text:
Is it unethical to hire students for private consulting work?
As a faculty member, I tend not to involve students in any of my own consulting projects, but I often run into small units of work that would be great opportunities for students, especially undergraduates. Is it unethical for a faculty member to employ students as consultants/contractors for private, non-academic projects? I can see how many students may find such opportunities valuable, but I am curious about ethical issues that such a relationship might introduce.

Closely related: Is it ethical for a professor to get masters students to work on open source modules related to the professor's profit-making company?

If the contract work is kept separate from the academic relationship -- especially, if the student is being paid in actual money just as a non-student employee would be rather than units of academic credit -- I don't see any ethical issues here. Could you perhaps be more specific about what you have in mind?  (Having two different kinds of relationships with someone at once can be potentially awkward, but that is not the same as an ethical problem.)

I'm at a University at the moment where this sort of thing is quite common - and indeed, my previous institution had another department where a relationship like this one actually led to a major company that hires a large number of graduates. It isn't inherently unethical, but you need to make sure that business interests and academic ones are kept separate. It might, for example, be wise to have an uninvolved faculty member serving as co-supervisor. My institution's stance:

Protecting the Interests of Students and Trainees:
The impact of a perceived or actual conflict of interest or commitment of faculty members on their students (including post-doctoral fellows and other trainees) is of special concern to the university.  In particular, the university is  committed to maintaining the content and quality of the educational experience for students whose research is sponsored by a for-profit business and whose faculty advisors have a financial interest or a  management role in that business.  The concern is even greater if the dissertation work could potentially affect the value of a company in which the faculty member has an ownership or managerial interest.
For example, a faculty member who pressures a student to complete work related to the faculty member’s company could easily affect the student’s completion of graduate studies in a timely and appropriate way, thereby putting the faculty member’s interest in obtaining proprietary results ahead of the student’s academic or scholarly research activities.   The concern is similar for the involvement of students in faculty consulting or other external activities.  The risks and benefits of such involvement must be carefully weighed by departmental administrators responsible for evaluating the disclosure and approving the request, particularly where the involvement may be longer term and/or more time consuming.
University policy recognizes that the involvement of students in faculty-owned or managed businesses or consulting may yield substantial benefit to the student, provided that certain conditions are met.
Faculty members must disclose the proposed involvement of students in their external activities or in company-sponsored research.
Faculty members who intend to serve as PI or co-PI on sponsored projects and have graduate students or trainees conduct a portion of the research under their supervision must develop a conflict of interest management plan to address protections for these early career scholars.  See Example 2 under Managing Conflicts of Interest for appropriate strategies.
Students and postdoctoral trainees have the right to be fully informed about the source of their funding, the nature of the faculty member’s personal interest or involvement, and, if relevant, any agreements concerning data collection, copyright, or patent protection arising from the research.  Departmental and college-level administrators review the risks and protections with the student using the Research Agreement for Students and Postdoctoral Associates.


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What exactly is the "présentation analytique" while applying for MCF (assistant professor) positions in France on Galaxie portal?
I've passed the qualification in mathematics and I'm trying to apply for some assistant professor (Maître des Conférences - MCF) positions in France, using the Galaxie portal. However, I see that there's no option to submit a CV, which I submitted during the qualification process, but there's an option to submit "présentation analytique"?
This makes me wonder: what exactly is a presentation analytique (analytical presentation)? Also how do I submit my CV for this position?
So I contacted some administrative officials processing the MCF applications, and here's the response I got: (translated to English)
"The analytical presentation is a description of your academic and/or research background. Whether in the past or in the future you must present your experience by detailing your research and your publications.
Most often, the analytical presentation begins first as a CV and then, following this CV, you present your career path analytically as described above.
The definition of analytical presentation is as follows:
a CV giving an analytical presentation of the work, books, articles, achievements and activities, mentioning those that the candidate intends to present at the audition"
So to double check: if I combine two documents: (1) my academic CV that details my education, work experience, teaching experience, publication details (number of articles, journals where published etc.) and references etc. and (2) a statement of research interests where I detail my work, the results/theorems, and future plan for work, will this constitute a proper presentation analytique? Or, do I need to include (3) a description of research project that I'm pursuing at present and intend to continue for the next two years?
Any help from people familiar with the French academic system would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance and kind regards.

