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Ethics on shortening project in grant application to raise chances of success
I am currently writing a PhD grant application, and I completed the first draft. The project is ambitious, but I and my advisors think feasible, but my advisors told me that it is quite dense and could be daunting for the grant reviewers, who may label it as unrealistic (which is a criterion of admission) and thus they may reject it.
I have no problem in working on simplifying my research project's description to make it more concise and readable, but my advisors suggested to strip half of the project, in order to raise the chances for it to be accepted. But they told me that of course, I can do the rest of the project too with the grant I will get, I just shouldn't mention that in the application.
Is it ethical and honest to "sell" a research project based on only half of its description and goals? Not only that, but also the logical reasoning and the bigger goal get totally lost, so are these worth losing against displaying a more realistic target? To me, it seems like reasoning that the end justifies the means...
I should mention that almost all the ideas for the research project are mine (the advisors helped me with naming the methods I will use, but the concepts, bibliography and goals are my own), and I was really motivated by the original whole project.

Why would you think this is unethical? Who/what might be wronged by this? You said it seems like "the end justifies the means" but what do you think is wrong about these "means"?

@ff524 Because I'm going to strip half of the original project, the one which I will be working on. It's true that I will anyway work on the first part, but I wonder if changing the project's goals just to raise the chances of success isn't a bit a lie by omission... In other words, I will work on other stuff than what I will be funded on, is that really ethical?

Although there is certainly no ethical problem here, there is something worth following up on.  You, as someone who has not yet begun a PhD project, have proposed something that your advisors tell you that veterans in the field will find unrealistically ambitious, and that it would look better if you only proposed to work on the first half.  Your confidence -- even worry! -- that you will do much more than the first half is the premise of the question.  While you needn't worry, I think this is a discrepancy well worth exploring further.  What do you know here that everyone else doesn't?

@PeteL.Clark They didn't tell me that the project I had was unrealistic, but that the reviewers may find it unrealistic. They told me they were confident I could do more than just the first two parts.

@gaborous: I see that you have edited your question to clarify that your advisors find it realistic.  Good!  I still wonder why they think a project they view as not prohibitively ambitious will likely be viewed as such by the reviewers, but much more idly: I don't know anything about who the reviewers are -- I was thinking in terms of reviewers for government research grants, who are veterans in the field; for all I know, the reviewers for your PhD application may not be -- and how they behave, and it sounds like your advisors do.  (Also good.)

@PeteL.Clark I don't really know, I tried to ask but they didn't answer directly my question. Indeed, the reviewers may be veteran but not exactly in our field of research (which is quite specific, there's not a lot of lab in the world that are working in this field), so I also believe this may be the reason, but I'm not sure.

Asking for a grant to do A, and doing B, is clearly unethical. Wanting to do A and B, and being told that A is work enough for the grant proposal by much more experienced people, and insisting in trying to work on B (or writing a proposal for A and B) isn't unethical, just foolish.

Yes, of course this should not be a problem.  The funding agencies want to see projects that are on a realistic scale.  If it will probably not be possible for you to achieve your main goals, given the time and money allotted to the project, that certainly makes it seem like a poor investment.  Conversely, the funders know that if you reach your projected goals early, you are going to use the remainder of your funding to extend the research further.  So you should try to set achievable goals in your proposal, but if you manage to exceed them, nobody is going to be unhappy.
Naturally, cutting major tasks out of your proposal is going to require some rethinking of the justification.  If the projects you think do have time to complete are less interesting by themselves than the later projects you will need to cut, they you still need to explain why they are important stepping stones toward the ultimately most important work (even if you won't be getting to that work yet).  It can be subtle to get this right, but think you would be wise to trust your advisor's judgement about how much to include in your proposal.

Do you think I can briefly mention further goals in case I complete the target goals earlier in the application? (is it an accepted practice?)

You should certainly mention what future work can follow on from what you are proposing to accomplish.  However, in my experience, it may be a bad idea to suggest that you can actually accomplish significantly more than you are proposing.  It may come across as an invitation to cut your funding.  This probably depends quite a bit on the funding agency and division, though.  I would recommend being fairly circumspect about what you might accomplish beyond the explicit goals, and I would try to talk with somebody who has gotten funding from the same source before, to see what they think.

Thank you for all your answers, really helpful and dead on the spot.

Consider the inverse situation (exaggerated for the sake of the argument):
You propose a project that you know is unrealistic. The grant agency hypothetically approves your project, and the project runs out of money before any interesting findings are made.
In this case, I can see an ethical issue, since the project was "sold" (as you say) with a larger promise than what could be delivered. By contrast, I see no ethical problem with "underpromising" and "overdelivering".

My advisors were quite confident that I will be able do more than the first 2 parts, so the point is not that the project is unrealistic per se, but that it may look like unrealistic to reviewers.

@gaborous, if your advisors are so confident you can complete the complete set of tasks with the resources from the grant (time and money), they would be extremely foolish not to insist on proposing the full set for the grant. People evaluating your application will be able to do more or less the same estimate of results possible, and will just reject the application if it seems to fall far short of what is reasonably possible to accomplish.


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Is PGCHE more valuable that PGCE?
There have been a few questions relating to PGCHE certificates, including:

How is PGCHE by distance learning viewed relative to in-class?
What is the purpose of peer evaluation of teaching?
University Teaching Certifications for Different Countries

As far as I understand, the PGCHE is more specific to higher education (hence the HE). However, there is another more general PGCE which deals with education overall (not limited to higher education).
Given that the PCGHE is more specific, do faculty selection committees value the PGCHE as a 'better qualification' when hiring a lecturer or do they simply consider that someone has specific training in teaching and there is no significant difference? Does this vary by country?

In the UK community colleges are not part of the higher education system and the US equivalent of a small liberal arts colleges essentially do not exist. That means the vast majority of UK universities hire for "research excellence" and hiring committees are really only interested in if you can teach a needed module and that you will not be awful. The PGCE, unlike the PGCHE, would not satisfy any university requirements and therefore I don't think hiring committees would consider it at all.
As for the PGCHE, while many universities require new members of academic staff to obtain one, The universities that I am familiar with offer the PGCHE curriculum in house via the School of Education. Since it is presented to new staff as a hoop to jump through, I know of no one outside of university administrators and schools of education that think the PGCHE, in any form, is of value. Further, while I have seen many job adverts where a PGCHE is a "desirable" qualification, I have never seen one where it is "essential". During hiring, we briefly consider the presence/absence of a PGCHE, but never more than that.
Overall, I would say that the PGCE is useless for getting a job and the PGCHE is only marginally more valuable for being hired. As a PGCHE is. Requirement once you have the job, it may be beneficial in that it would make your first year, or two, easier since it is one less thing to do while you are drowning in new teaching, admin, and setting up a research agenda. The disadvantage of this is the PGCHE course was one place where I met new faculty members outside my school.

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How much time should be allocated to supervising undergraduate researchers?
I recently asked this question about how many office hours per week are common for undergraduate lecturers but then I just read this one about supervising research done by undergrads. This got me thinking that perhaps my previous question was going in the wrong direction.
I have >300 students in 3 different subjects. 200 of those students are in one subject and that subject requires students to do extensive research. My challenge (explained in the question linked above) is that I seem to have too little time to properly support this many students.
These are business students so there is no lab. The research is reading the literature, finding data, integrating the two into some meaningful insight.
So, my question is, when supervising undergraduate students who are doing research, how much time on average, per week, per student, should this consume of the supervisor's time? 15 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour?
Edit: To put this in perspective, the students are not writing a bachelor thesis. However, they are expected to put in about 100 hours of non-class time (after the class time has finished) doing their research and writing it up. The final product is about 4,000 - 5,00 words (so far less than a thesis).

Please clarify what the research entails. Is this on-hands research or a research paper built from citing sources on the web and from the library?

The research entails identifying a company (e.g., Exxon) and researching some key areas (which change every semester but one example could be climate change) that impact the company, finding relevant data and theories (from books, journal articles, etc.), integrating relevant data and company history in order to give some useful insight, recommend some action for the company, etc.

..."to put in about 100 hours of non-class time (after the class time has finished) doing their research" Are everyone has the same assignment or they all deal with the same subject?

I guess it's obvious, but my answer in the linked previous question is really meant for when you have 2 or 3 undergrad research projects to advise, not 200.

@Alexandros Each student has the same key areas (though they usually have 4-5 areas and they must choose 2 of them so there is some variation) and each student has their own company. The subject is a final-year subject before graduation.

