text:
What do I do if somebody asks me to join his accusation of my colleague of academic misconduct?
One of my colleagues at my institution, Prof. A, is the editor of a journal, Journal X, (and I am not involved in the journal in any way). I received an email by a professor, Prof. B, who had submitted two articles to Journal X and accuses Prof. A. of intentionally delaying the publication of these articles by not handling them properly. Prof. B claims that Prof. A did not answer his queries per email and that another editor of Journal X also did not answer his emails. The email I got from Prof. B was openly targeted to several other colleagues at my institution and also to a number of other people I do not know and also to Prof A. At the end of his email, Prof. B asks me (and the others - more or less verbatim) "Is this attitude of Prof. A normal or are there any unethical elements [...]?" and to "join in this story".
I found it disturbing that Prof. B wrote such an email to such an audience and I would say that his way of addressing the situation was not ok. However, I wonder what my reaction should be. Normally, I would just stop by at Prof. A's office, but I am on sabbatical leave so this is not an option. I do not know more details about the issue of the publication, but I think that these do not really matter in this case, as I only want to ask about what I should do:

Should I answer Prof. B that this way of addressing the issue was not ok?
Should I inform Prof. A that I found this email inappropriate?
Should I just act as if I haven't read this email?

I would especially appreciate answers from people with experience on an editorial board, but other guiding comments are also helpful.

I don't think anyone can give you a canonical answer. For that reason, sadly, I would vote to close this as being opinion based.

If this went all around your department, and included both prof A and prof B, have you tried talking to your department chair about it?  Regardless, it sounds like a situation to avoid.

Because there isn't any ethical imperative here, I think the answers depend too much on your relationships to the people involve, your position at the institution, etc. Your question might provoke some interesting discussion but I think any answers will be based on opinion and therefore your question isn't really appropriate here. You might be able to rephrase/restate the question to get around these issues.

Without further facts, you can not form an opinion, it's as simple as that. If the facts support such an accusation, the first point of contact is the publisher, then possibly the institution of Prof. A's dean. If you are not the dean, you have nothing further to say until you are asked by them (I assume you do not report to Prof. B). This has crossed the line of informal inquiry.

I agree with most comments. If you don't feel the same way for Prof A, I would disregard the email completely. If you are close with Prof A, you can talk to him about it. If you feel more supportive for Prof B for other reasons, then you could contact him, but I don't think you feel this way and I wouldn't either. Politics in Academia are as common as everywhere else.

2 People at odds, you don't know who's right, should you take a side? Never!

I don't think Prof. B was specifically asking you to join the accusation. As I read it, he's probably looking for other evidence of Prof. A wrongdoings by surveying a large number of colleagues.

Thanks a lot for the comments and answers. I decided to let Prof A know that I found the email inappropriate and do not plan to do anything further just in case he worries if this campaign gains traction or not. Also I ticked Dan Romiks answer since it is the most well founded one.

Yet again, I find Mark Burgess's article Why I stopped caring about peer review, and learned to love the work to be extremely relevant.  "To say it like it is, there is essential bribery and corruption at the heart of the peer review process, as there is in any realm of human power. The result is not always a quality assurance."

@Wildcard I think you jumped to some conclusion too quick. I do not see any evidence for bribery or corruption yet; I apply Hanlon's razor with "stupidity" replaced by "mishap".

@Dirk, I didn't mean to infer either Prof A or B is involved in bribery or corruption.  I suggest reading the article I linked; it's quite short.  My conclusion is that the concept of "peer review" is fundamentally broken as a means of advancing scientific knowledge, not that those who engage in the peer review process are each individually unethical.  (Note that Mark Burgess was a full tenured Professor before he left Academia.)

@Wildcard (or Mark Burgess if that's your real name ;-)), I read the article you linked to. Your and Mark Burgess's opinions about peer review may or may not be interesting and may or may not have any merit to them, but in any case as far as I can tell they have nothing whatsoever to do with the question being discussed. OP asked how to deal with a workplace situation involving a couple of colleagues, not for an analysis of the peer review process, which is completely tangential to the story.

@DanRomik, hence why I posted the link in a comment rather than expanding upon it and making it an answer.  ;)  In IT we refer to "addressing the root cause" and I think it should at least be considered/mentioned that the peer review process itself may have contributed to this problem.  (Aside: I'm not Mark, but I learned CFEngine from someone who learned it directly from him.)

One of the best pieces of advice I got in school was - Don't fight other people's fight, you fight your fights. If it doesn't involve you, don't get involve. If it does, only get involved to the point that it is needed.

Are we sure it's not Professor X......?   But yeah, just tell the guy to leave you out of it.

Should I answer Prof. B that this way to address the issue was not ok?

You can, if you feel strongly about it. But I think it is perfectly okay not to respond. First of all, you are one of a long list of recipients, so it would be quite unreasonable for Prof. B to expect each and every recipient of the email to set aside their work and life to dedicate themselves to studying in detail the situation he is describing and then write an equally detailed reply. Basically, to put it bluntly, Prof. B's email can be reasonably classified as spam and there is certainly no obligation to reply to it in any way.
Second of all, you are on sabbatical, which is a sacred time you should devote to nurturing your own interests and passions and ignoring the daily trivia and tedium of academic life. The case for not responding is therefore even stronger (to the extent it needed any strengthening).

Should I inform Prof. A that I found this email inappropriate?

Again, you have been implicated in this business completely through the actions of others and have no duty to take any action. If you feel strongly enough about the inappropriate email that you feel compelled to write to Prof. A, go ahead. But there is absolutely no need to do so.

Should I just do as if I haven't read this email?

I wouldn't falsely pretend that I haven't read the email, if that's what you mean - that would be dishonest and unprofessional (and besides, you have now documented publicly your knowledge of the email ;-)). Nor would I plan on saying (as Wolfgang Bangerth suggests in his answer) that I deleted it since it was "none of my business" (I don't think that unethical behavior by others is none of my business - it would be perfectly appropriate to consider it my business if I were so inclined). But as I said it would be completely appropriate to file the email away (or delete it, as you prefer) and take no further action. Whether you should do that depends on whether you are interested in getting involved in the story.

What if Prof. B is a senior, established colleague, Prof. A is a junior, insecure colleague and the OP is senior and established? In that case, I think there might be an ethical obligation to make sure somebody is taking care of it. (Possibly by emailing the department chair or somebody else in a suitable position and not on sabbatical.)

@cfr yes you have a point here - as I said in the answer, I don't subscribe to the worldview presented in Wolfgang Bangerth's answer according to which ethical transgressions by person B against person A are "none of my business" if I am not person A or B, so certainly there is a moral case for intervening in egregious enough situation. On the other hand, saying that there is a moral duty to intervene is a much stronger statement that I would reserve for truly extreme situations that form a much more smaller subset of scenarios than the relatively generic situation you are describing. ...

I admit it is a bit generic and would depend on the details. I really meant that the OP's case could be filled out in ways which would create a moral obligation, I think, and not that the details I added are themselves sufficient for that.

... As a general rule, it seems a bit of a stretch to argue that a senior person who is secure in their life/career has an ethical obligation to put their life and work on hold and combat every injustice against a less powerful person that they ever come across. After all, at any given moment I am in fact aware of many societal injustices of this sort. If I were required to fight all of them, I would never get anything else done. So overall I disagree with your claim about an ethical obligation for intervention, as I said except in truly extreme and egregious circumstances.

A junior colleague is hardly somebody you just come across. And I am hardly suggesting putting everything else on hold. Indeed, since the OP is on sabbatical, I suggested ensuring somebody is taking care of it rather than getting involved directly. I think senior academics do, for example, have defeasible obligations to protest bullying in their own departments.

@cfr good points. I still disagree, but it is a weak disagreement and pertains mainly to the level of generality at which your argument would apply - overall your view is quite reasonable.

Delete the email (or move it to one of your folders where you keep old ones).
From what you describe, you have no business joining the complaint since you have no complaint again colleague A. It is, in other words, not something that actually affects you: someone has beef with colleague A, and that is their business, nor yours. Worse, if you did get involved -- even if just by writing back to B --, there is nothing for you to gain, just collegiality to lose. It's neither worth your time nor your reputation to act any further than reading, then ignoring the email.
If anyone ever asks you whether you got the email, just tersely say "Yes, I got it; it was none of my business, so I ignored it."

I would advise against telling the person to delete the email. In sensitive cases like this, it is always wise to retain a paper trail; even if you didn't respond to the email directly.

