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How should a teaching-assistant deal with an angry student?
This happened two semesters ago, when I was teaching-assistant to a class of bachelor students. The lecturer had such marking weights, 30% for teaching assistant class including all the homework and his quizzes and 70% to the midterm and final exams.
At that semester, one of the students did not even attend one of my TA classes, did not solve any homework and also did not take any quizzes. I also gave some extra time to the students to give me their homework if they have missed some of them, but he did not give me any in that period of time.
He passed midterm and final exam with a passing mark and normally, I did not give him any mark for his TA part. His final mark was about 65%. I did not even know this guy personally.
After he was announced of his final mark, he called me by my mobile phone and started shouting and swearing to me over the line. I tried to calm him down and explain his wrong attitude towards the TA class but he did not pay attention. He continuously shouted and told me I will do this and I will do that to you! He never tried to make it clear why he was not working on homework or not attend the class. He expected that because he was good at final exam, I have to neglect his weak work in TA class.
I told him that if I give you extra mark for the homework you did not solve and the exams you did not sit, this will be unfair to other students who came to the class and worked on the course. I did not continue that conversation and turned my phone off. I really wanted to help him, but I found no way indeed.
After that, I did not even report him the the university police or the professor for his behaviour.
Was my attitude toward this lazy and angry student correct? How should teaching-assistants deal with such students who behave crazy? How should a TA calm his angry student down and talk to him logically and what should he do when they behave really bad to them?

Was he warned during the course of the consequences of ignoring homework etc.?

@PatriciaShanahan I have put the information of the class in the department's notice board. I gave them the exact marking policy including the marks for exams and homework in the TA class during the semester in a printed A4-sized paper. The professor informed them of importance of attending the TA class in his class hours. However, I did not personally contacted the student to inform him "if you don't work on homework, you will lose marks."

If a student is being unreasonable, then just refer him to the member of faculty in charge of the course.  Essentially by not being satisfied with your answer he is escalating the issue to the next level where it is out of your hands. If the marking policy was published there should be no expectation of any further warning about failure to submit homework, students should be treated as adults.

My community college tracks attendance and even has a procedure or check box to mark "Never attended class".  I believe this may even notify an administrator for follow up. Is it possible the student missed the announcement for the extra class?  How widely was that information published?  Did the professor mention the requirement class at least once a month during regular lecture? Is it possible the student can retake only the extra class?  I know of one student with Texas Wesleyan University who passed Physics but failed the connected lab course.  He was allowed to retake just the lab course.

@nickalh attending the TA classes took a small amount of final assessment (only about 5%). That student did not even worked on assigned homework which he could give to the professor at the normal class hours. As a TA, I was only responsible for reviewing their homework and reporting their mark the professor; so if the student had worked on the homework, he could increase his final mark up to 95~100%. It is not possible for the student to miss the announcement, because the class was informed in their main class by the professor and through the notice board of the department each week.

@nickalh Also, for people who had missed time to give their homework, I gave them some extra time to either scan their homework and email them to me to be able to give them their mark or even give their homework to the secretary of the professor. He really did not take care of the homework or even the classes.

I agree with the many people who said you should tell the professor in charge of the course. If I (a professor) were in charge of a course that has TA's and if a student were to give my TA's problems of this sort, I'd certainly want to know about it immediately.

Why does the student have your phone number? Lesson learned. 2) Don't try to deal with them. You are not responsible. Forward them to the next person upwards in the hierarchy without discussion.

@Raphael In the first session of my TA classes, I give the students my email address, office address and my mobile phone number; in order to ask their questions about the course whenever they feel they need to ask. I never knew he would call by phone and shout at me! He might have asked my phone number from other students.

@EnthusiasticStudent I have no experience with shouting students at all (they have formal ways of being angry here) but it also never ocurred to me to give students private contact information. (Being too available has its own downsides.)

As a teaching assistant, you should not be abused.  If a student becomes angry and abusive, you need to disengage and pass the problem upwards.  While TAs participate in the grading of a course, the responsibility and authority for dealing with any significant grading dispute with a student lies with the professor, not with any TA.  It's OK for TAs to deal with minor problems presented calmly (e.g., "You added up the scores and got the wrong total"), but major disputes and angry students are not things a TA can or should attempt to handle.
If you are confronted with an angry student, do not respond to the content of the dispute.  If you do so, you may say something that can cause a major problem for yourself or the professor later.  Instead, just keep repeating something along the lines of,

"Please calm down. This is something that you need to talk to the professor about."

If the student persists to the point where you feel threatened, then you have both the right and the obligation to get campus authorities involved.  A person who is extensively verbally abusive may become physically violent as well, and you need to protect yourself.
Once you have disengaged from the student, contact the professor immediately and explain the situation.  At that point, it is the professor's responsibility to deal with the student, though they may need more information and input from you in deciding how to proceed.

This answer works for those higher up in the pecking order too.  A professor having trouble with a dissatisfied student should be able to pass the problem up to his chair for backup.

That student had talked to the professor at that time before calling me by phone. The professor had told him, it was the homework and he had to work on it. If he was missing the mark, it was his fault; not the TA's fault. At this point the student was so angry! Because he had no way to get the full mark of the course.

@EnthusiasticStudent If this person called you after talking to the professor, they probably fall into the category of someone who thinks nothing is their own fault. Make sure to keep a record of interactions with the student, particularly if the attacks continue.

I would just add that since "a person who is extensively verbally abusive may become physically violent as well," the obligation to get campus authorities involved is not only to protect ones self, but also potentially protect others.

@GeoffHutchison It was about one year ago. After that, the student saw me in the university but did not even say a hi to me... It is so sad. He did not do his homework, and I was the one he thought who made a mistake. At that time, the lecturer was so happy with my TA classes, the marking policy, quality of the homework. I did not do anything wrong. I reported the TA class marks to the lecturer and after he reviewed the marks, he reported the marks. The only thing I know is that, it was unfair indeed to give mark to someone who had never worked on homework or attended the TA classes.

"do not respond to the content of the dispute" - while I see the thinking behind that, I find it saddening to see how that habit is spreading from corporate settings into academia. Personally, I perceive answers whose only goal is to deter any possible (e.g. legal) problems for the answerer at the cost of conveying any useful information as extremely annoying - if nothing else, because this way of answering (react to the anger, do not respond to the content) is the direct opposite of what a mature person should do IMO, namely ignore the irrational anger and calmly respond to the content.

@O.R.Mapper When you are dealing with somebody who is just ordinarily upset or angry, I absolutely agree.  When you're dealing with somebody who has already chosen to be abusive, however, you can't have a rational conversation.  It's like dealing with an angry toddler (for any parents out there): you can't have a rational discussion until they calm down and decide to engage, rather than just attack.

@jakebeal: You're right, though I tend to have slightly different expectations of a student than of a toddler.

@O.R.Mapper, the model of "student-as-toddler", or even "faculty-as-toddler", is dismayingly better than modeling them as "mature adults", especially in these extreme situations. I wish it were otherwise, but all my personal observation confirms...

As mentioned in another answer, this falls into the general realm of dealing with angry people, not specifically students.
My suggestion in a situation like yours is to attempt to calmly disengage from the phone conversation as soon as possible. In many cases, you cannot make the student calm down.
I would then respond by e-mail to the student and CC the professor and any other relevant authority figure.
I've learned from personal experience that phone conversations or verbal interactions can be skewed later and mis-remembered by either or both parties. By responding by e-mail, you have increased the emotional distance from the student and provided a clear record in case of a later dispute. Moreover you have time to make sure your response is calm. I sometimes have trouble remaining calm when someone is yelling at me or verbally abusive.
Calmly explain your position and the grading policy. Attach a copy of the grading scheme from the beginning of the semester and make it clear in the e-mail that you do not appreciate the student verbally attacking you.
The student may dispute that they shouted or were verbally abusive, but because you CC the instructor, you have started a chain of evidence in case the student attempts to go over your head later.

When a student is calling your personal phone to shout and swear at you, you're past the point when you should deal with the situation on your own. Contact the relevant university authorities, and let the professor know what's going on. (Don't ask the professor to handle it; let the university handle it, but keep the professor informed about the situation.) Don't try to calm down or reason with the student on your own; it's not going to be successful, and he's already crossed the line into the area where the university does need to be involved.

Contacting "the authorities" because someone gets angry in a phone call is over-escalation

"The authorities" doesn't mean the police. As in any other job, there are higher-ups who have the ability and the responsibility to deal with this sort of thing.

I didn't say "the police".