One person cannot possibly supervise 200 undergraduate research projects per semester of any substance. This sounds more like a term paper with a research component than 200 fully-fledged research projects. When I did undergraduate research, it was a 20-hour per week job that I got paid for, and even then my supervisor and I rarely met for more than half an hour per week.
There are only 168 hours total in one week, and only 40 working hours in a week. If you spent your entire job meeting with all of the students every week, you could give them 12 minutes each. This is clearly impossible. 200 students is so many that giving them each a 30-minute kickoff meeting to discuss their initial idea at the beginning of the semester would take you two and a half weeks. This would put some students at a serious disadvantage over others by potentially delaying their project start or leaving them confused about what is required of them.
If these are not much more than a term paper, then one person can probably do this by putting the assignment together on paper or in email and only answering questions during normal office hours. These kinds of assignments have clearly articulated goals and guidelines and apply techniques as laid out in lectures and homeworks. If you want a more substantial, independent project, then you need TA support, at least 6 and as many as 20 TAs to cover 200 students.

Thanks for your answer. I'm not sure term-paper is appropriate for them but it is also not a full-blown research project. I've added some details to the question to clarify.

Based on your edit, I think my answer still stands.

If I wanted to boil your answer down to one sentence, would it be fair to say "About 30 minutes per student per week?"

God no! That's 6000 minutes per week or 100 hours. There are only 168 hours total in a week. When would you sleep? That's 2.5 weeks of full-time work, per week! And that's just for the 200-student course. It doesn't even count the other 100 students. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY DO THIS ALONE.

My advice is to hand out a detailed assignment description and to be available in your usual required office hours at whatever the university requires for your teaching load. Do not set individual appointments for all the students. It's not possible.

I appreciate your concern. I am trying to find a solution going forward, not just for this semester (this semester is almost over anyway). The question is, how much time should I reasonably allocate to each student each week? If this number is 30 minutes then I can do the math and see how many students I can support. If this number is 15 minutes, then the number of students I can reasonably support is different. This is why I'm pressing for a single number.

I think the project is too easy/short for you to be devoting direct contact time to each student each week. I recommend 0 minutes of dedicated time per student per week.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

You should not be meeting with students individually each week. Even committing to once each semester is a stretch and seems suspect to me.

I think that the real question is whether you are advising the students in the role of a research mentor, or whether you are merely supervising their independent work, as with a term paper. In the former case, meeting less than 30 minutes per week seems like poor advising to me. In the latter case, it is more reasonable to only meet when they have specific questions, and not to have scheduled individual meetings otherwise. So it is necessary to decide what role you want to have in the process (or are required to have) before you can decide how much time to spend.

I can relate how long I spend, in my own experience. My experience is in mathematics and computer science, which may be different from other fields.

When I wrote my PhD, I usually met with my advisor for about 1-2 hours each week, unless there was a special reason to have a second meeting.
I work at a department with a master's program. When supervising a master's thesis, I expect to meet with my advisee for about the same amount of time, about 1-2 hours a week, unless there is a reason to meet a second time.
Similarly, when I co-authored a paper with a strong undergraduate student last year, we met for about 2 hours a week for a semester and a half. Part of this was instruction by me about the area, and part of it was research meetings to engage with our problem.
When I advise an undergraduate "senior project", I set up a meeting for one hour per week with each student I advise. These projects are "research light" at my institution, and can even be expository for some students. But at least one senior projects I have supervised developed into a different co-authored paper, so some real research is done as well.

In every case, I expect the student to work for several hours between each of our meetings. When they are writing, I require them to send a draft at least s day before we meet, so I can review it. When they are writing computer code, I also require them to send that a day before we meet as well.  This helps me keep the meetings productive - we can talk about challenges they have encountered in the research, or about my feedback on their work, or about future plans, etc., with a minimal amount of wasted time during the meetings.
Each time I have a meeting with a student, I try to make a plan before it begins about what we will talk about. Of course, if the student has something more pressing to discuss, that takes precedence over my plans. But I try not to waste and meeting, because that leads to having to meet again that week or to slipping deadlines, both of which I want to avoid if possible.
Of course, you cannot possibly meet for one hour each week with 200 students. I find the even four personal meetings per week is more than enough to keep me occupied - both in terms of time and in terms of mental capacity. So you will need to find a way to economize, and give less personal attention.  You might try organizing group peer review sessions.
Frankly, I am surprised you can even grade the 200 papers that are written - if you can manage 30 minutes per paper all day long that is still over 2 weeks of grading!
If you have any say at the department, you might propose having the students work in groups; 50 groups of 4 is much more appealing than 200 groups of 1, both for advising and for grading.

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How many "office hours" are common (or standard) for full-time lecturers?
In situations where one teaches purely undergraduate students (20 hours per week, 16 weeks per semester, 2 semesters per year) how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year, are people normally in their offices? Does this number change after the main teaching semesters complete?
I have just finished my fall semester and I find my normal office hours cannot handle the demand from the students. I'm a bit torn. On one hand, I want to support my students as much as they care to be supported but I must balance my own needs. I have plenty of other things to do besides teach (I have to prepare for the spring semester and that will take me significant time, I have marking to do, etc.). More office hours means less time (thus less quality) for prep (and other various tasks).
When I consider what my peers do, I see they often do less than the school requires of them (I am not interested in following their example). With > 300 students, it seems the only way to really satisfy the demand is to be there 20 hours per week...which leave me little (no) time for my other tasks.
My goal here is to try to identify what is fair to all involved.
Edit: I've posted a follow-up question to this one.

With >300 students, could you delegate at least some of the work to a TA? Perhaps require that every issue should first be discussed with a TA, and then be available yourself as "second-level support"? The concept of multiple support levels is not new.

@StephanKolassa Oh, I love that idea. Now, if only my school had TA's.

As some answers seem to make assumptions on this: What sort of requests mainly fill your office hours?

@Wrzlprmft The #1 request is to give them guidance on what they've written in their assignment so far. The time does seem productive (for them) but it takes me about 30 minutes per student to give them meaningful guidance.

You didn't say what sort of class you're teaching. But for most courses, writing a set of problem sets or FAQs or whatever is more efficient use of your time.

smci is right - if you have to explain the same thing to more than a few students, there is a better way. Even just sending an email to the whole class saying "hi folks, I notice several of you are having trouble with problem X. Try bargling the

Can you encourage students to seek tutoring from other students in the class or students who have taken the class before?  A lot of schools have free tutoring provided by the dean's office or some other academic body.

I suggest a peer-review or writing-circle exercise in class to cut down on the needed writing feedback.

My undergrad university held regular "helpdesks" in a classroom - where one or more teaching assistants and  sometimes the lecturer were present. They essentially functioned like an extra (and optional) tutorial class, and the more proactive students would come in and work on their assignments, discussing among themselves and asking questions.
This allows you to spread time a bit more fairly among students than at an office hour, where one student might take up a lot of time and leave others waiting at the door. Answer one question, and then move on to someone else.
Perhaps you could try a similar strategy?

5 years ago, when I was an undergraduate, almost all homework support was performed by TA's, leaving the professor's office hours for bigger, usually comprehension, issues that were far more 'one-on-one.'  We also had large-group tutorials that were far more designed for question-answering.  Occasionally the professor would be there too.

While I am certainly open to new strategies, I'm also wondering how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year, lecturers are normally available to their students outside of class.

Office hours for 300 students with no TA is clearly not going to work; certainly not if you try to give 30min to each.
You didn't say what sort of class you're teaching (quantitative? qualitative? creative?). But for most courses, writing a set of problem sets/ FAQs/ lessons learned/ whatever is a far more efficient use of your time.

These students are doing business management analysis, not math. So, I cannot give them problem sets and let them check themselves. I do give them a rubric but have not been very successful getting all of them to use it properly.

What are their assignments? Essays? Reading assignments? Do you use multichoice quizzes to test reading and comprehension? Is the instruction language English? What % of their issues are stylistic/grammatical vs subject-matter?

Assignments are reports, based on their own research. None of their issues are language issues they are all issues with application of theories, which theories are relevant, etc.

You mean you have to grade 300 individual assignments? Can you not somehow standardize assignments? or make them easier to grade?

I usually grade 300-600 per semester (1-2 assignments per student). Each is about 10-15 pages. Yes, it's a lot of work...which is why I feel I cannot give 20 hours per week to office hours. I have been unable to make standardizing work (and I have not see any other business teachers do so either).

Sorry this is outside my domain, then. No chance of getting a TA?

I could get a TA if I paid for it myself. How many hours do most educators work per week, and how many weeks per year, meeting students outside of class?

