually need to "unmerge" them, just for GS to automatically merge them again a few days later.
I'm not sure why this happens. They have completely different names. Perhaps the reason is that IEEE has page numbers of 1-9 for all papers that year (i.e., they didn't actually allocate page numbers but just had 1-9 for all).
How can I make GS stop merging these papers?

@NajibIdrissi - not a support center, but a forum with many people that are using GS and may have encountered this before. (be sure that I did try to search that before asking here).

That seems like a bad idea for IEEE to do the page numbers like that.  Evidently Google is assuming, not unreasonably, that (journal, volume, issue, page number) will uniquely identity a single paper, and I would guess that a lot of other systems make the same assumption.

Complain at your conference - this is really bad practice!

[Update: Multiple users have reported that this doesn't work.]

Go to your Google Scholar profile and bring up the add article dropdown, click on "Configure article updates":
Select the radio button for "Don't automatically update my profile" and click the "Update settings" button:
When Scholar wants to merge your papers, instead of going ahead it will send an email to ask if that is the correct course of action.

I tried that. They are still merged automatically :(.

Oh. Then that seems to be a bug (or, at least, functionality that is otherwise than the user would expect) that should be reported. But Google Scholar doesn't seem to have a bug report page.

I don't believe there is anything that can be done.   I too have this same problem, except in my case GS wants to merge two similar titles (even though they have different years). Repeatedly unmerge these two articles, a couple of days later GS merges them back.
Turning off auto-updates does not affect this behavior.


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appropriate Word for transfering student from one university to another university
I am searching an appropriate word for transferring student from one University to another University
There might be such a word which helps me to search for related topics of transferring student from one university to another one.

Is this for students who initiate the transfer or for students who a moved by the universities?

@SolarMike I am particularly searching for a student who initiates the transfer.

You could simply use the term "transfer student" that you've already used in the question tags.
Collin's Dictionary:

a student who moves from one institution or course to another at the same level (e.g. undergraduate)

A student can both be said to apply to the new university as a transfer student, and be described as a transfer student at the start of their study at the new university (example).

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contact of the editor
I sent an article it's been almost 4 months, but still my article is in the same status "submissions being processed", that I have to do is what I contact the editor or I wait for their response, since I have heard when we send an e-mail to the editor, he sends the refusal directly, I wait for your suggestions, thank you in advance

I have heard when we send an e-mail to the editor, he sends the refusal directly — If that happens, consider yourself lucky.  You've been rejected by an unethical journal, so you're free to submit elsewhere.

Contact the editor. It happened to me once that the referees were divided, so the editor sent the paper to more referees, hence prolonging the process. He just forgot to notify me. Moving to another journal is a bad decision, since you haven't been rejected yet. What if then you are liaising with two journals and both accept it? Not good.
Also, check the average processing time of the journal. Some do take long time, even up to six months!

thank you very much for answering, the average time to answer is 76 days, in my case this time is exceeded, do you have a model of a letter to sent to the editor, thank you very much

@lilia there is no need to be very formal. Just respectful. They have gone well over the average time, so you have all the right to be genuinely concerned. Asking the editor for updates on the status of the submission is fine in my experience.

Move to another journal. You should have done that a while ago.

must I cancel the first submission before sending it to another journal?

Yes.  If you want to submit elsewhere, you must withdraw your first submission.

Yeah that would be part of "moving" as opposed to "duplicate publishing".  Of course.  But all you need to do is send an email cancelling it.

The rationale for moving is NOT because of waiting for decision but because of no response to questions and in fact a status that says the thing has not even moved to review yet.


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What are strategies for handling multiple students visiting office hours?
Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US.
I hold a scheduled office hour every weekday, plus additional hours near exams.  Office hours are a significant part of my institution's culture, and they are regularly used by our students.  As such, it is not uncommon for multiple students with entirely different questions to visit at the same time.
I am somewhat unsure about how I should handle this.  If they all have the same question, I can easily work with a small group simultaneously on the white board in my office.  Otherwise, I can only think of the following options:

Work with students on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Move to the second student once finished with the first, then to the third after the second, etc.
Work with students on a first-come, first-serve basis, but only give each student 10-15 minutes before I move to the next one.
Rotate between students, answering a few minutes worth of questions before going to the next student, and eventually circling back.
Tell students that if they want to meet for more than 15 minutes they must make an appointment outside office hours.

Our department has several tables in the hallway, so I usually go with option 3.  That said, this method seems inefficient for the students and can be exhausting for me, so I am wondering if I can do any better.  Most of my own undergraduate professors used option 1, but I really disliked how a single student could consume nearly all of their time.

Recommend the 10-minute time limit, as per #2. Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80524/limits-on-one-student-using-all-of-ones-office-hours

I have used your "rotate" strategy, but with just one question per student until circling back.

Are you encouraging students to collaborate on assignments? (Students that collaborate on assignments often come to my office hours with questions as a group.)

I would suggest an alternative: rotate after each question, not after each student. So solve a question from one student, then allow a different student to ask a different question. If multiple classes are present, you can go by class rather than by student.
This has several advantages:

Everyone will prioritize their questions: no one feels rushed by the people behind them, nor like they wasted a trip because of someone in front of them
Students (in the same class) may not all have the same questions, but they'll benefit from seeing how you approach each problem.
Students in different classes can digest your previous answers and try to apply those concepts to new questions while they wait for you to circle back
This should be helpful for the majority of students -- if there are any special cases (e.g., students with individual issues that aren't useful to the rest of the group), they'll see what's going on and will appreciate your invitation to schedule an appointment
You get to keep your position at the whiteboard, which is less exhausting for you


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Content for slides of theoretical project
I was assigned a project of reading a unit of a textbook for 3 months and I need to present it by making a project report.
Since my mentor didn't ask for any hands-on, I just studied the particular unit in the textbook.
Now, I need to present my report. I am thinking of placing key theorem statements and results from that unit and explain them. Note that all of the members of the panel know that unit very well. But I'm confused yet because if I place all the statements, I can get very few slides(at most 3) and faculty may feel that I did very little work in 3 months. My colleagues are presenting their code and output screenshots etc., instead of theoretical since they did the implementation project.
So what are the contents I need to keep in my report presentation?

What does your mentor advise?

I didn't submit to him yet for signature.

Unfortunately, most slide-based presentations have too many slides, not too few. It is very difficult to find a good balance. Of course, it depends on the time set aside for your talk. If it is 20 minutes or so, you may already be fine.
However, an additional slide for each Theorem giving the key ideas from the proof might be useful. It could be a sparse proof outline, or just a statement of what earlier work contributes to the proof.
However, since it sounds like you fellow students have done things that are based on this chapter of the book, it might be even more useful to say something about how this work leads to the more practical things. In other words, not just what are the important theorems, but why they are important to the work that follows. In other words, place that chapter in the context of the larger goals of the group. That will let you add a bit to your presentation and, perhaps, make it more useful.


