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Self plagiarism of a post adapted from a public forum into a journal article
I recently wrote out some recent experiences I had onto a relevant public forum and am now wanting to adapt the post and publish it into a journal as a reflective piece.
Do I run the risk of self plagiarism if the original post on the forum is left up and available? Should I remove the post before submission?

I'm pretty certain we had this question before, so this probably should be closed as duplicate. In short, the answer is that there is absolutely no risk of "self-plagariasm" (which is a misleading name) between academic and non-academic publications.

If you are able to find the thread for me, I'll gladly close this question down if it answers my question. I couldn't find it.

Arno is completely wrong (at least wrt every field I've worked in). I'll post an answer in due course with detail and sources. Meantime, some of this answer will be relevant https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71135/chapter-in-printed-thesis-vs-journal-article/104040#104040

@WanderingChemist Your post seems to focus on copyright/journal rules, rather than self-plagiarism, so I disagree that "Arno is completely wrong."

@user2768 1) Ethically, to avoid self-plagiarism, the venue of original publication must be acknowledged. The distinction between academic and non-academic venues is irrelevant. So when we strip out consideration of the Ingelfinger rule from my answer, it removes the potential grain of correctness from Arno's comment (that, if properly referenced, some journals may still consider it for publication).

The boundaries between self-plagiarism, copyright concerns and duplicate publication concerns are very blurred. In most cases, you can't (usefully) consider one without the others. The journal rules blend all these considerations and create explicit rules that define what is acceptable in a given journal. They are the single most important point of consideration for a question such as this.

I was trying to give a useful answer to OP - to do this, I interpreted their post as "is it acceptable to publish like this?, what considerations are there? and what problems might I run into?"

Simply observing that proper referencing pretty much always obviates self-plagiarism would have been technically correct, but less useful.

@WanderingChemist Excellent points, perhaps add them to your answer? (Comments get deleted over time.)

tl;dr: The rules vary, check your intended journal's policies
I'm going to interpret your question as asking about what's acceptable in publishing, what issues you have to consider when republishing work and what problems you might run into.
You have three considerations here (self-plagiarism (1), duplicate publication (2) and copyright (3)); the boundaries between these can become somewhat blurred. Typical conventions vary from field to field and specifics will vary from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. Let's look at each consideration in turn, from a practical perspective the section on journal rules is probably most important to you. This is because, although it's easy to obviate self-plagiarism with adequate referencing (see section 1), this doesn't guarantee compliance with journal duplicate publication policies (section 2).
1) Publishing/scholarly ethics
(For ethical background on duplicate publication, see: 1, 2, 3.)
You should always cite original sources, and be specific where you've lifted quotes/figures from them; just as if you were taking from someone else's work. This is enough to obviate the risk of valid accusations of self plagiarism, but you still need to consider issues like duplicate publication (see links above and the section 2) and copyright (section 3). If work has been made publicly available (either by you, or by someone else), you should consider (for the purposes of referencing) that it has been published, however (in)formal or (non-) academic the context.
The only exceptions I can think of for this are: preprints, where the preprint server will be updated with a link to the version of record instead; publishing work that was included in a PhD thesis (strikes me as odd that a reference/note isn't required in these cases, but typically one isn't); publishing work that was presented at a conference without publishing a proceedings paper (even if the presentation abstract is publicly available). Link 1 goes into a bit more detail on duplicate publication.
In your case, you should cite/reference the online posts. How/when you do this depends on exactly what form the work takes, but a line in the introduction along the lines of the following may well be suitable:

This piece grew out of some posts the author(s) made on [forum][reference post(s)]; here, the author(s) have revised and expanded these posts into a reflective piece on the topic of...

In the case of any doubts about the acceptability of such a submission, mention it in your cover letter. This is probably a good CYA policy, even if you're sure what you're doing is allowed.
2) Journal-specific rules
Every journal will have its own specific rules on prior publication, blending the considerations under publishing ethics and copyright (discussed below) and considerations such as field-specific practices and editorial considerations. These dictate what is or isn't acceptably in a particular journal. You will have to look at your intended journal's policies yourself to find out what they are, if you're not sure how you fall under them, their editorial office will be able to guide you.
In general, putting a thesis online is almost always OK and use of preprint servers is becoming increasingly widespread. Other online publication, is not necessarily allowed. Let's look at some specific examples (emphasis added):

Nature:

The Nature Research journals are happy to consider submissions containing material that has previously formed, and continues to form, part of an online scientific collaboration such as a wiki or blog, provided that the information has not been publicised outside the scientific community, and is not publicised until the publication date of the work in a Nature Research journal.

In this case, it would seem to depend on whether or not the forum could be considered an academic collaboration or not
Science:

The Science Journals will not consider any original research paper or component of a research paper that has been published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Distribution on the Internet may be considered prior publication and may compromise the originality of the paper as a submission to a Science Journal.

ACS ethical guidelines (note, I don't think these are their publishing policies, but good practice guidelines issued as a professional organisation)

Scientists should,  however, be aware that disclosure of research results in the public press or in an electronic database or bulletin board might be considered by a journal editor as equivalent to a preliminary communication in the scientific literature

From Wiley's best practice guidelines

Journals from different disciplines vary in their approach to pre-print servers. Many biomedical journals would consider posting an article to a pre-print server to render any subsequent journal publication redundant. Thus an
  article submitted for consideration after having been posted to a pre-print server would be rejected. However, many researchers working in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and
  statistics post their articles to arXiv before submitting an article successfully to a journal for peer review and publication. Journals should establish a policy about pre-print servers and declare this in their instructions for authors. Any previous publication should be disclosed in the paper.
The following types of “prior publication” do not present cause for concerns about duplicate or redundant publication:
...

Results in databases and clinical trials registries (data
  without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions
  in the form of tables and text to describe data/
  information).
Dissertations and theses in university archives.

I won't give any more examples, because without knowing what field you work in for someone to give specific advice (mention of a "reflective piece" suggests it not STEM?), I don't think it would add much to the above.
If you aren't sure whether your use falls under the rules for your journal, you can contact the editorial office. You should also mention in the cover letter when you submit, eg. a sentence paragraph along the lines of

This work is an extension on materials previously posted to [forum] and, consequently, makes heavy reuse of this material. We believe this is acceptable under [journal]'s rules on prior publication.

3) Copyright
You will need to confirm that you have the rights to reuse your posts. Double check the small print of the forum in question to make sure you didn't transfer copyright when you posted them (hopefully unlikely!). If you did, you will need to obtain permission to reuse them from the from the forum operator and provide this to the journal during submission.

Although very interesting, I don't think you've answered the question of self-plagiarism.

@user2768 Plagiarism is not a universally defined and objective concept.  It varies wildly between cultures, for example.  While there are a few fairly standard red lines for any serious academic/research work, "Check the standards for your field and desired journals" is the only sensible answer, as that is where you will find the relevant definition.

@user768 I'm going to edit the middle section to explicitly use the term self plagiarism for clarity, but, as I commented above and zibadawa timmy has commented here, the issue cannot usually be considered without discussing journal policies etc.

I've also reordered it into a, hopefully, more logical order.


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Finding the equivalent title/position of "Oberassistent II" in both the US and in the Italian university system
What is the equivalent title/position of the Swiss "Oberassistent II" in both (or at least one of the following)

the US university system?
the italian university system?

I have heard that, in some universities it can be considered as a professor-like position, while in other ones it can be considered as a Senior Researcher and Lecturer position, but I am not sure.

Who says that there is a corresponding kind of position?

I don't know if there is a clear correspondence, but I guess there is a weak correspondence or similarity....

Just to understand what the position means, this is similar to a postdoc (which is an internationally recognizable job description) but a little more senior?

An "Oberassistent II" is a "Senior Postdoc" (with at least 5 years of research experience after the PhD). I have just known that this position is approximately equivalent to the "Euraxess R3 - Established Researcher" (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/europe/career-development/training-researchers/research-profiles-descriptors)

The short answer is that it is roughly the equivalent of an Assistant Professor or Visiting Assistant Professor in the US, depending if the appointment is TT or NTT (explained below.)
The longer answer is that in German-speaking countries, titles are well codified, so you know exactly what the title means. For example, the title of Professor in Germany is a legal title, while in Latin America it is synonymous with "person that teaches", which includes grammar school teachers. In the US, and there are exceptions to this, there are two types of professors: those on the Tenure-Track (TT) and those out of it (NTT). For those in the TT, you are hired as Assistant, then move to Associate (usually but not always coupled with getting tenure) and then to just Professor (aka Full Professor.) For those on the NTT, there's a pool of words that administrators use to name the jobs, e.g. Visiting, Assistant, Research, Lecturer, Adjunct, etc., and you might end up with a title such as "Visiting Assistant Research Professor", which is at its core just a temporary (ie NTT) position. Now, this is not to dismiss those jobs, as some of them are just as good as TT jobs, sans the stress of vying for tenure, but it's just that you can't tell what the job is about, or the benefits/responsibilities just from the title.