You might consider assigning more of the "real" learning to the students outside of lecture.
Save class-time for particularly tricky topics, interesting examples, etc. Make sure to leave plenty of time for questions. Encouraging your students to interact in class can be tricky in a large classroom (you'll always have the student who just must ask a burning question, that turns out to be a restatement of what you just said in an incredulous tone of voice). I'm not sure where in Asia you work, but it's my understanding that in many Asian cultures there can be reticence to look like you don't understand in class. Perhaps to discourage that attitude you could consistently remind your students that if they already understood the topic they wouldn't need to be there.
If the above works you'll have a lower volume of students in office hours.

How many “office hours” are common (or standard) for full-time
  lecturers?

Since no one's given a direct answer the title question, here is mine: 3 hours per week is what's required as a full-time lecturer at my large, urban, community college in the U.S. This holds true throughout our 12-week semesters, and no office hours are required outside teaching semesters.
Personally I feel that office hours should be a resource of last resort (I teach mathematics). I feel that students coming to office hours is a sign of something having gone wrong in the process; I try to arrange it so that all necessary material is available outside of personal meetings; and generally very few students come to my office hours (most days: none). Office hours should represent slack in the system to solve outstanding problems, not an overtaxed resource.
Presumably your institution also has some minimum specification for office hours? I would definitely take this as advice for how much time they expect on that task, and try to align it with that minimum as closely as possible. Back-calculate from there what assignments and time with students are possible per person. Possibly institute some kind of peer-review of the papers between students as feedback before you get them on your desk for grading.

As a mathematics professor, I go out of my way to encourage personal meetings during my office hours and at other times.  If I was at a SLAC, I would be expected to do even more in the way of personal meetings.  So the opinions about office hours, and the requirements, vary greatly even in the same discipline.

You say that the majority of your time is used to "give them guidance on what they've written in their assignment so far."
For each assignment, give your students a copy of the rubric you will use to evaluate their final work.  Require students who want guidance to have applied the rubric to their work so far before coming to see you.  Students will be able to answer many of their own questions, and you will be able to focus on the areas where they really need help.
Of course, that wasn't the question you asked.  At my institution in the U.S., we are required to hold office hours for at least five hours per week during regular semesters and not at all during the time between semesters.  (Those who teach in summer must  hold summer office hours.)


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Under which conditions can a person use the title of "Professor"?
Is it enough to hold a contract as professor (be it a major university), to use this title in official communications?
What are the rules (also unwritten rules) in your country?
I am interested also in European and Asian countries, besides North Americans.

I am also interested to know the rules in Germany.

Be warned that Germany, in particular, has no sense of humor with respect to use of academic titles. Misuse can be a criminal offense. See details in this answer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/180455/16183

I think this question can have too many answers. Hundreds, in fact...

@einpoklum: That's absolutely right. For instance, in Mexico, profesor is the normal word for any teacher. What we would call a professor in the USA is called a catedrático in Mexico. Basically, there is no general answer to this question. Educational terms and habits are very different from system to system; you just have to see how it works in a given place.

@Heinzi Well, you'd have (PhD) students without a title ;). - At the same time being modest is never a bad thing. There is no obligation to list titles or degrees. However if hotel staff are extra helpful because of a title, then the hotel should be avoided: there should be no distinction based on some  (in the end arbitrary) title between guests. Guests in the same hotel should be treated the same by default. Edit: As a side note, this may also be an Austrian peculiarity... - I remember an article in "Zeit Online" 10+ years ago about titles and restaurant reservations...

@DetlevCM In Germany that‘s not the case. The job is "Hochschullehrer" and "Professor" is a title.

Unfortunately, under too many conditions…. This leads to considerable confusion and charlatanism, especially on the part of “wanna-be” professors

You will be mocked left and right if you try to do that in Spain.

I'm at a North American R1.
The water is a bit muddy because depending on context "Professor" can refer to different things:

a formal job title, specified in your employment contract (this will be something like "Assistant Professor," "Professor of Practice," "FancyPants McRichDonor Distinguished Professor of Chemistry," etc.);
a general class of employment ("person who teaches at a university");
an honorific used by students when addressing anybody who teaches in a university classroom. This usage is acceptable regardless of whether the teacher's job title includes "Professor" anywhere in it and regardless of whether or not the teacher holds a PhD.

There are no formal rules about what you can call yourself (in North America) but the standard practice is:

in formal communication (including letters of recommendation and anything else that's signed on university letterhead) you should use your exact, formal job title.
in informal communication to students, or anyone else who would be expected to address you with the "Professor" honorific, you can call yourself "Prof. Fabio."
informal communication to people outside of academia is a grey area. I would use my formal job title in an email signature; but would call myself "a professor at University of X" in the body of text if I teach classes at UofX, regardless of job title.

I held the official title of "Lecturer" while teaching and did not bother to correct students who chose to call me "Professor" when associated with my class.  I never would use it myself, however.

w.r.t. usage by students: Not just "university" classroom but also colleges (i.e., 4year program only, no graduate program).  In fact, not just by students there, but also can be standard practice with the faculty themselves.  Unless by saying "university" you were being inclusive of "higher" education and not excluding colleges?

@davidbak yes I mean all higher education. Not just places with a PhD program

Especially with relatively new undergrads, it is highly likely that nobody has explained the system of academic titles and hierarchy to them and that it's just something they're expected to learn through osmosis. They may well not know the difference in titles of address between a grad student instructor, lecturer, or professor and may default to calling anyone in charge of a class "Professor" whether that's their title or not.

In Britain, when I applied for a new passport and gave my title as Professor, I was asked to provide evidence of entitlement, in my case a letter of appointment from my university. Without that formal letter from a recognized academic body my claim would have been refused. To claim title without formal appointment or recognition seems like fraudulent misrepresentation.

This is incorrect (or has changed). See the official guidance (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959788/Titles_V7.pdf), and especially "You must not:
• ask a customer to give us evidence of their professional title
• check the customer’s title with an appropriate body or online sources"

Very, very few titles in the UK are protected. You can call yourself almost anything you like, providing you are not using the title fraudulently (q.v. Gillian McKeith)

@MartinF In the UK, "Professor" doesn’t denote a qualification but an academic staff grade – the most senior one. So, in the UK, an academic whose title is "Dr" is someone who’s got a PhD, but hasn’t been promoted to the highest academic grade, while an academic whose title is "Professor" is someone who probably (but not necessarily) has a PhD, but who has been promoted to the highest grade on the university pay scale. https://professors.leeds.ac.uk/what-is-a-professor/

@JackAidley My experience was correct when I applied for a passport. Even now, the recent link says *You, the examiner, must make sure the personal details page and observation are correct if the customer has a professional title because they are a:
• doctor
• professor
• actor
• member of the armed forces
• member of parliament" This "must make sure the details are correct". This seems to imply that incorrect details are not acceptable.

@Anton The correctness concerns not the truthfulness of the information, but the exactitude of the information as it should appear on the passport and recorded in the database, as the instructions following that paragraph show. But claiming a title without any reasonable support may still be an offence, especially if there is an intent to mislead and generate undue benefits.

I was surprised to find out that it is even possible to put "Professor" on your passport. There is normally no space for a title on a British passport, but you can apparently get it added to an extra "observations page". This also permits e.g. Stephen Manderson to have an observation saying "The Holder is also known as Professor Green".

In Germany, there are two possibilities to become a professor:
As a postdoc, you either

work as an assistant professor for some years and then apply for a professorship, or

write a professoral dissertation and apply for a professorship.

If you then are appointed, you are a professor.
So basically, yes, it is "enough" to hold a contract as a professor. But it is really difficult to get this contract. You need to master several steps - PhD thesis, postdoc, assistant professor or professoral dissertation. And even then, it is not sure you will ever get an appointment. There are many researchers who fulfil all qualifications, apply for one professorship after another and never get appointed.

A "professoral dissertation" is a habilitation?

The answer is not yet complete. "Außerplanmäßige Professuren" are missing as well as being awarded the title for holding something like a junior research group leader position, which enables the respective department to assign the title "professor" in some states. Also, junior professors on a tenure track can be awarded tenure, which also grants the "job title". To be nitpicky, most professors do not actually hold a contract as a professor, but are formally awarded the position. The contract signed is only for the resources of the professorship, but not the professorship itself.

...finally, the postdoc phase is optional, and in the case of a professorship in arts, even the habilitation or assistant professorship are optional (at least in some states) - there, demonstrated excellence in arts can be sufficient. Also, positions that are deemed equivalent to junior professorships (such as having been an Emmy Noether research group head) also count as qualifying.