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Disorganized and overworked professor causing disappoinment and headache
About two years ago I finished my master thesis. At our university we can only choose the topic to work on and mostly it is part of a Phd program.
My topic was a mess because the faulty study design did not allow me to draw any firm conclusions, i.e. I could not answer the research questions directly.
However I discovered other interesting facts which are directly related to these questions.
Two things happened:
My advisor did not want me to include these other interesting facts, presumably because one finding was a critic of a method he often used, and probably because I openly criticized the study design.
My advisor gave me the lowest grade which still passes for the thesis even though I incorporated all of the advice he gave me -- with the exception that I did not want to exclude the critique of the method he suggested.
He told me that I focused too much on the details and he had a hard time seeing the big picture. However I could not answer the research questions directly (i.e. the big picture) because of the faulty design. (Which I told him repetitively.)
A Phd colleague of mine read my thesis and thought it was great. Other students also had problems with this advisor and one phd student even quit partly due to this advisor.
I personally do not dislike this professor but he is grossly overworked to the point where he is not even able to thoroughly plan a scientific study, causing much disappointment and headache.
Should I inform the department administration on this matter even If I am not at this university anymore?

Is it a news professors are overworked? Or that students think they are much smarter than the professor? What would you inform the department administration beside a rather opinion based rant about him?

When I said faulty design I meant: No sample replicates for large parts of the study, only one control in a longitudinal design, sample series somehow got lost and magically reappeared, pooling of sample material, no standardized unit of measurement and so on....

As an overworked professor myself, I may not have time to tell you why I ignored X nor plan every thing out so that you have a smooth ride.   Most of the time I do not believe what a student says because they are usually lost.  Also asking a PhD colleague for opinion can lead to the blind leading the blind.  The fact that you focused too much on the details is quite standard among students.  It's your job to tell an audience in the simplest terms what your research is about.  If your professor, who is in the area, can't understand you, you have a real problem.

@VitaminE What would be a valid reason not to collect a control sample in a longitudinal design investigating the effects deadwood on different parameters of soil samples?

I don't think there's anything wrong with voicing your concerns, but if you're going to you need to find a way to do it constructively while sticking to the facts.  "Much disappointment and headache" might be entirely correct, but this is more of an emotional comment.
Also: are there other students you can get to join you in voicing this concern?  Maybe you could all approach the problem together.

My answer would be yes, you can and should contact the university about your concerns. From personal experience, I've discovered that (both good and bad) things students notice about professors are either (a) not noticed by his/her colleagues or supervisors, or (b) noticed but ignored. If you do not voice a concern, it's possible no one ever will and this professor will continue to treat students as he treated you. It's also possible that he doesn't realize the extent of his disrespect as he is so stressed out.
In the personal experience I had, a group of students (including myself) realized after several years that we all had the same problems within our department. Individually, we each tried to raise those issues directly with our individual supervisors AND the department's graduate coordinator, to no avail. We finally wrote a letter to the graduate faculty and our dean expressing our concerns. In our case, the deans and associate deans we got involved were "sort of" aware something was amiss in our department, but they didn't have any specific examples as no one had approached them before. They were very concerned about how we were treated and completely understood that we would be frustrated about raising the issue again and again within the department.
Two important things came out of my personal experience. One, it's not a quick process. You've already left the university. Your experience may be used to help current students, but you may never hear of a final resolution. Two, there is probably nothing they can do for your personally since you've already completed your program. Two of my fellow students had already graduated when we wrote our letter, and there wasn't much that could be done for them after-the-fact. It was us on-campus students that attended meetings and met with the deans/associate deans in person. It was also us on-campus students that could benefit from any changes made within our department.
Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself, especially if you've been treated disrespectfully. As students, we hold professors and supervisors in very high regard, but they aren't perfect, and some of them are just plain awful at supervising students. You shouldn't be 'punished' for your supervisor's behaviour (if you have a legitimate claim).
p.s. If you do decide to approach your administration, do so using the same type of preparation you would use for a big paper or for an important exam. Make notes. Be calm and respectful. Revise, revise, revise. Act out the conversation with a friend if needed. Be professional. Don't get angry.
p.p.s. If your school has a graduate students' association of some kind, you might want to run the situation by them first. They may be able to provide you with some advice on how to handle the situation within the context of your specific university.

My topic was a mess because the faulty study design

When did you discover the study design faults?
For a PhD program of about 3 years, it is normally expected that students familiarise themselves with the methodology during the first years, obtain the bulk of results in the second year, leaving the third year for the write-up. It is also advised to run some preliminary analysis during the first year (some say, first months) to reassure yourself that the chosen methodology is clear to you and produces sensible results. If you've done this, then surely there was enough time to correct the methodology or to choose a new one. If not -- why haven't you done this?
PhD project is an evidence of students' ability to perform independent academic research. Ultimately, it is the students' responsibility to choose the methodology, to plan, to conduct and to manage their study. Your supervisor is here to help and navigate you, but the responsibility for the project remains your own. As a sole author of the PhD thesis, you can always make a choice to adopt or ignore your advisor's suggestions. Ultimately, you can change your supervisor or ask your university to assign a co-supervisor to help.

He told me that I focused too much on the details and he had a hard time seeing the big picture

Having said the above, I tend to agree with most if not all of your supervisor's suggestions. As a student, you do need to have a clear vision of your project and the ability to tell it without burdening your reader with unnecessary technical details. There is no reason to believe that your colleague's opinion about your thesis is more valid than your professor's. There is no reason to suggest that the low mark for your project was due to the critique -- it might be due to poor argument to support the critique, or due to unclear writing, or messy execution. Normally, a grade comes with textual feedback explaining how your work can be improved --- did you read it? what does it say?
To summarise, with all due respect, from information in your question, there is not enough detail to suggest that your professor  is particularly disorganised, unprofessional, and in any way more responsible for the poor outcome of your PhD project than yourself.

"When did you discover the study design faults?" It was a Master thesis not a phd which should normally be completed in 1 year. I spent the first 1/2 year analyzing samples in the lab during the daytime and reading up on statistical theory during the evening/night. So it was a gradual process.

"If you've done this, then surely there was enough time to correct the methodology or to choose a new one."
I was given these samples and basically told to analyze them with method x &y which both required intense laborious preparations. I wasn't given any control samples in a longitudinal design, which after I started writing up the thesis appeared to me as a big red flag..Since these have never been collected there was no way to retractively collect a control.

Sorry, I misread your question then. Have you received any textual feedback on your MSc work?