Quick and dirty. Check this person
http://www.iheal.univ-paris3.fr/fr/annuaire-profil/dumont-juliette
she is maitre de conference, and she has a "CV analytique"
http://www.iheal.univ-paris3.fr/sites/www.iheal.univ-paris3.fr/files/CV%20J.%20Dumont%20nov.%202020.pdf
good luck!

what exactly is a presentation analytique (analytical presentation)?

This depends on the field. In e.g. math, it's common for the "analytical CV" to include an actual CV, a presentation of your research up to now (most important publications/results, comparison to the state of the art etc), and your research projects for the next few years, as well as a teaching statement. I can imagine that things may be different in other disciplines. It sounds like you're already on the right track.

Also how do I submit my CV for this position?

Upload the PDF in the box that says "CV" on Galaxie. You can only upload one file so you should combine the actual CV and the "analytical" part. For some (most) applications, you will also have to upload it on a website provided by the university along with other locally relevant information/documents.

Thank you for your answer. I'm indeed in math/applied math, so this sums it up nicely. I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to add some relevant definitions and previous research to make the exposition complete? It seems yes, but after doing so, and even after deliberately keeping one particular section short, my research experience part alone took me 13 pages to write, with 4 diagrams in it, one page bibliography.  I'm wondering whether it's ridiculously long? To ease reading though, I separated my results out and instructed the readers how to find them quickly in the document.

@ScienceMan It's fine. My own "analytic CV" was 19 pages long and I got the job in the end.

Thank you @N.I. for your comment! I was still wondering what parts of the research experience will the jury look at? Will they really go through all the details the candidate has to say (introduction to the problem, state of the art, her/his contribution and potential open problems...), or will they just jump to the main results and theorems proved by the candidate and see whether they make sense and connect with the theme the MCF is sought for? One could imagine that reading all the 12-15 pages from every candidate describing their research is very time consuming; so I'm curious!

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After I chose a preferred referee for a submitted paper, is it un ethical to drop an email to the referee saying that I suggested their name?
I journal I recently submitted a paper to asked me to suggest two referees, which I did, with  explanation of why I picked them as referees.
While I was writing the paper, I had informal email exchanges with both of them. I was wondering if it is unethical on my part to drop an email to each of them stating that I suggested their name to referee my paper? If it is, totally understandable, but if not, is it still unethical to send them a copy of my paper for which I suggested them as referees? I'm guessing yes, but double checking.

Tangentially related issue: maybe these two people deserve an acknowledgment at the end of your paper, if the 'informal email exchanges' involved technical matters.

@FedericoPoloni Good point, not the exchange wasn't directly relevant to the papers, so the communications weren't either. I'd have no problem acknowledging them if they contributed somehow.

Even abstracting from any ethical considerations, I fail to see what the purpose of such an email would be. What exactly do you imagine that they are going to do with the information that you nominated them as a potential referee, other than shrug their shoulders and get on with their day?

Possible duplicate of: Before proposing reviewers, should I notify them?

You should note that the fact that you "nominated" two referees doesn't necessarily imply that they will be chosen by the editor to referee your paper. In fact, if the editor gets the idea that you have a cozy little conspiracy to give your paper favorable treatment, then they would be unlikely to be chosen. There are reasons for "blind" and "double blind" reviewing systems.
I doubt that it is unethical to either let them know or to send your paper, given that they may not be reviewers after all, but there is a bit of an "ick factor" in it, with people wondering about your motives. Bad motives changes the ethical calculation.
I'd suggest you keep it clean and not do either. I won't condemn it outright as you already have some professional relationship to them. But I'd also suggest examining your motives here. Trying to game the system does have ethical implications.
It might be that the people you recommended will want to either refuse or to inform the editor of any "out of band" communications. That might reflect badly on yourself.

okay thank you. I guess then I'll just be totally silent and not communicate with any of them. After all, I don't want to game the system.

@ScienceMan: totally silent about your paper…and even that really means don’t initiate.

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How does a remote academic position work for a position in China?
I just came across this remote position on LinkedIn, which is for an assistant/associate professor position at a certain university in China, see the screenshot below:

I'm based in Europe, and it's showing up on my LinkedIn job feed. I wonder if it's at all possible since it specifies that it's a remote position. Logistically speaking, I'm a bit pessimistic about how that'll work if say, the position holder is based say in Berlin and wants to perform their responsibilities in China - there'll be a time difference and all sorts of difficulties associated with being thousands of miles away. So how does this really work? Is there anyone here who's in a similar position/situation?
EDIT: I messaged the WhatsApp number provided with a no. registered in the UK, and they replied this:

Any comment on that?