This answer is incorrect. Assistant professors (Juniorprofessoren) can definitively use the title "Professor" in some states. For example in Hamburg: "Juniorprofessorinnen und Juniorprofessoren führen während der Dauer ihres Dienstverhältnisses die akademische Bezeichnung „Professorin“ beziehungsweise „Professor“."

Worth also noting: in Germany, unlike many other countries, you do not keep the title Professor after you retire.

@JackAidley That doesn't seem to be universally true. The NHG law of lower saxony contains in §27: "Wer als Professorin oder Professor unbefristet beschäftigt war, darf den Titel auch nach dem Ausscheiden aus der Hochschule weiterführen". And that makes sense because of the sentence afterwards: "Die mit der Lehrbefugnis verbundenen Rechte bleiben bestehen." - so a retired professor is still allowed to do professorial teaching (if desired).

If you are visiting Germany from another country where "professor" is a less exalted title, German academics will still refer to you as a professor.  I found it amusing when I was visiting one of the Max Planck Institutes, that during the talks there, the only "professors" in the room were myself and a Nobel Prize winner.

And also that "professorial dissertation" is actually called a habilitation.

Australia: The norm here is that you only use the title "Professor" if you are a full professor (i.e., you have a Level E academic position at a university).  Applicable titles here are:

Mister/Miss/Misses/Ms (Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms) for an academic with no PhD at levels A-C (i.e. no special title compared to an ordinary person);
Doctor (Dr) for an academic with PhD at levels A-C, or any other person with PhD;
Associate Professor/Reader (Assoc Prof/Reader) for an academic at Level D; and
Professor (Prof) for an academic at Level E.

This classification is formalised in the federal government classification of academics in Australia (see e.g., Higher Education Academic Salaries Award 2002 (Cth).  I am not aware of any specific rules on using these titles in correspondence.  However, use of an inflated title (e.g., using "Prof" when you are not a full professor) would be misleading behaviour and could constitute a breach of academic honesty rules.  In any case, if you were to use an inflated title here it would reflect badly on you.
(One thing that often happens in academia in Australia is that foreign academics/journals email you as "Professor" even though you are not a full professor and would not use the title yourself.  This derives from the broader American use of the term.  When this happens you have to decide whether to correct the person on the other end of the communication, but this can get monotonous, so many academics here just ignore the disparity and allow foreign academics/journals to incorrectly call them "Professor".)

And note that many disciplines or possibly even a whole "school" wouldn't have a Professor at some universities. It's a very high rank indeed.

Yes, that's possible.  It's fairly rare but some smaller schools would not have a full professor.

I stopped an Australian panel moderator from introducing me as Professor while I was still a young-looking student at a conference. I think he was just being nice to me and my supervisor, but I never raised the issue.

Yeah, that is annoying.  It is not being nice to address you by a title you haven't earned; it's just awkward.

In the Czech Republic, a professor is only a person that was confirmed for  the professor (prof.) degree by the Scientific Comittee of their university and received the degree from the President of the country. Or people that hold similar full professor degrees from other countries.
The holders of degrees equivalent to an associated or assistant professor can not use the "professor" title. Associate professors, after their habilitation, use the "docent" (doc.) title. Assistant professors are simply "doctors".
The whole system continues the traditions from the past Austria-Hungary.

Unrelated usage exists at "gymnasiums" - a specific type of secondary schools similar to grammar schools.  They are selective and prepare mainly for further studies at universities. Here all teachers are called "professors" informally, regerdless whether they are doctors or not.
This is again an old tradition going back to the times of the Austrian empire or Astria-Hungary.

BTW although the role of the President of the country is mostly ceremonial, the current president is known for refusing to appoint several professors for various reasons. Those who tried to sue him do not have their title yet.

This is the case in Poland, with one difference: a university can grant a docent the title of extraordinary professor (it's a local title that is temporary and facultative—it's tied to employment at that university). Those nominated by the Academy of Sciences and accepted byt the president are—somewhat counterintuitively—called ordinary professors.

These terms (řádný profesor, mimořádný profesor) existed and were common in Bohemia as well, but in the times of the Austrian Empire (as positions, not degrees). I now confirmed that the extraordinary professor position actually exists in the current law as well, mainly for experts from other countries, but it is very rare and is not used as a title in full, as it used to be.

Britain
In Britain the title "Professor" is used only for select senior academics. Usually they are either heads of department or very senior researchers. To be a Professor you must have been appointed to a specific professorship (chair) by a university.
If you are a college or university level teacher then you are usually referred to as a "lecturer".

It would be a serious social error for a student in the UK to call a lecturer "Professor" or "Prof" when they aren't a professor. Undergraduates usually address lecturers as "Sir", "Madam", or "Doctor " if they need a form of address; doctoral students may get to use first names or other informal forms.

A very serious social error. They would think you were American.

Most universities have a mechanism to be promoted to professor rank without being appointed to a specific chair - for us its just a set of criteria to meet like any other promotion (although very tough criteria, that include external references etc). Also "lecturer" refers to researchers as well as teachers in the UK.

I'm from a regional US school with an almost split personality of small liberal arts undergrad and huge health sciences postgrad, and I've observed something here that I've never seen elsewhere: students call anyone with a PhD or MD "Dr", and everyone else "Prof." This bugs me greatly, in part because I did my time as a postdoc where I would have been ROASTED for calling myself Prof, and now I actually merit the title, I want to use it. I really don't feel it's appropriate when the lecturers get called Prof, especially if they don't have doctorates. I actually had one of my research students (!!) shyly tell me one time he just learned that I had a doctorate, and he thought that was really impressive - because he assumed I didn't since I signed my emails Prof instead of Dr.
My theory is that it's the med school's fault, that the MDs prefer Dr to Prof, and it's rubbed off on the rest of us. Don't know if this applies to other, similar universities, though.

I guess the stereotypically-German system of using both titles together, i.e. "Prof. Dr.", would make sense.  The idea that one subsumes the other does seem context-dependent, and it sounds like you're in an area where the preference is non-uniform.

@mim - Similar experience at a similar school, but without the med school. Ph.D. holders were called Doctor while those at tenure track without doctorate were called Professor. In spite of being a (full) Professor, I used to have my students call me Mr. Students often referred to Lecturers as Professor, but nobody corrected them, generally.  In correspondence, say for reference letters, I would always use my actual rank at the time (Asst. Prof., Assoc. Prof., or Prof.).

In the US I’d say that there’s no reason to care. Anybody who has had or has a university or other scholastic position position with “professor” in their official HR title is literally entitled to use that word in their formal address. But to what end? Ego inflation seems to be the only value. It might get you higher on a reservation list at a fancy restaurant, but those days seem mostly gone. Some grants are limited to academics within a few (1,2,3, etc) years of their PhD or postdoc, but I haven’t seen “professor” be a requirement, especially given the differences across the country in when that title starts being used (Assistant, Associate, etc?).

France
The general rule is that the title of Professor is associated with a position of "University Professor", for which you are nominated by the President. So you have to have the required "technical" prerequisites (a special diploma, an agreement of a special national body, ...), and have a position ay a university (or equivalent).
Then of course it gets more complex, we French being the holders of the "how to make bureaucracy complicated" prize. This includes the "but there is always a way" sub-prize.
You then have medical doctors that award themselves the title of "Professor" if they are the head of a department in a hospital (no matter if they have any relationship with academia or not).
Finally you have teachers who are called "professors" like everywhere else in the world, except that we do have a "professor in a school" kid of affiliation, legally defined (you are part of a special corpus of administration)

I think in school the title "prof." applies only starting from a certain level - perhaps, when they specialize in a subject; otherwise it is "maîtresse".

@RogerVadim: it is Professeur des écoles, a regulated body within the French administration. In terms of casual naming, you have "maître/maîtresse" (the way you refer to someone usually in kindergarten or primary school - despite them being often Professeur des écoles), or "ensiegnant" (usually in an indirect form (votre enseignant sera absent lundi), or "professeur" (mid or high school). It heavily depends on regions and on schools. (EDIT: sorry - I did not realize you were French, so the info is for the others :))

Actually I am not French, but living in France - so your clarification is quite useful!

When you say "nominated by the President" do you mean President of the university or something else (President of the State)?

@davidbak: by the French President (of the state)

The UK
The traditional scheme of academic job titles in the UK was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor. Nowadays many universities use the alternative scheme of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor. However, the title "Professor" is still only used for full professors (who would be a professor in the traditional scheme) or emeritus professors (retired or semi-retired academics who were previously full professors).
Someone whose job title is "Associate Professor" would normally be referred to as "Doctor X" (assuming they have a doctoral degree; this may be accompanied by an additional title e.g. "the Reverend Doctor Y").
These are not official rules in any sense I know of, but merely the way things are done. In any case the person might not bother to use their academic title outside of an academic context.