In the US, there is no equivalent, for two reasons:

The US doesn't really have a system, and each university has its own way of doing things, though they tend to agree with each other to facilitate communication, et c.

Positions similar to Oberassitent II are very rare in the US.  Generally, someone more than 3-7 years after their PhD (depending on field) will never be hired for a temporary position - those who are not competitive for a permanent position by that point will not be able to obtain an academic job at all.  This is because almost all funding for such positions are tied to training - part of the reason the funders fund such positions is to train potential future professors.

It's not surprising that, when something rarely occurs in a culture, and the culture has no explicit process for standardization, this something will not have a standard name.
I strongly suggest that people never translate job titles on an academic CV - just leave the title in the native language, particularly if the language is reasonably common.  You can explain what the nature of the job is if asked - it's going to require some explanation anyway because the position doesn't make much sense in the context of US universities.

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Should medical conditions that affected performance be stated in personal/research statement? And how?
Condition
I have been suffering from day time sleepiness (9-10 hrs of sleep and still struggle to stay awake), fatigue, memory loss and lack of concentration. The doctor found that I suffocate in my sleep: I stop breathing several times per hour.
In a few days, I will be undergoing surgery to modify my airway (nose, throat) that, according to the doctor, will completely resolve these problems.
Background
My profile is OK: undergrad valedictorian, scholarships, awards, numerous research experiences and skills. But my condition was exacerbated during the masters and I graduated "B+" instead of continuing my straight "A" performance during undergrad. Also, I felt that I could have performed better in standardized tests (GREs), do more research etc without my condition.
Questions

Should I make this medical condition known in my research/personal statement? I fear the reader might assume that I am not as "able" as completely healthy candidates. Or perhaps there is no benefits at all to bringing this up?
If so, how should I put it to avoid sounding like I am making excuses or whining?

Alas, I don't know anything sensible on disclosing; but as someone who through airway surgery went from apnea index of 52 to apnea index of 12, good luck and I hope you'll get a lot better afterwards.

@MikaelVejdemo-Johansson - Thanks! Can't wait to finally get some decent sleep!

narcolepsy? Afaik, first world universities have their own disability office to handle things like this

Should I make this medical condition known in my research/personal statement? I fear the reader might assume that I am not as "able" as completely healthy candidates. Or perhaps there is no benefits at all to bringing this up? If so, how should I put it to avoid sounding like I am making excuses or whining?

If you can frame this medical condition as a situation you have learned to work through and around, then yes you can talk about it. It makes you sound like you are able to adapt to difficult circumstances. You are under no requirement to bring it up, and, at least in the US, if you don't bring it up, then you cannot legally be judged based on it.
However, if the condition reasonably or seriously will interfere with the work you are planning to do, then you need to disclose it eventually, although perhaps only after you are accepted and only to your research adviser. Sleepiness is one thing, but what about narcolepsy? A narcoleptic might be a safety hazard in a synthetic chemistry lab for example.

I guess from the sound of things, it might not be advantageous for me to disclose this. Especially since the surgery should resolve it. I'm doing mathematics, so the only thing I'll be hazardous to is the coffee machine.

Your potential advisor is interested in (mostly) one thing: your potential as a graduate student. To that end, your personal statement/interviews/etc. should serve to convince him that you will be able to do excellent research. Any issues that could be a potential problem should be noted and addressed.
With that background, do you think this condition could be perceived as affecting your output as a graduate student? From the way you posed it, I would suggest that the answer is "yes". As such, I would mention the condition towards the end of the letter/interview, but I would state  with confidence that past performance has demonstrated that it will not affect output, and you're confident it would not be a problem in the future. Don't dwell; just mention it as you would a disclosure and move on.

Any issues that could be a potential problem should be noted and addressed. No, no, no.  By Section 504, admissions decisions come first, and then accommodations are explored as needed.  The candidate does not need to talk about his disability during the admissions process any more than a job candidate needs to talk about his sexual orientation during a job interview.

Only mention your medical condition in the research/personal statement if it is specifically relevant to your research interests, and you feel that your personal experience strengthens your ability to carry out research in your chosen area.  (Example: you wish to do medical research about epileptics' sensory perceptions prior to a seizure, or auras; you might conceivably want to mention your personal experience with auras, if you think this will help convince a committee that they should assist you in doing such research.  Although this is the best example I was able to come up with, it's still pretty lousy, in my opinion.  There are plenty of people in the world who experience auras, but who aren't qualified to do graduate level research on auras!  It's the person's academic qualifications, I think, that would be the most meaningful thing for a committee to look at.)
Under Section 504 regulations, pre-admission inquiries as to whether an applicant is handicapped are specifically barred.
If you are accepted, on your academic merits, the next step is to contact your institution's student disability office in order to document the disability and request accommodations if needed.  The student disability office will work with you and your professors.  No one will perceive you as whining.  You will be perceived as someone who is a strong health advocate, and you will be admired for persevering in spite of adversity.
A person with a disability has as much right to an education as a non-disabled person.  You are a person first, and a person with a medical condition that makes studying more challenging second.
Note that in Section 504, the definition of a “handicapped person” is not only a person with a mental or physical impairment which substantially limits one or more of his major life activities, but also anyone who either has a record of such an impairment in his past or is regarded as having such an impairment.

About the B+ average in your Masters and your perhaps reduced GRE performance.
What should have happened: as an undergrad, you work out a 504 plan with the Student Disability office at your school, with accommodations, including, for example, in the GRE, extra time, and rest breaks.
A helpful resource: A Layperson's Guide to Section 504
Some related, inspiring reading: A Short History of the 504 Sit-In

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Lack of motivation for self-study during the semesters
I'm a third year Physics and Mathematics student, and over the years, I've done lots of self-studies, and what I've realised is that, compared to what I learn & experience in my self-studies, the I barely learn anything from the lectures that I'm attending my departments (at least this is true for %95 of them).
However, the thing is, during the semester, there are lots of midterms, homeworks, and lectures to attend etc.. Hence, for most of the time, even though I've time, I cannot find any motivation to continue to study to the subjects that I'm self-studying. Which is not the case in the summer and in the winter breaks; at those times, I generally do not have any problem about the motivation, and I study with quite normally & happily.
Seeing that professors also do most of their research during the holiday seasons as I do (since during the semester, there are lots of teaching to be done, exams to be grade etc.), is such a lack of motivation general in the academia ?
I think if there was no courses, during a whole semester, I would learn more things & deal with more complicated problems, which would require me to think more; however, right now, the things that I have learn are quite boring things (which honestly if you just attend the lecture and listen, you can do it), but these requirements are kinda of pushing me away from studying, as if I'm doing this just because I have to, and not because I think this is interesting.

Then it is just a yes-no question and so not useful here. Think a bit more about what you really want.

I do think that your perception is shared by many students, especially when they are passionate about their field of study. I can think of several undergraduate students (former colleagues or under my supervision) who fit your description, across several countries. I would not be surprised to learn that this perception is much less frequent among graduate students, because curricula and self-interests tend to align with each other over time.
At the undergraduate level, self-motivation is wholesome and certainly improves your chances for academic success. Nevertheless, curricula are designed by professors who do know best.
Even when a class seems dull or irrelevant, the decision to include it in the academic requirements for your degree is the result of a consensus selection made by your professors. They are in a better position than you are to weight-in certain factors, such as the difficulty of the material or its usefulness as a foundation for more advanced and exciting stuff.
TL;DR: Not many people enjoy studying pendulum problems. Thankfully, some trust their instructor at this stage and access broader horizons as a reward.
Not finding the time or peace of mind necessary for self-studying is a sign that the expectations of your curriculum are catching up with your work capacity. Then you are making the right choice of prioritizing the mandatory coursework.