Doesn't really answer the question, but I would interpret this more as "position will be in Quzhou University, with some remote teaching in Paris". I doubt they are looking for somebody who is present in neither of the two universities.

@xLeitix Thanks, well in this case one would expect the use of the word 'hybrid' than that of 'remote' twice.

@ScienceMan You are right. I guess I am as confused as you are about this ad.

A scheme to work in france, while officially employed by a chinese university for the sake of dodging taxes or some local laws?

@Wouter It does seem strange about the ad, to be honest - I did go ahead and sent my application, needed only my CV, so why not. As for the local laws in Europe, it'd be declared as a freelance income and would be taxed, if one respects the laws. Now I can't comment on the part of the Chinese university that posted this ad.

It is extremely likely that this is simply a recruiting approach, bordering on spamming (even if the postings are "legit"), that are employed by some agencies on LinkedIn. They post these positions in many areas (as you could see from the employer's profile page) but the actual position is not necessarily remote.

@xngtng Thank you - please see the edit in my OP.

Doesn't your edit answer the question already?

This whole thing feels very scammy to me.

@Buffy Sorry for my dumb question, I think I'm still not cleat about how this will all work for successful candidates not based in China. I'm sure  I missed something from that edit. I see that it's a headhunting agency that screens the applications to match with Chinese universities, but then I wonder, why will a good uni will actually need a headhunter, given that the faculty can do a much better screening? Secondly, I don't understand why the originally advertised position was for Quzhou university, whereas after applying, it seems like a more generic application?

It just feels they didn't give us the whole picture before applying. Also, in their email, they didn't explain how the whole payment and other administrative process would work remotely? I can try to email Quzhou university about this and ask if it's a scam? But then again, when I go to the website of the headhunter, it looks legit!

Maybe something like this? https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-china-threat/chinese-talent-plans

This is basically just spam, in LinkedIn you can search positions by geographical region, and they just insert their positions in China in other regions by pretending the positions are in other regions, but that is generally not true. Just look at the difference between position title and the actual position (associave vs all ranks).

@ScienceMan "why will a good uni will actually need a headhunter,". I am a native Chinese speaker, (I live in Taiwan, not mainland) I am not too sure Quchou university is a good university. According to this, The country rank is 426, the world rank is 7103.

While I can't know for sure, the US FBI has warned about something that sounds similar:
FBI > Counterintelligence > The China Threat
Some red flags include the up-front payment: they're going to give you a tempting bundle of cash right away, vague requirements (it doesn't seem like they have a specific position to fill, they just want people who fill a certain profile of knowing things), bizarre promises like a "talent title" which they insist is quite the honor, and easily faked duties like "provide leadership in".
I suspect the experience for different people with the program is different. They'll probably only hire you if they think you know something useful. Maybe for some it's a fairly legitimate gig: certainly people have defended the program as no different from any other hiring program. And, it's certainly sensible that a country like China that has access to money and is trying to improve their scientific position would use funding promises to attract talent there. But, similar programs have led to prosecutions in the US:
US Attorney's Office (2021) Harvard University Professor Convicted of Making False Statements and Tax Offenses. Press release of the US Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts, 21 December 2021
Former Cleveland Clinic researcher charged with fraud for failing to disclose China ties. Cleveland.com, 14 May 2020
Long, J. (2020) Former Ohio State research pleads guilty for lying to FBI about ties to Chinese government. The Lantern, 12 November 2020
Barry, E. and Kolata, G. (2020) China’s Lavish Funds Lured U.S. Scientists. What Did It Get in Return? The New York Times, 6 February 2020
Basically, these cases state that the researchers worked "remotely" for the Chinese government, which meant they sent information to China for payment. For example:

Under the terms of Lieber’s three-year Thousand Talents contract, WUT paid Lieber a salary of up to $50,000 per month, living expenses of up to $150,000 and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT. In 2018 and 2019, Lieber lied to federal authorities about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan and his affiliation with WUT.

The legal problems came up when the scientists failed to disclose these connections, running into tax laws and laws against lying to government agencies.
I suspect what happens is that, if you are "hired", they'll make sure you get some money right away, make sure you've committed some crime in your home country like failing to report the income on taxes or to another employer, and blackmail by threatening to disclose the relationship, unless you provide information. The standard intelligence playbook would be to first ask you to share relatively innocuous things, but ultimately they seem mostly after information that will let Chinese companies get a jump start on a technology, or have insider information to make business decisions.

Upfront payment is not uncommon, even for staff recruited within China.  I believe it is standard for universities in China, especially those who want to recruit good staff.