I'm not sure I'd say "most", although it is becoming more common.

Swedish usage:
A "professor" in Swedish is a title used for a person employed at university level with responsiblities for an area. To be hired as professor you need to have completed a PhD (or similar) and generally have to have a comprehensive portfolio of published papers (or similar).
The title as such is not protected in any way, so anyone may be free to use it without any legal consequences.
Other titels used when employed at university are:
"Docent" - requires you to a have higher scientific level above a PhD, generally at least four years after PhD.
"Lektor" - has a PhD.
"Adjunkt" - lower academic degree, often master.
"Doktorand" - employed to do PhD studies.
You might find postdocs as well.

In the Netherlands, the title was reserved for those who had the academic rank of Hoogleraar. This is a top rank and equates to the UK ranks of Reader (Hoogleraar 2) or Professor (Hoogleraar 1). The lower ranks of docent (lecturer) universitair docent (university lecturer) and hoofddocent (senior lecturer) are translated as lecturer, assistant and associate professor. However, they are not entitled to call themselves "professor" or use the "Prof." title.
This appears to be changing. It was that only hoogleraars could promote Ph.D. students, which was the justification for restricting the title. Recent rules changes have meant that by special dispensation, some hoofddocenten ("associate professors"/senior lecturers) can have promotion rights. I have seen some of these using the Prof. title. I am unclear whether this is legal or not. The title Professor is protected under Dutch law, and it is fraud to use it if not entitled.
In Flanders, a similar rank system exists, but docenten (lecturers) of all grades can have promotion rights. If they do, then they can use the title Prof. However, they could not leave it unqualified when written in full without being fraudulent. Use of "Prof." is specific to whether the academic is allowed to by the (main) supervisor of Ph.D. students or not.

If you are referring to yourself in any formal setting, use only titles that have been officially conferred. And qualify them as needed: associate professor, for example. In the US it is common to use the term informally for yourself in casual conversations and such.
For referring to others you can use the term in a more generic sense most places  and in most situations as a synonym for a university faculty member. Some places are more formal (Germany, Austria) than others (US). US students do this pretty regularly, for example, to refer to their instructors.
If you have a title from one country/culture that isn't common in another, then you can give your official title, as given and suggest it is similar to a title from the place you are communicating with. But don't assume your translation is official in any way.

Mainland China and Hong Kong (I didn't bother looking up Macau or Taiwan):

In mainland China:
Hou Yifan, the record holder for youngest female grandmaster, is said to be a 'professor' at Shenzhen university. But I doubt e has a PhD.
Therefore, in mainland China, you need not have a PhD to have the title of 'professor' unlike places like Hong Kong (ironic?) or some parts of the US where having a PhD is necessary but not sufficient to have the title of 'professor'.
According to several sources, Hou Yifan is indeed a 'full' professor, instead of assistant or associate professor. I'm unable to find a profile on shenzhen's website. Or even like a list of faculty members that includes h.

In Hong Kong:
I've checked all the maths departments in city university, chinese university, hong kong university of science and technology, hong kong university and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and not a single person is professor or even assistant or associate professor without a PhD. Meanwhile there are many PhD holders who are merely 'instructor' or 'lecturer'.
At least last I checked in early 2021.

In the Philippines:
Not entirely certain. Professor is often used colloquially to mean 'teaches at a university', but technically I've yet to see a faculty member's profile where the person is said to be 'professor' (without qualifier; see next) without a PhD.

In Cebu:
In the mathematics department of the university of san carlos in cebu (not to be confused with the university of south california, as the old joke goes), several faculty members (see for yourself) are considered 'assistant professor' without a PhD. None of the faculty members there appear to have a PhD, and no one is considered associate professor or (full) professor there.

In Manila (the capital):
I've yet to see an 'assistant professor' in, say, the mathematics departments of the university of the philippines or ateneo de manila university without a PhD though.

Edit to add:

In my experience, in the Philippines, any faculty with the position having the word "professor" (asst. prof., assoc. prof., prof.) may be called "Professor." In the past (in the Philippines), it was possible to be a professor even if you didn't have a doctoral degree. So it was more prestigious to be called "Doctor" (which requires having a doctoral degree) rather than "Professor." Usually the term "Professor" is used when the person does not have a doctoral degree. –  Joel Reyes Noche

In my experience, in the Philippines, any faculty with the position having the word "professor" (asst. prof., assoc. prof., prof.) may be called "Professor."  In the past (in the Philippines), it was possible to be a professor even if you didn't have a doctoral degree.
So it was more prestigious to be called "Doctor" (which requires having a doctoral degree) rather than "Professor."  Usually the term "Professor" is used when the person does not have a doctoral degree.

@JoelReyesNoche colloquially yes, but officially?

I don't have official information.  That's why I didn't answer the question and why I didn't edit your answer.

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

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Is sharing R code for a dissertation consider to be plagiarism?
I'm working on my individual dissertation in finance. This thesis tests the low-volatility factor on European markets. The core methodology is creating Fama and French portfolios, testing the new low-volatility factor with the Carhart model and a transaction costs analysis with R.
A friend of mine, who is also writing his thesis this semester, uses the same metrology to test the existence of a new momentum factor in the European markets. Therefore, we developed the core R code together. Although our dissertations are completely different, since we both test other factors, we do use the same code. Would you consider this plagiarism and how do I cope with this issue?

I would not think so, for instance no one would ever consider it plagiarism if you used the base lm(..) function for linear regression - or some other function. I see your concern, so I would advise that you run this by your advisor. Perhaps you should simply mention somewhere in the thesis that you co-wrote the code with student X.

You might consider releasing the code on github as an open-source project. It could add to your citations if it is picked up and used by others.

Just clarifying that the code was a result of joint work with X should be enough to get (very) clear of plagiarism territory. Usually, huge fractions of thesis material were created with co-authors, so why should code be special?

@AaronHall Thanks, we put some thought to this and we are willing to make this an open-source project. However, I'm wondering if there is an alternative to Github which is more focused on finance / factor investing and/or MATLAB?

Plagiarism is copying someone else's result and presenting it as an own result. It doesn't seem you're planning to do that.
In general, there shouldn't be a problem to use a jointly developed software core for research in your and your friend's dissertation. Research is a lot about collaboration, so I'd view that rather positively. But it will be important that you distinguish results that were obtained jointly from individual results, and that you agree on that beforehand to avoid potentially difficult discussions down the road. Things to clarify would include:

In how much detail do your dissertations need to describe the jointly developed core, and how much overlap is acceptable there? That is something you need to discuss with your advisor as well. It may be problematic to include a substantial amount of jointly written text in the individual dissertations.
Is there potential for a joint paper that you publish independently of your theses to describe the core software? In your dissertations, you can then simply refer to that paper and avoid overlapping text there.
Can you agree on specific contributions that everybody made to the software, have each of you focus on that for his dissertation, and refer to the friend's dissertation for the other part?

I think your answer pretty much covers it. There is one more point though - acknowledgement. Most dissertations have space for acknowledgements which can be used for thanks with regards to collaboration. Also, in the case of a PhD in the UK at least there would be paperwork where details of collaborative work are supposed to be entered.


text:
Approaching faculty members I don't know well to solicit career advice
While researching career opportunities, I have stumbled upon an alumnus of the school I am currently at, who is a relatively new faculty member there. In a sense, this person's career is what I want my career to be like. It seems like they could offer me very valuable advice.
However, I do not know this person and do not know anyone they know. I thought I might write a polite email to them asking for advice, but I'm not sure what the prudent way to phrase it would be. And on that note, whether prudence would preclude even doing such a thing.
What's the polite way to ask a professor how to get a job like theirs (specifically, at an institution such as theirs)?

Faculty are people too :). But seriously, there's no harm in sending them an email. I've had a number of such feelers from students and I always take the time to talk with them. Btw, I suspect you mean "strange" as in "is a stranger" rather than "has unusual personality quirks" ?

@suresh Thanks, yes, I meant it in the sense that he is essentially a stranger.

Send this person a brief e-mail, explaining the followings:

How you found out about him/her, and give a 2-sentence introduction of yourself.
That his/her career path and/or research interests overlaps with or inspires yours very much.
Ask if you can have a phone conversation for 15 minutes to answer some questions. You can also ask for a meeting if he/she is nearby.
List the brief questions that you plan to cover. Don't be too broad. Think if these 15 minutes are really the only time that he/she will be willing to talk to you, what would you like to get out from this?
Provide 4-5 dates/times for him/her to pick, and invite them to suggest some dates if none of them works.