As a doctoral student with prior TA experience, I would say the first step should be to talk with your direct supervisor. Universities have great professionals in place to handle these situations. If this angry student disrupts the classroom and/or impedes your ability to do your job, you should send this issue up your chain of command so to speak. There are certainly techniques you can learn in communicating with students in the case of isolated and acute occurrences. But, if this is an ongoing problem, it should be handled by the University.
However, I should note, as we were instructed by our university police captain during TA training, the moment a student becomes belligerent and refuses to cooperate you should 1) dismiss the class and 2) call university police. Dismissing the class is a good move because many students who are acting up like having an audience and sending the class out may help to calm down this individual. You run into a lot of different people in the University setting and you never know what they are going through in their lives (e.g. substance-abuse, etc.). If you ever feel uncomfortable or unsafe don't hesitate to call the police. They are there for you.
P.S. Don't ever give out your cell phone number to your students. If they need to reach you outside of class they should make an appointment or send you an email.

Your attitude was not correct - but in a way you probably did not expect. You did too much yourself. You should immediately refer him to the professor and let him deal with the situation. It is not your job and you are stressing too much over something that happened 2 semesters ago! Professor/Lecturer sets the rules and he or she is in the best position to fend of such attacks. I tell all my TAs to refer any complaining students to me. It also works both ways - that way I also keep the tabs on the quality of TAs' work. "The bucket stops here" should be written on every university professor's door.

Credentialed (licensed) teachers are trained to know the school and state's established policy on such interactions. Make sure you know these or at least where they are so you can refer to them before taking action of any kind. I find this very helpful in reducing the burden of such decisions as dealing with angry and abusive students AND staff.


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Advisor's/University's rights in the PhD/MSc alumni's research projects and publications
After a series of discussions about the level of dependency of a research student on his advisor in this link and this link, a question comes to mind that when the person is graduated and leaves the university; even he is now working independently in a company or he is a faculty member of a university; as far as most of the researches he is going to do may be based on his PhD dissertation;

Until when should this person contact his supervisor about the researches he is doing?
Should he ethically acknowledge that his researches is roots of his PhD project under his advisor's supervision?
If, based on his dissertation, he works on a research project; should he talk about it to his supervisor and he should be aware on every single after-PhD project? Just because the base of the publication and research is the PhD dissertation which is done under his supervision?
To put in a nutshell, as a matter of academic ethics, what are exact rights of a supervisor in projects done based on his student's supervision (after graduation of the person)? What are the rights of the university from which the student is graduated?

(I think... as a mathematician...) such situations are very field-dependent, and context-dependent. If, on one hand, one's advisor is an eminent master in the field, and one has inherited/acquired/learned some amazing riffs from them, then it would be fair to acknowledge this, although co-authorship is essentially ridiculously not called-for. If, on another hand, one's thesis advisor has been no more than a funded drivers'-training instructor, then, no, do not acknowledge them every time you drive to work and do something worthwhile.
:)
And, yes, there are (at least) two things to be distinguished: formal/practical dependency, and genuine scientific dependency. Money and knowledge are often confused in academe, unfortunately. Yet, yes, money and staying alive by being able to buy groceries at the end of the work-day are real things.
An example resolution of the question: if one's advisor did no more than provide a stipend, and sign papers, then that should be appreciated, and acknowledged, but don't over-interpret it.
If, on the opposite hand, one's advisor has shaped one's outlook on the whole enterprise, this, too, should be admitted whenever relevant. But that does not entail co-authorship. And one should hope that one's advisor will not be in the state of needing to pump their stats... (Not good to have an advisor who's still in that state, in the first place.)
General guideline: be real.

I am currently returning now to a thread of work that I started as a PhD student many years ago, but have not had opportunity to work on since then. I will not be including my advisors as authors on the new papers that result, because the work goes beyond anything that we worked on or discussed during that project. So there's no direct overlap there, and thus they have no intellectual investment in the project.
I would argue that you would continue to include the advisors if they are actively collaborating with you on the current work that you're publishing—or if the original work that you're publishing was done while you were under their supervision.
Of course, you do need to cite the previous work that you've done on the topic as part of placing the work in its appropriate context within the larger experience. You should also be notifying your advisors of your recent work because it's the smart thing to do—you should always keep mentors apprised of your ongoing research activities!

What about the universities? Because I know that they hold all the rights of the projects their students and professors do; specially the PhD and MSc project.

Those rights don't apply when you're not enrolled. If your advisor wouldn't have rights, neither would the university.

Until when should this person contact his supervisor about the researches he is doing?

Until this person chooses not to collaborate with their former supervisor. (Which, if the student wants to develop an independent reputation, should be about five minutes after the thesis is signed.)

Should he ethically acknowledge that his researches is roots of his PhD project under his advisor's supervision?

Of course. You should cite all prior work that your research is based on. Whether that prior work is part of your thesis is immaterial; if you build on it, cite it.

To put in a nutshell, as a matter of academic ethics, what are exact rights of a supervisor in projects done based on his student's supervision (after graduation of the person)?

Exactly the same rights as they have to work done in collaboration with any other colleague; no more and no less. They have the right to authorship on any future paper to which they have contributed (or are contributing) significant intellectual content, and other rights and responsibilities that go with authorship such as approval of the final manuscript,
However, these rights have nothing to do with their former position as an advisor/supervisor. In particular, funding, signatures on theses, and recommendation letters are not intellectual contributions.

What are the rights of the university from which the student is graduated?

Exactly the same rights that the university would have to the work of the former supervisor with any other colleague; no more and no less. If you are neither employed nor enrolled, the university has no special rights to your work.

(Basic theories are produced in his PhD + project/paper idea was reached after his graduation from the university + no discussions between him and his adviser about the paper --> The university and his adviser have no rights on his project/paper) is this conclusion correct?

It's simpler than that. No discussion with X + no use of X's resources -> X has no rights to the work. The fact that X is a former advisor is completely irrelevant.

I think it is a good idea to add your comment to your answer, it directly answers my question.

@shane I search this site for the term contribution and found many useful results about it (some of which answered my questions too); but I am not sure those results answer yours too or not.

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What is the standard way to include introduction and references parts to a masters thesis?
I have seen that students have two ways to write their thesis,

They have a separate chapter to write an introduction to their thesis. This chapter usually consists of a literature review of their research topic.
They have an introduction section at the beginning of each chapter and they write a separate introduction to each chapter and they don't have any introduction chapter for literature review.

Also, I have seen such behaviour in references part;

some prefer that each chapter having its own references part;
some other prefer all the references come at the end of the thesis report.

Could you please help me know which of these are standard and if any official guide to each exists, I will be happy to know and read them.

EDIT:
Thanks to the answers to this question of mine, I read the writing guide for masters thesis at my university and consulted my question with my advisor, and looked at the previously submitted theses, I wrote the introduction and literature review of my thesis in the very first chapter exactly after printing the abstract of my thesis and brought all the references at the very end just before the final page of my thesis.

How did your advisor answer this question?

@JeffE I wrote my thesis report draft and brought all the literature in a separate chapter and all the references in the end of my thesis. Previous students also did such thing and the previous thesises looked like this method. My advisor also liked the way I wrote it.

For what it's worth, when I was writing my BS thesis I went to the library and looked at a bunch of MS theses, picked one that seemed especially clear, and took notes on how it was organized. Advisor was suitably impressed by the result.

You mix up two things: Thesis introduction and Chapter introduction.
From what I observe, every thesis has to have an introduction. It makes sense after all: You need to introduce the topic of the thesis etc. You can't simply start a math thesis by Theorem. For all X ... -- you need to start somewhere, and that's the thesis introduction.
The chapter introduction is a nice thing to do, and there are more options. It can be a short text before the first section, a separate section, some people even provide short (3-or-so-sentence) abstracts to each chapter. However, this is mostly part of your writing style, and it can't be so much enforced (well, it can, but that is IMHO ridiculous).

As for references, there should be guidelines for them. If there's no, then I advise to include full list of references at the very end, since that's what people expect by default, but it's only an advice, not a rule.

Thank you so much for the answer and introducing the very good idea of having an abstract to each chapter. I did not use this idea of having separate abstracts, but it was interesting indeed to hear about it.

Standards and common practices vary widely between fields, regions, and institutions.  There are no general rules or official guides.
If it is similar to what previous students have done, your advisor says it is okay, and it doesn't violate any style guide that your university may have, it is fine.
(This answer applies to a lot of the "thesis style" questions we've seen recently on this site.)

Well, I think there is no specific answer as if which is the "best" way of writing the Introduction chapter. I believe it boils down to preference. Sometimes it is possible to have both of them.
I prefer,having an introduction chapter which talks about the topic overall and provides the basics to the reader, and then for each chapter you provide an introduction paragraph or section which tell the reader what is going to be solved in that chapter of the thesis.
However, in most of the universities i.e. research groups, the student gets a template which he has to respect when writing the thesis. It is rather interesting that you have the freedom to choose that what type of template you will use for your own thesis.
In any case before you start wasting time on considering which template you should choose, make sure that the research group where you will be writing your thesis does not provide a thesis template of its own.