No only oral feedback was given. The feedback basically was: "Why did you do all this statistical analysis while I explicitly told you to only investigate these 5 relationships." and "Next time type this up in Latex so it looks more readable." Point 2 is definitely correct, but I already spent more than double the amount of time to write the thesis, mainly because I had to look at all possible relationships between variables to get a decent finding. (bonferroni correction was applied so no spurious findings due to multiple comparisons).

With oral feedback students have an opportunity to ask additional questions to clarify how the grade was calculated. But generally it feels that standards of assessment in your University are a bit lower than in the places I worked at. Only 1 person marked the thesis?

It was my mistake not to request written feedback. 2 Persons did, but one was from the humanities department. (This is tradition here) In her own words, she did not understand much about the thesis. Well you need at least basic statistics and basic to intermediate (bio)-chemistry knowledge to understand it. It couldn't be simplified any further...


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Minimizing cheating in online final exam?
What technologies or techniques are practical for minimizing cheating and collaboration in a University final examination that is to be held online?
I have seen some third-party arrangement which requires the student to keep a webcam operating during the entire duration of the examination, and read here of using a Zoom teleconference to monitor all the students as kind of a remote proctoring.
As we get into the fall term with COVID-19 restrictions still in place in many countries, this has to be a common concern to ensure the value of the resulting credentials. My immediate question is triggered by a colleague teaching an advanced undergraduate 4th year online course in an engineering discipline, and the student body is pretty international both ethnically and probably (at that time) geographically, so time zone differences may be a factor. Questions are more theoretical than numerical so the MOOC techniques of randomizing are unlikely to be of much value.
My thought is that some form of remote proctoring (preferably by an as-yet unidentified trusted third party recording the webcams and flagging suspected transgressions) and to force the students into one compromise time period (regardless of their location and time zone) would suffice.

Does this help: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/145102/72855

@SolarMike Thanks. I'm a bit surprised at the "privacy" concerns expressed, not sure if that's more unique to those in the compsci field or whether I'm just out of touch. Personally, I took an online course exam recently that required a webcam to be on during the time-limited exam, from a secured website and didn't feel at all bothered by it. Less stressful than on on-site exam, for sure.

I think online proctoring is a terrible idea. It is invasive, discrimatory, and doesn't work. It reveals things about a students living conditions they might reasonably want to remain hidden. It relies on having access to a device with a functioning web cam, and good enought internet for it to work properly. As the end of all that, a webcam can't capture you typing on your phone on your lap anyway. Or having someone stood behind your screen helping you.
In fact, I don't really like the idea of synchronous remote exams. It is really not fair to ask some students to sit an important, stressful, multi-hour exam in the middle of the night. Not does it really work for students who might share a laptop with another hosuehold member who needs it for their job, or has unreliable internet.
I think the simple fact of the matter is that it is not possible to prevent cheating while assessment has to be online, other than through the use of one-to-one oral exams and many of the things people are despirately trying just make life harder and less fair for everyone without actaully preventing cheating.
If your questions are theory based, then surely you can tell if a student is cheating, becuase in order to paraphrase another student sufficiently for you to not pick it up, they would have to understand what they were paraphrasing?

Re your last paragraph: no, you can't prevent cheating by simply giving theory-based questions. Students can pay a tutor to write their answers.

...or just collaborate with other students.

If a student is willing to pay someone to answe the quesions, and they have a service that can do it in the time allowed, then there is not much you can do to stop them. I don't think remote proctoring can stop a properly determined cheat.


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How to work with a RA unwilling to work with me?
I've recently started a new role on a three year project. I'm a research officer and I've joined onto the project about 8 months in at new research institute, there are three CIs. I've been brought on due to my expertise in a set of areas that the project is lacking, which includes theoretical/methodological knowledge and project management experience/skills. In terms of hierarchy, it's the three CIs, then me, then the RA. I've been brought on as a new early career researcher having already completely my Phd.
There is a graduate student research assistant involved with the project and their contract will finish at the end of the year. There is no money for additional work for them, and it is expected that I'll be taking over all of the their duties in addition to project management as well as creative contribution. The RA has been tasked to support me in the transition period as I take over the project and see out its implementation.
I've been getting along well with the chief investigators and am beginning to settle into the role. However, my struggle is with the RA, who is unwilling to work with me or allow me access to any of the materials. If I ask them to help me with something, they go to one of the CIs and complain that they are confused about what they are being tasked with. In meetings, I find that they roll their eyes at me, and give off a hostile vibe. In some cases, I feel as though my intelligence is being belittled despite being brought on as a senior researcher, because my research background, (while complimentary) is quite different to the standard background at this institute.
I know that this could potentially be a bit of backlash for me being brought onto the project, and that they are concerned about their contributions. They have been told that they are not staying on past a particular date (or so I've been told), and there might be some unintentional gate-keeping/attachment to the project that they are unwilling to let go. However, they've also been made aware that their contributions will count towards co-authoring a paper or two, so they won't be kicked off completely with nothing to show for it.
While I have brought up this issue with the CIs, it's still happening, and I'm not sure what the next step is or how to manage this effectively.
Has anyone had this experience before and can offer some suggestions/guidance?

Maybe try the Workplace stack exchange?  It's a management problem.

I've been brought on due to my ... project management experience/skills. — Going out on a limb here, but, in addition to the technical expertise you bring to the table, my guess is that you were brought on to deal with exactly the problem you are currently facing with the RA.

Is it possible to replace the RA at this point?


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Graduate Research Fellowships
Recently, I have been looking around for suitable fellowships. I'm an american, white male, mechanical engineering major with a research focus on solid mechanics and fracture. I will graduate from undergraduate in December, and start my MS immediately. My long term goal is to find an academic position, after I finish my MS, PhD, and post-doc.
Other than the NSF GRFP, is anyone aware of fellowships I may be suitable for?
Thanks!

I'm not so familiar with engineering - will you be starting a separate MS, or going straight into a MS/PhD program?  There is usually not much fellowship funding available for standalone masters students.

Separate MS, PhD at a different program.

So, you may not be eligible for those fellowships until you start your PhD program.  Anyhow, google for "engineering fellowships" gives many options - Hertz and NDSEG are famous ones.

I had previously seen NSDEG, which is supposed to be for students beginning PhD. Although, I can still technically apply.

Hertz actually appears to be a good idea, I will look closely at this application.

Pardon my ignorance, but why did you feel the need to specify you are a 'white male' ? Note: I am not criticising or attacking you in any way. Just asking.

Because many fellowships are specifically tailored to students of underrepresented minorities, I wanted to be clear that I am not eligible for these fellowships.