@DIMMSum But the matter of fact is this isn't a sensitive case for the OP. Somebody is angry at somebody else, and none of that has anything to do with the OP. Nobody can expect the OP to keep a paper trail about an issue that has literal zero to do with him. Seriously, this sounds more like one of these crank mails that we academics are prone to occasionally get. The usual reaction is to delete it and get on with one's life.

@xLeitix Or archive it and get on with one's life? I don't see the point in deleting something like this if it takes the exact same amount of effort to just store it out of site.

That's my approach -- I just archive everything just in case I may ever need to get to it again. I never do, but who knows. My point was not to advocate deleting it from your archive, but to just delete it from the list of things you're concerned about. How you do that I'm happy to leave to the OP. (My personal opinion is that of @xLeitix -- it's none of your concern, nor can anyone expect it to be, so you may as well delete it if you wanted to.)

If you have knowledge, independently of B's accusation, that A is behaving badly, it's up to you to join B or not, depending on how much you care. If you don't have any such knowledge then you shouldn't.
If you have knowledge that B's accusations are wrong then you should inform B if you think B is mistaken, and you should inform A if you think B is intentionally spreading false accusations. If you have no knowledge that B's accusations are wrong then you may contact A about it or not, depending on how much you care.
Consider that getting involved in any way may cause you inconvenience, and not getting involved when someone is wronged may cause you a bad conscience (or worse).

This sort of complaints shall be solved with

prof. A himself;
prof. A's superiors (dean,...)

If you are not entitled to command prof. A this e-mail is probably a campaign to dishonest prof. A. Of course, prof. B might be that desperate, but it think it is implausible scenario.
I would forward the e-mail as it is to prof. A with full list of recipients with comment:

Dear prof. A
  I have recieved following e-mail recently and I think you should be informed about the campaign against you.

Or you can mark it as SPAM and forget about it.

If I read the OP correctly, Prof. A has already received the e-mail along with other people.

@svavil Oh, I missed that note. Then the first and last sentences are my answer.


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How to negotiate for clinical vs protected research time in academic job offer?
I am a doctor, with specialty in psychiatry and a subspecialty in mood disorders.
I have been offered an academic position at a larger university, but the letter of offer does not specify any research time - only clinical time. I want to negotiate clinical time (number of patients to see per week), which will be my main source of income, vs protected research time (for which the Hospital/University will provide compensation). I want to be able to do research but need the department to commit to paying me for it.
It is my understanding that this will be the only time I will be in a position of power to negotiate something, but I don't know where to start. I have other 2 offers in place as well.
The clinical aspect may make this negotiation different from other junior faculty members, e.g. as in Evaluating and negotiating a start-up package.

OK, I edited in your info from comments (now removed) and reopened. Good luck!

Many medical schools have research and clinical tracks for their faculty. Could the position be a clinical track? And, I'm not sure they're going to pay you for research. It's going to be up to you to find the time and to get grants to cover that. See this NYU page for a sample.

It really depends on your professional goals.
if a purely clinical position is not an option for you, and if your research credentials (publications, etc) back up your ambition, then you should make that clear to the department and work with them on adapting the offer.
It is not just about salary, but would likely involve a start up package for your research, reserved physical space for research (lab space), possibly a joint appointment in a research department. etc.
if none of these can be part of the offer, this would mean your research activity is not supported.

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Immature papers on arXiv
I am from computer science and we typically submit to conferences and less often to journals. Publishing pre-prints to arXiv becomes more and more popular in my field. From the discussion here on AS I get the impression that arXiv is more than just putting something on a personal website.
For example from What to do when you spot a paper on arXiv with the same essential material as yours? I get that I should discuss arXiv papers if they are related to your work.
Now, a paper for a CS conference contains often about 75% theory + 25% experimental section. The experimental section takes a lot of time - so I wonder (and fear)  if there is a trend to upload just the bare minimum to arXiv in order to get credit for the idea.
Is this a problem? Maybe similar to patent-trolls, just uploading vague ideas in the hope to get citations?
Edit: For clarification: I am working in the field of data-mining, where it is common to have experiments to show that your idea does not only work in theory. This question/concern came up as we discussed the pro and cons of uploading our work to arXiv, since we have never done this before, but it seems to become more common in our field.
Edit 2: It seems that more people are concerned with this problem, especially in machine learning:
Yoav Goldberg:

This post is also an ideological action w.r.t arxiv publishing: while
I agree that short publication cycles on arxiv can be better than the
lengthy peer-review process we now have, there is also a rising trend
of people using arxiv for flag-planting, and to circumvent the
peer-review process. This is especially true for work coming from
“strong” groups. Currently, there is practically no downside of
posting your (often very preliminary, often incomplete) work to arxiv,
only potential benefits.

Yoav Goldberg:

I do not mind posting papers quickly on arxiv. I recognize the obvious
benefits of arxiv publishing and fast turnarounds. But one should also
acknowledge its shortcomings. In particular, I am concerned about the
conflation of science and PR that arxiv facilitates; the
rich-get-richer effects and abuse of power; and some of the current
arxiv publishing dynamics in the DL community. It is OK to post early
on arxiv.
It is NOT OK to misrepresent and over-claim what you did.
Sloppy papers with broad titles such as “Adversarial Generation of
Natural Language” are harmful. It is exactly the difference between
the patent system (which is overall a reasonable idea) and patent
trolling (which is a harmful abuse).

[...]

Most people don’t read the papers in depth but only the title and
sometimes the abstract and sometimes the intro. And when the papers
come from established groups, people tend to trust the claims without
verification. “Serious researchers” might not fall for this, but the
general population sure does get mislead. And by the general
population I mean people who are not actively working in this exact
sub-field. This includes practitioners in industry, colleagues,
prospective students, prospective reviewers of papers and grants. In
the short time since this paper came out, I already heard, on several
occasions, “oh, you are interested in generation? have you tried using
GANs? I saw this recent paper in which they get cool results with
adversarial learning for NLG”. This will be extremely harmful and
annoying for NLG researchers who apply for grants in the coming year
(remember, many grants are reviewed by a panel of capable but
non-specialized experts), as they will have to either waste precious
space and effort in dealing with this paper and with Hu et al and
explaining why they are irrelevant, or be dismissed as working on this
“already solved problem”, despite the fact that neither the paper in
question nor Hu et al actually did very much, and despite the fact
that both papers have terrible evaluations.

And the follow-up discussion on reddit

People are not stupid --- if you produce lots of half-baked papers, they notice. It is similar to normal conferences/journals, where you can churn out Least Publishable Units if you wish, but would be penalized for doing so.

@BorisBukh - Could you please elaborate on the penalization part? Exactly how?

@BorisBukh Thx. Lets say you submit a half-backed or draft paper (to be the first one with the idea) and update it later on arXiv. This is different to low rank journals, where, once submitted you are not able to improve on the paper later.

@TheDarkSide You get a bad reputation, so people are less interested in working with you or hiring you.

I know this is not the actual question, but this 75% + 25% breakdown is far from universal for CS. Papers in conferences I usually go to contain 99%-100% theory. For the actual question, you can be sure that the first person to develop the idea and demonstrate its usefulness will get at least as much credit.

@ManuelSchmidt First, if people think you did not do the work, they won't give you credit. Second, most half-baked ideas are no good --- the chances are that, if you do not actually do the work, you will be generating lots of rubbish ideas. Even if there is one-two sensible idea there, no one will take you seriously.

Unfortunately, people do put unpolished paper on Arxiv and later claim that someone else is plagiarizing.

It seems to me that this question is less about the arxiv per se and more about how to navigate doing research in a very fast moving academic field.

I get the impression that arXiv is more than just putting something on a personal website.