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Should references part of CV only include names of the people who wrote recommendation letter to where the CV is going to be sent?
Can one list all the people who have written letters of recommendations for him in his reference part of his CV regardless to where those recommendations are written? Or he should specially prepare his CV for the company/university including only the reference people who have written letters of recommendation for him to that company not all of the people from whom he has recommendations?

Edited for clarity, since the question in the title is somewhat opposite to that in the body: do not list all your references on your CV. Only the ones who have written or will write to that particular potential employer. To list everyone might give several unfortunate impressions. First, that the potential employer can contact any one of those references directly. Second, if the prospective employer has received letters from some, but not all, they may think something's wrong... and one form of this is to consider your application "incomplete", but not inform you, and you miss the opportunity.

I have never included references as part of my CV and rarely seen them in CVs that I've reviewed for admissions, hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions.
CVs are a public record of your intellectual accomplishments. They are public, they are shared. They should not be tailored for jobs. See F.N.
References should be in an addendum to the cover letter or a separate file. Including them is much more of a resume practice in my experience.
F.N. some grant agencies, notably NSF, require abbreviated CVs with particular specifications. Also, some jobs such as at conservative religious institutions might warrant some straightening up of the CV, that is if you would want the position. Otherwise, in principle your CV is not a tailored document.

Occationally, the people hiring wish to request the recommendations themselves, rather than have the applicant initiate the sending of them. In such cases, it seems like a nice way to handle references is to put them at the end of the CV and put something like "for contact information of my references, I refer to my CV". Other than that, I agree that generally references do not belong on the CV.

Attaching the references to the cover letter as I suggested accomplishes exactly what you want, without contaminating the CV.

There is certainly no reason that you should every person who has ever written you a letter of recommendation on your CV!
I have seen people who are on the job market list letter writers for their in-process job search on their CV. This seems harmless, but also unnecessary. The people who need to know who your letter writers will outline ways for you to communicate this to you (e.g., through a web form, through a list of letter writers, in the cover letter, or simply by seeing who sends in letters). It is normal to list your letter writers in your cover letter or, as requested in many job searches, in a document which contains the list of letter writers and their contact information. It simply does not need to be in the CV.
Letters of recommendations, like other letters, are from the recommender to another person. They are about you, but they are not for you, and their mere existence is not something that belongs on your CV.
You touch on the reason why in your question. The fact that somebody was willing to write a letter (which might have been glowing, luke-warm, or even critical!) does not mean that they would write a letter again today, or that they would write the letter same letter for a different position. If I have not talked to the student in 10 years, I would not write a letter for a start undergraduate who has since graduated with a PhD and is applying for tenure track jobs. The student may be great but my ability to sing their praises is not longer relevant.

The people who need to know who your letter writers are will know when they get the letters. — Application processes vary greatly.  My university asks applicants to submit names of references.  We ask those references for letters directly, but only for candidates that pass an initial screen.  The names of the references are one of the criteria used in the initial screen.  There is no way for a letter-writer to submit a letter unless we ask for it.

@JeffE So for applicants to your university, it is better to include their names in the CV and then, if they pass the initial screen, faculty members ask for recommendation letters.

For applicants to my university, it's better to put your references in the slots on the application web form that ask for references. You can add them to your CV (or cover letter) if you want, but most people don't, so we might not notice.


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Is it wise to do teaching-assistantship in a university I am not studying in?
The universities from which I earned my BSc. and MSc. degrees are not the same. Last week, a professor who knows me from my BSc. university called me and asked me to accept his teaching assistantship for one of his MSc. courses.
Despite probably receiving a letter of recommendation from him for my PhD applications;

What would be benefits of accepting such proposal?
Is it wise to do teaching-assistant in a university I am not studying in?

The answer to the second question depends entirely on your universities and cannot be answered here.

@user111187 how it depends?

Some universities may have different policies than others. Nobody here knows what your university's policies are.

@user111187 Yes but my question is not addressing the policy issues.

Are you currently a PhD student? Do you have further teaching obligations at your university?

@FedericoPoloni I have defended my masters thesis and I am now searching for a PhD position. There is no teaching obligation.

At my university the US, TAs must be enrolled in order to work for it.

Benefits:

You keep your contacts with the academic environment, that may be useful applying for a PhD.
Some professors will know you, and this that may help you get a position (depending on how it is done in your country).
You gain teaching experience.

Drawbacks:

TA salaries are usually quite low. Depending on your background, you may be loosing money. The working conditions may also not be so good.
You are not getting other kind of experience, that would be useful for any non-teaching job.

On a side note, it may look weird on your CV being a TA while not enrolled. This is not necessarily bad, but be prepared to be questioned about it in interviews.

authors: محمد  العسيري


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Effect of passing management courses on research career
By reviewing syllabus of a MBA course, and its entry requirements such as some years of industry job experience; it comes to mind that these type of management courses are designed only for the people seeking jobs in industry and studying management sciences does not have any positive impact on a person's career aiming to do research.
In my opinion, having knowledge of management, will help researchers in many aspects; such as if they are managing a laboratory, by having management knowledge, they will better manage their labs and be more effective in their scientific contracts, managing human resources, etc. Also, having project management knowledge may help the students or people in academia better organize their projects, whether academic or industry projects.

How does studying management short-time courses or degrees help a researcher?
How does these type of courses help research students improve their effectiveness in academia?

Please focus your answers specifically on MBA, project-management courses and short time classes or workshops on management sciences.

It clearly depends on what kind of future research you want to do but a lot of MBA content will not be relevant to anyone who will manage a non-profit lab, although it might help with the business of running a lab (e.g., a for-profit lab).
Here are just some examples:

business environment: Here you are going to learn about international trade, competition, etc. and how those impact competitiveness of a company. I don't see how this will help you run a lab unless your lab is operating in competition with other labs for customers (or other constrained resources).
accounting: Here you will learn about creative ways to maximize your organization's profit leveraging tax law. I believe most labs are non-profit and, thus, I do not think creative accounting is an important skill (but I might be wrong here).
business law: Here you will learn national and international laws which can impact trade. You would naturally learn about contracts, negligence, and other related topics. This might help you understand what makes a valid contract or what the impact is of leaking private data but I am not sure it will help you much other than avoiding being tricked when someone says 'I will fund you if you just sign here.'
human resource management: Here you will learn about how human resources add to a company's profitability and how to plan for them. The focus will generally be more strategic in nature and could help you do some strategic planning. One such issue is 'employer branding' and clearly you do want people to want to come to work for you. This might help you but as you are smaller, the benefit will be smaller.
finance: Like other modules, the focus here will be on strategy. How do different funding sources, and different balances between sources, impact profitability by minimizing your cost of capital. Non-profits have a much more limited choice in their sources of capital so this will be of very limited use for you.

Normally, MBA programs do include a thesis which includes research. This clearly can tell someone if they want to do more research and it will give them some research skills.
Now, there is (hopefully) going to be a change in the way the student thinks. That is, students should think more strategically. This skill (strategic thinking) should give you a benefit in most things you do in life by encouraging you to think more long-term.
All this said, if you want to start a for-profit venture which focuses on research (selling your output) then, yes, an MBA would be quite helpful. However, you should not think an MBA is about managing people better. It is about that but it is much more about how to maximize your profits through maximizing your revenue, minimizing your expenses.
If someone is going to run an academic lab, I would encourage them not to take an entire MBA (unless they really want to think like business people) but rather take a class on a subject where they want to be stronger (e.g., human resource management).
EDIT: I think Edward's answer is good but to go a bit further about project management courses, this might actually help a researcher, especially if that research is managing a team.
In project management courses, you would learn about different topics than an MBA. For example:

Feasibility studies
Planning, organizing, controlling (general management issues)
Reporting progress on your project
Risk management
Change management
Leadership, motivation, human resource management
Several others

Because most research is a project (has a start date and an end date, has resources including people and money, etc.) this could be much more suitable (than an MBA) to someone leading a lab. I would recommend starting with a single project management class (which will generally give you an overview of each topic) then, if you want to really dig into more detail, consider getting a master in project management or perhaps an industry certification like PMP.