Avoid asking for reference letter, inside contacts, or any kind of favor beyond just formal career advices. He/she may not feel vested enough to do that, and if you push, he/she may close up. Also, don't attach any CV/resume; that would look like you're looking for a position.
And also don't ask "How did you get a job at an institution like this one?" Zoom out and ask for the job search process he/she went through. Ask him/her to elaborate on the thought process and how the pros and cons were weighed. Once the topic gets going, you can probe a bit further, but the focus should be on the faculty member, not the institution.
On the date, be on time, and honor the 15 minutes (or whatever you both agree upon) limit. At the end of the meeting, ask if you may ask for his/her opinion very occasionally through e-mail in future, and then establish the mentoring relationship from there.
When you got home, follow up with a thank you e-mail.

The tricks are:

Don't ask them to write back. Replying e-mail on this kind of issues takes a lot of time and thought, plus he/she may not know you well enough to know if the recommendations are suitable for you.
Make it low stake. At most they'll lose are 15 minutes.
Make it thoughtful by listing highly relevant questions. This shows that you really did look at their work and know something about it.

I would add: meeting is strongly prefered over phoning, certainly from my experience (couple European countries). People don't seem to like "meetings over phone" here.

I've received emails from students before soliciting advice, or even sending me resumes asking to work in the lab.  More often than not they had spent very little time even becoming familiar with our research or looking into the university.  If you want a busy professor to give you advice, you need to earn it by proving that you're serious.

Get familiar with the research
Look at the professors CV (this can show you the path they took)
Know exactly what you want to ask, and make sure it's clear.
Consider asking a student in their lab what they did (presumably they have a similar goal)
EDIT: As a general rule, if English is not your native language have someone look over your email for grammar mistakes.

If your question is of the form "how do I become a professor at the prestigious university X?", then I don't think that it is worth contacting this professor. But if this professor has an interesting career that no one else has, then I suggest that you follow the steps that the others have suggested.


text:
How to act as an editor?
I have been on both the author and the referee sides, but I was wondering how editors approach their task. In particular, to what level of detail do you read the paper you assign to referees, and when (i.e. before or after receiving the reviews)?

From conversations with a mentor who was the editor-in-chief for a major journal, if you take the responsibility seriously, you need to have enough of an understanding of the papers assigned to you to figure out which referees will be suitable for a paper, while not taking so much time to read it that you can't process all of them for lack of time. As mentioned above, you need to at least a "high-level" read of the paper before assigning it to the referees. If the paper comes back with mixed reviews, it probably requires a careful re-read; if the reviews are uniform in recommending for or against publication, then it may not be as critical.
However, the editor will want to read papers when revisions come in, so that may mean going through a paper several times during the course of the review process.

In addition to the reply from aeismail to which I agree you need to add several other aspects. First, let's emphasise that good indepth knowledge of the field is vital.
The first stage for an editor is to assess whether the paper is appropriate for the journal, that it follows instructions for authors and is of reasonable technical quality to go to review (figures in order, language ok etc.)
The second stage for an editor is as was already stated to identify and assign referees based on the content of the papeer and reviewers speciality.
The third stage is to assess the reviewers comments and provide the author(s) with an educated summary of the reviewers work and possibly help by providing guidelines as to how to handle the reviews, emphasising some comments and possibly de-emphasising others. It not uncommon that reviews differ widely and in such cases the editor must be able to mediate, alternatively assign additional reviewers. This means apply objectivity and evaluate reviews. It also means you need to understand (at a deeper level) the paper and the comments that go with it.
The fourth stage concerns the revised work. Once the revised version is back from the author you need to evaluate the authors response to the reviewers comments. The author may not agree with the reviewers comments and it is the editors job to judge the revisons and make appropriate decisions (for additional review or accept/reject).
It might be appropriate to point out here that the editor is not just an evaluator but also a mediator. Disagrements between authors and reviewers are common. Some reviewers may have good points but terible ways of conveying them. In such cases the editor must place him/herself above the infected views and convey the essential points being made to the author.
The fifth stage concerns final decisions. This can be a formality but to have an editor sign off on a paper for publication means it has gone through peer review/revisions in a satisfactory way and is sound. So it is an important final step.


text:
How to acknowledge funding after the acceptance of the manuscript
We got this accepted article. A preliminary PDF version of the article is available online. The final look shape of the article is still under processing by journal publisher. However, I forgot to mention my acknowledgement while others did acknowledge their respective funding.
I am wondering what should I do now to acknowledge my funding institute? Does it make any difference that I am not the corresponding author of the manuscript?

The first thing you can do is to ask the publisher/journal editor(s) (wherever the paper processing is with the journal in question) to make the addition. Since you are not the first author (assuming first = corresponding) you should probably go through that person. The likelihood of getting such changes done if the paper is published online is uncertain but worth asking about anyway.
Having your funding not acknowledged in the paper is not the end of the world so if changes cannot be made, well there are probably more papers coming later. It is of course always a god way to show the funding source where their money ended up. There might be funding sources that request such acknowledgements but there is no law. some authors never acknowledge anything. The fact that you are not first author is not terribly relevant. Any funding source adding to the total funding of the study is of importance to the results; the paper.
So in the end, I would not worry too much about it. It was an omission, a mistake; it happened, you make an effort to rectify and you will likely remember it in the future.


text:
What is systematic literature review?
I know what a literature review is and was wondering what makes such a review systematic? What extra steps do people usually go through when they do a systematic literature review? how is it different from regular literature review? The field is software engineering if it matters.

The quintessence of the systematic review is that it's, well, systematic. That is to say, you have a system by which you do the review: a detailed protocol that you work by, just like when you run experiments. The protocol sets out how you will define your search terms, where you will search, what your criteria are for inclusion are, what your criteria for exclusion are, and so on.
The idea is that, just as with an experiment's protocol, it would allow someone else to reproduce your work: in this case, your trawl through the literature. It gives you and your reviewers and readers a basis for assessing how comprehensive your review is. It may include a detailed protocol for quantitative meta-analysis or qualitative synthesis.
Systematic reviews can be hugely varied in form and scope: I've got 3 books that each provide part of the answer to this question. Check your library (possibly in the medical / epidemiological section) - they should have at least one of these.

Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review - Andrew Booth et al - encyclopaedic
Doing a Systematic Review: A Student's Guide  - Angela Boland et al
An Introduction to Systematic Reviews by David Gough et al

That's the answer I was going to write, only more extensive. One thing to note, though - just being "systematic" does not make a SLR good. It is perfectly possible to do a highly systematic but also terrible literature review.

Wikipedia:
A systematic review (also systematic literature review or structured literature review, SLR) is a literature review focused on a research question that tries to identify, appraise, select and synthesize all high quality research evidence relevant to that question.
One among many roughly equivalent definitions easily found on the web. Some place a higher emphasis on having precisely defined criteria for defining "high quality" and "relevant", so it might be worth doing a systematic review of these definitions and synthesizing a combined definition from them.

This question is a bit older, but I thought I would add a couple other suggestions for resources to hopefully help anyone else with a similar question.
Grant and Booth, 2009 (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x) offers a typology of 14 different types of reviews, including systematic reviews, and compares and contrasts between the different types in detail in terms of their methods, strengths, weaknesses, and applications. Their basic description of a systematic review is: "Seeks to systematically search for, appraise and synthesis research evidence, often adhering to guidelines on the conduct of a review".
I have also included below two examples of manuals that describe systematized review guidelines in detail.
The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/current) is one of the most widely recognized resources for planning a systematic review, particularly in the health sciences though it is also used by other fields (including I would imagine software engineering). Cochrane was also one of the earliest organizations to produce and publish systematic reviews. Their handbook provides a comprehensive description of their systematic review requirements and best practices, which they update regularly.
Similar to Cochrane, there is the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence which also publishes its own manual on systematic reviews that may be more applicable to other fields in the life sciences (https://environmentalevidence.org/information-for-authors/).

More recently, I find that Prof Justin Paul has published a few good articles (guidance) on systematic literature review (SLR) [See his 2019-2022 articles in Google Scholar].
Among those, this could be particularly helpful: Paul, J., & Barari, M. (2022). Meta‐analysis and traditional systematic literature reviews—What, why, when, where, and how?. Psychology & Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21657. According to this article (also see Table 1 for details),

SLR  method is considered to be a scientific and highly informative
method for systematically collecting, reviewing, and synthesizing
research findings on a particular topic to determine what is known –
and what is not known — at domain.