The University has had multiple competing social functions during its history. Let us consider three functions: the regulation of undergraduates, the regulation of scholars, and the community of scholarship. I will suggest that the regulatory type functions are at odds with the community functions.
Universities regulate undergraduates. Whether fractious potential clerics, or aristocratic and bourgeois children being “finished,” on incipient wage slaves being burdened with massive debt the lecture system chastises students with irrelevancies. In the current era many of the tools of pedagogical reform have been turned into chains. Progressive assessment is actually merely periodic summary assessment. Aims and methods statements duplicate the bland argument from authority of outdated longhand written lecture notes. Tutorials are lecture sized. This is make work, and labour discipline. For the scholars as much as the students. Only the rule of dons has been replaced with the rule of management mentality. For student and scholar coursework soaks up the year with things known to be useless. Think of all that unread feedback on essays submitted in week 3 to meet a “progressive assessment prior to course drop date” requirement?
In contrast the community of scholars has some problems. It is undisciplined and unruly. You might get a Luther whose theology is magisterial, the implications of which are 200 years of war. Disciplining this community is pretty important. Consider how output and quality metrics are used as labour discipline, effectively widget counting, rather than informing meta-analysis of research programme success or failure? Maybe review articles are now quoting impact factors, but I doubt it for my field. Impact is used to regulate who gets to be/remain a scholar.  This is reasonably new, because you could always count student enrolment and use it to demand money from the outside world, but now that paper volume and cites are counted for money, the regulation of scholars intrudes more deeply into the non-teaching periods.
So while it was true in the past that the real work was done outside of teaching, it is less true now, as peer and disciplinary regulation of communities of scholars has commodified research and brought managerial and close scrutiny to this area of work.

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Are Ph.D. programs easier to get into with an already obtained Master's?
To give specifics about my questions, I am on track to completing my Master's degree in Europe (Switzerland) and I have been looking at applying to the U.S. in case I cannot get a Ph.D. at my current school.
I have heard through the vines that since I will already have a Master's degree with a fair amount of work done related to research, it will make my application much more persuasive.
In this thread, I would like to confirm if that is true (or closer to the truth given the data)?

I wouldn't say easier, but definitely different. There are a lot of tradeoffs. With only a bachelors, the path is quite long and starts, most places/fields, with advanced coursework. This is due to the fact that the US bachelors is a general degree, not especially specialized as it is in some other places, say Europe.
One normally (most places/fields) has to pass a set of comprehensive exams before the research is likely to get serious. Many potential advisors will wait until the student passes comps before committing to them. And the coursework itself implies that the faculty gets a good look at students before making serious commitments.
For someone with a masters, much more is expected. You may not be able to avoid comps and it might be expected that you have any necessary coursework, or most of it, already in hand, shortening the time to completion. But that also complicates the selection process since the faculty hasn't seen you in action very much and has to depend on what they find in the CV and letters of recommendation. And, a shorter time to completion isn't always in the best interest of the university, since, for those funded with a TA, there is less time for them to gain the skills needed for that and become an asset.
It might be "easier", however, in some fields, such as a lab science, in which a candidate already has certain skills that are needed for the lab but hard to obtain otherwise. If you can hit the ground running it might ease the path.
However, don't drop out of a masters because you think the other path leads to easier admittance. Just be aware that, in the US, most US trained students enter doctoral studies with a bachelors. In any case, it is what it is. The tradeoffs are what they are.
You are admitted on the same basic criteria no matter the degree held: measurable success in the past and the expectation of success in the future as indicated in admissions materials and especially letters of recommendation.
And, the way to know for sure about your own chances is to apply to a few programs.

The Masters degree is likely to help you in several respects: (1) through the experience you have gained from the research component; (2) through the coursework done in the program; and (3) through the extra year or two of general experience in your field.  Any previous experience, coursework, or research work, is going to be relevant in assessing your capacity to succeed in a PhD program, so unsurprisingly, a Masters degree in the same field or a related field is a positive.


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Could applying to a PhD program this year, reduce my chances for being admitted if I reapply next year?
I applied for a bunch of direct PhD programs in my senior year (of undergrad) to start right after my undergrad. For two of my top choices, I was shortlisted for interview but rejected off the interview. I'm thinking of reapplying this year, but I could also reapply next year with a better application profile, and I'm worried if I apply this year and get rejected again, then my application for next year will not receive a full and fair consideration.
I'm doing a 1-year MSc this year, which covers the subfields I missed on in my undergrad very well. By doing this, I'm actually addressing the main reason I was rejected for one of those two, and trying to turn that weakness into a strength. So, if I get invited for interview again, I think I'll have a much better chance. but I'm worried they may not invite me to interview this year, given that they did that last year and were not happy with my performance.
Since my interviews were held near the end of my senior year and the application deadlines will be before the end of the first semester of my Masters program, I think my application profile is not going to look much different (and in fact, since my GPA went down in my final semester, I think it may actually look worse).
However, if I wait until next year, by the time I am going to apply for those programs, I'll have completed my MSc with the grades on my transcript, two research projects I worked on this year and last year may finally be submitted for publication. So I might have publications (as the nth coauthor though) to list on my CV, and I will probably start a new (and hopefully more serious) research project at the end of this year. So I will have more research experience as well (this last one will probably be in very early stages though). On the other hand, next year itself, would be probably a much less (academically) productive year for me, compared to the scenario that I apply this year, get admitted, and start my PhD there next year.
Ideally, I'd like to try my chance this year, and if I don't get in, try it next year. But I'm afraid given I was rejected last year, if I get rejected this year again, they may be very skeptical of my application next year and feel like reviewing my application and giving me a third chance is going to be a waste of time, so they don't give a full and fair consideration to my application for the third time.
Could that be the case, or am I overthinking it?

You seem to be asking for opinions. They will vary and are unlikely to be valid for you. Maybe it would be good to focus on your current studies and do well there.

@Buffy Yes, I understand there may not be one definitive answer. I'd like to hear what people who have been on the other side of this application process think, and hear different possible reactions. Do professors get annoyed if they receive an application for the third year in a row and just ignore it, or do they review the application independent of the application history of the applicant?

You are asking people to evaluate a lot of things that only you can properly evaluate and asking people to predict how others, of various views, will evaluate you if you apply. Only you and your actual reviewers can provide anything meaningful. This is why opinion based questions are liable to be closed here. The Help Center for this site has more suggestions about questions. https://academia.stackexchange.com/help

@Buffy Thanks for clarifying the code of conduct. A more general answer could be helpful too. I can edit the question and ask a more general question about multiple applications and reapplications to the same program, in general, and not in my specific case. Would that be a question that complies with the rules?

It is hard to say. I don't think it fair to judge you, but you seem to be confused now. It would be good if you could find a way to unconfused yourself. That is why my first suggestion was to focus on current studies and do well there. That is a positive, forward looking step that can only help your situation and the focus will help the confusion go away (I hope). So, I suggest focus. The confusion you express doesn't help you ask a good question, I think.

However, if multiple applications to a place is discouraged, only they can tell you that and you can ask. But that will differ not only by country and institution, but also by individual professor.

With regard to this site, the best questions are those that someone new can come back to in 5 years and still learn something. It isn't supposed to be like a chat room (which we have) for quickie questions of interest to only the asker. Actually, this comment thread is more appropriate for the chat room: https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/the-ivory-tower


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Arxiv conflict with submitted papers
I have submitted my paper to Proceedings of the AMS one month ago and we haven't gotten a response yet. Can I upload my paper to arxiv despite of this? Would there be any conflict? About accepted ones, they have written that there is no conflict and so: Can I deduce from this that there wouldn't be any conflict for submitted ones as well?
Thanks

UPDATE: since 2022, Proceedings of the AMS has a double-blind review model, which means authors should endeavor to keep their connection to the paper secret. Please read the submission guidelines carefully before uploading to arXiv if you plan to publish in Proceedings of the AMS: https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=6983

Yes, in mathematics you can absolutely upload both submitted and accepted papers.  I am not aware of a single reputable mathematics journal that would take issue with this.  (If it helps, within the last few months I uploaded a paper to the arxiv after I submitted it but before acceptance.)  What I do not recommend is to upload to the arxiv papers which have been formatted in the journal's style file or which incorporate copyediting done after acceptance by the staff of the journal.
If a journal is published by a big academic publisher and you are the kind of person to worry about this at all (honestly I didn't, for many years), you should be able to find online a relevant policy for uploading preprints.  In all of my experience, even big publishers like Elsevier are quite reasonable about this...because they have to be in order to do business with mathematicians.  The Proceedings of the AMS is published of course by the American Mathematical Society.  The current managing editor of this journal posts his preprints to the arxiv. The linked-to preprint was submitted to the arxiv and for publication on the same day; a modified version was uploaded to the arxiv after the paper was accepted and before the paper was published.  So I think you have nothing to worry about here.

Thank you so much Pal;)I also thought that there would be no problem but you made me feel better and certain. Good night.

Small correction: it is possible to upload papers which the authors have formatted in the journal's style file.

Nice answer. I would add that the sherpa romeo database  (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php) has all the info about journal policies

@Federico: It's certainly possible, and I do not claim that it's not permissible, but I don't do it myself.  I actually never submit papers to a journal in the journal's style file...even when the online instructions say to do so.  I feel that there's no good reason for the journal to ask for this upfront, and as a referee when I (very rarely) see that the authors have done this, it (not so rationally, perhaps) feels a bit presumptuous to me.