Some of the management methodologies (e.g. PMP - Project Management Professional) have a strong process (think of it like an algorithm) for defining a vague task.
Most research problems are, by definition, vague.  No one has ever done it before, and so no one knows exactly how to do it.  This leads to common problems like poorly defined scope, shifting requirements, and poor time-management.  Some of those things are actually desired; they are what give unexpectedly great research.  It's just you don't know when you are doing great research or just screwing around.  It's actually quite fast and easy to generate a basic list of requirements, scope, and timelines.  That way you know when you are done and can publish.  It doesn't mean that you can't go further, only that you now know that you did what you initially wanted to do.
In other words, business management techniques are not a perfect fit for academic work because they assume more clearly defined tasks and shorter time-frames.  Nevertheless, you can steal those techniques to give you some imprecise measures of what you want.  They are good, formalized ways of defining weird research tasks.
Compare and contrast software development methodologies like Rational-Unified-Process vs. Agile.  The RUP is a very document-heavy, very formalized thing; meanwhile, Agile / SCRUM has virtually no documents.  Also check out the Project-Management-Professional body of knowledge.

business management techniques ... assume more clearly defined tasks and shorter time-frames [citation needed]


text:
How to decide if an advisor should be considered as a co-author of a paper or not?
I’m a PhD student working in CS. My advisor does not understand the subject I’m working on as it’s a bit off-topic compared to the topics addressed in the lab. He does get the main idea, but does not have enough technical background to input valuable comments that could contribute to the project.
Plus, he does not seem to be that much interested in the topic: I barely see him, and he does not write any papers with me. He rather waits for me to finish the paper, then reads it lazily and comes up with one or two typos and advice about putting figures in a box and such. Quite disappointing and not the kind of contributions I’d expect from a co-author!
The first time I submitted this paper, I put him as a co-author hoping that it would get him to at least try to grasp some of the technical subtleties.
Unfortunately, that didn't work.
The paper got rejected eventually and I am now working on a new improved version. But I’m considering authoring it solo this time. When I hinted at it, my advisor told me that he pays for my PhD, and that my work belongs to his institution. So this is supposedly why he should be a co-author of this paper.
Do you have any thoughts or advice about what to do? I'd also like to know if this is common in CS: Advisors neither participating in the research nor writing papers with students?

Related: When should a supervisor be a co-author? at MathOverflow.

If it is the same paper, how can he be an author on its first version and not on the second version? Also, in your post I see quite many spelling mistakes, so perhaps you may actually need someone to actually help you with your technical writing.

@Alexandros If you are talking about the instances of "ey," "em," and "eir," these are the Elverson gender-neutral pronouns.

@MadJack: Whether intentional or not, they make the text a pain to read anyway (and were not even used consistently) – so  I removed them.

@Wrzlprmft No argument from me; I agree that they made the text difficult to read.

This is called exploitation. Or, if you prefer abuse. It unfortunately seems to be common in academia, though for obvious reasons statistics are hard to come by. Read this forum, you'll see many such examples described. You should realise, if you don't already, that your advisor (though of course I have never met him) probably considers your main function to improve his CV by writing papers so he can put his name on them. If possible, try to find a different advisor.

I have a general rule of thumb for papers: I don't send unfinished drafts to someone unless I am content with at least a chance the person might be a co-author. It seems to me that the safest course of action, if you don't want your advisor to be a co-author, is to not show the drafts of your papers to your advisor. In this case, since you have already submitted the paper with his name on it once, you are more or less stuck. Of course, you should try to politely and professionally let him know your plans for future papers ahead of time, especially if your position is at his discretion.


text:
How do I best position myself to get an NIH R01 grant?
From what it sounds like, you need to be in the inner circle of key labs in order to be able to be even considered to be able to apply and get a National Institutes of Health R01 grant. How does a lab position itself to get into that inner circle and then how do you merit a score that will merit review and approval? Should we be focusing on getting several publications out or collecting all of it as preliminary data.

For the NIH NIDCD (and likely other institutes, but I don't have the data), a great way to position yourself for an a new-investigator R01 is to first get an F32 post-doctoral fellowship since 70% of those with an F32 post-doctoral fellowship who applied for a subsequent RPG (predominately R01 and R03 awards) were successful. There might be better predictors, but 70% is pretty good when it comes to funding pay lines.
You should also be aware that the R01 club is not as closed as your question makes it sound. Historically, 25% of R01-equivalent awards are made to new investigators.


text:
Is it research to just combine other people’s work?
I am currently a second-year undergraduate double-majoring in math and computer science. I am currently doing a joint research paper with one of the faculty in my university.
My advisor gave me research problem A. I thought about the problem for one week and managed to break problem A to sub-problems A₁, A₂, ..., An. Next, I started researching on A₁. After reading several papers, I found that an author had already solved problem A₁. I repeated this for A₂, ..., An and they have all been solved previously. Now I take the solutions for all of them, with proper citations of course, and piece them into a solution to my original problem. I write a paper and get it published.
Now here is my problem: I feel like a fraud. I have not personally solved any of the Ai. Heck, the only work I’ve done is to break down the problem, searched for solutions to the subproblems, and to combine other people’s solutions. Is this really what research is about? I really feel disheartened and want to know other people’s opinions. I feel like anybody can really do what I did.

You may look up the term "impostor syndrome" here. You may not have solved any "A_i", but you have solved A. Why does that not count? Do you think that the people who solved the A_i have done so by producing their method / algorithm / whatever out of thin air?

Sometimes, the research really is just finding that combining previous results yields a new result. If the new result is interesting and nobody else has published it, then that means it was probably not as trivial to figure out as it ended up feeling to you after you had spent so much time on it (I mean, I have a paper which did this with just two previous results).

Browse through top conferences and look at what people 'contribute' to your area.  It can be what you did, new proof techniques, applying a totally new tool to problem X, shed new light on X, etc.  Basically, you are extending the current body of knowledge.  If you can claim there is a gap and you filled said gap or that your work extends the state-of-the-art, then that's research.  In a nutshell, you found new knowledge.

Splitting A into {A_i} is, in general, not a trivial feat. Don't underestimate that.

If anything your professor, an expert in the field, didn't know you could solve A this way. If this wasn't known and published before now any other researcher like him know is possible . Well done, you contributed to your field!

Is it research just to combine others' work? -- As opposed to what?!

Research is not just about inventing things. Finding out the best options to solve the sub-problems is also part of research and is also a major part of why people publish — to have their work used for a purpose.
Research can simply be anything that makes a contribution to science/knowledge/understanding (see here) which can be any of the following.

Finding novel approaches to existing problems
Formulating new problems and solutions to them
Doing an in-depth study on an established field
Making meaningful connections between the unrelated
Extending on top of existing developments
Combining the best practices to solve subproblems of a bigger problem
...

The list can go on. The main point here is as long as you have cited the existing solutions A₁, A₂, ..., An and that such a combination has not been published before, then you have no need to feel guilty of the work you did. You have done real work to search for the best solutions to each subproblem and went through the trouble of combing them to get a meaningful result — you have achieved an advancement in research.
Summarizing the comments:

A subproblem Ai may as well be ensembles/extensions of previous work.
If no-one else has published the work before, then it is not as trivial as you think it is.
The imposter syndrome; it is common for many in their research career. Overcome it.
You shed light on how problem A can be solved which might be overlooked before.

It is not at all inappropriate unless you claim that you have done more than what you  have really done. Any small advance over existing knowledge is research. A large, completely original advance is great- but doesn't always happen right at the outset of your working on the problem!

It would help the discussion a bit if you can tell us the value of n, to put your feelings that you are a fraud into context. In any case, it's clear that you are not a fraud, however neither should your achievement of publishing a paper be touted as something more than it is. You have simply discovered something that all experienced researchers know, which is that not all research that gets published is highly difficult, original or exciting. The feeling that you are a fraud comes from cognitive dissonance - you had a preconception that research papers that get published contain highly original new ideas and are only written by really really smart people who have to work really really hard, and now that you've published one yourself without working very hard or (necessarily) having to be very smart or original, you are having a hard time reconciling that with your prior beliefs, and conclude that you must be a fraud. But the correct resolution of this contradiction is not that you are a fraud, but that your prior beliefs about published papers were incorrect.
With that said, only some research papers are as easy to produce and (supposedly) uninteresting or unoriginal as you perceive your paper to be. There are many, many excellent papers that get written every year and contain profound, original, and exciting ideas. Most successful professors have written at least a few such papers in their career, and some lucky ones wrote many. And most of us got started by writing papers that solve relatively easy problems and are not necessarily very exciting or interesting. That is precisely as it should be - one has to learn to walk before running. Stick with it, and hopefully someday in the not too distant future you'll come up with something truly original and exciting that you will feel really proud of. And in the meantime, you should still be proud of making a genuine contribution to your area, however modest it may be.

The technical term for what you did is called secondary research. Basically you collated/synthesized existing literature to address objectives/question you had in your own research. Your contribution was in combining what has already beem said in a somewhat unique way.

Nope. The technical term for what OP's done is research.


text:
Is an improved algorithm for a non-hot problem publishable?
I have been working on a research problem independent of any advisor for the past few months and I think I have a result. The problem I am investigating  has n and K as input. The naive approach would take O(n!K+2), which is ridiculously bad. I managed to come up with, and proof the correctness of a 2-approximation algorithm that runs in O(Kn2).
However, this is absolutely not a hot topic. Researchers in it are not a lot. On the other hand, there are practical applications of my algorithm (off the top of my head, I can think of three significant ones). I am also positive that my algorithm beats all published approximation algorithms as well.
So my question is: Would a reputable journal accept my paper given that it isn’t really a hot topic now?