It's certainly different.  The main differences are:
(i) Many more people will see your paper.
(ii) Your paper will indeed be archived, essentially permanently.  (Withdrawing a paper from the arxiv has the effect of uploading a new, empty version.  Older versions are still there!)  On your own website, you can take things down at least as quickly and easily as you can put them up.
(iii) Some (very obnoxious) journals may regard posting on the arxiv as "prior publication".  (This is strictly unheard of in my field, mathematics.  My guess is that CS is close enough to math so that it is at least very rare in yours.)
(iv) Minimum standards of completeness and professionalism are enforced on the arxiv.  These are enumerated on the site itself, but the gist of it is that they are looking for manuscripts at the last step before conference/journal submission or later.  They are not looking for early drafts.
Of  these points, probably the last is most relevant to you.  If it is standard in your subfield to include 25% experimental data [you say that is standard in "CS", but that is certainly not true across the entire field], then a paper uploaded to the arxiv without that would probably look to many in your field to be incomplete, which is against the spirit and perhaps the rules of the arxiv.  So I wouldn't recommend it.
But the situation doesn't fundamentally change for papers that you or others post on your own website.  The phrasing in your question suggests that you feel that you might not have to "be responsive" in the academic sense to papers that you find on people's webpages (only).  That's not true.  As an academic you have to be responsive to others' work wherever you find it.
In terms of the prospect of people uploading "the bare minimum to arXiv in order to get credit for the idea": is this an actual problem for you or just something you are wondering might be a problem?  I have never encountered this problem in my work.  That you are wondering whether it might be a problem makes me think you may be a quite new researcher and haven't fully grasped the way the academic community works.  (Which is fine, and you have only to look forward to understanding it better.  But you should talk to others, including advisors and mentors, to try to get a better idea.)  Academia places a great privilege on completed work for exactly this reason.  If you put out a manuscript which, say, modifies an algorithm and hints that it could be faster in some situations, the most likely reaction you'll get is "Go on..."
This question may finally have made me understand what people on this site are on about when they say things like "An idea is worthless".  An idea is certainly not worthless, but a vague and unimplemented idea is of highly uncertain value, to the point where rushing to publish "only the vague idea" would be a very poor, um, idea.
By the way, you don't have to immediately drop something because someone else had "the same idea" and put out a paper before you.  Much -- perhaps most -- important academic work overlaps with other work and even more of it refines and extends the ideas of others.  How to respond to seeing "your idea" in another paper is a topic for a different answer.
Finally, let me say: if what you've done, are doing or want to do has real value, then it is unlikely to be received with thunderous applause this week and totally ignored next week.  If you're living in fear that someone else will say what you want to say, maybe slow down and find more to say.

This is an excellent answer that avoids pejoratives, name-calling, and too much attribution of motives to the OP that may or may not be there. +1

If there is a trend to upload just the bare minimum to arXiv in order
  to get credit for the idea.

No, there is not. No reputable author is stupid to publicly upload junk (on arxiv or anywhere else) and put his name on it. Perhaps, there are some people that do what you are suggesting (I cannot confirm though) but these mediocre-to-bad publications are nothing you should worry about.

There's no evidence that OP was talking about uploading half-baked or junk-quality things to the arXiv. I read this as saying "I've got the theory section of a paper mostly done, but I haven't done all the experiments required for a full journal/conference article, should I upload the first half of the paper in order to stake my claim? Are others doing this such that I should be worried about getting scooped if I don't stake a claim"

@BillBarth. In certain CS disciplines (e.g., experimental algorithms) uploading an idea and saying: "it will work because I say so, with no actual experiments to prove it" qualifies as junk. So, a) the OP should not do it for his work or b) worry that someone else does it, because no one pays attention to such claims with no experiments.

I would think that a proof of the computational complexity of a new algorithm, for example, would be a non-junk half of a paper that might then want some experiments to go into the full article. I don't see anywhere where OP has asked us to trust them. I think your commentary here is too harsh and too absolute. You could soften this answer substantially and simultaneously improve it markedly.

@Bill: I agree with you that the core of the question seems to be: "Should I cut corners in my work in order to get it out first and stake a claim?" This is a question for the OP to ask mentors with experience in his field.  However, as a general answer i would say "No.  On the contrary, you should take the time to make your work as strong as possible.  Releasing work that you know is seriously incomplete has every risk of diluting or ruining the impact of your work and your own reputation."

I would think that a proof of the computational complexity of a new algorithm, for example, would be a non-junk half of a paper — Sure.  But OP specifically suggested "upload[ing] just the bare minimum to arXiv in order to get credit for the idea".  Proposing and analyzing an algorithm is far from the bare minimum; indeed, most of my papers do nothing else.

Unfortunately, scientific communication is indeed in a state of treating it like IP for quite a while, otherwise known as "publish or perish". This has a few corollaries, most notable of which is that it all largely behaves like patents indeed.
However, if 5 people publish roughly the same idea, it is not a given the first of them would get all the credit and reference count that comes with it. If it goes really, really big - and few things do - yes, they would likely have their names up there somewhere. But for more mundane things like metrics the better connected and more visible ones win. That makes mature research still valuable and all that happens, really, is that people try to get more visibility for their ideas with publishing often and publishing lots. And arguably, that is a good thing.
Personally, I was against publishing immature work for many many years until coming across Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research". One of the takeaways was that the articles one writes are not monuments to their work - they might turn out to be so, and one may choose to present a body of work in its entirety, and there are still significant advantages to that... But ultimately, they are mainly communication. And that tends to speed up. For casting the greatest bit of the work in stone (or, in this case, paper) books exist.

I wonder (and fear) if there is a trend to upload just the bare minimum to arXiv in order to get credit for the idea.

You are letting the nasty worldly details of the race for academic credit, prestige, funds and jobs clound your judgement of academic actions.
If someone has a good idea, that has been developed enough to constitute 75% of a paper, but has not had the time or the resources to test it empirically - it is better for science that this person post some kind of note / mini-article / blog post about the idea for others to read.
Then, other interested people could collaborate with this individual who has perhaps resolved a problem they were tackled with, and now do not have to resolve themselves. Or even just undertake the experimental work themselves. This is also certain, by and large, to lead to some changes in details or perspective about the purely-theoretical part - as well as to ideas for future research.

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text:
Prevent plagiarism after rejection of a paper?
After reading the question What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper?, I wonder what can be done to prevent this.
I also recently got a conference paper rejected with a good (but not very good) idea. Reviewers gave me 2 × weak accept and 1 × accept and only the meta-reviewer rejected the paper with bogus arguments.
The next conference where I would like to submit is in a few month such that nearly half a year is in between the two submission deadlines of the conferences. I don’t know how may people had access to my work and would like to protect my idea.
I can maybe upload it to arXiv now before submitting it to the conference. Some conferences are fine with this as for example ICML:

Publication at http://arxiv.org explicitly does not conflict with
  ICML.

but I am afraid that this can become problematic for other conferences.
What else can I do?

What is a meta-reviewer?

I suppose it is the person who makes the final decision based on the reviews.

So this person was called the meta-reviewer in the reviews you received?

Yes and I saw this naming often.

I think that this has been covered on this site before.  But briefly:

Most academics (in particular those who have weighted in on the issue on this site) agree that the best way to prevent plagiarism is through more light, not more secrecy.  In other words, once you've shown your work to one other person (and in many academic fields, this will necessarily occur in the course of doing academic work), the more people who know about it -- and the more that people know that people know about it, and so forth -- the less likely it is for your work to be plagiarized.  Thus posting your paper on the arxiv would be an ideal solution (and have many other benefits as well) unless you're working in an academic field which has the practice of regarding, or potentially regarding arxiv submissions as "prior publication".  (If so: have you considered switching to math / physics / TCS instead?  In those fields we not only do not feel that way, we regard the whole notion that freely showing your work to others counts as "publication" as being infinitely lame and wrong-headed.)
Even if you can't or don't want to upload a public copy of your work, you have already done plenty to establish your priority.  Namely you submitted it to a conference and got three referee reports.  You should certainly keep these reports for your records along with the correspondence with the handling editors.  If later on someone tries to steal your work, all you have to do is produce this correspondence.  You should also be able to count on the conference editors / organizers for help: whether the paper is accepted or not, if a conference submission results in someone's work being stolen, the organizers of the conference have an ethical obligation and a professional stake to be actively involved in your pursuit for academic justice.

Thanks for your answer. I did not realize it is a duplicate of this Question. Maybe I should delete it.


text:
Senior co-author is jeopardizing two years of work
I have been working on a certain paper for about two years, the first year funded and the other one pro bono.
The data and methods were fixed during the first year. The data has high quality, the sample size is three times larger than in a typical study, and the papers that describe the methods I am using have been cited thousands of times.
Now one of my senior co-authors, for some reason that I do not know, is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses to allow me to submit the paper to a good journal, though he would find low-rank journals just fine! I have rewritten the paper once already but it still does not satisfy him. The other seven authors have given generally positive feedback with good suggestions on how to improve it.
I will soon finish my studies, so I have little incentive to remake everything for a third time. However, it would be wasteful to discard the paper entirely. I don't know. I am very angry about this but I do not know what to do. My supervisors have been helpful but I feel I am not getting anywhere.
I could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that. Any suggestions for further action?