For the Proceedings of the AMS, see the corresponding entry in SHERPA/RoMEO at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php?issn=0002-9939

UPDATE: since 2022, Proceedings of the AMS has a double-blind review model, which means authors should endeavor to keep their connection to the paper secret. Please read the submission guidelines carefully before uploading to arXiv if you plan to publish in Proceedings of the AMS: https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=6983

As mentioned in Pete Clark's answer, you can absolutely arXiv your paper before submission, after submission, after acceptance (in the post-referee, author formated version), or after publication in any AMS journal.
Most publishers have equally liberal policies with respect to arXiving papers, which is summarized at SHERPA/RoMEO. However there are some pitfalls (which to the best of my knowledge have had no practical implication whatsoever) with some publishers.
Elsevier has an habit of mudding its policies, so it is safer to arXiv papers before submission, to retain the right to update it according the referee's requests.
Some publisher officially forbid the authors to publish the post-review version of a paper in repositories such as arXiv. This is the worst policy I know, as it implies forbidding to correct errors or inaccuracies in available preprints. Unfortunately, even some academic publishers such as Oxford University Press, engage in such nonsense. In practice, I did violate this clause of a copyright transfer agreement I signed, and nothing happened. Maybe they'll go after me know that I confessed.

authors: ا لانى جدير ت

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Can mathematics professors do consulting work external to their university?
Is it generally true that mathematics professors do not / cannot engage in consulting work external to their universities?
If I'm not mistaken, plenty of business school / law school / economics professors do consulting work, in addition to their academia work (researching + teaching).
I have heard of one reason, from one of our professors in numerical analysis:  for example, a company like eBay.com or Amazon.com would never agree to show its proprietary algorithms to a math professor, without the professor (and his / her school) agreeing that the work to be done is then owned by the company and not by the school -- and even the emails would be monitored.  In turn, the school would never agree to this sort of arrangement, and so nothing would ever get off the ground.  And that it wouldn't be worth the risk to an eBay or an Amazon to pay for the expertise of a math professor.
So, are there instances of academia mathematicians working something out with industry and doing external consulting work?
Thanks,

Many professors, including mathematics professors, do external consulting work. Universities generally have specific policies about consulting; see e.g. UC Irvine, Wright State, UT, Yale.

Does academic work done in collaboration with industry count here?, which is not uncommon among certain branches of applied maths and stats, count here? Or are you specifically asking about external consulting work?

@YemonChoi, I guess I meant both :)

Is it generally true that mathematics professors do not / cannot engage in consulting work external to their universities?

No, it's not true. Doing external consulting may be less common among mathematics professors than among faculty in certain other academic disciplines, but it's fairly common nonetheless. The professor would need to make sure that the consulting arrangement they are entering into is compatible with their other responsibilities, and specifically (in connection to the theory you mentioned in the question) the intellectual property policy of their university. While this issue is not something to be casually dismissed and certainly it can create difficulties in some cases, there are still many consulting opportunities in which the work the professor wants to do would not be in conflict with their institutions' IP policies. Examples may include:

The professor is on unpaid leave from their institution so the IP policy doesn't apply.
The professor is doing the consulting over the summer when they are not receiving a salary, so again the IP policy doesn't apply.
The consulting work is of a kind that generates deliverables such as code or data analysis that the IP policy doesn't apply to. Specifically, in the U.S. all university IP policies I'm familiar with apply only to patentable inventions and do not cover copyrightable content, which remains the property of the faculty member. If the consulting work does not require anything sufficiently creative that it might result in a patent, there is no conflict. (Of course, the professor still needs to make the contracting company aware of their IP-related commitments and let the company make the decision about whether they are willing to take the risk of losing rights to a valuable patent. It seems likely that some companies in some situations would be averse to entering such an arrangement, as you described in the question.)
The consulting work is in an area sufficiently unrelated to the professor's area of research that the IP policy doesn't cover the work.
The professor takes sufficient care to perform the consulting work on their personal time and without using any university resources. In that case, depending on the legal jurisdiction it may be the case that the IP policy cannot legally apply to them, since courts in certain places have ruled that an employer does not own work their employee has created in the employee's private time and using private resources, even when the employer claims otherwise.

Finally, I was discussing consulting to commercial enterprises, but mathematics professors also engage in various other forms of consulting to governmental and non-profit organizations, where IP restrictions would usually not be much of a consideration. For example, in the U.S. it is quite common for professors to be invited to sit on panels for the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies. This is a form of paid consulting, although it usually doesn't pay very much.


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What are job regulations for early career researchers in US compared to Germany?
In Germany, the job of a scientist for the public sector is regulated in a way that

on time limited contracts which are the general case you can work at most 6 years before achieving your PhD and at most 6 after it  (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz) and then only on permanent contracts (extremely rare) or under very special circumstances;
your payment follows a fixed payment agreement framework (TVÖD).

Are there comparable regulations in US?

The first point refers to fixed term contracts, mainly postdocs. You can of course continue to work as a professor (if you get the position).

Your first bullet is an oversimplification. First, you can work for six years before and another six year after PhD. Then, this only applies to time limited contracts. There is the possibility to work  on "unlimited" contracts either as professor or with another position (although these are rare). Moreover, you can over the six years after PhD on project funding.

Please change the title of your question to reflect that it only concerns with regulations for early career researchers, not all academia. There is also a set of regulations concerning professors (that they are not allowed to strike, maximum employment age, etc.), which your question doesn't concern with.

In broad terms the answer to this question is NO. In the US there are nothing like the regulations regarding academic employment that exist in most European countries. One can work multiple temporary jobs of varying duration. Conditions of employment vary greatly from institution to institution, and modalities are flexible. There is no uniform public sector legislation because there is no academic "system" at the federal level, education being a state competency. Specific contracts/grants might have limits (e.g. an NSF postdoc), but those apply only to to those contracts/grants themselves.


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What's the point in appending your CV to your Master's thesis?
Several Master theses in my department contain a CV of their author. I don't really see the point in doing that - anyone you're sending your thesis to that would need your CV, you'll probably be sending your CV already anyways. So why do people do that?
(I've edited this question so it's less of a 'does your university do that' kind of thing - sorry to the guys who already answered.)

The standard question: what is the opinion of your advisor about this? And in what field are you writing your master thesis?

What would you even put in there? Your high school grades and the student exchange you did back in fifth grade? If you have any uncommon things to mention (e.g. accepted publications during the masters), you might put this in. But then again, this can't be common practice, see the word "uncommon" above.

This will likely vary by country and school.  The ONLY place where you'll get an accurate answer is the office of your Dean of Graduate Studies, or local equivalent.

To clarify: I'm not asking whether I should put a CV into my Master's thesis. To me it looks odd and my advisor never told me to do so. I'm just wondering why people do it and whether it's standard.

In Germany in any fields I have been related to somehow this is not common. But honestly, this is somewhat of a "shopping question" as we already have two kind of contradicting answers (Forbidden in Vienna, but common in the rest of Austria?!) and any result will only be a list of information about separate countries/fields.

@skymningen I figured that somewhere on the internet, there might be a person who'd know why on earth people put their CV into a thesis, and whether it would look odd to high-ranking institutions to find a Master's thesis with or without a CV. I don't see how that makes it a shopping question. I would think that anyone who looks at Master's theses a lot (say someone who chooses whether or not to admit phd students) will have seen enough Master's theses to know whether it's common or not and whether there's any point to it.

I have no idea why either would look odd. If someone looks at a thesis with no intention of hiring the author, they probably don't care. If they have theintention of hiring the author, I would think that scanning through their CV actually happened before deciding to spend the time and actually have a look at the thesis.

@skymningen Yes, but then why include it in the first place? There has to be some reason. Narcissism?

The only reason I could think of is the idea, that with a bachelor/masters thesis, the author often does not yet have any "standing" in research, so is an unknown to potential readers. (If you read a paper, you usually expect to find some information online about the authors, there is an affiliation and you can at least determine their main field of interest.) Still, as far as I know those thesis are rarely read (unless they have been published online and turn up as a search result for you, some collaborator gave their students thesis to you or you are planning to hire the student.)

@skymningen: "If someone looks at a thesis with no intention of hiring the author, they probably don't care." - is it only about hiring? When I've encountered a CV attached to a thesis, I instinctively always saw it as the equivalent of a brief presentation of the author's background as it is common e.g. in novels, especially hardcover ones.

At the University of Vienna, it has been forbidden to add a CV to master's or PhD theses since 2016 (see e. g. here: http://web.archive.org/web/20170415151405/https://ssc-lebenswissenschaften.univie.ac.at/formulare-und-infoblaetter-download/diplom-und-masterstudium/).
Internationally, I have seen this practice very often, though I cannot see a clear advantage of it (I think most people would prefer not to look through a long thesis to find a CV, but would rather look for it on your homepage).