There's this fund:
http://www.scheppfoundation.org/wp/
As well as this fund, if your parents were immigrants to the U.S.:
https://www.pdsoros.org.
There are more, just Google search a bit.
As an aside, I believe this question falls under the category of "boat programming" and is thus not suitable for this site.

I think it counts as a shopping question rather than boat programming.


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Should I use a personal GitHub account or a new one to publish academic code?
When I want to publish academic code, should I use my personal GitHub account with a pseudonymous username or create a new one with a username based on my real name?
My current account uses a pseudonym as username and I write code for which I use my real name in the commits and an e-mail address related to the pseudonym (e.g. to keep my personal mail address free from spam).
For university code, I use my real name and university e-mail address in the repositories, but the URLs of the projects still contain the username, so the pseudonym is quite visible.
My personal account contains a few non-university projects and forks of other projects (some for modifications used by my university codes, some unrelated to my university work) as well. There is nothing I would not want to be seen by others and some of the voluntary work may reflect positively on me.

Should I worry about the username being a pseudonym (nothing silly like "buffy_the vampire_slayer", but still unrelated to my name)?

When publishing code linked on the university website.
When publishing code with the URL linked in a paper.

Is it preferred to have an account for university codes only?

I do not think my university or department has any rules for this, so I need to decide it myself.

On a side note, if you need to submit code to a conference in anonymous way, I have recently found out about https://anonymous.4open.science/ and it seems that it is a nice tool to anonymize your code easily.

I would use a separate account for a couple reasons:

If I search for "yourname Github" it would be nice to actually find it.
It's marginally more professional to use your real name on public-facing research work.
It's much easier to administer. I run a Github Group for people collaborating on a particular project, and it's vastly easier to figure out who should have what permissions, be on which team, etc. if it's faintly real-name associated.
It keeps your professional and personal coding separated. While it's sometimes beneficial for a future employer to see everything you're doing, I don't necessarily want or need someone looking through the code for my papers to also need to wade through prototype code for a personal project, or have them start wondering just how much time that social network of characters in a sci-fi series took to make. Beyond that, it also gets rid of a lot of ambiguity around what's "Yours" vs. "What was made on university time".

You should use your real name.
My lab has a private GitHub group for internal stuff, as well as a few open public-facing projects.
Everyone in our group uses their real names or some transparent abbreviation (like jsmith) or one that matches their university email/login ID.
I feel it should be immediately obvious who each person is. It would be mildly annoying if I had to remember who allo was every time, when everyone else has easy-to-read IDs.
If I was your mentor, I would probably ask you to change it.
It's fine if you do non-job-related development on that same GitHub account, for the reasons you mentioned.

That's exactly my concern and what I probably want to do. On the other hand, I use this pseudonym for quite some time in different (not university related) projects and where I want it to be non-pseudonymous I just have my real name in the appropriate realname fields. I wonder if some reputation for the work there would become invisible. Maybe I should mirror/fork some of the projects to the new account or use it to separate really non-work related things from the rest.

@allo Many academics aren't going to be GitHub power users. Make things easy for them. I would honestly recommend changing your GH username if you think it's worth it to hold on to those project experiences.

I use the same account for both.
If potential future employers consider my Github account (such as for positions involving a fair share of coding or software engineering), it doesn't hurt if they notice that I may have written code outside of my professional life, too.  It's probably rather beneficial.
On the other hand, I do write some code for research where the code is not publicly visible through my Github account, so that part will not show.

Your github account (assuming you mean the one linked in your profile) has a pseudonym based on your real name. Would you use one with a nickname not based on your real name as well?

@allo My github account uses my real name, not a pseudonym.  I would use a nickname/pseudonym as well.  The only case in which I would not recommend it, if it the nickname may be offensive or very unprofessional or childish, but then again I wouldn't recommend to use such a nickname at any case.  To me, if a nickname is good enough for Github, it's good enough for potential employers to see.

My pseudonyms are good enough for open source development, but for most projects there is no entry barrier at all (despite some really offensive names). The question about employer / academic is possibly related, but I do not have the employer situation as long as I work for the university. One of the things in academia is, that a url mentioned in a paper will be there forever and visible for everyone.


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My Proposed PhD supervisor is ignoring my email
I made a contact with a proposed PhD supervisor( Professor), everything went well and she forwarded the email between her and the department Research committee secretary that I have been shortlisted for studentship and recommended for Fellowship, in the email she sent to me, I observed a remark on my application file (my entrance requirement was indicated with FAILED) and I quickly asked her if it won't affect my admission, but she ignored it, a later found out that all applicant were initially categorized as a masters holder (I am a bsc holder) before screening that was the reason why for that). After, a couple of days, i asked her if I was later shortlisted for Fellowship but she ignored the message, though the admission offer will be released in March.
My questions are these;
Hope I have not create a doubt in her mind towards me as a result of my inquisitive nature?, hope this won't affect my admission offer and lastly, how can I build the relationship back because she used to reply my messaged often and appreciate my research proposal?

What is the time frame here? Not everyone answers email immediately.

Sorry, I mean how long has it been since you emailed? You say "ignored", but I'm wondering if that is accurate, or just "delayed".

If admission offers will be released in March, what is your reason for not waiting until March?

5 days is a microsecond for graduate admissions. Committees need to meet, decisions have to be made, faculty/PIs need to hear official word back from these committees and department admins.....it all takes time.

Can't you call this person instead of writing emails? Is this a Chinese professor?

This is obviously an important decision for you, and it's understandably making you anxious. However, you have to accept that the decision won't be made until March. Repeatedly contacting the folks making the decision, asking if they've decided won't help. They have a process they have to follow, and they can't make promises before they've completed that process. Sending repeated emails asking about the status of their decision could be annoying them (it would annoy me), but if they're reasonable, professional people it probably won't affect their decision on the position. However, no one can guarantee that. You just have to live with the uncertainty for a couple of months.
As long as your application is complete and accurate you should just put this aside until March. Find something else to keep yourself busy, or seek professional assistance if the anxiety is overwhelming.

It sounds like you have been peppering this professor with emails. Some might call this "inquisitive," others might call this "pestering." Not everyone answers their email within a day or two. Although not ideal, this is the way things are many times. Some professors receive literally hundreds of emails a day and filtering through them all is very time consuming. There were some semesters that I would teach 100+ students. Now stack all of the research and teaching assistants, department administrators, university administrators, society duties, colleagues, spam, etc on top of those emails from students. That's a lot of email to filter through in one day. Sometimes it would take me a few days to get back to a potential student who asked a question about their application.
Do you have any other points of contact in the department?
If the fellowship list does not come out until March, it actually seems that you have plenty of time still. This professor could be waiting to hear back from a chain of contacts in the department who make final decisions on things like fellowships.