How reputable do you mean by 'reputable'?  Would any legitimate journal count?  (Legitimate = should not be put on a list similar to the one formerly maintained by Jeffery Beall.)

Journals often publish articles that show something that is "interesting" or "elegant" or "unexpected", even if the topic may not necessarily be "hot". (Of course, it is easier to publish something that combines any of these attributes with "hot", but not all articles are on "hot" topics.) So, I think there is hope in your case and I would give it a try.
I would, however, suggest that you do a careful literature review. You compare your algorithm with a "naive" one, but that may not mean that the "naive" algorithm is what people would use or what is considered state of the art. For example, the traveling salesman problem is known to be an exponentially complicated problem if you are looking for an exact solution, but that doesn't mean that that is what people use when they actually want to solve such problems -- very good approximate solutions can be found quite efficiently.
In other words, in your paper you will not only have to explain your new method, but you should point out that people have actually been using the "ridiculously bad" method. Otherwise, you will hear from the reviewers that you make your approach sound artificially good by comparing it with something no reasonable person would use.

The best Approximation algorithm for the problem was published in 2011 and was a r(n)-approximation algorithm. So I am positive that mine beats all published approximation algorithms as well.

I am just wondering if they will discard the paper because its no longer a hot topic? The last papers I've seen of this topic have been in 2012 and ever since not a single paper was published about the problem.

That may happen, a lot depends on the reviewers you get and the trade-offs the editor has to make. However, the only way to know that for sure is to try it. Moreover, there are many reputable journals. In my field it is pretty common for a paper to be rejected many times by different journals before it is finally published.


text:
Career outside academia for biologist + cognitive scientist
I would like to think of my options for a job outside academia and was hoping to get ideas from others. I feel I'm between fields:

I studied biology as an undergrad; but never pipetted anything since.
I did a PhD (and postdoc, with relatively good outcome) in cognitive science/experimental psychology (fMRI, EEG, consciousness, decision making); but I'm not a psychologist and would not be able to do anything clinical.
I can program/script small things in a few languages; but I'm no programmer.
I can do some statistics; but I'm no statistician.

I can think of:

Data Scientist
Teaching in some university with no strong research agenda
Consultancy of some sort

I now live in Germany. Can anybody contribute with experience/resources for this 'inbetween' training? I feel I could exploit it as a benefit for an interdisciplinary job, I'm just not quite sure how.

User Experience design and testing might be up your alley. UX is often housed in cognitive science departments (when it's not in CS).

Utilize that cognitive science! You're talking $$$$$$. You should try to find Hospitals or Specialty care places that deal with neuro.


text:
How important is age in CS PhD admissions?
I just entered a MS in Computer Science in a mid tier state school.  I'm interested in taking things to the next level, but I just turned 30.  By the time I do the math and everything, I'll probably be 34 before applying.  Is that too old?  Does that essentially eliminate me from top programs?

In Canada (and I guess US) it is illegal to take the age of applicants into account. Also this other question might be of interest

in practice, however, business schools do it all the time for their phds.  It's very difficult to prove that it was age that caused the rejection, but I've heard from people in business that it is a common problem.

that is really sad, in my experience all older PhD candidates I know are really interesting with their experience and are in no way worse than younger ones. (CS/Math)

Why will your masters degree take 4 years?

It should take less...but I'm taking 2 courses a term while working so I'm trying to create an upper bound.

If most older PhD candidates are better than younger ones, that doesn't necessarily mean older PhDs are better.  It might just mean they're discriminated against more, so that their bar for admission is higher.

FWIW, I didn't even get a BS until I was in my mid-30s, and did about 15 years in industry before going for an advanced degree.  You may not get into TOP programs (but you might not even at a younger age), but you should certainly be able to get in to a state university program where you live.  And do you really want to relocate just for a degree?

I know two people who retired, eventually got restless, and decided to go for a Ph.D. One was in their late 80s. To which I say: why not?

Age is simply not a factor in PhD admissions in computer science, at least in North America.  As Zenon says, age discrimination is illegal here.
However, being out from school for a significant period of time (say, more than five years) is a potential hurdle for PhD admissions, at least in my department.  We typically recommend that those students pursue a MS degree first, to refresh their academic background.  But since you're in an MS program now, that shouldn't be a issue for you.

This is it. Age isn't a disqualifying factor—time away from school is the problem. Fields can advance a lot in a few years.

It may be illegal, but in practice (other than the sensible reason you mentioned), does it in fact make a difference? :\

No, it really doesn't.

I have a problem with the "time away from school" criterion. It presumes that formal, in-school, education is the only way to learn. I started my PhD 27 years after completing my only formal computer science education, a master's degree. I would have been totally lost in the classes if what I knew in 1975 was all I knew about computing in 2002, but it wasn't.

@PatriciaShanahan No, it presumes that by default people learn academic topics primarily through formal, in-school, education.  Most people would be totally lost in classes 27 years after they graduated.  You were clearly not most people, and (given your admission) that must have been clear from your application.  Being away from school for many years is a disadvantage, but like any other disadvantage, it can be overcome.

@JeffE Fortunately, when I was applying there was still a GRE subject test in computer science. I don't know whether my letters of recommendation would have done it without that.

Apart from admission (which normally should not be related to age), there is something that's related to your question. I'm going to generalize and say that the older one is, the more that person will have financial restraints tied to lifestyle. One tends to be married, to have children, to have a mortgage, to have debts, etc. You may not agree with this generalization, but many students seeking PhDs at my university fall into this category.
In such cases, the problem is more about funding requirements related to lifestyle. Funding opportunities are always limited (regardless of one's age), but it might be harder for someone who has financial obligations to manage with the limited funding for a PhD. I know of several cases of PhD candidates who never started, or (worse) didn't finish because the funding was too limited for them as spouses, parents, homeowners, etc.

I would argue that the ability to cope with the reduced level of income of a PhD stipend is purely a matter for the candidate, not something that should affect an admissions decision. After all, there is no way an admissions committee can know what the cadidate's personal financial circumstances are.

@Time4Tea It's why I prefaced my answer as such.

I just want to add that, being a current student in a top 10 CS PhD program, I don't feel that age is a factor even in 'day-to-day' interactions. There are several students in our department who worked in industry or had a career for 10+ years before they decided they wanted to come back to grad school. We all get along fine, those of us in our 20's, 30's even 40s. I'm sure that has a lot to do with training to be scientists. We make a conscious effort to be as objective as possible, and this is one instance where that kind of thinking benefits everybody.

Age is not a PhD admission facor in the continental Europe, too.
The selection is based on titles, publications, curriculum vitae and generally on what you've done.

In Turkey, age is a very important decisive factor in all types of graduate school admissions and other academic pursuits. Usually, there is an age limit of less than 27, to be eligible for applying scholarships or other types of funding under the title of a student.
Also, Turkish professors are not willing to advise older students, because the structure of the Turkish society requires older people to get married and grow their  kids, instead of being a student. As a consequence of this, woman in academia are usually positively discriminated resulting in lower teaching loads and research expectations to be satisfied. This is due to the fact that they could serve as good wives for their husbands, and grow more kids. Almost all woman academics are in this business (in academia), in order to benefit from opportunities to become  better housewives and mothers.

I do not understand your last sentence; To what are you referring with this business?

+1 for providing perspective from a different culture from US/European

In my field, which is not computer science, we get a number of clinicians who are a few years away from retirement applying for PhDs. NIH institutional training grants track students for a number of years post graduation so accepting people who will retire soon after graduation is bad. Of course these older applicants are never rejected based on age.
The problem arises more for applicants that are nearer 50 than 30 years old.

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


text:
How do I withdraw a paper from a journal after it was accepted but before it was fully published?
On the advice of a senior colleague, I decided that I do not want to publish the paper anymore and with that journal. I wrote the editor several times; he has received the emails, but refuses to reply. I know he gets the emails because if its on other matters he has replied but not on the paper. I am ready to forfeit the processing fee I gave them but they refuse to reply and have already published the abstract of the paper to their site but not the full paper. Is legal action an option and do I have the right to sue? What are the guidelines in matters like these?

There’s a related question here, but it's probably not an exact duplicate.

Is the issue that you don't want to publish the paper at all, or just in that journal? The latter is much harder to pull off—and you'll burn bridges if you try to publish with them in the future.

@F'x: It's almost an exact duplicate, but the reasoning here may be different. This question might really be: "What do I do if I submit a paper to the wrong journal?"

@aeismail well, the other question is “how do I ask them” and the question here seems more along the lines of “I've asked them, and they don't reply; what are my other options”.

Check out the journal’s policy. While they do not always address the issue of what stages a paper can be withdrawn, you can find some indirect information. For example, if the policy says:

Manuscripts for which page proofs are not returned in a timely manner will be withdrawn from publication.