It is also not a requirement at Texas A&M. The OP should consult their university for their rules on theses and dissertations.

As it was necessary to publish this rule, it seems that putting a CV into the thesis was common before 2016


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How to present in lecture a paper that students have read (or should I not have them read it)?
I would like to present some classic computer science papers in a class I am teaching.  I know teachers usually assign papers before the lecture, but I can't figure out how to present material they've already read and likely understood.  In the case of a highly technical paper, I'd go over the more technical portions, perhaps letting them know beforehand not to struggle with the proofs, programming examples, etc., but I'm thinking of less technical papers, such as:

Reflections on Trusting Trust by Ken Thompson
The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond
No Silver Bullet by Fred Brooks

While I don't need to use pure lecture format, I am not sure that discussion would work well, since some of the papers (such as "Reflections on Trusting Trust") aren't really discussable, and my students lack the experience to discuss others (such as "No Silver Bullet").
EDIT: I was hoping not to task the students with extra prep, since they already have a lot of assignments to do, but, as some of you suggest, that may be the best way.

I recommend the discussion format. The two downsides of it you list can be overcome by using a guided discussion. When you assign the paper, also include a list of questions that you expect the students to be able to answer after having read the paper. When the class meets:

Select students at random (or through a random permutation).
Have the student answer an assigned question as a discussion seed.
Open up the floor to other students to make comments and pitch in their ideas (thus starting a discussion).
When the topic dies down, move to the next question on the assigned list and repeat from step 1.

This format has several advantages:

It ensures that the students have read the paper (since they might get randomly selected)
It encourages them to think of their own answers and participate in discussions.
It eliminates the intimidating factor of the professor having tight control of the discussion (since you only moderate who speaks)
It lets you address the key points of the paper (through your initial selection of questions) without having to go over the whole paper in class.

I have experienced this format in upper level undergrad/grad courses during my undergrad and enjoyed it greatly. It really encouraged me to read papers and reflect on them carefully.

One possibility is to ask the students to present.

It gives an opportunity for the students to practice presenting something.
Sitting from the audience point-of-view with (I expect) expert knowledge, you will be at a great vantage point for judging whether the students fully comprehend the paper and whether they are focusing on the "correct things". Sometimes students spend too much time tracking down irrelevant details and miss the big picture.
Sometimes (depend on local culture etc.) students are more likely to engage in discussion and ask detailed questions if it is their peer doing the presentation. (The "intimidated by the professor effect".)

One problem with this approach is that unless the professor is very disciplined and keeps their mouth shut (oh the horrors!), the presentations degenerates into a dialogue between prof and presenter.

@Suresh: very good point indeed! Though from my experience (as a student in those kind of situations), usually the degeneration correlates with no one else having done the reading :) which I hope is already preempted in the context of this question.

Usually I start by asking the students some simple questions about the paper. After a few questions I am so confident that most of them understand almost nothing about the paper, that I feel comfortable presenting it as if they never read it...

I propose the presentation format as well but rather than have the students present from anything, maybe have a pool they can choose from or assign topics? With regards to the discussion format, sometimes it can devolve into only a few of the students talking spiritedly while the rest are confused or bored.


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Should I include a letter of recommendation in my dossier for teaching positions?
I'm a full professor in a US STEM field about to go on the job market for teaching professorships because of a terminal financial emergency at my current institution (a liberal arts college). I am fortunate to have worked with someone very well-known and respected in my field, especially for his contributions to education. When I went up for promotion to full professor, he wrote a strong letter of support, which he was kind enough to share with me.
Would it be better for me to include the letter in my applications or to just list him as a reference? He is fine with me doing either.
(Technically, I'm not applying for a specific position right now. Faculty at my institution have been invited to submit a CV, teaching statement, and research statement to a neighboring R1 institution in better financial shape. I am also planning to create an online dossier, which I will reference in my statements and will share with people I know at other nearby institutions.)

Follow the instructions you were given in the email or web page that described what you are supposed to do. If you were instructed to include a letter, include it. If not, don’t. If it’s ambiguous, contact the relevant person or office to ask for clarification.

@DanielHatton Because I've been told so.

@DanRomik I have modified the title and added a sentence at the end to address people's questions. I appreciate the support being shown to a tenured professor whose college is closing.

Thanks. You have my sympathies of course. About your question, I don’t know what’s the right thing to do, that depends on what the letter says and other factors, but generally speaking I think the default norm in US academia is to not include a letter of recommendation in any documents you are sending to people, unless such a letter is expressly solicited. On the other hand, listing a reference is common and is often a standard thing people put at the end of their CV.

This is a very specific case because this is not a regular faculty application. I don't think we can give you any advice with this.

Thank you for your thoughts, @DanRomik.

I'd say why don't you include something about scholarship of teaching and learning in your research statement?

I take it this is in the United States.  In that case, letters are never provided by the applicant.  A list of references would be provided by the applicant.

Sometimes hiring committees prefer a letter coming directly from the evaluator, as opposed to via the candidate, as it may be more candid.

Thank you. Can you tell me more about your experience with hiring committees.

@Dan Romik's above advice to follow whatever instructions there are seems sound.  Practices vary by country.  If nothing specified, I would tend to list the person as a reference.


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How to ask rejected full-time candidates to apply to teach individual courses?
My department has a number of courses we need covered by adjuncts in the next academic year. We were given permission to hire one (and only one) salaried adjunct and to cover the rest of the courses with per-course adjuncts. Salaried adjuncts receive benefits and are better paid than per-course adjuncts.
We received excellent candidates for the salaried position, only one of whom we can hire. After we close the search, (how) can I approach rejected candidates about teaching individual courses at the lower rate? Some career adjuncts have told me it would be offensive to offer a lower-paying and lower-status position to someone who applied for a better one, and I do not wish to offend anyone.
While the salaried position was publicly advertised, our institution does not advertise single courses. Furthermore, most of the candidates who applied for our salaried position were invited to by committee members or by our contacts, not because they were looking at ads.
How can I get the best outcome for our students and for teachers who would be willing to teach individual courses? I will continue to ask the administration for permission to hire a second salaried adjunct but do not expect to receive it. There is not much time to wait before starting our per-course search, as the current academic year is nearing its end (and our administration moves very slowly).
Update
Because each of the top two candidates seemed too good to reject, we proposed a second salaried position, which we made by cobbling together the remaining courses and one from a related program. To our surprise, the administration reversed its earlier decision to let us hire only one salaried adjunct, and we were able to make two salaried offers. While my question is moot, I will leave it up for future search chairs.

Just confirming what you apparently already know: this is a somewhat ugly situation... If that's any comfort. That is, your perceptions are not "off"... and, yes, it's an exploitative situation. Sorry...

"our institution does not advertise single courses"  That is a practice that needs to change.

@paulgarrett While I see how this isn't a pleasant situation, how is it exploitative?

@sgf mostly because the person needs to do very similar work that the first person does but will need to do this for less money and no job security. Basically imagine yourself coming to an interview which offers you to pay x$ per year. Then the interviewer tells you that you have not passes and now he tells you: would you like to do the same stuff for x/2$. Also I will be able to fire you at any time I want

@SalvadorDali But if there is anything about it, surely it's about the practice of having per-course adjuncts, not about offering the position to people who applied to be full candidates?

@sgf Yes, the whole situation of using per-course adjuncts to fill up what ought to be full-time positions is the exploitative part, and it’s sadly increasing at an alarming rate. The number of tenured staff at my old alma mater is less than half now compared to what it was when I graduated a mere four years ago. For my major specifically, it’s gone from five tenured and two adjuncts to one tenured and nine adjuncts. All the adjuncts are hired on a yearly basis, never knowing if they will have a job after summer. It’s disgustingly exploitative.

@JanusBahsJacquet - It's that way all over.  Just look at the number of adjunct administrative positions!  (Oh, wait ...)

Is there a ban on advertising for these positions, or is it just not currently done?

Ask them. What other option do you have? Not asking them I guess, but then you're making the decision for them. Personally, I can't imagine being offended if you explain it the way you did above. That said, I do agree that most candidates will react the same way other answerers have ("no freaking way!") -- all the more so because they were personally recruited for a permanent, salaried position.
You should have a firm offer for a specific course rather than just "inviting them to apply" for the lesser position. If possible, personalized mails or phone calls tend to be better received than form letters.
Edit: a lot of this discussion has focused on whether offering the lesser position is offensive. I think it's not, but beyond that, the question was:

How do I get the best outcome for our students and for teachers who would be willing to teach individual courses.