Thank you very much for the reply. I have stopped pestering her with questions. But sir, hope my attitude (asking too much questions) leads to revoke of my admission, because base on the school policies any candidates that is recommended for the fellowship by the department is will be given studentship automatically if the fellowship fail. Thanks


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Requesting review of short proof by professor
I'm a student enrolled in an university in Italy. I'm currently taking a course on probability theory, but the way is it taught is, whilst very good, not very thorough; I mean that in class some of the most difficult part are skipped. As such, I'm studying those part on the book by myself. Since this is a completely new topic for me, I often wonder if I'm understanding the proofs correctly, and if I'm able to correctly apply the theorems.
For this reason I sent an email to my professor, kindly asking to review a short proof (that I've written in latex, so it was pretty and all) specifying that I wasn't sure if all the operations and the theorems employed were indeed well used. The professor did not answer my mail.
My question is, was I wrong with sending the email in the first place? Is it bad etiquette to do so? I especially don't want to appear like some sort of "smart aleck" or anything, I am honestly trying to understand the topic. Of course I don't mind that the professor didn't reply, I know he must be pretty busy. On the other hand, I also have the feeling that if I can't get any feedback I may as well study the books by myself. What is even the point of being enrolled in the university then?
I hope someone with experience (maybe a professor!) can share their thoughts.

Always assume positive intent, but there's nothing like a face-to-face question.

Are there any TAs or doctorands who assist the professor? If so, you should contact them first; follow the hierarchy/pyramid!

If you were polite, there is no reason that an email showing your interest in the course would be considered as bad practice.

As @paulgarrett has said, there's nothing wrong with sending this sort of email, and (one hopes) many professors will be pleased that a student is showing more initiative than the average.
However, from the professor's perspective: unless the answer is "Yes, that's exactly correct", or "No, you clearly haven't understood the first thing about this course", providing a helpful answer can be quite time-consuming. Explaining why your proof is not quite right may require material that's outside the scope of your current course; it may also require the professor to sit down and produce a lengthy response. Sometimes, there are also nuances of "it's not exactly wrong, but it's not entirely right either" that are difficult to translate into written form.
Thus, it's all too easy to put this sort of question to one side, with good intentions of replying later that never quite come to fruition. I suggest the best strategy, assuming you've given the professor a reasonable amount of time to respond, is to go see the professor in person (perhaps during his office hours, or after a lecture), and (politely) ask if he's had a chance to look at the proof you sent. Take a print-out with you. You will at least get a better sense of whether this professor welcomes your questions or not.

One would hope the professor would ask the student to come to office hours to discuss the proof.

Yes, indeed. But never assume malice where incompetence would do...

+1.  Conversations like this can be much more efficient and productive in person than over email.

I see your point. I would have loved a scheduled appointment, now I am a little bit unwilling to go talk to him, because I think I may be perceived as too insistent. This is probably what I will do, though. Anyhow I sent the email 15 days ago. Thank you very much for the response!

Also with conversations you see body language that is completely lost over email. Everyone gets their feeling hurt v easily and unintentionally with the impersonal nature of email. Most people want to be nice, some do not. Face to face always answers that question. I have has conversations with professions i have not met when I am not even in academia (both before and after). Its not unreasonable to expect a dialogue. A professor should really make time to see interested students - its implied in the name.

@Ant As someone who constantly struggles with not wanting to come off as "pestering" people I need something from, I completely understand where you are coming from. That said, I have slowly been improving in this manner, visiting professors and bosses in person if e-mails go unanswered, and so I wanted to share what I've learned: never once has any of the people I was afraid of annoying actually been annoyed. Every one of them was glad I came in, apologetic they hadn't answered the e-mail, and almost all had a response similar to "oh, I meant to get back to you about that!"

Being a mathematician in the U.S., from my perspective it is entirely reasonable to send (nicely typeset) questions to one's professor. I always respond to my students' email questions. In fact, I respond to polite emails from people I've not met, if the email seems to be addressed to me specifically (as opposed to a mass emailing) and not machine-generated (spam...) and concerning mathematics that I'd be assumed to have an expert opinion about. After all, wouldn't this be a natural way for the scholarly community to operate?
Still, yes, it is true that if one is trying to absolutely optimize status, engaging in any not-status-enhancing activity would be pointless at best. It's not surprising when people thinking that way ignore anyone who can't add to their status.
In summary, email questions as you describe are entirely reasonable, and not at all impolite. At the same time, depending on the recipient, it is also entirely unsurprising that they'd ignore you, unfortunately.

Thank you very much for the response! I'm happy to know that it is not my fault :) The professor seems very competent and willing to help, though.. I'll probably try to go see him in person.

I agree with the answers posted so far, but yet wanted to add another view of sight. It is neither bad etiquette nor wrong to ask these questions.
From my personal experience while being a student and later working on a PhD I can tell, that professors tend to be very busy throughout the whole year. E-Mails sometimes remain unread for quite some time. The best way to approach your teacher is probably after class, so he can put a face to the name. He might then tell you, that it is inconvenient at the moment, refer to a tutor or teaching assistant or maybe schedule a separate meeting. Some of my teachers also took this kind of response as a means to discuss it later in class, if there is enough time.
When I was a PhD student my supervisor referred some students to me in order to help them unpuzzle their questions, since he has had no time to efficiently take care about them. I do also consider this a nice practice.
I have met quite a number of lecturers and almost all of them were very happy if they receive any kind of feedback. Most of them came also to the conclusion, that a personal talk is more fruitful, since this would answer some of their questions, too.
In conclusion, your teacher might not have read your e-mail and I think it is appropriate if you try to meet him after class and ask him about that.

I think asking the question is totally fine, but keep in mind that you’re asking for a significant amount of work that they hadn’t planned into their schedule, and it’s entirely reasonable for them not to do it. Replying is nicer, but these kind of emails that require too much work to reply to immediately and which aren’t urgent are easily forgotten.
One thing your professor does already have in their schedule is office hours. Show up to office hours and ask if you can explain your proof there on the board.

Note that this question is 8 years old. It was bumped to the home page by a tag edit. I would suggest adding new answers only if you think that they can be useful for other users, too.

Yeah, I didn't notice that until after I wrote the answer.


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Student Travel Grant = Volunteering; is it worth it?
I have a paper accepted to a conference and my adviser is willing to fully fund the trip.
However, I am also eligible to apply for a "Student Travel Grant" (being a student author).
Pros of getting the travel grant:

saves adviser grant money
goes on my resume

Cons:

i would have to volunteer and possibly spend half of each day with tasks at hand

I am not sure whether it's worth applying for the travel grant and helping at the conference, as opposed to just going there.
For those of you who have been in this or similar situations before, what would you advise?
UPDATE: I learned that the grant covers almost half of my total trip cost, and that the volunteering time is around 1/4 of the total conference duration, which is good; Hence, I have applied for it. Thanks everyone for your help.