This is fascinating (+1) and extremely useful information.  I also received a variation of this same advertisement for remote university positions at Quzhou (in Australia) and I must admit that I also found the requirements and proposed position extremely confusing.  I agree that it's legitimate in principle for Chinese universities to offer remote positions to Western academics (and there could be many benefits of this) but it's great to also hear these warnings relating to red flags and legal breaches that have arisen from such arrangements.

@Ben Yeah, another variant is this one: https://cen.acs.org/research-integrity/Highly-cited-chemist-suspended-claiming-to-be-affiliated-with-Russian-and-Saudi-universities/101/i12 where a researcher is paid to add an affiliation. I don't know if that's part of these Chinese "Talent" programs, but it could be another way for a remote institution to get some "value" for their money, in a manner that is ethically a bit questionable

Fascinating stuff --- what a great answer.  I had heard of some prosecutions like this in the news, but was not aware of the systematic nature of the Talent programs.  Thanks for providing such a great answer.


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Mailing list or websites for remote teaching positions in universities
I'm currently a part time math lecturer in an engineering college in France, but I'm very much willing to teach undergraduate level math courses outside France. However, despite searching on usual platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn I didn't find any such position.
I'm ideally looking to teach a course online, while remaining in France. I'm sure such possibilities exist but they're often not well advertised. So could you please suggest me some such websites or mailing lists where such jobs are advertised? It could be country-specific, and that's okay!

@Buffy It appears OP wants to teach remotely in a position that allows them to remain physically in France.

PolytechnicPositions.com has a helpful mailing list of academic and faculty positions worldwide. But no idea whether you'll find a remote teaching opportunity. You may have to move and be prepared to teach in person to find an appointment.


text:
Is it ethical to edit grammar, spelling, and wording errors in survey questions after the survey has been administered, prior to publication?
Is it ethical to copyedit grammar, spelling, and wording errors in survey questions after the survey has been administered, prior to publication, if the changes do not change the meaning of the question or the answers?
I am an academic editor working with PhD students and faculty. I often find grammar, spelling, and wording errors in surveys during the final copyedit prior to submission of a dissertation or journal paper, and I wonder if I have any leeway for correcting those errors. Here I'm only talking about errors that don't impact respondents' understanding of a question or how they would answer them. An example: "In your opinion, how much is Kamala Harris qualified become president of United States?" That question has two grammar errors and one style error. Changing the question to "In your opinion, to what extent is Kamala Harris qualified to become president of the United States?" would not change participants' understanding of it.
This question is important due to the large number of nonnative English researchers and less-skilled PhD students.
It would be unusual for a PhD student or scholar to seek copyediting of survey questions prior to posting them online. The result is that papers being edited for publication often contain spelling, grammar, and wording errors in survey questions. Is it an ethical violation to correct those errors?
A thornier, related problem is when the responses to survey questions don't work grammatically with the question, or vice versa. Example: To what extent do you agree with each of the following statements? Answers: Yes, No, Uncertain. You could correct that by changing the question to "Do you agree . . . " This is a more difficult ethical question because it increasingly leaves the ethical decision to the editor, which could be risky.
Is this a black-and-white issue, meaning one should never change anything in survey questions after administration? Or is it OK to correct errors (a) that would embarrass the author and diminish an otherwise good study and (b) when the changes would make no difference in how respondents understood and answered the questions?

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

The question asks about a case where:

Changing the question ... would not change participants' understanding of it.

What is important is not just the understanding but specifically what the influence is on the data and whether changing the question would change the data. This is something that must be supported by empirical evidence for your specific case, and it's very difficult to show that something doesn't do anything to understanding, at best you would argue that the difference in wording does not change responses by more than some threshold amount, and it would require a large sample using the same question worded multiple ways.
Wording that is unclear or contains grammatical errors may create a higher burden on participants: it distracts them, and this can change their responses. It may also affect the likelihood of people completing the survey. So, if you are reporting results of a survey, you must report exactly what the survey was, errors and all, for an audience to get a fair look at it.
Some references on the effects of wording on survey responses:
Fowler Jr, F. J. (1992). How unclear terms affect survey data. Public Opinion Quarterly, 56(2), 218-231.
Ganassali, S. (2008, March). The influence of the design of web survey questionnaires on the quality of responses. In Survey research methods (Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 21-32).
Lenzner, T., Kaczmirek, L., & Lenzner, A. (2010). Cognitive burden of survey questions and response times: A psycholinguistic experiment. Applied cognitive psychology, 24(7), 1003-1020.
Lenzner, T. (2012). Effects of survey question comprehensibility on response quality. Field Methods, 24(4), 409-428.