Even if applicants are offended by being offered the lesser position, that has zero bearing on the students or teachers that OP is asking about. Frankly, it doesn't really matter whether the rejected applicants are offended -- this will have no real consequences. On the other hand, if even one of these applicants accepts the per-course position, that could have huge consequences for both the students and teachers in question.

I agree with this answer.  What the OP has to offer is not very good...but it has to be at least as good as offering nothing.  The OP is giving them an option, after all. If the offer is made carefully and politely, it should not be offensive.

@PeteL.Clark so if I made you a polite and careful offer to come and clean the bathroom at my house for $1, would you be pleased that I am giving you an option to do something and get paid for it? There is no chance that you would find this even a little bit offensive?

If you made that offer after I came up second for a permanent position cleaning your bathroom for $2? No, I can't imagine being offended, though I wouldn't be interested. We might not like it, but the "adjunctification" of lecturing positions has been going on for some time, so OP's offer is hardly some esoteric, bizarre suggestion like offering a post as a janitor would be.

@cag51 those are valid points, but they miss the point of my comment. I was applying the logic in Pete’s comment to a different (and more extreme) scenario as a way of showing that, in my opinion, that logic is flawed. What I’m saying is that it may be that the offer of a part time adjunct position is not very offensive, but Pete’s explanation of why it’s not offensive is unconvincing. Giving someone an option to do something can certainly be offensive even though it’s “at least as good as offering nothing”. ...

... As for the part-time position, I’m reasonably certain that some people will find the offer at least a little bit offensive. I don’t know what that means about what OP should do (if I did know, I would post an answer), and I’m not saying the suggestion in your answer isn’t actually the one that makes most sense, but we should be honest and at least acknowledge that OP’s premise is essentially correct.

@Dan: Well, I guess that means a lot is rolled up into "carefully and politely."  The honest answer to your question for my part is: no, I would not be offended in the least.  I mean, no deal, but I'm not offended.

@DanRomik - Gotcha. Yes, "We can't offer you lecturer, but you're welcome to clean the bathrooms" would potentially be offensive regardless of how it is phrased. I think this is where the disagreement on this question comes from -- others seem to think that offering the per-course position is nearly as bad as offering the bathroom-cleaning position, while I say that they are completely dissimilar.

@PeteL.Clark ok, I find your position a bit strange, but at least it’s a logically consistent one.

I accepted this answer because it focused on how to get the best outcome from our students and willing teachers and then provided advice on doing so as respectfully as possible.

Don't ask them. It's a smack in the face. Advertise the position in the same place you advertised the salaried one; they will see it if they are still looking, and apply if they feel they need to.

Agree. Please don't ask me to do the job for less money and no security. Ugh.

The question specifically says that unsalaried courses are not advertised, and that most of the applicants for the salaried ones were personally invited to apply.

It's only a smack in the face if you smack them.  There is nothing insulting about:  While you were not selected for this position, we are very impressed with your application and would like to know if you're interested in an offer for another position in our department (further specify).

@user1717828 that "other" position has the same duties and responsibilities but will pay substantially less and have no job security.

Anyone who thinks that the offer of paying work is "a smack in the face" would seem to have a seriously over-inflated ego. They might not be interested because they have opportunities elsewhere, in which case they can just decline.  OTOH, that adjunct job might be better than being unemployed.

@MorganRodgers financially it's not much, but I'd say an adjunct position is clearly a promotion for a postdoc. And of course one can do both.

@MorganRodgers even if it's comparable to an internship (which I find dubious), the point is that offering something is never a smack in the face. At worst it's spam.

@Morgan Rodgers: I've worked in both, though in research rather than teaching.  (I have no skill in that.)  I've never actually been asked to apply for a job where there were other candidates - I've either been offered jobs, or applied for them (and been turned down for no few :-()  I've also taken "internships" that were thinly-disguised part time positions because the people hiring couldn't justify a permanent position.  I happen to like eating, and prefer it not to be from dumpsters.

@MorganRodgers In terms of pay per hour I'm not so sure about that. Either way however, their title isn't simply "adjuncts", they are "adjunct professors". A postdoc is a training position. The status difference is clear.

@MorganRodgers As for the pecking order between different levels of professor and getting bumped from classes, the same thing happens to "full time adjuncts", practitioners, lecturers, visiting professors, etc. And indeed I'm told it can happen between assistant vs associate and associate versus full professor too.

Because it smacks of "bait and switch". Oh, you advertised a good job and attracted good applicants and now you want them to settle for a much worse situation. This makes your institution look illegitimate.

@JKreft How does it smell of "bait and switch" someone is actually being hired for the full time position nothing fishy about that. Everyone knows that if there are multiple candidates for a single position there will be rejections. If you're in dire need of a job even a smaller/temporary position may alleviate some of your troubles. Only the candidate can tell. In my opinion it's neither an insult nor a "bait and switch" to be offered a smaller/temporary position if someone else was a better fit for the full-time position.

@ASimpleAlgorithm “A postdoc is a training position” — No, that’s toxic baloney. It’s a lie, invented to refuse paying fair wages and benefits. A postdoc is no more a training position than any salaried, non-junior full-time position in industry.

@jkreft Yeah, so they say. But to you, the applicant, all you see is "Apply for Job X" "Eh, would you take Job Y"? It's incredibly shady, and I say this as someone who has had it happen and as an employer myself.

This sucks, but it is the reality of the academic job market. Basically, you want to offer them (hopefully), or ask them to apply (less nice, bordering on rude), the same job but now you are going to pay them less, likely substantially less, with fewer benefits and no long term security. Now, here is the hard part. If you don't offer them the worse job, they are going to walk away thinking they were not even good enough to adjunct on a per-course basis. I think that is worse than being up front.
You just need to be up front. Say "We cannot offer you the position you applied for." Then tell them you have a much less desirable position that they are clearly overqualified for, but if they are interested you would be happy for them to apply. If you actually want them to take the job, you also need to demonstrate that your department respects per-course adjuncts, despite the university clearly not respecting them. That is the hardest part. You cannot mislead them and pretend that there is a carrot (i.e., the job they applied for and the one you are trying to get them). It sounds like you care, but hopefully you have some evidence of why they should expect to be treated fairly.

+1 for "a much less desirable position that they are clearly overqualified for" -- that wording really makes it seem much less offensive.

Agree with this.  The least offensive way is to just mention there are other less-desirable positions and ask if they are interested.

There are at least two sets of people who would prefer the single course assignments to a full time job:

People employed in industry who like teaching, and would like some extra money.
Retired academics who do not want a full time workload.

To reach those people you need an outreach effort that should include advertising to fill your single course jobs. As part of that outreach effort, you could e-mail the full time applicants you did not hire: "Do you know anyone who would be interested in a part time job teaching one or more of the following courses: [list courses]". This does not presume the full time candidate is available for a part time job, but they can say so if they are.

So you're going to reject applicants for a permanent position, not explicitly offer them the lesser position, and then ask for their help with your staffing problems? Now that seems like a slap in the face.

I'm not currently in academia, but as a recent job-seeker I'll caution you to avoid assuming how someone else will feel about a particular job.  You don't know this person, or their situation, or what their goals are.  You do them - and possibly yourself - a disservice when you just assume they won't want something and don't even let them know about it.
As an example, I had a recruiter tell me (well after the fact) that I was rejected for a position because it was located 200 miles away from my current location.  The company I was applying to did not have the budget to pay for relocation, so they rejected me because I wasn't local.  What they did not know is that I was perfectly willing to relocate at my own expense, as the job in question was close to family and a place where I had been trying to move to for several years.  Instead of asking me about it, they made the assumption that I wouldn't find it acceptable and they lost what could have been their most valuable team member (I might be a bit biased...).
As another example, my wife applied for a job recently and did not get it.  After the position was filled, she received a call from one of the managers who told her that while she lost out to a candidate with more experience, they were still very impressed by her and think that she would be a good addition to their team.  They told her that they were anticipating another position opening up in a couple of months and while it wasn't the same as what she originally applied for, the work was similar and she would have opportunities to move from there to what she really wanted to do.  This was a much better way of handling it, as my wife had wanted to work with this organization for a long time but it's nearly impossible to get your foot in the door.  The manager didn't know that, so she politely informed my wife about the opportunities and let her make her own decision.
In your case, how you communicate with these candidates is key.  It's unlikely that you'd offend someone by replying with a message like

Even though we weren't able to offer you that particular position, we
  were impressed by your interview and still think you'd be a valuable
  addition to our team.  There are several other open positions that
  should be getting posted soon.  I don't know yet whether they'll be
  part-time positions or full-time positions, but some of them would
  definitely benefit from someone with your particular background in
  XYZ.  Would you still be interested in working with us?