There is nothing you can efficiently do about that, speaking realistically. The described situation is a frequent enough consequence of working in large teams. What about applying the same method to a different problem, so that you will be able to publish on your own? The major product of your studies is that you know how to produce research, not a particular set of data or a manuscript. Once you have solid skills, you can prepare 10 times more papers in a relatively short period of time, instead of negotiating with your senior colleague.

What worries me most is that according to the coauthor, the method is flawed, but he's willing to submit to a lesser journal nonetheless. If the method is flawed but salvageable by adding a paragraph about its restrictions or something like that, then he should suggest the edit before publishing to whatever journal. If the method is so flawed that it's not salvageable, he should refuse to have his name on the paper at all. Submitting an unedited version to a lesser journal in the hope that they won't catch the flaw in the method is a disservice to academia and possibly fraud.

@Sumyrda: It depends on whether "essentially junk" was really the senior coauthor's phrasing (which would indeed be troubling, since it's not worth publishing junk at all).  It's plausible that the method gives some information but just isn't conclusive or exciting, in which case recording it in a lower-prestige journal could make sense.

I suggest that you get all of the co-authors together to have a discussion. When you organise the meeting, say something neutral like "let's get together to figure out what to with this paper".
If your senior co-author has a good point about the methodology being flawed, then the other co-authors may suggest a way to salvage the paper. They also have an incentive to get the paper published, if possible.
If the other co-authors don't agree with the senior co-author, then they can put forward their arguments, and hopefully a resolution will be reached.

Now one of my senior co-authors, for some reason that I do not know,
  is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses me to
  submit the paper to a good journal.

I would work to understand what his objections to the methods are.  Presumably they are in good faith.  Perhaps recruit one or more of your other supportive coauthors (especially if they are peers of the senior coauthor) to mediate if you feel that his objections are not in good faith.

could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that.

Unless you have compelling evidence that your disagreement isn't just academic (like say, your difficult coauthor plans to use your work and publish without giving you credit; very unlikely) a formal complaint would probably not even work.  Disagreements like this are common in academia (and professional life in general) and I don't think any department would step in on your behalf.  Unless of course you have evidence of something more sinister in which case it's a totally different conversation.
Hope that helps!

An acquaintance of mine actually had a co-author who expressed undefined concerns about the methodology of their paper and asked to be removed from the paper. It ultimately turned out that the co-author was planning to publish on the same data separately with a different collaborator. This case did go to academic mediation, but I agree that in general this is very unusual.

@Cecilia, I also have a similar story which is why the example came to mind.  It's rare but sadly not rare enough.

If they have unresolvable objections to the paper, ask them if they want their name removed from it.  This will show whether they are genuinely objecting to the paper or have some other agenda.
mhwombat suggests calling a meeting.  That would be a good place to ask this question.
If they agree, ask if they want to be acknowledged.  They may or may not want their name connected to the paper in this manner.
Then, work with the remaining authors to get it published as soon as possible.


text:
Is it possible to publish a deceased relative's unpublished work with them as the author?
A somewhat distant relative has passed away and he had 2 papers he wanted to publish. He was a complete recluse in his later life, but not crackpot or anything (that I'm aware of). His field of study was physics. It's completely out of my expertise but it seems legitimate (if not necessarily relevant to current literature). I believe a good course of action would be making them public on the arXiv: the papers both seem essentially ready to publish and it seems such a waste to not make it public somewhere.
Is it possible to publish with him as an author on the arXiv? (I'd prefer not to have my name on it)
Any alternative publishing suggestions are also welcome.

What was his most recent academic affiliation?

Maybe  ask Arxiv for instructions on how to do it.

What makes you think he wants his work published anywhere? If he became a recluse (from having been an active member) I would guess it was because he grew tired of how academia / publishing works and simply did not want to publish anything more for whatever reason made him distance himself therefrom in the first place.

Are you his next of kin? Was he your benefactor? If the answer to both questions is "no," I don't think you have the right to submit a paper of his, especially if there is no explicit written approval.

@mathreadler does it matter if he wanted his work to be published? If it is of any value, it should be publicly available. There can be good reasons not to want to publish some work yourself, but once you're dead there's nothing to lose...

@leftaroundabout you think so little of the deads wishes? pretty disrespectful, man. Also it is possible to publish without doing so in any journal.

@mathreadler if he explicitly asked that it not be published that's perhaps another story (though, indeed, I would have very little respect for such a decision). But not publishing just because “he might not have wanted that” is silly. Far more likely the reason he didn't publish it himself during his lifetime is simply that he couldn't be bothered. The fact that he put his thoughts in form of papers indicates that he at least took steps in that direction already.

@leftaroundabout I don't think it is OK to take stuff from the dead and making it public if they haven't said beforehand that they explicitly are OK with it. Having written it down could be for any reason. Helping him keep track of his own progress for example

If you do not care about the legitimacy of the journal and just want to get his work out there, I would go with a predatory journal which specializes in physics. All they would do is charge a small fee and then publish the paper right away without any correction request. Saves you the hassle essentially

@TheLastWord I wouldn't do that, because it helps support a system that's harmful to the academic process. (One might also argue that the traditional publishing model is harmful to the academic process, but even then, predatory publishing is significantly more harmful.)

Those comments are valid worries, so thanks. But I have found in his writings he had great desire to publish, no reason for concern in this case.

It is possible for you to submit things to arXiv, even without your name on them, but do note that you need to be "endorsed" to submit to the site. That basically means that someone with a good submission history in the same subject category has to vouch for you by filling out a short form on the site.
Any professor or (probably) senior postdoc in the field that includes your relative's research should be able to serve as your endorser, if they are willing to put in the time to verify that the research is legit. Usually these people don't have spare time to spend on reviewing research from unknown sources, but maybe if you have a personal connection with one of them, you could ask. Or I guess you could try emailing someone at a local university, but honestly you're unlikely to get a response.
If you can't get an endorsement for arXiv, you can still submit the work to a journal that covers the appropriate research area. There's no endorsement requirement, affiliation requirement, or such to submit something to a journal. Figuring out which journal to submit to can be a little tricky, though, especially if you're not in the field. Again, in this case, it would be really useful to have a bit of help from someone who is.
Finally, if you find it too troublesome to submit to either arXiv or a journal, posting the work online in any form (on your personal website, in a document repository, etc.) is a perfectly decent way to expose it to anyone who wants to read it. Of course if you care about getting people to read it, that's again going to be quite difficult without having someone to vouch for you.

Something you could do is pop into the Physics SE chat room and see if anyone is willing to look over the paper. There's no guarantee that anyone will, and I certainly wouldn't expect that anyone there would be willing to endorse you to submit to arXiv, but you might get some initial pointers in the right direction, e.g. people could probably tell you what subfield of physics it's in. (Full disclosure: I'm a moderator on Physics SE, not that I think it really matters here.)

It's a cool answer but I can foresee some issues. How would an article w/o breathing author pass the review process? You'd essentially ask the editor to put the article un-reviewed. I actually think the idea of contacting an academic over this would have the best chances. I'd advise looking into the bibliography of the article and search for a citation to a recent publication where one of the authors is located close to the OP (the OP will have to google the name of the cited author and their current affiliation). Go see several names on that list, the odds are someone would pick an interest.

Either the article would be accepted without revision, or someone (with expertise in the field) would have to take over "ownership" of it in order to make any changes required by the editor. It may be true that contacting an academic gives the best chance of getting the article published in a journal, but I maintain that the chance is still quite low. Of course, for non-journal publication, there's no need to go through a revision process.

"try emailing someone at a local university, but honestly you're unlikely to get a response". Honestly I'm not so sure. I'm not in physics, but if I received a cold email like this which is not automated spam (i.e., somewhat personalized) and the attachment vaguely looked like a paper, I would probably endorse so that the thing can get published on arXiv. I don't think there are any serious consequences to endorsing someone on arXiv who then posts something that may contain mistakes -- arXiv already has many crackpot papers and I don't think anyone cares about who endorsed them.

"posting the work online in any form": in fact I wouldn't post it on a personal website because it's not exactly long-lasting (it might go offline) and is not really citable. I think a repository like arXiv is preferable, or maybe one that does not require endorsement if the arXiv endorsement is an unsurmountable problem, e.g., Zenodo https://zenodo.org/

@a3nm People in physics routinely receive emails like that and they almost invariably turn out to be nonsense. We're conditioned to ignore them. Even if that weren't the case, you don't just endorse anyone who asks for it and has something looking vaguely like a paper. Endorsing someone who goes on to have a particularly bad publication record can result in being banned from posting on arXiv yourself.