@lyes are the tasks and workload specified? That should tell you if it is going to be more like dgraziotin's friends negative experiences, or like ff524's positive ones. If they don't, slavery flag!

@dgraziotin That's exactly the kind of fears I have in mind. Thanks for your comment

@Davidmh Thanks for your comment; I actually have the same concerns as dgraziotin 's friends. There are no details online yet; I am getting in touch with the organizers to get an idea of the hours/tasks. I'll update my post once I have more details.

It will be good to ask your advisor. Could be the case that he has lots of money, and the saving would be small; or that he is struggling, and this saving can be very beneficial. He may also have specific experience with the conference at hand.

Another pro: get to know other graduate students in your field.

@lyes On the other hand, I regularly volunteered to make registration free at one of our major conferences, and was glad I did it.

Based on my own experience, I would definitely recommend applying for the travel grant!
The pros you have mentioned are fairly substantial. Regarding the con: I have never found any conference volunteer job to be at all onerous*, and usually they have been fun and/or valuable.
For example, here are some volunteer jobs I have had:
Volunteering at the registration desk
If I have this job, I get to meet all the attendees as they come in. Usually, when I first sit down at the registration table, I flip through the badges to see who is registered, and make a plan for who I want to meet. Then, if those people come in while I am "on duty" and they are not in a rush, I can strike up a conversation.
By doing this, I've been able to have some really "spontaneous" talks with important people in my field who I wouldn't have had much of an opening to meet otherwise.
I've never been asked to do this job for more than a couple of hours at any given conference, so I didn't feel like I was missing out. If this is my volunteer job, I can usually arrange with the other volunteers so I am "on duty" during a time when there are no sessions I'm interested in anyways.
Taking minutes in meetings
Another time, I was a student volunteer at a conference that also hosts its sponsoring SIG's annual business meeting, and my job was to take minutes in this meeting. I got to listen in while all the big shots in the SIG talked about what they really think of the state of the subfield, the quality of the conference, the direction they'd like to see things go in, etc.
Also, the meeting was in the evening and there were no conference sessions going on, so I didn't miss anything while doing this (except maybe a nap).
Mic shuttler, running the 1-minute madness session
Some volunteer jobs take place inside the conference sessions themselves, so you don't miss out on anything while doing these jobs.
For example, I've been assigned to be the person that carries the mic around to people who have questions during the Q&A after each talk.
I've also been part of keeping the 1-minute madness session (where poster/demo presenters get up one after another and speak for one minute about their poster) on time. The student volunteer coordinator described this job as follows:

1 person in charge of lining up presenters in the correct order, 1 person in charge of advancing the presentations, and about 5 are responsible for throwing the presenter with crumpled paper balls at the 56th second to get her/him off the stage.

(I didn't have to throw any paper balls.)
* YMMV. At a large, well-organized conference there will be lots of volunteers, you can choose which task you prefer, and no one student has to do too much work. At a smaller conference, things may be different.

Thanks for the thorough answer! It is actually a large SIG conference, so your answer might well apply. I'll wait on a few more opinions before I accept this answer.

Don't forget that getting a travel grant this time (along with a promise from your advisor) might get you free travel (paid for by your advisor) to a future conference that doesn't offer such funding.

Good thinking @Thomas; I hope to learn the exact amount the travel grant provides today, so that I can weigh such factors in.

Somewhat echoing ff524's response, I have volunteered several times as a student in order to make conference registrations cheaper, and have had a decent experience doing it.
Pro: Having worked at both a conference registration desk and as essentially an assigned "person" who knows who to go to if the podium computer locks up, something is wrong in the room, etc. I've had a chance to strike up conversations and introduce myself to important folks in my field in a way that wasn't just "Hi, I'm Fomite, your work is awesome..." There's often time to chat, especially during lulls in registration, the 15 minutes before presentations start when you're the only one there besides the speakers, etc.
For smaller organizations and conferences, there's also probably a fairly large overlap between staff (in my case, nearly complete overlap). This means you've had some time to chat with society staff members, and it never hurts to be on a first name basis with them and having been remembered as being helpful.
For limited attendance events, like "Meet the Faculty", etc. you might get first dibs on tickets.
Con: You do have a schedule, and that means you might miss something you are interested in. However, keep in mind the society isn't looking for cheap conference labor alone - they want students to come to the conference and benefit. I've never had my duties be so onerous that I missed out on a huge part of the conference. The only time there was a serious risk of there being something that I really wanted to go to that I would miss, I managed to swap with another student so I was then the room monitor for the session I wanted to attend - and could then go meet the people I was so interested in hearing speak.


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Providing Students Formal Exam Feedback?
I'm in the process of finalising my exam for my unit in second semester (based in Australia).
The exam will have 3 essay questions out of a total of 6 that students will receive prior to the exam. They will be asked to prepare responses to these 6 essay questions, but only 3 will appear on the exam (originally I had wanted to do 3/10 as a former professor of mine had done, but was asked to reduce this to 6).
These exams will be assessed against a qualitative rubric with no comments provided.
Other than considering faculty rules/procedures regarding whether or not students can receive feedback from formal examinations (which I still need to inquire about):

Are there any downsides in providing students qualitative rubrics from their formal exams after final marks have been posted?
Does the term/nature of a 'Formal Exam' mean that students should not receive feedback?

(As a side note my course has to have an exam as its listed in the 2015 handbook, but next year this has been removed to be 100% in-class assessment).

One potential drawback comes to mind: if you release the rubrics and/or each student's assessment against these rubrics (it's a bit unclear to me which one you want to do), you will open the gates wide to long, tiresome discussions.
If students don't know the rubrics against which their work is assessed, they will have a harder time arguing that "obviously they addressed this topic, so they should get full points."
(I'm not arguing against releasing rubrics and/or assessments just to reduce the teacher's workload. I'm pointing out a potential downside. I'd still argue that releasing at least the rubrics makes sense to help students improve. Just be prepared for discussions. A small percentage of students can be very tenacious in such discussions and appear to spend more time disputing their grade after the exam than preparing before.)

Rubrics will be released prior to the exam. I guess the upside is that I'm only on a contract that finishes the 18th of December, so should students want long/tiresome discussions...they wouldn't be able to get a hold of me!

Actually, you shouldn't require the students to do anything for which they receive no feedback at all. Even the best students need a bit of confirmation that what they have done is good.
But you don't need to release the rubric for the exam if the scale required for giving feedback is reasonable. For students writing on paper, a note on the paper itself is good, provided that the papers are returned to the students.
In other cases an individual email with a few comments is fine. You can even prepare a lot of those comments in advance or as you grade, so that you can just use copy/paste to write a lot of them.
But learning requires both practice and feedback. That is why professional athletes still use coaches.