Regarding extra steps in SLR - a current trend is to use software R for collecting literature for review quickly. A few videos are available online, and these 2022 articles could help: SLR on Cybersecurity, SLR on safety and security elements in omnichannel Retailing.

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


text:
Am I allowed to publish reviews submitted for courses in open-access journals?
Question is rather self explanatory.
I understand that the article was submitted within the context of a course within the university, but it is nonetheless my intellectual property. I also generally cannot seem to get a clear answer from the university's staff.
Generally, is it acceptable and legal to submit an article or review submitted within the context of a course to a journal for publication?

Does it really make any difference to your question whether the journal is open-access?

I cannot see anything in general that could prevent you from submitting a report written in a course to a journal. There are of course several issues you need to be aware of. First, did you do the entire work yourself from coming up with the idea through researching the topic and writing? You need to look if someone else's "intellectual property" is involved. Second, you do not state under what circumstances your report was written. Submitting a manuscript to a journal involves meeting certain standards so under what I would consider normal circumstances, course reports would not be in shape for publication. One obvious reason for this is that reviews typically involves reading and summarizing/synthesizing a very large number of papers, work that cannot fit into the short time span of a course. So, in general, I doubt the scenario you describe would work without significant extra work. I have no doubts the core of a useful paper can be achieved within a course format but from there to publication is a different story. So without additional details, it is difficult to assess the likely success but the principle stands, yes it is acceptable and legal as long as the work adheres to general publication ethics.

Thanks Peter, you raise some great points. I would in fact spend much more time on the paper to make it up to par for journal publication, but you've made me question whether the professor of the course would indeed be a contributing author.

Normally, the professor would not be an author, otherwise, they could not give you a grade for your individual effort--coursework normally assumes that the students who receive the grade did the work themselves. The professor might be thanked in the acknowledgements section, but should not normally be considered a coauthor.


text:
How can my students learn to value the rules of academia?
I teach a course in academic writing covering the writing aspects, the very basics of research skills, such as referencing works, plus related college skills. At this point in the term, quite a number of foreign students have begun to express frustration:

Some wish they can organize their papers in more “creative” ways.
Some want to share their feelings and personal experiences.
Some see the style guide rules as overly pedantic or finicky.

They don't like the many “restrictions” dictating how they should gather information and organize and present their ideas.
I compiled a short list explaining why such strict conventions are necessary:

Predictably-organized writing helps readers to access information quickly.
The various research procedures generally raises the quality of the work, so others can benefit from the ideas presented.

Most of these students, however, have no intention of ever becoming “academics”, and maybe they don't care so much benefiting readers. They just want to get a degree and get a good job.
Can I help them to see some personal benefit to learning all of these conventions?

why can't they be creative ?

They can indeed write in any way that they find comfortable. Then they should call the result a draft and rewrite it. "Good writing is good re-writing," if I'm remembering correctly the wise words of a textbook that I can unfortunately no longer identify.

...don't care so much benefiting readers.  They just want to get a degree and get a good job. — "Oh, sorry, you want the plumbing department; they're down the hall."

I'd consider changing the title to say "rules of academic writing".

The points you list are key, and a good starting point. I am not sure you need to add to that list but rather expand on the points to set them in a wider perspective.
There are several misconceptions that needs discussing. There is the idea that academic (scientific) writing is complicated and uses difficult language. Well, it does not have to be, and really should not be. With the huge onslaught of information, we must all learn how to express ourselves concisely and clearly. This is an art that requires training, not only in science but also in writing. Regardless of which sort of work we have, assuming communication is part of it, we need to be able to get our points across. Hence it is key to impress on students the importance of learning to write well. So point at the goals: being able to present information in a way that it can be understood by the intended recipients. You then need to be able to take complicated issues and express them clearly and in language that can be understood. Understanding terminology and concepts is the basis for being able to explain them and making necessary simplifications. Badly written reports will not serve the author, the company (equivalent) the author works for, or the recipients who need the information. I therefore think it is important to make these wider perspectives clear to students.
Companies usually have very strict rules for how reports should be written and formatted. Getting used to following such instructions may seem like a limitation, but understanding the necessity is a good preparation for the work place. With commercial reports come legal aspects that puts much restriction on how to express oneself. Learning about such rules and restrictions is therefore a key to become a successful contributor in the future, inside and outside of academia.
The fact that most (if not all) employers look for people who are good at presenting information, written as well as in speech should be emphasized (often included in social skills). These skills require much training and a solid foundation to build on. Courses in scientific writing and presentation as well as term papers and other reports (including a final thesis) are all parts of this education.
So, in the end, I am totally convinced that skills such as these will make a difference when applying for jobs. We just need to point out the fact. Getting feedback from employers about the necessity for these skills to share with the students is very valuable. Some students have better basic skills than others but none are good at writing concisely and clearly without the training we can provide. It is also important to make students understand that in the longer term they will have to develop their own skills, not just take whatever is served and think it is enough. It is a life-long learning experience which requires solid a foundation. and that is what we can offer.

+1. I work in one of the larger software companies and work on specifications for software developers, user stories and so on. I shudder to think what would happen if we got "creative" with the way we presented the information. As you write, the point is to get the information across, and there are good reasons why a set of rules evolved. On the other hand, we should of course be as creative as possible in the content. It might be best to explain the difference to the students. "Save your creativity for what you say, don't spend it in how you say it!"

Some wish they can organize their papers in more “creative” ways.
Some want to share their feelings and personal experiences.
Some see the style guide rules as overly pedantic or finicky.

I'm not sure why there are "rules" about organizing papers, and what's wrong with more "creative" approaches. As for style guides, they are often overly pedantic and finicky, and in any case are mostly appropriate for an actual publication.
It's possible you're referring instead to the way to organize a paper (in terms of introductions, related work, methods, discussion, and so on). In which case you can explain the particular roles these components serve, while emphasizing that these components achieve a certain purpose and if that purpose can be achieved using other methods, there's nothing wrong with it.
As for sharing feelings and personal experiences, it's common for students with little experience of writing formally to confuse the "what" with the "how", because they're focused so intently on the "how". One way to help them is to identify places where they're spending too much space on process words, and ask them to describe the outcomes instead. In other words, their goal should be to describe WHAT was done, rather than WHO did it, in order to ensure that the process can be repeated by someone else.

I would encourage a peer-exchange assignment that is not marked. Each student writes a technical paper (or maybe a short technical paper), and then each student has to read every other person's paper and then "mark" them on a scale of criteria such as "clarity of presentation" and "I was able to decipher the main ideas of the paper" and "This paper was easy to read" and "I clearly understood the technical contributions of this paper".
After they finish that with others' papers, then they should go back and read their own paper, and then mark their own paper. (I would also recommend in parallel that you or other markers also mark the paper to "check" that the marks given to the particular paper are not outrageously out of line).
By comparing their own work with those of others, they will get exposure to a large number of different writing styles, get constructive feedback, and a large portion of the class marking will be done for you as well. With so many papers to read, many of them will start getting a feeling of what works, what doesn't, what they skip, what they absorb, and so forth.
I wish I could say that I thought of this all by myself, but many of the ideas were mentioned in a talk by Scott Klemmer about innovation and evaluating innovation in a massively open course situation.

Consider emphasizing the potential personal benefits that come with good communications skills:

Organizing information in an easily accessible manner makes others more likely to read your writing and follow your thoughts.
Presenting ideas concisely helps make your idea more accessible, and therefore make it more likely that the reader will actually understand your point.
Presenting methodology along with your idea demonstrates transparency, showing that you have nothing to hide, making you appear trustworthy.
Citing other people's work has two benefits: Firstly, it demonstrates your knowledge scope by showing that you're familiar with the literature, and secondly, it improves your standing with the people you cited, as it shows them you found their work useful.

All of these apply to academia, but apply equally to all other areas of life. I used to work in academia, and I know work in operations for a health care company doing analytics. I use all of the above when I write white papers, and I have seen numerous times how following these guidelines helps others understand, appreciate, and build upon your work.
By emphasizing these points you may be able to better connect with your students.


text:
Is it common practice to remove an author's name from a paper?
I work as an instructor at a university. I am not a graduate student there and my responsibilities end at teaching. Recently, a supervisor from another department asked me to prepare an article for their department to use, for some extra pay. The subject aligned well with my background and recent research.
When I finished the article, which involved additional research and several weeks of work, I put my name as author, as I would any other paper. After I finished, the supervisor requested that I completely remove my name, as he wished to submit it to the leader of his department, assembled together with some students' work.
Is that at all unusual that someone would request that I remove my name from a paper?