@DavidZ: https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement says "You should know the person that you endorse or you should see the paper that the person intends to submit. We don't expect you to read the paper in detail, or verify that the work is correct, but you should check that the paper is appropriate for the subject area." So to me it does look like it's OK to endorse someone who emails you with something that looks reasonable. (They also say "Only provide endorsement to authors seeking to submit their own work" though, but if the author is deceased... I would ask them or mention it in comments.)

@a3nm Hm, it looks like the procedure may have changed a bit since I last looked at it. In any case, I still think your comment above suggests that you would be too cavalier about endorsement, but maybe it's not necessary to be as strict as I thought, either.

Condolences anyway.
Your relative may have already started the review process - with a journal - they may already have the paper under revision. If so, then it could be worth checking with that editor who may consider helping out somehow.
Best wishes.
Edit based on comments : an example of a postumously published paper can be found here: https://m.phys.org/news/2018-07-scientist-paper-earth-future-climate.html

Maybe a supportive example.

@Hazem sorry - on my phone, but yes got it now, cheers :)

I wonder how the review process would work, since the author obviously can't respond to any suggestions by a reviewer anymore. Could the relative publish the paper, unchanged, together with the review suggestions?

As suggested “perhaps the editor will consider helping out somehow” @gnasher729

Assuming the next of kin that own the work agree about his desire to publish, I believe his would be fine. You may want to note where the corresponding author would be listed that it was uploaded to arXiv posthumously.

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


text:
How do I handle a mistake in a mathematical proof that does not invalidate the main conclusion of our paper?
I recently found a mistake in a mathematical proof of a result I published in 2016. In a nutshell, a subtle error led me to claim that two conditions were equivalent. Unfortunately one of the two implications is not true. Luckily, the main result of our paper relies only on the correct implication so the main conclusion of the paper is correct. How should I handle this?

Does this answer your question? My paper was accepted, but I found an error affecting all of the figures. What will happen next?

@SolarMike: Different subject, different customs. And the other question is about a paper still in the pipeline.

@darijgrinberg so your advice is leave it or contact the editor?

@SolarMike: See my answer -- I think arXiv is the place where things are happening these days. Contacting the editor is an option, but I wouldn't expect it to be easy to publish a correction (even to one's own paper).

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/145414/101

... like a boss.

Not following...

The most important step to take is to contact the journal and tell them that you wish to publish a corrigendum to your article.
Journals have systems in place for making the existence of a corrigendum clear to readers who search for the original journal article. (So does MathSciNet, by the way—which reviews journal articles, not arXiv articles.)
When people cite articles, they cite the journal versions (when they exist, such as in this case). Therefore people who are reading a future article that cites your journal article will believe, quite reasonably, that they will be accessing the best version of the scientific record if they go to the journal article. A correction on a personal web page or the arXiv does not accomplish this important contribution to the scientific record, causing all kinds of problems (as user124672 mentioned in their answer).
user124672 also makes the valid point that publishing in a venue where somebody disinterested in the article has version-control power over the article (that is, editors of journals) is very important for establishing what is and isn't the definitive version of the article—which is again crucial for the scientific record. A corrigendum is the process by which an author can convince an editor to use their version-control power to update the definitive version in rare circumstances (and the rarity, and necessity for a disinterested party to agree, are features and not bugs of this system). Precisely because authors can update their arXiv and personal web page articles any time they want, such updates cannot ultimately be considered trustworthy in the careful, scientific sense.
By all means, also correct the arXiv version (with a clear explanation of what has changed), as well as the version on your personal web page—but only as supporting actions to the crucial one, which is to correct the scientific record by updating the journal article itself.
(One could imagine a world where later articles cite arXiv papers even when journal articles exist, and where arXiv has some structure in place to prevent frivolous author updates; in that hypothetical world, one could reevaluate the relative importance of the above steps. However, in our actual world, where citations are invariably to stable journal articles, I stand by the above statement.) (One can also reasonably criticize the limited-access and even financially predatory nature of many mathematical journals—I have done so myself—but that discussion about the optimal relationship between academia and capitalism does not alter the facts above.)

where arXiv has some structure in place to prevent frivolous author updates : while it does not, it does keep a record of all previous versions of a paper. Hence, when citing an arxiv paper, one can mention explicitly which version you are citing and prevent any confusion. (Although this is not currently commonplace, it seems)

A good journal will accept a corrigendum or erratum. Best practices for publishing (eg COPE) are to publish the corrigendum as a separate item in the same journal, with links between the original article and the correction or the error statement. This method means that if someone has used the problematic result in a paper in the meantime, that author doesn't look foolish. Publishing the correction separately will be a trigger for services like MathSciNet to go back to the listing for the original paper and do something (eg a link to the listing for the erratum). Note: I work for Math Reviews

Please. I beg you. Do not update on arXiv a paper that was formally published years ago. This is a recipe for disaster.
Once a paper has been published, a significant number of people will only look at the published version and not bother downloading the arXiv version (because clicking the "DOI" link on mathscinet takes you there). A significant number does the exact opposite and just downloads the arXiv version without bothering to go on the publisher's website, maybe because they don't have access or can't bother looking for it.
So a portion of your readership will be aware that the result is incorrect, the other half will not, and they have basically no way of knowing that others are (un)aware. When they collide, e.g. when one cites the (in)correct version of your theorem and someone else only has the other version: things can get very confusing! I once had a referee essentially call me an idiot because I cited a Lemma X.Y from some paper, and they said the paper's lemma were unnumbered: well, the published version's was numbered, while the arXiv version wasn't... This took a while to sort out. If this happens for something as trivial as lemma numbering, can you imagine what would happen for mismatches in results?
I would also say that most people hold the view that the published version is the "definitive" version of a paper (I certainly do). Once it's published, the paper is done, and anything new goes into new papers. A few years ago, someone's name was floating for the Fields Medal, but they were not chosen. One of the rumors about this disappointment is that the researcher in question keeps putting out updated version of papers/books that were published, tweaking the results, the proofs... So one was never really sure what was correct and what wasn't in the papers. I wasn't on the Fields committee, obviously, so I don't know for sure, and there were certainly a truckload of politics involved, but this definitely seems like a plausible argument. (I won't say who the researcher is. Those who know also know that this researcher isn't otherwise lacking awards, anyway.)

So, what to do? As I see it, you have a few options, in order of severity:

Do nothing. I strongly advise against that. People are going to read your paper and some will not notice the error.
If you can find a relevant place to do it, mention in a new paper the error and write down the correct version of the theorem. At least people can cite and link to the correct version. But this is not very discoverable.
Put out a corrigendum. This can just be a note on your webpage if you want, as you seem to have already done. You can also just post something on arXiv with the title "Corrigendum for title of your article" and explain what was wrong and how to correct it. You can also ask the journal to publish the corrigendum alongside the paper to make sure people see it. In all cases, when you do this, it is fine to update the arXiv version, not to change the text (which should stay as it) but to add a note in the comments section with a link to the corrigendum.
If the error completely kills the paper, ask for a retraction. This is somewhat extreme, so I'll leave it up to your conscience. This doesn't seem to be the case here if I read you correctly.

I'm much more likely to download the paper from the arXiv than from the publisher's web site. But in the process of getting the paper from the arXiv, I'll see the comment about its being corrected after the published version. So I'll be aware that other people may not know about the correction.

@user124672. Right the main message and the rest of the paper are OK. I see your point about generating confusion with multiple versions of the same paper and this is why I was not sure how to handle this. Probably putting out a corrigendum on my webpage is the best option. Thanks!

So at this point the question is whether one should maintain updated preprints on the personal page or not.

Your answer makes good points in favor of "don't just update the arXiv version", but none in favor of "don't update the arXiv version". And while these points are good, I'm afraid authors will still face an uphill battle in getting their corrigenda published. Editors will view these requests as additional headaches that don't improve any visible metrics; they will likely deal with them exactly as you would expect given this.

I think this is a terrible answer. I would say that for many people the arXiv paper is the only version that is read (and thus the definitive version). This is because the published version will be harder to read because it will be behind a paywall so it requires university access and going through authentication etc. and people are lazy. The answer is this to update it and make it clear that it is an update. This can be through an arxiv comment explaining the update and even more prominently in the paper itself. (A footnote in red should draw the readers attention for example.)

Sorry, downvoted. You answer says that you shouldn't update an arXiv paper, because some people may not see it or be confused by it, and because of rumors about the Fields medal (?!), but your proposed alternatives seem worse in every respect. My advice is still to update the arXiv version and disregard publisher versions -- too bad for people who still care about publisher versions.