Also requires understanding the feedback and acting on it...


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Contacting Potential PhD Supervisor: Including grades
I am starting to contact potential supervisors to do a PhD and I am wondering whether (and how) I should include my grades while contacting them. I am in the UK so there is no GPA standard (there is a GPA but it differs substantially between universities and can be very confusing). So far I have thought of including one of the following:

"Expecting a first class honours degree"
"... with an average of A"
"in the top 5% of my class"

The first two are probably more common but they only place me in the top 20%, I am in the top 5% however, but I feel a bit pretentious to say the third - or is it okay to do so? Is there a more suitable way of including this information?
I am including all my advanced (3rd and 4th year) courses in my CV (and not sending transcripts etc as I feel it would be spamming their inboxes to send loads of documents upon first contact) is that also okay?
By the way, the potential supervisors I am contacting are all over the world and therefore would be impossible to arrange meetings, otherwise I would have done so instead of relying on emails, but in this case, emails are the essential way of communicating with them which is why I am sort of being an overly perfectionist.
Thanks very much,
(An active A.SE member that chose to write this one anonymously.)

I'm a little confused -- you're contacting faculty when you have not yet applied to or been accepted into the program?  What is your purpose in contacting them?  In my experience, at the very beginning stage before you apply, you might contact a faculty member to talk about their interests and what you'd like to work on, to see if you'd be a good fit, what the research possibilities might be, and so on.  Including all your background information at this point would be inappropriate, in my opinion.

In my experience (computer science, top 10 US institution), there are some faculty members who just don't care about grades.  I'm in that camp.  I never even look at the transcript when evaluating applicants.  Then there are others for whom grades are a filter.  For example, if you want to go into graphics but got "only" an A- in an applied math class, I know some people who would never even consider you.  However, either way, nobody is going to get excited that you are in the top 5% of your class.  We probably get 100 applicants a year who are in the top 5% of their class.
So actually my first advice (and again, this depends on the field, area, and school you are applying to) would be not to contact potential supervisors at all.  That's because in the US, Ph.D. admissions are department-wide.  It probably does make sense to contact supervisors at places with per-faculty or per-group admissions.  Where you do contact people, if you get them interested in you, they might just presume for the sake of the email exchange that you have reasonable grades.  So maybe find a way to convey this information for people who want it but in a way that doesn't dilute whatever more interesting hook you use to get people interested (like have it on a resume that is accessible from your home page).

In your email, I imagine you will be including a succinct overall description of yourself.  This would be a good place to include the information that you have strong grades.  If you get a nibble, you could then include some specifics, or better yet, an informal transcript as an attachment.


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How to email professor with group concerns about class?
I'm currently taking a 20-25 person graduate-level course in Computer Science. It's about 60/40 theory/implementation, which means the discussions in class tend to be a bit more abstract that the typical undergraduate course.
I've recently talked with a few of the other students in the class, and we've all noted that it's become particularly difficult to ask questions in class for three reasons:

The professor moves very quickly and jumps back and forth between slides.  (We're less concerned about this - it's a pain to follow, but that's grad school, and we're all willing to learn outside of class if necessary.)
There's a core group of about 5 students who sit at the front of the classroom and are constantly asking questions.  Normally, none of us would mind this - however, they tend to interrupt the professor and talk loudly over other students (especially international ones).
When someone other than these 5 students does ask a question, those same 5 students usually interrupt the professor and try to answer it themselves - frequently in a way that we feel is more confusing than if the professor himself was to try and answer it.

We have nothing against this professor or these students - they're interested in the field, which we understand - but with midterms approaching we're concerned that our understanding of the material is less than we would like.
I'd like to email the professor and bring up these concerns - I had planned on doing so anyway, but then the other students asked me to do so too because (1) I'm not international and (2) I'm (for lack of a better word) loud when needed.
What I'm not sure is how I should email him.  Should it be an anonymous email from one of my dummy accounts?  Should it be a group email in which I cc the other students? Should I mention names or not? I'd appreciate some guidance on how to do this such that it will be best received.

Such behavior is rude, inconsiderate, and disruptive. On top of whatever official communication you will pursue, if someone talks over you, it is certainly appropriate to talk back "Could I please finish?"; and if they talk over the professor, "Could I please hear what Professor X has to say?" Don't let bullies get away with this.

@gnometorule - That's easy for me (as an American) to do... we're known for being blunt like that :) But for certain international students, I get the sense that it's not something they're used to.  Nevertheless, I'll be sure to share that advice with them!

If you ask mostly for others, kudos to you. But then simply substitute the above with "Could you please let him (her) finish?", and "Could we please hear what Professor X has to say" - all with a genuine smile. The professor might even appreciate if they are shy (I've seen people stand up for their shy professor when he was bullied by aggressors). As you say you are a group of friends, you can take turns intervening to make clear that it isn't just you.

I think e-mailing him essentially what you wrote here is fine. You are respectful and understanding of everyone involved, and have legitimate concerns. I think an e-mail would be very likely to get a favorable response.
I think it is fine to e-mail from your institutional account, but if you prefer anonymity I think it is also fine to sign up for a Gmail or Yahoo account or something and e-mail from that.
Probably best not to mention names.

Ended up doing this anonymously, and received a nice reply saying "Thanks for the feedback, I'd noticed this issue too, I'll make adjustments if necessary." Class today seemed markedly improved (from our perspective at least), and there were questions from more than just my compatriots and I, which I think means we weren't the only ones having this feeling.

@tonysdg - Thank you so much for the update.  Very glad to hear.

Great to see some good outcomes here! :) Kudos to you.


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Is it appropriate or acceptable to thank a professor for their dissenting public opinion?
This is a question mainly in case I haven't foreseen any potential repercussions.
The pandemic is a contentious issue, and a particular academic in my country has been outspoken with the same view as me. I'm currently a PhD student, and would just like to send an e-mail in support to said academic, especially considering that I imagine they would be the victim of many negative and/or abusive communications, again given the contentious nature of the topic.
Their field is also an application of mine, so I would be interested in discussing some of their research in that vein.

Does their opinion interfere with their scientific work or is it separate and private opinion?

What does this have to do with academia?

Unless s/he is one of those talking to the public in TV like they are speaking to a colleague during coffee break, go ahead. But I don't see why this question relates to Academia SE.

Yes.  Telling someone you appreciate their taking a public stand you agree with, thanking them for it, is always appropriate and appreciated, especially when you suspect they've taken some heat for doing so.