Repeat after me: "Hell no."

The question in the title is phrased in an opposite way as the question in the content.  This makes any "yes/no" question potentially ambiguous.

It is clearly unethical, but also unusual.  If I were ethically challenged and in that supervisor's position, I would just accept your paper and remove your name myself - leaving you none the wiser.

@emory That way they'd risk ending up with the original author filing a complaint, adding probably another felony to the charges they'd be facing afterwards. By trying to convince OP into "voluntarily" removing their name, they'd basically increase the chances OP would never whistle-blow.

I do not agree with this approach but I have known colleagues that feel that workers that are hired and paid to do specific work on a project (lab techs, etc...) should not get authorship but should get placed in the acknowledgments.  Perhaps that is what is motivating this person.

@KennyPeanuts Good thing there's a specific question on that subject now: What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship

To clarify: Is this paper is for internal use only, or will it be submitted for publication (in a scholarly journal, or elsewhere)? Most of the answers seem to have in mind a scholarly journal publication, in which case removing your name would be egregiously unethical, but for an internal paper it's slightly fuzzier.

Not to disagree necessarily with the negative answers here, but I would first ask the colleague, why do you need my name removed, in order to submit the paper? Are you wanting to take credit for it? After all, he did ask you, rather than just removing your name himself. I'm just saying it would be good to hear more about his thought process before assuming the worst motives.

" ... to use, for some extra pay" i think there are some issues regarding authorship if it is some kind of hired work, sounds that here is some kind of (verbal) contract. Work for hire can have effects on authorship: "It is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally recognized author of that work." see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire

I think your name needs to be on it, but maybe not as corresponding author. The corresponding author will have to field all the questions about it.

As a bit of an aside, it seems to be becoming more and more common for someone whose job title is "technician" to be an author - their contribution to the work is often a substantial part of making an experiment work. My point relevant here, is that not being part of the academic branch of a university does not cut you out of authorship (which is about work, not affiliation).

From what you describe this is serious misconduct.

This is a "slam-dunk" case, provided you have a paper trail.
If you have both done research for the paper as well as wrote the first draft, then your colleague is required to give you co-authorship on the paper. (In fact, there's a strong case that you should be the first author, not your colleague.)
So I would agree with Damien that you should "politely but firmly" make your case to your colleague. If he refuses, then speak to the "leader of the department" and present your evidence.
I would also make sure not to work with this colleague again in the future!

The paper trail is really important. If you have an email from that colleague, that's solid enough proof. If you worked on a university computer/network location that is being regularly backed up, you will have date stamps on your work, too. Without the paper trail, it may get shaky, and the department head may just side with the higher-than-you-ranked colleague -- simply because they are here to stay, and you, as a non-regular faculty, can be tossed out if you make too much noise.

An episode I personally witnessed:
A married grad student at a top university in a semi-experimental field told one of her two PhD advisers that she was pregnant 3 months before the dissertation defence (the baby was due 5 months after the defence). He replied "congratulations, I suppose" and sent her an e-mail (the same day) telling her that he was removing her from the author list in one of their joint papers. To say that she was shocked is an understatement. After much agonizing she replied to him and all the other paper authors, listing her contribution to the paper and expressing a surprize that this does not merit her being one of the authors. The advisor apologized and her authorship was reinstated.
In short: never surrender.

That was plain cruel .( similarly, a friend of mine learned that her work at a previous postdoc position was published by her former supervisor without any mention of her name. I'm starting to wonder whether there is some gender discrimination involved or whether these supervisors are dumbsh*ts in general

[facepalm]  Good for her!

Just to round up the discussion, there are situations where you want to have your name removed -- when you are not satisfied with the quality of the work in the paper. I am a statistician, and I have heard of cases when a group of substantive researchers would ask a statistician for initial guidance, do the (wrong) analysis on their own, and stick the statistician's name into the list of authors to make their paper more credible. I have also heard of really weird situations when statisticians from pharma industry did not want their names on solid papers so as not to signal to their competitors that their firm is working on this new type of a drug. In either case, the initiative of having the name removed comes from the co-author themselves, not from the lead author.
Other than that, I have +1ed most answers here. As most others, from your description the situation appears to be that of plagiarism and a blatant violation of your authorship rights.

+1 That's a very good point, a colleague of mine did indeed request others to not use their name in a publication since they didn't exactly agree with the interpretation of the results... Though in this case OP sounds rather fond of their work, and probably should be

If someone wants to steal your research for whatever purpose, he is a thief. It is not acceptable in academic world to do such thing, but as far as I know, such things can happen quite often in comparison how unethical it is. You have to resist and you have to change or expel your supervisor as soon as possible. If he use your work without your name, you can / and you have to use it against him, (with help of 3rd party, who will "accidentally" find this) so such thing will not repeat in the future and you will have no strikes back. Academic world should be (and unfortunately it is not) free of parasites.

That last statement should not only hold for Academia... Anyway, I would avoid the "accidental" exposure but instead really expose. It is incontestably wrong behaviour by the supervisor and there should be no conspiracy-like behaviour on your side - such things always backfire and are the first step towards becoming just like that supervisor

L- @Tobias : you could be right, if we want to practise -Christian love your neighbor- style, but if you start to tolerate or not to fight the parasitism, you will finally become a part of such behaviour. (and "having a quiet word with the leader of the department" have lot of + here above) ... And you never know, if the leader of the department is not involved in this. Friendly 3rd party is just better. If you think that you can deal with parasites direct and straight way, I do not think so. You have to be more outsmarter than Afghan partisan to successfully deal with this.

Ah yes, the exposure does not necessarily have to be restricted to some superior of accused person, but rather directly at the universities chancellor, or even directly to the local media. No, I certainly did not intend to mean Christian love your neighbor-style, rather the opposite. What I meant to say was, don't let the exposure look like an accident but make sure they know you exposed their behaviour on purpose and will do it again

L- @ Tobias ... and then your scientific career was ended. Absolutely not. Direct way is not good to deal with a parasitism as they are already prepared in advance to strike back, in case something like this happen. Heroes dies young.

You consider exposing corruption a career limiting move? Well, if that is really what would happen I'd be more than happy to not make career in that field. I agree there may be more subtle ways to handle this - first of all a direct talk to said supervisor might clarify a lot - but ultimately you'd also harm your university more by supporting a cover-up of this instead of having it sorted out right away

Ok, this depends on the situation. If you expose it directly, you will get a strike back for sure. If you think you can bear it... no problem. I prefer to expose parasitism indirectly, but bigger in its consequences, what SHOULD end in terrible death of the poor parasite.

I hope you're not suggesting literal death ;-) But I agree, said parasite's scientific life should be put to a quick end, not necessarily painless.

from shared experience - parasites dies in pains... EVERYTIME, because they depend on their living from work of others and on expenses of the others and they worry the most of lost of influence. They better sell their soul to the devil, than give-up their influence. Therefore clever strategy is a key.

My answer assumes the worst case, namely that said supervisor indeed attempts to claim authorship for your work. As LarsH justly pointed out, you might first want to clarify this is not a severe misunderstanding by having a talk with said supervisor, i.e. why would he want you to do such a thing (and please don't go down the path of asking "ok, assuming I did, what's in it for me?"). There may be a sensible argument, but personally I doubt it, thus let's assume he basically wants to publish your work as his:
Not only is this unusual and unethical, it is against all scientific conduct and might even be a felony to press charges against. This would warrant said supervisor to face severe consequences like being fired or having their PhD/tenure disavowed. Do however not attempt something stupid like blackmailing them - instead, assuming you have sufficient prove of this, expose them immediately since this is intolerable misconduct. (If you don't have prove, treat carefully though, since this might backfire into you ending up being "that jerk jealous of the "real"* scientists")
* No offence meant, but unfortunately in the event of doubt rank all too often outranks common sense

I don't like it very much either, but I doubt very much it is a criminal violation in most jurisdictions.  Otherwise politicians would have to start writing their own speeches or at least crediting their speechwriters.

@emory Well, would they truly publish said paper without attributing the author it would obviously be fraud, and independently of whether it's a legal crime it certainly is scientific misconduct which the Scientific Community will most likely not react pleased to. And depending on how they requested OP to remove their name from the author list, e.g. harassment, threats or even blackmailing, it could quite well be a criminal act in every sense. And let's better not get started about politicians :P Though I'd certainly appreciate politicians actually citing their "sources" for a change...