You're letting them know that you thought they were a top quality candidate, and you're simply asking if they would be interested in hearing about other opportunities.  Be polite, and focus on future opportunities in general at first.  Give them the chance to say "yes", "no", or "yes, but only if it's full-time" before you start talking about any specific positions.  I've had many recruiters do similar things to me when discussing possible contract work (which is pretty much the industry analogue of the part-time positions you describe).  Float the general concept and get a good feeling for what they're looking for before you offer them something specific that might be absolutely out of line.  If they're not interested, don't push it and ask if you can contact them when a full-time position becomes available.
If you approach it like "we're low-balling you with this lesser position" then you probably will offend people.  If you approach it like "we really do want you on board, and we're trying to find a position that can make that happen" (and you sincerely believe that), then you're likely to be received in a positive way.

I think you are missing how truly awful per-course adjuncts are typically treated. It is more accurate to think of it as the department is desperate to fill a position at the lowest possible cost.

The only change I would make would be to inquire if the unsuccessful candidate would like to be notified about future employment opportunities within the department. This would gauge their reaction without having to give details about those positions.

@StrongBad - I understand that.  I'm simply asking that you give the candidate the opportunity to decide whether or not that's an unacceptable arrangement for them.  After all, the only one who really understands their goals and needs is them.

This sort of thing happened to me on several occasions. I applied for tenure-track jobs, specifically asking not to be considered for temporary jobs, and was offered a postdoc on more than one occasion. One time I even interviewed for a tenure-track job before getting offered a postdoc instead. This one was the only one that offended me since I actually flew out of town for the interview and the bait-and-switch was irritating.
The case at hand is somewhat different since it's a full-time adjunct vs a one-course adjunct at a lower wage, but I think there is some commonality. How offended they would be would likely depend on how demeaning you are about it. On one extreme, if the candidate interviewed for the job, was rejected, and then was offered a worse position, then there's a good chance the candidate would be offended. I've known one person who accepted such a job anyhow and he was miserable the whole time, thinking he deserved better. He didn't get along with the other faculty as a result.
On the other extreme, if the candidate simply was never contacted about the adjunct job, and then got a mass emailing from some university account alerting the candidate to the job opening, it's less offensive and you might get more interest. It just means the candidate was put on a list of people who might be interested. There's still some rejection involved but it seems to me it's less personal and less likely to be taken the wrong way.

Yes, you should ask them. Here is how I would suggest doing it.
Give detailed and meaningful feedback on the unsuccessful application
Speaking as a PhD researcher who is approaching completion and who has applied (unsuccessfully) for various positions, the one thing that is most insulting is the lack of meaningful feedback. It is very demoralising to spend hours and hours preparing a job application, only to get a very terse and cryptic sentence or two of feedback loaded with clichés that give me no sense of how competitive (or uncompetitive) I am on the relevant facets of the position. Worst of all is the feedback that is largely or entirely positive, justifying the rejection only on some bizarre criticism or prejudice that gives me the impression that the interview was a complete waste of time (because the panel had already decided I was not "compatible"), even though I believed myself to be a serious candidate.
Get to the point quickly
Everyone is overloaded with correspondence, and a person reading a message about a job application may be nervous/excitable/apprehensive. So, please make the key information crystal clear at the beginning of the message (personally, I prefer to see it even in the subject line -- for example,

[unsuccessful, but we may have other opportunities for you] application for lecturer at Univ. of Academiapolis

-- some may find this too blunt, but it saves combing through the clichés of the message itself ("we had a lot of strong applications"; "we really enjoyed meeting you"), many of which can be found in both acceptances and rejections (I recently had a conference acceptance notice which looked like a rejection, because it started by talking about the very high standard of submissions and the difficulty in making selections, with the crucial point, "your paper is accepted", buried in the middle of the paragraph).
Ask permission to keep each applicant's curriculum vitae and application data on file
Depending on data-protection legislation, you may, strictly speaking, be obliged to delete the job-application records after having hired the chosen candidate, and may not be permitted to utilise them for other purposes. By asking permission to keep an unsuccessful applicant's data on file, you are treating him/her with respect, demonstrating implicitly an interest in hiring him/her for other opportunities, and giving him/her an opportunity to indicate whether he/she is interested. I would phrase it something like this:

Despite the negative outcome of this application, we were very impressed by you. We also have some hourly-paid positions for individual courses, and wondered whether that type of work might be of interest to you. If so, please confirm whether or not you give us permission to keep your curriculum vitae and application materials on file, with the view to possibly offering you some hourly-paid work without the need for a further interview (NB: we do not advertise these hourly-paid positions). Obviously, we appreciate that you may find the lower pay and fewer benefits of such hourly-paid work unacceptable, so if we do not hear from you, we shall assume you are not interested.

Welcome to AC.SE. See https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103498/any-good-way-to-tell-a-faculty-candidate-we-dont-want-you/103505#103505

To your first point: I wish it were standard for every position to give a personalized rejection letter, but this is often impossible for legal reasons. To your last point -- your last sentence is perfect, but just saying "let us keep you on file for a lower-paid position" is almost certain to be ignored, whereas a firm offer for a specific, carefully-chosen course is perhaps more palatable.

"Obviously, we appreciate that you may find the lower pay and fewer benefits of such hourly-paid work unacceptable, so if we do not hear from you, we shall assume you are not interested." ...and if we do hear from you, we know you are desperate and pathetic, I suppose?

It's more readable to use "they" over "he/she"

They don't have "many opportunities" for the rejected applicant.  They have single-course adjunct positions - part-time underpaid work for people looking for careers.

If it's not too late, bring this up in the interview:  "If we don't offer you this position, would you be interested in these not-as-swell position?"   I don't recall where, but I know I've been asked this question a number of times.  Pre-emptive strike.

I think this might put the candidate in an uncomfortable position. They might wonder why someone would pay them full price if they admit they're willing to work on the cheap.

I think everyone is looking at this wrong. The same people may take a permanent job for different reasons that they may take a temporary position. Someone who applied for a permanent position might still be happy to take a part-time role to build their teaching portfolio, or get some money on the side, or just to hang around a college a few hours a week when not working at their real job.
You probably wouldn't want to hire people who's prospects are so bad that they would settle for a life of adjuncting anyway. Unless they are nearing retirement and view it as a fun way to wind up their career or something like that. I'd prefer professions with careers and connections in the local industry, who bring a valuable complementary perspective to the department.
Offer it to the local applicants as the part-time gig it is supposed to be. "sorry you were not selected blah blah blah. However, we do have a need for someone to teach X Y or Z for the coming term. Please notify us if you are interested.".

Not sure I follow...you point out that those who want a permanent position is a largely disjoint set from those who want per-course adjunct positions, but then say to offer the latter to applicants from the former group anyway.

@cag51 I think you're overstating things with "largely disjoint". Surely there's nothing disjoint about the people interested in padding teaching portfolios or earning extra money. Still I edited to try to make it clearer. The reasons differ, not the people.

@ASimpleAlgorithm Some people need a visa for work, others plan to relocate with a family from another coast or continent.

@DmitrySavostyanov I covered that with "local applicants". Of course no one should make a major life change to adjunct a single course. Frankly they shouldn't do it for the full-time version either. I feel like people are straining to find complaints to support a political agenda here. Not every hiring policy for every role will fit every need of every applicant. You only need one of them.

This may be country dependent, but in some places a lot of  people taking adjunct positions is just the same people trying to get a full time position, and often people qualified to full-time positions face prospects of long time or full life of adjuncting. In my area, the set of people who want permanent positions and the set of people who accept part-time temporary adjunct positions are not disjoints at all.


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When is a proper time to consider quitting a phd?
I am considering the possibility to quit from the phd program I am involved in ( to be completely honest it is not me BiA considering that, but another person that wants to remain anonymous )
The group I am working in has several criticalities:

the advisor is not good in managing his time, and he continuously postpones meetings. He already told me several times that I should be more insistent and try to go randomly to his office, so that we could have at least one meeting a week. I tried several ways to fix appointments with him but it does not work.
the advisor changes goals for my work every time I met him. This is very confusing.
I feel that what is asked for getting the phd is essentially cheating. The advisor wants more than 3 publication in 3 years, and after joining the group I discovered that this takes normally more than 4 and 1/2 years.
a lot of people have left the group in the last year, more or less 50% of the people that I knew when I first came to this group. The reason are several but all related with the advisor
the people in the group are very friendly but they do not work as a team, also because helping other people in the group is not considered a good practice. Moreover in a while the entire group will be formed of just phd students in their first year.