I myself exactly look at arXiv because papers can be updated/corrected there, while "published" version are rarely corrected or updated, and it's difficult to trace those updates if/when they occur. Updates on arXiv are easy to track! Perfect!

I suggest you remove everything related to the Fields Medal candidate. It's not relevant since  it's an opinion and you even explicitly mention it was speculation on your part.

This seems like an unnecessary number of highly-upvoted comments for something that can be fixed by changing the third sentence to include the word "just".

@WillR It can also be 'fixed' by removing the word "not", but in both cases, this clearly goes against the intention of the author, which means opponents show their opposition in the comments and with (down)votes instead. (Note that the to-do list at the bottom also asks not to update the paper itself)

Update the preprint on the arXiv. Make it clear that the new version supersedes the published one.

Thanks for your answer! As of now I posted an update on my webpage and colored the changes. Do you think ArXiv is a better option? How should I make clear that the new version supersedes the published one? Thanks a lot.

If you have a website, you should of course update both arXiv and website. On the arXiv, you have a comment field where you can enter such info; it's prominently visible.

Downvoted not because this is a bad component of a plan to address the situation, but because it fails to include the most important aspect of the situation—the journal article.


text:
Feasibility of Study in Cuba for U.S. Undergraduates
I'm assisting an undergraduate student with developing plans for summer 2014, and I'm considering the viability of study in Cuba.
Are there any U.S. users who have traveled to and studied in Cuba and can recommend a robust, reputable Cuba study program, ideally run by a U.S.-Cuba university partnership? Fields of interest to the student are political science, civil society, and history.
Of course, a Google search returns several options, but I'd still appreciate input or advice from fellow academia.SX users

According to U.S. sanctions, this will only be legal if the student receives course credit from the U.S. institution.  Hence I would start with your home institution; if it doesn't offer credit this project is probably a no-go.

Ignoring the issue with obtaining a license to visit Cuba, I would say the feasibility of a US undergrad being able to study in Cuba is quite low. International study in a third world country is difficult and Cuba presents even more problems for US citizens. US credit and debit cards do not work in Cuba. You cannot wire money to Cuba, and you cannot legally exchange US dollars for Cuban currency. Staying in approved hotels and eating at approved restaurants is very expensive. Using the black market and finding less official housing and food is difficult and I think would be beyond a typical undergrad. I think anything related to political science would be a touchy subject. Finally, Cuba is very very hot in the summer, making getting anything done difficult.

Presumably an organized  study program will have solutions in place for most of these issues.


text:
Is there a way to edit author name after publication for trans people (at least online)?
I have seen questions about people changing their last names due to marriage but not for trans people. However, for them, it can be much more harmful (and wrong) to always carry their old names forever, although all other kinds of public records can be changed. Moreover, they should not be forced to out themselves every time.
I have asked Elsevier and said it is not possible. What would be some ways to minimize the damage (e.g. search engines, CV, ways to apply more pressure for change etc.)?
I'm not asking for the work to change but if the only author identifier is the name (which is supposed to be immutable but isn't), it doesn't make sense right?
It can only add confusion and be harmful, as I mentioned. By minimizing the damage, I mean either replace it or hide it wherever possible (e.g. something like a second edition).
I understand all the complications with hard copies, citations etc.

As far as I understand, there are two kinds of 'damage' that you may wish to minimize: the psychological damage to the person changing name, and the inconvenience for people that need to cite the papers or retrieve them from their citations. The two things are at odds; it is impossible to minimize both at the same time. So it all comes down to which of the two you think is more important.

I understand all the complications with hard copies, citations etc. I was simply expecting some more flexibility and sensitivity than just "that's it, deal with it", which was the editor's response. One way could be e.g. a corrigendum with the correct name that is automatically displayed by search engines and people can start citing the "new version". Orcid works perfectly fine and google scholar wouldn't have a big issue recognizing it as the same publication.

Trans academic here: I want to offer a frame challenge, and suggest that papers published under a previous name were accurately describing the name in used when that paper was published. There is nothing wrong with publishing new works under a new name, and, indeed there is value in not erasing the history of trans people. Identities change and we enact and embody such changes across our histories.

I suppose it is too late for you, OP, but for a potential future reader who hasn't transitioned nor published anything, they could use initials so that the previous name isn't obvious post-transition.

@nick012000 - Many people care. Trans people’s deadnames can cause real psychological harm, and many trans people go through great lengths to update all identifying documents to use their chosen name. Academia historically has not been very welcoming to the trans community, and refusing to acknowledge or adapt to this very real issue is not going to help convince them to join academia.

@TheLoneMilkMan Has academia refus[ed] to acknowledge or adapt to this very real issue? Changing names is common, academia is certainly aware of this. With regards adapting, academia would surely adapt quickly if a technical solution existed.

I am the academic referred to in the following answer by Schiphol:

She edited her preprints to use her correct name. In the new preprints she adds a header with the reference to the published version (in the APA style, which is common in her field and also only uses initials of first names).
Posted them to the relevant preprint service (PsyArXiv, in her case). PsyArXiv has fields for two DOIs: a "preprint DOI" and a "peer-reviewed publication DOI". The latter points to the older published version.
She now encourages other researchers to cite her using those preprints and their associated preprint-DOI.

The essence of that answer is correct, the following is an elaboration. The three main points I would make are as follows:

Sometimes the journal will agree. In most instances, journals will refuse to alter metadata associated with the paper, but this is not universally true, as noted in Joerg Heber's answer. Some journals do allow this: answers asserting that it cannot be done such as this one are factually incorrect.
You can use preprint servers to generate competing metadata. If journals refuse to change their metadata, you are permitted to release your own via a preprint server (in my case, via PsyArXiv). Journal publication agreements will often (not always) offer you scope to do so and you can ask people to share only the version that uses the correct information. What I did was edit the name on my author-accepted manuscripts and posted those.
ORCID and Google Scholar can help. I changed my name on both ORCID and google scholar. The latter in particular is useful because the searchability of paper relies heavily on GS in practice, and GS allows you to merge records (e.g., it allows you to merge the preprint version with the journal version and specify which version you consider to be the correct one). Note also that GS indexes personal websites if you post author accepted versions there too (see this question) which will also have some effect.

The above answers the question from a technical perspective.
In addition to the technical aspects, there are some social and practical hurdles to consider when doing this. Most transgender people understand the importance and sensitivity of this issue, as it pertains to our personal identity, mental health and in some instances physical safety. Unfortunately, most people will lack this knowledge and you are likely to encounter resistance. With this in mind, I would add the following suggestions based on my own experiences. I suspect you have considered these issues already (in my experience transgender people almost always do!) but on the off chance that you have not...

Discuss with your coauthors. I spoke with my coauthors about my intentions to check whether they had any concerns. What I found is that most people initially didn't understand why it mattered to me but when I explained to them the importance of the issue everybody was fine. Most of my coauthors offered to help me with recovering source code from old manuscripts etc.
Don't take it all on at once. I found it distressing to go through the process. I'm old enough to have a lot of papers to edit: there are about 100 papers published under my deadname. Doing the editing brought back a lot of traumatic memories that are psychologically associated with the papers (e.g., one paper is associated with a person who raped me: attempting to edit that one set off flashbacks). This may not be a concern in your case, but many transgender people have trauma histories and those may come into play here.
Be patient. What I have noticed as that as more papers have accrued under the correct name, various automated "profiles" have started to use my name correctly.

As a final point, not for the original poster directly, but in service of the deeper goal of making this process easier in the future: I found it easier to solve this problem when people took my privacy & safety concerns seriously, and did not treat this subject lightly.
In light of the fact that there are very real concerns that the transgender members of our academic community have expressed about our safety and personal well being in connection to this issue, it is important that we start pushing to improve these systems and place some pressure on journals to change their practices.

People indeed seem to take it rather lightly: maintaining unbroken links (which may not even be relevant: DOIs; paper titles; etc.) is prioritized over people's quality of life.

Yes, ORCID is good.

Thank you for all the practical advice and potential issues that may arise. As I see it, it's a problem that can be addressed but there is simply no motivation to do so. If you can add that we, as academics, should start putting pressure to modernize our systems regarding that issue, I would say this is the response closest to answering the initial question. At least, it is confirmed that the situation is indeed bad.

@Bourboul Yes, I'm happy to add that suggestion at the end of my answer

If you'd like to provide the full picture in your answer I'll be more than happy to delete mine. It'd probably be most useful to everyone if your approach was summarized in a single answer.