(here in the case of the JACS journal), then you can still withdraw the paper at the proofing stage.
Leave a bit more time to the editor… it's a time-consuming job, and he might just be very busy. You can send a gentle reminder. Just mind that you are the one asking for something out of the ordinary, so mind your manners.
Where are you at in the publication process? If you have signed the copyright transfer agreement, paid the processing fee (you mentioned one; no all journals have them) and sent back the final proofs with your corrections, you might just be too late legally speaking. It probably doesn't hurt to ask, but you might not have legal recourses apart from retraction (and avoid that).
Whatever you say, don't ask for retraction. Retracting a paper once published is a grave decision to make, and it is not appropriate in your case.

Thanks alot. This helps. The journal did not even send back the paper for corrections and there was no final proof for me to see first. They only ask may be to correct the style and such. I think its a mediocre journal. May be i will just allow them be. Thanks


text:
Is it fine to cancel class on days before national holidays, due to low attendance?
So, thanksgiving break is coming up. On my campus, a large portion of the students leave early Wednesday to get back home. The break doesn't officially start until Thursday, but since that is the holiday the students (understandably) leave earlier.
I teach on Wednesdays (among other days). I had forgotten about this poor attendance when I planned my syllabus and am currently planning to teach new material next Wednesday.
Now, I anticipate about 75% of the class (50 total students) will be absent. They knew I would be teaching new material that day, since it was on the syllabus.
Do I cancel class so that the majority of students don't miss a lecture? Do I hold class but post my lecture notes so that the students who missed could (theoretically, at least) make up the work they missed on their own?
If I cancel class, I could shift around material so that nothing is lost (by moving a review day). However, something feels "wrong" about cancelling a class that the university has scheduled to occur because the students decided they wanted to start their vacation early.
Is it fine to cancel a class because you don't expect many students to attend?

Its completely up to you as the lecturer.  If you're concerned about being unfair to students who are planning on showing up, I'd say go ahead with having class and just post the material for those who won't be there.  Make it clear in advance that its 'okay' if students choose not to attend on that particular day but that you will be available for those that decide they want to (they do pay for the course after all).

Your university may have a policy on this. You are likely not the first to encounter this problem.

Also, canceling would encourage more students to not show up in the following years.

Once I heard from a lecturer "Do you really want to have this class on [a single day between festivals]? Well, me neither.".

If you decide to go for it I would talk to the media center to prepare a voice or video record that you can share on the course site. You don't want 75% of them coming to you and ask for clarification.

So you want to punish those motivated enough to attend and reward those who'd stay away? Feels the wrong way around to me.

In my university, as I guess with most, no, you're not supposed to cancel class on an official lecture day for such a reason.  (In practice, my students tell me many faculty in other departments do this though.)  It is the responsibility of any students not attending to figure out how to catch up on what they missed.

Whichever you choose, I suggest in future iterations making this choice clear at the beginning of the semester, before most students have made travel plans.

I'm of the opinion that if the university wanted break to start on Wednesday they would have started break on Wednesday.

@jonescb: right, the question could be broadened how to deal with non-binding implications from the university, that the student body (and I suspect faculty) don't like. The implication in this case being that Weds is a completely typical day, and non-binding because students are free to leave anyway and faculty are free to schedule the least important thing possible for that day. That broader question is probably too broad for this site, mind :-)

Just to understand what is being said here, do most people think it is absolutely okay that 75% of the student decide to just skip a regularly scheduled lecture?

@Memming: in the US, many people (student, working or other) typically spend the day before Thanksgiving in an ordeal involving an airport and a plane. This has been so for decades. It may be one of the few times of the year they see their families. Canceling presenting new material would not be "encouraging non-attendance".

I don't know why so many American universities hold classes the day before Thanksgiving. My undergraduate institution used to do that, but they changed their policy because students died every year as they drove cross-country through the night on Wednesday trying to get home for Thursday. I'd much rather have my students skip class on Wednesday rather than having one never come back.

Whatever you decide to do, please remember that the students have already paid for the class.  It seems kind of like stealing, to decide not to give it.

I have known a number of professors who took a third approach: on an expected low-attendance class day such as the day before Thanksgiving, they held a lecture, but did not make it part of the "standard" curriculum.  Instead, they would schedule some sort of fun and exciting "bonus material," like a notable guest speaker or a cool demonstration.  That way, those students who showed up got something out of coming, but the ones whose plans prevented them from being there didn't have any missed "core" material to make up.

This is a good compromise: something that is useful for those who attend, but not critical for those who don't. Another idea is to convert the class into an office hour, where students can come and ask questions, etc.

Or solved exercises.

This certainly depends on the type of the class and whether I am generally interested in it, but I'm not sure I'd have liked that approach as a student. I make the effort of coming to class on a day where most of my peers do not, and all I get as a reward isn't even a "real" class, but something that could easily have been skipped without any severe consequences? Why, thanks ... (Of course, the alternative content of the class can be communicated beforehand, so I can decide whether or not to go.)

@O.R.Mapper: Yes, I envisioned the students would be told ahead of time that this was the plan.

I agree with this in general if it is pre-planned, but (as I mention in my own answer), I don't think it is acceptable to do this on such short notice.  It is unfair to the students who have already planned to show up.

So the super cool guest lecturer would like to sit in a classroom with professor and one goofy student who is obsessed with parametric search?

@blankip My experience was that between local students and international students, the lectures were actually pretty well attended.

I did this in general as well when I taught.  I'd give a lecture the day before Thanksgiving that was about something interesting but tangential to the "core" material of the course.  (The fact that I'd planned for this actually turned out to be very useful one year when I had to make a trip to see a dying relative that happened to correspond with Thanksgiving and could easily cancel that lecture.)

@jakebeal - I feel most of your answers are solid.  This one is just funny.  You must teach in a very unique area.  Most areas of study don't involve cronies looking for special guest speakers.  I was actually a guest speaker on Good Friday a few years back for a class.  Thank god that one of the two students in the class was a hot girl, that had lunch with me after.   No offense but this sounds like advice my grandma would give but isn't realistic and can potentially make said professor look bad with both students and lecturer.

I had a physics professor who, on the Friday before Thanksgiving break, gave us an extra credit exam. The exam consisted of "write your name and draw a hand turkey, then leave". The points were just tacked on to the midterm that we did the most poorly on. This way, he made it worth our while to stick around, but didn't unnecessarily punish those who may have had a valid reason to need to leave early.

@blankip Different solutions may be appropriate for different institutions.  My experience has been primarily with large computer science and electrical engineering departments...

Yea I'm not saying this is terrible advice but it will potentially be terrible advice to 90% of professors.  I am in Computer Science / Web Apps... unless my guest speaker had the last name Gates they wouldn't be there.  And I would take no offense to it.

@blankip Hey! What's wrong with parametric search?

I agree with other answers that, in general, it is defensible either to hold class on such a day, or not hold it.  However, your question is different because you're asking it now, less than a week before the day in question.  I'd like to make the point that, if you are making the decision at this late date, I think you are honor bound to do something to compensate the students who would have attended because they have already planned their shcedule in order to do so.
Many students arrange rides, trains, plane flights, etc., to go home for Thanksgiving, and if they know they have class on that day and thought it was important, they may already have configured their schedules to attend.  As someone who has not forgotten what it is like to be a student, I can say that it really sucks to be in that situation and then have the professor cavalierly cancel class, leaving you (the student) in the position of having postponed your trip home for no reason.
Realistically, the only way you can do this is to hold class and make it worth attending.  You could do this by making it "fun" (although I think that has to mean more than just "a cool topic" -- at least bring muffins or something to reward the diehards) or, preferably, by making it genuinely useful.  Depending on what the class is about, you could spend some extra time on a difficult topic, perhaps go through some example problems (if it's that kind of class), so that those who attend will get extra practice that will actually help them in the class.  If your syllabus always clearly showed that class was scheduled, and you haven't given any hint of it not being, it could also be defensible to hold some sort of trivial "pop quiz" that would give a few extra points to those who attend.  (You can find other questions on this site with opinions on the ethics of this, but if you have reserved a portion of the class grade for attendance or participation, this is the time to use it to give people a bonus for showing up.)
In short, in general it is defensible to cancel class on a day when few people are expected to show up, but if you do that you have to telegraph your intentions early on.  I don't think it's acceptable to cancel class for such a reason on less than a week's notice, when students may have already arranged their schedules based on their belief that class will be held.  To do so is unfair to students who took you at your (and your syllabus's) word, and penalizes exactly the stalwart and upstanding students who made their plans in order to be able to go to class as scheduled, while rewarding those who had already made the decision to play hookey.
I do think, though, that you could possibly announce what you are doing on that day.  In other words, you could say, "Oops, I forgot about Thanksgiving.  We'll still be holding class, and it will be [whatever -- review session, quiz for participation points, etc.]."  This will make it clear to the students who are coming that they are going to get something out of it, and also make it clear to the students who aren't coming that they are going to miss something that will actually be relevant to the class and aren't getting off with nothing.  In a way, this can be a good litmus test for whether what you're doing on that day is legit --- if students who already planned to skip have a decent chance of thinking "Oops, that might have been helpful, oh well", then the class is meaningful enough to compensate the students who do attend.