Since I am still in my first year I am thinking of exit this ugly situation. But sometimes I think it could be too early. On the other side I don't see possible improvements in the near future. And I don't want to stay stuck in a bad situation for 3+ more years.
My primary question is, should one quit a PhD within the first year if the working environment seems to be a poor fit?
As a follow up, what would be good way to describe this situation to a possible future employer without saying "my previous job was really bad"? No one wants you to blame the old boss...

"The advisor wants more than 3 publication". This sounds totally reasonable. How much it takes to produce these publications is mostly up to you. What do you want? Someone to guarantee that you will get a PHD in 3 years with no sufficient publications?

@Alexandros I think that this depends strongly on the field. It can be true in particle physics or computer science. Not that much in mathematics and theoretical physics. Also I disagree on the fact that depends only on me.

Plus it depends where you want to publish. 3 as a first author on nature is not reasonable (of course I am exaggerating here)

I said "mostly up to you" not "only on you". Also, I do not believe you are in the best university with all the problems you describe. Therefore if 3 publications are the norm at your current university, at a better university the bar will be even set higher.

I don't think you are getting the point of the question. If more than 3 paper are ok for you that's fine.

The title question and the question asked at the end are both good, but they are completely different. Which one are you primarily concerned with? Also you should look at past similar questions for both, since there are good answers already on the site related to when to leave and how to describe leaving on a resume.

@Tim the question in the title is my primary concern and the last one seems to me like a natural follow up. I looked for other questions, but it seems to me that are from people at the end of their phd. The question could be see as: is it a good strategy to escape as quickly as possible from a working environment you don't trust?

@BiA Thanks for the clarification, I've proposed an edit that will, I hope, distinguish this from prior questions and help you get the answers you are after.

Sounds to me like you should change your advisor, not quit your Ph.D.

There are a few subproblems I want to respond to, then an overall answer.
If an advisor is not invested enough in a project to spend time on it, the student is going to have to struggle with avoidable problems, i.e. issues which the adviser could have quickly addressed. It's still not impossible, and some students might even flourish without micromanagement, but it's not ideal. So then, is it that this advisor doesn't care to spend time on the project, or that they have many other commitments and are just doing a poor job allocating their time? If they earnestly want to meet but are being pulled away by teaching and committee work, then the student might be able to help out by tracking down the advisor when they are available.
Pressure to publish is almost universal in academia and if we want to be successful we have to embrace this as a delicious carrot rather than a heavy stick. However, for many PhD students there is a gap between what the program tells the students to do and what the median student who receives a PhD actually does. If you want to pursue a faculty position, you need to aim substantially higher than the median--in terms of publication counts, everyone should aim higher than the median in terms of personal achievement--but if that's not your path then it's less critical.
Now, those issues aside, I generally feel that if a student is bothered enough by a working environment to make a list of the reasons they think the environment is awful, then regardless of how common any individual factor might be, it isn't working out. Don't torture yourself. If you love the work you do, then look for transfer opportunities. You should quit a PhD as soon as you know it's not working, regardless of how much time has actually passed.

Change of advisor is also a solution, as pointed out by Sverre above.


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Website/forum about reviews for universities
Is there any website/forum that people share their experiences or personal opinions in their university?
I find it hard to get reviews other than rankings made by large companies that provide useful information about whether it is a good place for obtaining a degree.

Your best source might be people who you know (of) who went to different places. I would say, in general, that any on-line review forums are heavily weighted towards bad experiences, so take anything you read on line with a large grain of salt.

Your question has tags both for "graduate-school" and "undergraduate" - what are you interested in evaluating universities for?

@BryanKrause I wanted to make the question more general since I assumed such website would include information about programme of all degrees.

The answer would likely vastly differ for graduate vs. undegraduate.

The only website I am personally familiar with is Rate My Professor (RMP). It is used primarily to rate professors of Universities, but it also allows students to rate their institution.
I am not affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but I am a Computer Science professor so here are the reviews of MIT as an example.
RMP does include Universities from around the globe but I do not know how many countries or Universities they actually include.

I don't really think we should be encouraging RMP. The pros outweigh the cons. It's bad data; a very biased sample. Reddit also has discussion of different universities from students, and perhaps less baggage than RMP. Even US News and World Reports might be better, in the USA. I think they have some kind of forum now.


text:
Finding onsite research assistant job in Europe/UK
Is it possible to find research assistant jobs after getting a Master's degree in Europe/UK for a non-EU citizen? If so, how should one apply for such jobs? The university websites only offer few RA posts in very limited majors, is it common to send emails to professors to ask for such opportunities?
Temporary positions like this seem to vary in different countries. Are there any countries that one can have a better chance in finding these posts?

Is there a specific reason why you are looking for RA instead of PhD positions?

For me there are two reasons. I want to visit my girlfriend who is currently studying in Europe and I'm looking for a research topic for my PhD. Applying for a PhD or an online research experience are not really feasible because of this...

In the UK all jobs like this will be advertised on university websites, or on jobs.ac.uk (usually both).
Most universities insist that all abstinence positions are advertised and recruited openly. The law in the UK says that employers must have demonstrated that the have made significant efforts to recruit someone from the UK before they can recruit someone from overseas,  and most unis interpret this as having advertised it to UK people for a month or so. Further, unpaid assistantships are illegal.
You should also be aware that of your girlfriend is in the EU, moving between the EU and the UK, even for short visits is not a easy as it used to be,  particularly without an EU passport.

Thanks for the answer! So is it safe to assume that looking for potential vacancy by sending emails will most likely not work?

Probably not. Still, you might hit on someone that is about to advertise a job and can give you a heads up. Or can put together an artifically specific job description where only you would be qualified for the job. Its a long shot though.


text:
Writing an appeal letter for a rejected master programme
Background:
Due to unexpected factors, I was forced to give up my offer and send applications to find another master programme. As a result, I had to submit my application files at the beginning of May for this programme starting from September of 2023.
This programme was especially suitable for me so after being rejected for the reason of 'Capacity exceeded', I want to write an appeal letter to try my luck.

What does 'Capacity exceeded' really means? They already have enough candidates confirmed their choice or it is just an polite way to reject?
What should I include in my letter? The aim seems simple: To get admitted if someone rejects their offer or at least put me in the waiting list.
Any other general suggestions for writing an appeal letter?

I know the chances are scarce to be admitted. I just want to try as long as it is not regarded as an offensive behavior.

Have you actually tried inquiring whether they can place you on a waiting list? That would seem like a natural first step.

To me, an "appeal" suggests that something has gone wrong, some error was made. Do you have reason to think an error was made here, rather than an appropriate rejection? I don't see how you can appeal something without a plan to point to a particular error.

I suspect that "capacity exceeded" means just what you think it does. All the available slots are full.
There is nothing to appeal. It would not hurt to write saying you are disappointed and would still like to be considered if an opening happens.
Don't expect an answer to that letter.


text:
Why are so many chalkboards placed in public places in university campuses?
I have heard that many academic campuses, ICTS, for example, are equipped with abundantly many chalkboards in all public places. I wonder what the reason behind this is and how it helps foster academic discussion, especially in science. Moreover, is there a means of keeping the chalks and dusters safely available to all without them being misplaced, wasted or otherwise stolen?

What's "ICTS" ?

If one is having a casual conversation near the coffee pot, it is often quite useful to have a blackboard/whiteboard nearby to use. Unofficial hallway conversations are amazingly productive parts of intellectual activities. One of the best management things I did was in a small "start-up" project where a team was moved off site to focus on a problem. I brought in an espresso machine and was amazed at the interactions around the machine that led to problems being solved quickly. (Espresso takes longer to make than pouring coffee from a pot, so the interaction cross section was much higher).

@Nobody, most likely the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in India.

An excellent book I'd suggest is The Organization and Architecture of Innovation: Managing the Flow of Technology by Thomas Allen.

To the OP, you may want to ask ICTS campus office this question.

Who steals chalk and erasers?

Yes, chalkboards and similar are a good way to capture quick thoughts, both for individual use and for small group discussions. They have been ubiquitous for a long time, a hundred years, at least. They are/were very common in a coffee lounge, near the main table, for example.
I once visited Cambridge, quite long ago. One cute trick there was a camera pointed at the chalkboard that would capture what was written there to save it. I think it was automatic. There might have been some technology behind it to give what was there meaning, not just pictures. I'd guess that it now formats things quite nicely.

I vaguely recall that at Princeton they had somebody tail Einstein and copy down stuff he wrote on chalkboards during the day. Perhaps apocryphal...

Einstein's blackboard at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.

To the user who raised LQP flag on this answer, the question is "Why are so many chalkboards placed in public places in university campuses?", the answer is "chalkboards and similar are a good way to capture quick thoughts, both for individual use and for small group discussions.". What seems to be the problem here?