@Schiphol I've quoted the relevant part of your answer in mine as I'd like to acknowledge your contribution. I'm not planing to stay around here longer though. Other comments in this thread have left me with a very low impression of the community, I am sorry to say.

I know of one theorist who did the following:

She edited her preprints to use her correct name. In the new preprints she adds a header with the reference to the published version (in the APA style, which is common in her field and also only uses initials of first names).
Posted them to the relevant preprint service (PsyArXiv, in her case). PsyArXiv has fields for two DOIs: a "preprint DOI" and a "peer-reviewed publication DOI". The latter points to the older published version.
She now encourages other researchers to cite her using those preprints and their associated preprint-DOI.

How are dates handled? For instance, suppose a preprint was originally dated 2000 and edited/posted to use her correct name this year. I suppose she could include something like originally appeared in 2000, but the preprint service would use 2020. Presumably she has a system. Could you share?

@user2768 let me know if the edit helps.

@Schiphol It helps clarify, thanks. I suppose other researchers must cite those preprints with the date they were published, and ideally they should add something along the lines of first appeared at  in  Without such information, the ordering of publications is lost.

The academic I was alluding to has now provided he own answer. No need for me to continue discussing this on her behalf :)

By design, published works cannot (generally) be edited after publication, since doing so would corrupt the record of those works. (There are some exceptions.) New works can be published under an existing or new name. (Younes  explains how to create a relation between an existing name and a new name. I'm unsure whether that's in scope or even desirable, given that some people don't want to create such relations.) Our publishing model will surely evolve in a manner that supports editing of published works, but we're likely stuck with the current model for a couple of decades (assuming new models emerge during the coming decade and widespread adoption follows in the decade after).

A possible criticism to this answer is that it seems to portray the records as immutable objects that cannot be amended which, nowadays, is not really true. And what probably Wrzlprmft wanted to point out is that this answer seems to endorse the view that records must not be touched, notwithstanding the fact that this may cause harm to someone (I hope you don't hold this view). And there are publishers who are making an effort to make certain changes possible. I suggest you to edit your answer to avoid possible misinterpretations.

@MassimoOrtolano The resistance to amending the record is not that it's technically difficult to change digital data, obviously that's not true. The hazard is that you corrupt the "chain of record keeping." Suppose I publish a paper under name A, a bunch of people cite it under name A, and then I change to name B. Even if the publisher lets me change my name in their system, I cannot change all the papers that cited me with name A. If a future reader tries to follow a citation through name A that no longer exists then the chain is broken. This is exactly why we have things like DOI now.

I contest that the current system cannot handle mutable records. As noted by @David, The hazard is that you corrupt the "chain of record keeping." This could be fixed over the next two decades or so, but that doesn't help today.

@David: If a future reader tries to follow a citation through name A that no longer exists then the chain is broken. – Citations contain so much redundancy that this is not an issue. I challenge you to find a single citation in a real paper where changing the first name of one of the authors would significantly prevent me from tracking down the cited paper. Probably this even works with the full name. And such a constructed example would not even have the advantage that the journal can maintain backwards-compatible links of the paper under name A to the paper under name B.

@Wrzlprmft is entirely correct here. As someone who actually has changed metadata by changing her name (see my answer) I can attest that I have not lost a single citation as a consequence of doing so. It is absurd - and frankly offensive - to suggest this concern is a legitimate reason to disrespect the privacy and safety concern transgender academics

@Wrzlprmft I didn't say that the citation system would collapse, I said it would cause problems. Suppose you publish at journal X under name A, and then someone else cites you in journal Y under name A. Changing your name with journal X does nothing to all of the data out there that does not belong to journal X. If journal Y is one of those journals that automatically harvests references and I click on the references overview and click on your name then nothing you've done under your new name will be visible at journal Y. Not a big problem, but you can't seriously argue it's not a problem.

@xxx I understand that this is an issue that is emotional and important to you, but pointing out a concern over record keeping is not disrespecting the privacy and safety of transgender academics. Nor did I say that records shouldn't be amended in the face of that problem. If you have a specific comment on how to solve the JournalX/JournalY problem I described I'd like to hear it. In fact, what you have described would make it trivially easy to link old citations under your old name with new citations under your new name, so it's not clear to me what your privacy concern actually is.

@David: If journal Y is one of those journals that automatically harvests references and I click on the references overview and click on your name then nothing you've done under your new name will be visible at journal Y. – I am not exactly sure what you mean by clicking on my name here, but the citations are usually harvested when the paper is published in Journal Y, so my name change would not affect it at all. And even if, I see no reason that an automatic harvester should be distracted by a first name. They have much better info to use, such as DOIs, last names, or article numbers.

@David I'm not going to bother to argue with you. This entire thread is distressing and I want nothing further to do with you or this site. I'll leave my answer up out of respect for other transgender people who may need it, but I am done

The published articles/books cannot be edited after publication. Therefore, if a published work contains an error, the only solution is to publish an erratum or even retract it. However, the original publication will still exist. We need to think of a publication as a part of a physical object (i.e. a book) which is distributed all over the world with an ISBN and other identifiers.
In the case of changing the name (for any reason), you can still claim your oldest publications and list them in your CV. What you need to do maybe is contacting famous references indices (e.g. DBLP) to resolve the author ambiguity (please see DBLP Instructions) or you may even change them by yourself in open knowledge bases (e.g. Wikidata). This makes any author identified by a unique identifier (in the corresponding base) instead of his names that are subject to change, encoding issues, synonymy and antonymy.
You can also change your name in Google scholar (check here).
In conclusion, you may publish with your new name and claim all your publications (under different names) in all platforms and knowledge bases / reference indices.

Traditionally, journal publications are archived "as is" and in immutable form. There was no way to change names or, in fact, anything else -- and that was the point of it.
But publishers are understanding that this might be harmful to authors who are in exactly your situation. Some are starting to address this. For example, the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM), one of the largest professional organizations in the US, has convened a task force to address the question, and the recommendations are that authors can request to have their names changed on their publications after the fact, including many years later. This would include altering both all of the metadata stored for each paper, but also the PDF of the actual publication.
I don't know where ACM is with actually implementing this step, but I would suspect that it will be possible within a year. I would also assume that all other big publishers will follow soon.

Here is a relevant set of requests from a trans computer scientist for those who want to cite her by her proper name, including mention of the ACM change.

I wonder what would happen if co-authors were to object.

@RebeccaJ.Stones -- I believe that the draft policy explicitly gave that right to the author in question. Co-authors had no say. Upon reading it, I thought that the policy is actually quite compassionate and specifically intended to address all possible threats trans people could face by still having to use their deadnames. As a consequence, co-authors cannot have a say in the matter.

In July 2021 a partnership called "The Name Change Initiative" to support name changes on past published papers was announced by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which coordinated the effort. The list of participating publishers and institutions is available here, and provides links to several specific policies. Participating institutions will directly support their researchers in the name change process, helping with the administrative difficulties and hopefully alleviating the emotional difficulties involved.
The more broadly applicable development since this question was asked is that many journals' policies have shifted (including those of Elsevier). At least the participating publishers now allow for name changes, and authors can often opt for having the change carried out discreetly without having correction notices issued. This is in line  with COPE's recommendations outlined in A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: guest article:

Any publisher who implements a process for trans authors to change their name should work to minimize the disclosure risk to the requesting scholar. This includes foregoing traditional announcements and notices typically associated with updates, corrections, retractions, and errata, both in metadata structures and on changed documents.

Finally, below is the current (as of May 2023) list of publishing organizations and services participating in The Name Change Initiative:

American Chemical Society (ACS)
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
American Nuclear Society (ANS)
American Physical Society (APS)
American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
arXiv
Canadian Science Publishing
Clarivate
eLife
Elsevier
Hindawi
ORCID
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
protocols.io
SAGE Publishing
Science Journals – American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Scopus
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
Springer Nature Group
Wiley

In the version control system "git", there is the possibility to "rebase" a history - this corresponds to a rewrite of history. However, it is always warned to use it on private histories and to avoid doing so when a history has been published, because it creates endless confusion.
Same here - do not rewrite history after publication; in the best case it causes confusion, in the worst people will feel gaslighted. Better is you keep your ORCID (I do not know whether you can change your name there) and go from there. Of course, if, as some commenter suggested in a tongue-in-cheek way, you look for ways to disavow your papers, it may make sense to publish the new ones under a different name - then, you would avoid ORCID.