And when you say "it'll be a review session", those in the class who thought it was new material and still have flexibility to change their plans, can cut it. They're the other side of the balance from the "oops, that might have been helpful" students, if you really care to assess whether the substitute class is worthwhile.

You should make it worthwhile for the student that have made an effort, so you could just do what you would have done that day, but insure the contents is covered by an exam question, so as to reward the good students.
Or you could take advantage of a smaller number of students, and do something like a review of how to answer exam questions from past years on topics you have already covered.

+1 as I was about to say something similar - use it to run through previous papers with tips and advice, or go over the current coursework/assignments with some help. That way those who attend get something out of if, but those who don't won't be at a disadvantage over what they need to know for the core curriculum

Hold the class just like any other day. If you offer some special content that day, you may end up disappointing those who show up or those who don't. And you can't just cancel class if the class is in the official schedule.
But you could agitate politically for the schedule to be changed institution-wide starting next year.

The last paragraph won't really help: if the institution makes Wednesday a holiday next year, you will find yourself with the same low attendance on the Tuesday.

@NateEldredge: is that necessarily true? I'm not in the US, but I assumed on reading the question that people want to travel on Wednesday (a) to arrive by Thursday and (b) to avoid late-Weds and Thus red-eye transport. Not because they inherently like to leave a day early regardless of when the break officially starts. Here in the UK, closing a workplace on Christmas Eve doesn't generally result in a mass rush to take leave the day before that. Unless Christmas happens to be a Weds, I suppose.

Well, maybe not "the same" low attendance, but I think you'll still see a significant number of absences on the Tuesday.  For one thing, since so many people want to travel Wednesday, airfares are much lower on Tuesday, so students will start to think "If I just miss this one class, I can save $300..."

@SteveJessop: I think in the long term it is true.  There may not be a massive shift the very next year, but eventually things will creep.  Some schools (at least elementary/high schools, I dunno about colleges) actually now give students the entire Thanksgiving week off due to this sort of "holiday creep".

My university actually cancels class—and kicks students out of the dorms—for the entire week of thanksgiving. Attendance starts dropping off the previous Wednesday.

The fact is students have a life beyond school.  They also each have their own set of circumstances, issues, whatever.  You might have those who live thousands of miles away and must leave early to get a flight to see family they haven't seen in months, some may need to go home to work during breaks, others might not want to drive all night.
Cancel class, email your students tomorrow so that those who planned on staying can leave earlier if they want.

There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with canceling class and being honest with your students. Just tell them the holiday slipped your mind when you were planning out the syllabus. You are human after all. Besides, you don't want to look like some sort of scrudge do you?

In some cases it is not totally up to you. My previous institution had a very strict policy that classes must meet as scheduled on the day before Thanksgiving. Any exceptions required a compelling reason ("low attendance" did not count) and the express permission of the Dean.

I would hold the class and make it available as a podcast if the class were after say 2PM.  But that's actually being a bit generous.  The holiday is after all a 4 day weekend.  It isn't a 5 day weekend.  If it were a workplace, they would be expected to report to work and I don't see university studies being held to a lower standard as being good preparation.
My concern stems from having seen too many grads from "name" university programs (health care field) - ill prepared for work and life and death responsibilities.  They did not know enough to work safely nor survive their 90 day probationary periods.  Staff who are seasoned instructors of such students are very concerned that recent grads increasingly show inadequate preparation and too lax attitudes to be safe in patient care.  It was not just one or two individuals.  Ones education at advanced level is preparation for life and work - it needs to reflect that reality.

My attendance policy is if you miss more than 20% of the class FOR ANY REASON, you fail.  That ends up being 3 classes in a 15 week semester. Everyone gets the same three classes.  If you miss that Wednesday and no more than one other class during the semester, no problem!  If you have missed two other classes and then you miss that Wednesday, you fail the class.  Everyone can plan accordingly.  You should probably not teach new material but you've put the decision to make or miss that class squarely in your students' hands without unfairly rewarding or penalizing anyone for their travel plans.

Missing a once a week class is a much bigger deal than missing a 3x a week class... Also are you worried about the students getting to know you or knowing the topic?

I sure hope you don't count time taken off while sick against the 3 days. Please consider 1) it is unfair to the other students as you are exposing them to the illness. 2) in many companies you are not allowed to go to work if you're sick because you will infect your colleagues

Of course, I count everything.  Why would a student need to be sick more than twice in 15 weeks?  It's not a Draconian policy because of course things happen, but yes it all counts.  Bear in mind I teach mostly hands-on seminar-type courses where classroom participation is a significant part of the grade and mandatory attendance is usually departmental policy.  Students always have a appeal to the department or the school if they think I've been unfair but that's never once happened. You all miss my point in attacking my policy, and no one addresses the basic issue of fairness that I raise.

I like how six people thumbed-up the intimation (based on a grossly incorrect assumption) that I would force a sick student to go to class, coupled with the intimation that I don't understand how the career world works as if someone who misses 20% of his or her time at work wouldn't be fired.  Thanks for setting me straight, Celeritas.  And thanks to the rest of you for proving once again that no one thinks like an academic.  Xxoo, unless you're sick in which case .

Three days in three years is not 20% of their time at university. It's just your class that they've missed, and you're punishing them for the temerity of poor luck: once for getting an educator who sees the relationship as antagonistic and once for being sick during such educator's class.

Three days in three years?  No idea what you're talking about but might want to re-read.


text:
CC-licensing course slides
I would like to share under a Creative Commons license some course material (slides) I created. However, I used (abused?) of duly cited non-cc sources such as books etc. to prepare the course material.
Does using copyrighted material to prepare a course prevent to distribute the slides and source under a CC license? What would be the best way to deal with such a situation, which I believe is quite common in academia?

What do you mean exactly when you say you used copyrighted material to prepare a course: What licence was attached to that material? How did you use it - have you included some of it in your slides (for example, have you taken images, many paragraphs of text, and copied & pasted them?)

I copied 1 or 2 figures verbatim (with proper citation) from statistics books. In some parts, I followed (and cited) the content/organisation of the class textbook quite heavily (not copied though).

I copied 1 or 2 figures verbatim (with proper citation) from statistics books.

You cannot release these figures under a CC license.  Even if we assume that you have the right to use them in this case, for example under fair use, you don't have the right to authorize others to use them in potentially very different ways.
However, you can easily get around this by excluding the figures from the CC license that applies to the rest of the slides.  See, for example, this blog post for further discussion of this issue.

In some parts, I followed (and cited) the content/organisation of the class textbook quite heavily (not copied though).

This is a trickier issue.  The fundamental question is whether your slides could be considered a derivative work of the class textbook.  If so, then they are themselves a copyright violation if done without permission.  If not, then I think you're OK.
I'm not a lawyer and do not know how to draw a clear line for what constitutes a derivative work.  My understanding is that summarizing or explaining another work is not necessarily a derivative work, but for comparison an "abridgment" or "condensation" is a derivative work (under U.S. law, at least).  Where your slides fall on this continuum presumably depends on exactly what you did.  As a non-expert, I'd guess that you're fine unless you followed the book rather closely, but you should consult with an expert about the details of your situation if it really matters.

The copyrighted material must be omitted or replaced in your course material before you can release it under a Creative Commons license, except in cases where you have express permission to distribute the copyrighted work. In many cases, it is not especially difficult to get permission for this kind of use, just send a letter to the copyright holder. Most publisher's are willing to grant permission for limited use and distribution.
The materials distributed for MIT OpenCourseWare are distributed with a CC license and are full of examples of both use cases (use with permission, and omission of copyrighted material).
I am not certain, but it may be that your use (release under CC) of copyrighted material with permission could change the licensing status of the included material depending on how it's incorporated in your work.
It's also worth noting that CC licenses cannot be revoked. Thus, if you release your course material under a particular CC license, others will always have the right to use your slides under that license.


text:
Can I submit an unofficial TOEFL score report if the official one won't be received by the university before the deadline?
It's been 8 days since my TOEFL scores were sent to me by ETS and I chose for them to be sent directly to the university I am applying. However, the official score reports won't be sent there before the deadline. Is it okay to copy-paste (since there is not a "print" option) and upload the scores that were electronically sent to me 10 days after the test date and notify the university about the delivery of the official score reports? Also, will I be notified by ETS when the university receives the official score reports?

The best way is to call the institute and ask as some have an overall deadline for all documents and some don't. In my institute (US), it's common that the TOEFL or reference letters come after the official due date. We usually just hold on the review process before everything is in. But do check with the school. As for ETS notification, I do not remember they notified me, but it's prudent to call the admission office after a sensible duration and check if they got it. A copy of your score can be attached but do know that it is not treated as the official one. It's simply just an IOU.