I see no reason that you should be worried about sending your support note to the professor. This happens all the time. People more often send disagreeable, if not nasty notes to people they do not agree with. This may be your introduction to the professor by  way of explaining your work, etc.


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Systematic Literature Review: PRISMA Statement vs. the PRISMA Protocol (aka PRISMA-P) Checklists?
Problem: I am confused about why it matters if one uses the PRISMA Statement 2020 checklist versus the PRISMA-P 2015 checklist for a systematic literature review. Therefore, I am looking to StackExchange members who can offer an explanation, perhaps with contrasting examples, to help.
Should it help inform your answer, the goal is to write a bifurcated SLR with recommendations for resolving inconsistent diagnoses of a specific mental disorder
Background: I have spent several hours reading and re-reading about the PRISMA Statement, the PRISMA-P, comparing the checklists side-by-side, and even created a merged table of the checklists.
To me, the checklists are substantially the same. This description of intended/not intended use one checklist vs the other did nothing (for me) to clarify the difference (because, again, there are, to me, no blindingly obvious differences between the checklists).

PRISMA 2020 is not intended to inform the reporting of systematic review protocols, for which a separate statement is available (PRISMA for Protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement.
*From  The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews
BMJ 2021; 372 (Published 29 March 2021) *

Additional Links
Table 2 PRISMA-P terminology
PRISMA 2020 Statement Checklist
PRISMA-P 2015 Checklist

Sometimes it takes writing a post to StackExchange for the lightbulbs to come on. At least I think the lightbulbs are now on.
While cleaning up the merged checklists for readability, it occurred to me that for thesis purposes:

The PRISMA-P 2015 is a checklist for writing the proposed method.
The PRISMA 2020 statement is a checklist for writing the research results.
Either checklist could be adapted by merging items from the other to customize the proposed method or to customize the reporting of the results.

Note: Yes, I am aware that the checklists were created to promote consistency. So, of course, if any adaptations are made, one has to be able to defend doing so.


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PhD Rejections - What to do?
I was rejected from all of my top choice schools and am still waiting to hear back from my other schools. The top two being Southern Methodist University and Baylor University. Honestly, I feel horrid about myself and know that my GRE Subject (Math) exam was terrible, but know that everything else about my application was very strong.
My advisor has told me that I should retake the exams and apply again which makes me take a year off of school. I graduate May 2019 with my Masters in math so I would apply again in Fall 2019 and hear back Spring 2020.
I am wanting advice on how I should view these rejections because at the moment I am extremely sad about it. Additionally, how do schools view students reapplying after a rejection?

Actually SMU and Baylor are fine universities.

FWIW, I was in the exact same situation last year as you are in now. I'm sure many others have been there as well. The thing that sucks about applying to highly competitive programs is there are way more qualified applicants than there is space for. It doesn't mean you weren't good enough.

First things first: don't feel bad. I was among the top three students in my country and I still got rejected by all the top schools I applied to for undergraduate study. It's a great big world out there with lots of highly intelligent, highly motivated students with excellent applications, and it's only going to get more competitive the higher up you go in academia.
Second: now is not the time to worry about what you might have done differently because it'll just make you feel worse. But in six months' time, if you're still unaffiliated and want to apply again, then would be a good time to read the paragraph below.

Remember that you can't just apply to top schools. You could easily be rejected everywhere. You should also apply to schools which you are confident you'll be accepted in, as well as schools which are 50-50. Then, come decision time, you'll at least be able to go somewhere and not have a gap year to fill. "Somewhere" might not be as good as "dream school", but it's still better than "nowhere".

Third: what to do next is the most pressing thing to figure out. Doing nothing is not ideal - that makes you a burden to your caregivers. If money is at all a concern for you, I advocate getting a job. You might not be able to commit for very long (although you can delay grad school for two years or more too) but you still might be able find a temporary job. Working has many great advantages that can change your perception of grad school completely. At the very least, you'll be on a more solid footing financially when you attend.
If money isn't a concern to you, and you're dead set on doing PhD studies, then you can use the intervening year to learn more mathematics. For example you could stay put at your current institution for a year taking extra masters-level courses that you didn't take because of time constraints. You could do an extra research project with your current supervisor. You could look up the job requirements for jobs you want to do, and take the year to self-study those. You can do all these while preparing for another attempt at the Math GRE. You could even take the gap year to travel the world, which like getting a job will be a transformative experience that will teach you things you cannot learn at a university. See this related question for more suggestions.
In short, getting admitted to a PhD program isn't everything. Shake of the disappointment of having been rejected at all your top choices and you'll find there're lots of things you can do, not all of which might be related to studying but will nonetheless lead to personal growth.

Rejection is an opportunity to improve yourself. I suggest the following steps:

Give a time to accept your current situation
Analyse the weakest points in your application
Make a plan to improve your application, talk to other people (grad students, professors, etc.) when possible!
Apply again

Reapplying is not a bad thing as long as you are able to show your ability to overcome difficulties.
All the best in future applications!

Actually, it probably isn't the application that needs to be improved, but some lack in your background that needs to be rectified if possible.


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When you no longer want a professor on your dissertation committee
If I already asked a professor to serve on my dissertation committee but I now longer want him on my committee for various reasons, how can I politely tell him this through email? I just don't know how to say this in a polite and not at all prideful way.

Is there any reason why you can’t just be honest?

This assumes that you have the choice - in some disciplines you don’t have any...

It's in the U.S. Yes, I intend to be honest when I tell him. I just wanted to know how to word it to him. And technically I do have a choice in who goes on my committee

You do not need to tell them from the first place. They will implicitly understand that you changed your mind. It is fine. But if you send them the official forms and dissertation, I think you need to follow a certain procedure. In this case, it is not polite and not recommended to change a committee member unless there are strong reasons.
Contacting committee members should be done by the supervisor not by the student in most of the places. I highly recommend you to consult your supervisor as this is part of the supervisor's job.

I think the last part of this answer is the key. Let your advisor/supervisor tell them, rather than doing it yourself. This avoids making a potential enemy. Speak to your advisor.

Oh not at all, his name is not on any official form or on my dissertation so that part is not a problem. I didn't want to just be quiet and then make things awkward with him and me in the department.

In my experience in the US, it's the student who tends to organize the committee and contacts committee members, not the supervisor. I guess this is yet another thing that varies by field or location. Certainly is worth consulting the supervisor though, not least since they might have to sign updates forms.

Just tell him you've decided to replace him but thank you for having been willing.  Don't volunteer or reply with the "why".  If you're on campus, I would just do it in person.  Make sure you have a replacement available too.  Then just notify whoever maintains records of such stuff, department secretary, I guess.  Probably worth letting your advisor know too.

Okay thank you. I would do it in person, but he travels a lot, which is why I wanted to  send an email to him.