@FedericoPoloni For publications that may exist in several versions (technical reports) or editions (books), it could work. But even then, some note ("An earlier version/edition of this work was published under the name John Smith") would be necessary so that it doesn't look like blatant plagiarism.

Changing name in ORCID: https://support.orcid.org/hc/en-us/articles/360006973853


text:
Creating a secure test environment for a programming lab practical
I'm a senior TA helping out my instructor with restructuring the course in light of the coronavirus causing in-class cancellations at our university.  We have tools allowing our students to do their programming labs online, and therefore our class can still run, but we still have a lab practical that's a huge part of students' grades, and I personally would prefer that that not be replaced by some generic homework.
Would any of you happen to know of ways to make secure environments where a website (in this case, the tool allowing students to do their labs) could be loaded?  The student shouldn't be able to navigate to another tab or close full screen, and the website immediately submits code to the server when the time for the virtual "exam" is up.
I've tried searching for examples myself, but I'm not sure if I'm wording my problem correctly because I don't get any relevant results.  I'd really appreciate the examples you have.  Thank you in advance!

There is probably more to it than that. You have to know who is at the terminal. You have to know they are alone. You have to know they have access to only permitted resources (books, ...). The alternative of choosing a different evaluation methodology is probably easier. Or choose problems in which security isn't an issue in any way.

Is it possible to delay the test for a while?

To make the test closed-Internet, you would need to know what other computers they have next to the one of which they are taking the test.

Meta discussion pertaining to this question

Some of the resources collected here may also help yu.

As already outlined in some of the comments, it is impossible to achieve what you want: You cannot control a computer to this extent without a severe invasion that would go far beyond anything that I would allow you to do on my computer due to privacy and security concerns. Unless you want to video-monitor students, you can also not prevent students from using a second computer, a virtual machine, or having somebody else working on their computer for them. And even then you need at least two cameras to see everything that the student is doing or that is happening to them and you would have to frequently check that they are working themselves, did not rig the video, etc.
On a more general level, controlling cheating on any exam that is based on limiting resources is already difficult if you do it in a setting that you can control (i.e., your room, your computers, your toilets, etc.).
By taking this battle to the “enemy’s territory” and limiting your knowledge, you can only lose.
I would thus suggest the following alternative.
This is how my programming practicals were done when I was a student.
I also successfully applied this to a programming “exam” in a course I co-organised.

The students do the programming practical with no restrictions except time.
For example, they may use the entire Internet, course material, etc.
After they submit the code, there is a short oral exam on the code.
Depending on the details of your course, you can very this exam in length and relevance, with the extreme examples being:

You grade the code and the oral exam only serves to ensure that the students didn’t cheat (and may be as short as five minutes).
You only check that the code is doing what it’s supposed to do, while the oral exam determines the grade and may also contain questions about other aspects of the course and deeper understanding.
Here, the oral exams may cost more time, but you also spend less time looking at their submissions.

If applicable, also perform plagiarism checks on the code.

Some pros and cons of this approach:

You somehow have to organise remote oral exams, but these could be just via the phone, if that suffices to establish the examinee’s identity for you. Also be prepared that this mode will amplify anxiety, language, and other issues for some students (while it reduces them for others).
You may need to modify your tasks to account for full Internet access and similar, for example it should not be anything to which a bazillion of solutions exists.
Depending on your topic, this may be very difficult.
The exam is more realistic: except for taking exams, your students will have Internet access for the rest of their career and using it properly is also a relevant skill.
The oral exam allows you to gauge actual understanding, whereas the purely written exam may be solved by rote-memorising algorithms, etc.
In case of group work, you do not need to worry much about some incompetent student benefiting from a stronger partner.
(I am aware that this point doesn’t apply to you; I mention it only for completeness.)

Oral exams have a severe downside for many. Anyone with a hearing or speech impairment, for example. This is made worse by using anything like Skype or telephones. Even people with strong accents or those not familiar with the local accent/idiom will have a problem. So, this answer is a start, but not the whole answer. But the first paragraph is exactly right.

@Buffy A chat exam maybe?

@Buffy: While students with hearing or speech impediments should receive proper attention, I would not consider them “many”. Simple language problems can usually be solved in exams according to my experience. Here, written exams are much worse. At the end of the day, any examination mode poses problems for some students (and it hopefully goes without saying that you should try to address them as much as reasonably possible).

I've upvoted your answer because I think the alternatives you propose are great, and in fact I will think about using them. But I also think you haven't answered the question. You say that it is "impossible…without a severe invasion that would go far beyond anything that I would allow you to do on my computer due to privacy and security concerns". But of course, this actually means that it is possible, but you don't think the tradeoffs are worth it.

@LeeHachadoorian: My privacy and security concerns apply to the level of computer control the OP wants to have. The strict impossibility arises from the assumption that the not all students have video cameras. Also see my edit.

You are looking for a remote proctoring service, of which there are many
Unfortunately, these are usually enterprise level services which your university would have to contract for.
Background
I also use in class programming quizzes which I think are equivalent to what you mean by practicals. And I'm also trying to adapt to the new reality with a course that was never intended as an online course, and would have been set up differently if it had been.
The assignments are short, simple programming concepts like constructing a basic loop within a fixed period of time. In some years I have had the students email me their completed script, but for the past few years I have had them upload their script to the course LMS (my school happens to use Canvas). In the LMS, the assignment is constructed as a quiz. They open the quiz, see a question which is created as a "File Upload Question" (i.e., the "answer" is a file uploaded by the student), copy starter code to their programming environment, complete the script, save it, and then upload their answer.
Remote Proctoring
My university has provided us access to a remote proctoring service that can do what you are looking for. Note that I am not endorsing any particular commercial service, nor did I have a hand in my university's selection. Therefore, I am not naming the service we use. A variety of such services exist, and can be easily discovered through a search engine with "online remote proctoring" or something similar as your search term.
These services usually integrate with the major LMSes (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.) and may offer the following features, which can be configured for each quiz/assignment:

Video recording
Audio recording
Screen recording
Logging all web traffic
Forcing all browser tabs other than the quiz tab to close, and preventing opening other tabs (note, this is easily defeated if the student has a second browser installed, so I don't know how useful this is if you don't also have screen recording or web traffic logging turned on)
Identity verification (such as through an school ID card, video captured)
Live proctoring provided by the service

Auto-submission when the time limit is reached (your other request) is built into the LMS. Note, however, that the students are not coding in a web IDE, so in my setup an auto-submitted assignment is just blank, because it means the student didn't attach their completed script file in time.
The problem with such a solution is that most (all?) of these are enterprise level solutions which an institution subscribes to rather than an individual. So if you don't already know whether your university has a subscription, you may well not. (But maybe in the flurry of announcements that have been generated this got lost in the mix? Check with your department chair and/or your university's ed tech support.) If you want to use such a service and can't find one that allows individual faculty to subscribe, and your university doesn't have such a service, your only hope (other than coming up with an alternative assignment or an alternative way of evaluating the submissions) is to convince the university to get something going fast. Your voice alone won't accomplish this, but this would be something to mention to the instructor you TA for, or your department chair. If several chairs wanted this, maybe it is something the university could do. On the other hand, enterprise level contracts often take months to hash out and implement, so this may be unrealistic (unless current circumstances make people move faster).
Warning
Some students in my course (roughly 20%) have raised privacy concerns about being videoed while taking the quiz. I'm not 100% certain that this qualifies as a privacy concern, as I warned the students ahead of time and told them to be conscious of their backgrounds prior to starting the quiz, but at least one student has said that it is a continual distraction to be aware of the video and their surroundings. The service we use also has a facial recognition component which a student objected to, although I do not have the identity verification feature turned on (it's a small class and I can see who is taking the quiz). A software which can control your web browser and monitor web traffic can also be characterized as spyware.
If you have any concerns about these features, you shouldn't go this route. If you don't have concerns about these features, your students may nonetheless say "This isn't what I signed up for." If your university doesn't have such a service, it's possible it had been considered already and was rejected or is being held up because of these privacy concerns.
Obviously, if my course was designed as an online course from the beginning, this would all be different, because either:

The students would have been made aware from the beginning that a remote proctoring solution was being used, and could choose to take an in person course or a different online course if they had objections to remote proctoring; or
I would have designed a different set of quizzes/assignments or a different manner of evaluation where I was less concerned about outside assistance.

You might also want to note that there are several ways to completely bypass even the strongest existing forms of remote proctoring. In particular, virtual machines or a setup using dual monitors, keyboards and mice can only be beaten if you have at least two cameras (to see everything that the student is doing) and a very alert proctor who is able to check that you are really working yourself.