@Penguin_Knight Thanks for the response. I suspected that  it would not be treated as the official one and I am currently thinking of ordering via e-mail an official score report to upload so that the review process will not be delayed.

@Penguin_Knight Could you make that an answer?

In my experience, universities don't have a deadline for official scores. They do however have a deadline for when you should have taken the exam. If you took the exam before the deadline, they either know that the scores will arrive before they actually start reviewing your application, or they don't consider the scores until later in the process. You can always contact them and ask if they would like an unofficial score report, but if you took the exam before the deadline it will not be a problem.

ETS says "Official score reports will be sent to your designated recipients approximately 13 days after you take the test." at this link
That means, if your deadline is 20 days from now, and you take your TOEFl today, then score would be sent within 13 days (7 days before the deadline.) and finally will be received by the university after 13+7 days (it might take more). You can mail the university asking them to consider your report if they receive it wthin 2-3 days. They can wait for 2-3 days, if requested, but totally depends on the school. Talk to them, request them. Otherwise, your application will be considered as INCOMPLETE! and it would be considered in the next Round.
I don't think that the candidate is intimated about the delivery of the report as they send it via postal mail.

The official report is not received but sent 13 days after the test date. The delivery date depends on the location. For the US, about 7 additional days are needed while for locations outside the US, 4-6 additional weeks are needed.

Ohh, I interpreted it wrong. Answer Updated. Thanks!


text:
Is it possible to find a PhD position in social sciences without having letters of recommendation?
I am a European scholar. I would like to do a PhD dissertation in USA on an original and unpopular subject from a social science standpoint. I would like to empirically investigate the subject, which means I need a not-very-rich grant for this research.
I would like to know if I can get a PhD position in social sciences with a   scholarship/grants in USA based on my research proposal and with no references.
Also, could you point me to resources to find potential american advisers and possible equip of research just digiting keywords of the topic I am interested in, please?

Is there a specific reason you do not have references? I find it surprising that you have no one who can vouch for you, or who you have worked with.

I don't see any way you could be accepted to a PhD program in the US with no references, regardless of where you're from.

BrenBarn is correct. Without references, your applications will not even be reviewed, as it will be considered incomplete.

One misconception is that the references have to be from professors. I successfully applied to a computer science PhD program with letters of recommendation from three senior industry colleagues. Are there any three people who know you and your work, and can write about your abilities?

It really does not matter where you come from. In general, to apply for a PhD program in the U.S., you need: application letter, resume, reference letters (usually 3), master's degree (mostly required), transcripts from bachelor's and master's program, and GRE score (many programs require it). In addition, TOEFL score if your native language is not English.
Most of the time, if you are admitted to a PhD program in social sciences, you will be granted with assistantship / scholarship at the same time. Mostly, it's an assistantship, which means you will teach or do something else for the department. The stipend of the assistantship usually is only enough for you to live, not for your research study. If you need funding for your research study, you have to invest your own savings, or get research funding from the department or other grant institutions, which is not easy to get.
For the resources, use Google or Google Scholar to look for related publications or scholars. Actually, it is a good strategy to contact professors for the research topic first. If a professor is interested in your research topic or finds you competent during the discussion, it will increase the possibility for the professor to accept you to his/her program. But, be carefully prepared, don't send email before digging into the literature.

reference letters (usually 3) The OP specificly said does not have references. We are trying to figure out why he does not have references.


text:
How to tactfully request removal of my name from co-authorship?
I wrote a mathematics manuscript (see Extremely mild punishments for academic misconduct), and sent it to a professor, who then attempted to have it published after adding coauthors to the paper. His misconduct is not my concern. My concern is that the manuscript is not of publication quality, and I would prefer that my name not be attached to it. Virtually all of the manuscript is written by me, and all the work was done by me, so I can't claim that it is not my product.
My question is: What excuse do I use to have him take my name off the manuscript?
I would prefer to remain on good terms with this professor. I would also prefer not to mention in any way that the manuscript is worthless, because it solves a problem that he had been attempting unsuccessfully for quite a while, and such a statement would be deeply challenging to his pride.

I was thinking about saying that my interests had moved on. But this excuse is very flimsy, so he would likely push me to retain my name on the paper, and then I would have to give another excuse.

It isn't worthless; you just don't think it's publication-ready yet. Ask if he'd hold off until you've finished polishing your work. (I'm taking your word for it that the co-authors aren't your concern.)

The work is already polished. It's a result on an easy problem.

In that case, your objection is to the co-authors...? It being "worthless" will take care of itself; if it isn't worth publishing it won't get published.

I don't want reviewers or editors to see my name on it either. If the paper, by some miracle of bad editorship, is published successfully in J. of Number Theory with only the coauthors' names on it but not mine, I would be perfectly satisfied.

In that case, you're probably out of luck; I don't think there is any way to say that without risking hurt feelings.

The manuscript is probably better than you think and you just have impostor syndrome or something.  Your professor will be better at evaluating how your results compare to other recent results in the field.

Sorry, the context is: I am a mathematician, and he is not. He is not my professor. In terms of judging anything related to mathematics, I am superior to him. His mathematics abilities are not credible.

How does he know what journals to send it to then?  Maybe you guys would be better off sending your manuscript to a journal in a more applied field that he is more familiar with, and selling your work to that audience.

You have a third choice:
Do not forget that all the authors should sign a contract before publishing a paper.
I am not telling you not to sign it.
However, it would be a good approach if you told your professor

I am sure that huge improvements can still be made on this paper.
  Could you please delay the submission and let me work on the paper for
  another period of time?

This way, you told that paper is not of publication quality and implicated that you're not comfortable with your name on it.
If the professor still insists on publishing, only then you may say

It's not like I'm not trusting your judgmental skills but when I know
  that I can do better, I cannot do with less. So please do not
  misunderstand me but I don't want to be a coauthor of a work that is
  less than my potential.

If your professor is professional enough, he will hear what you say.
Maybe not the best solution, but I would go with this one.

I think cagirici's advice is sound but, of course involves a bit of confrontation. In fact there are no actions other than letting the whole thing pass that would not involve something that would do so. It sounds to me as if your work although not of publication quality at this time really is yours. This makes the action from the professor problematic to say the least.
So what can you do. First, regarding unwanted co-authorships: you could argue that you want to see the contributorship of the new co-authors. Search here on academia and on the web for the term contributorship and you will find many good hints on what can be counted as enough contribution to be on the paper. One link, I often use is to the ICMJE. I realize the thoughts of coauthorship/contributorship varies between fields so you will have to imagine how to set the rules in perspective for your field.
Second, about just adding authors: clearly from your post the ownership of the work is yours so to have somebody else add authors is not right and you have the right to say no. You can even dump the professor and go elsewhere.
If you really want to leave your work in the hands of others you could just say that you are happy to see someone trying to take your attempt and turn it into something useful and that you do not feel you should be part of that development and that your "meagre" contributions in your view doesn't merit co-authorship. After that type of grovelling, you may wish to have a drink or two. I personally think such actions would be going too far and you really should take the bull by the horns and try to see how a proper paper could emerge and with contributors that really contribute. You can at least start by talking to the professor about the merits of your draft and how the professors sees it developing and being published in the end

Just publish the paper and move on. No one is going to hold you accountable for publishing some paper that is not spectacular. Academics are judged by the number of successes and not penalized by the number of subpar efforts. Don't create a confrontation that is not necessary as this person is going to have an effect on your future.

I disagree: penalties for subpar work can be real, and sometimes large.  It's true that scientific reputation in the long run is based far more on successes than failures, but hiring decisions are made in the short run.  Publishing a bad paper calls into question your judgment (maybe you don't realize it's bad), suggests you may spend time on similarly unproductive things in the future, and generally hurts your reputation.  It gives an easy argument against you for anyone on the hiring committee who is pushing for another candidate.

I really disagree. Not unless the paper is obviously wrong or laughable. Not saying it is good. Just saying that it isn't worth burning bridges over. Subpar papers are simply forgotten.

First, I'd say try as hard as you can to see if what you've done is already known.  It sounds like there's a good chance for this to be the case if it's simple mathematics (which I infer from your question and the comments).  (Math Stack Exchange might be useful here.)  If so, you can just provide the professor the reference and say it's already known, so you can't publish it.  Problem solved.
If not, answer this: is the problem a pure mathematics problem, or a problem in another area that just has a simple solution for mathematicians?  If it's the latter, then it may not be so embarrassing to publish something with simple mathematics.  Alternatively, if the question itself is pure math and interesting, but just has a simple solution, you could aim for a "recreational" journal like Math Magazine (I think that's the name of one).
Otherwise, here's one possible route that might work, but it really depends on the professor and the situation.  You can tell him that it's his problem and that your mathematical contribution was not enough to warrant coauthorship (both true), so please not include you as an author but just mention you in the acknowledgements.