I'm not involved at all with surveys and such, and never have been, and even I thought this was "survey methods 101" stuff. (I like @Buffy's ironic comment above, by the way!)

I've accepted this answer because it appears that everyone is in agreement that this really is a black and white question and the answer is simply NO, it is not ethical to make any changes whatsoever to survey questions, even to correct spelling. Thank you for weighing in on this.

I wonder: What do researchers do when the survey is conducted in a different language than the report of the results? Do they publish both the original questions (so we know what the respondents actually answered) and a translation (so the readers can understand)?

@Eggy: Are you familiar with the meta marking "[sic]"?

@Barmar Hopefully someone can give a more authoritative answer, but in some studies funded by the South Korean government with official translations, they do provide both.

@Barmar I would expect both in any paper I am reading.

Agree absolutely. For some respondents (like me) I'm going to give low-quality answers to low-quality questions, and that will affect the outcome.

@MichaelKay Yes, if I see a survey that doesn't capitalize "France" (to steal an example above), I'm probably exiting your survey.

The survey has many more readers than the paper in which the results are reported, so if you didn't bother to proofread the questions, why bother to fix them in the publication? It's clearly a black-and-white question, the survey should be published verbatim with all its mistakes and typos included.

It's dishonest to claim your survey questions were different than what they actually were.  It doesn't matter what those differences are; using one survey in your study and then presenting a different survey in your report is lying.

I'm surprised that people do view this as 100% black and white and are quick to cast judgment on the paper writer. Not all paper writers have mastery of the English language and resources available to them to correct all errors in their writing prior to submitting a paper for publication, e.g. researchers in India, Asia, etc. I hope to hear some more nuanced views from people who have experience with this issue.

That is because it is really not a nuanced question. The argument you make when doing empirical research is: "this is how I have looked around, and this is what I saw". Details matter, because that is how we can later compare results from different studies and understand differences. This is how progress is made in the empirical sciences.

@Eggy the non mastery off the English language is an issue here. The non master might think the change does not matter but a native speaker might spot a difference. Or the other way round non native speakers might read the original question in a different way to a native speaker. For an example see UK ONS Census question on gender https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/08/census-records-trans-population-in-england-and-wales-but-accuracy-is-doubted

@Eggy: This isn’t an issue of “casting judgement” on the writer for errors in their English — that would indeed be both scientifically unwarranted and somewhat inequitable, and is certainly a more nuanced question.  The black-and-white issue is about accurate reporting: whatever wording was used in the survey should be reproduced accurately in the report.

Shouldn't "different" be "the same"?

@Eggy: I mean, if someone is writing a survey in a language they don't master, they have to know they're taking on a more challenging task, and reach out to a resource that can help them avoid mistakes at this critical point. Compare to someone running lab equipment with signs and manual in an unfamiliar language.

@Barmar: The reader will think the survey questions are the same as what's presented in the report.  Actually they were different from what's in the report.  Turn that around: what's claimed in the report is different from what the questions actually were.  Different is the word that belongs in that sentence, and in the similarly structured one beginning David's answer.

@BenVoigt But they're saying what's DIShonest. It would be truthful to say that the questions are different from the actual survey. It's dishonest to claim that they're the same.

@Barmar The structure of the first sentence in the answer may be a little complicated, but it is essentially saying that it is dishonest to misrepresent the survey questions. It talks about the reported (claimed) survey questions and the actual administered questions. If those are different from each other, it is indeed dishonest because there is an implication that they are the same. Technically, you could write a truthful "here are some survey questions but they're different from the ones we administered" but that would be a useless way to describe the methodology.

@Anyon Now I see how to parse it.

@mmmmmm the UK census question on gender really was worded in a fundamentally different way, i.e. asking if someone is "trans" versus whether they identify as a gender other than that registered at birth. A person might reasonably (or unreasonably!) define "trans" as meaning something other than having a gender other than that registered at birth, or might consider "trans" to be a voluntary label that a person can accept or reject regardless of gender facts. No amount of grammatical corrections will transform one of those questions to the other, so the comparison doesn't seem fair.

@Eggy I find it absolutely appropriate to cast judgement on a paper writer who deliberately misrepresents the work they did by revising their methodology after the experiment is already done! This has nothing at all to do with the quality of the writing.

When writing up a paper, you should be reporting the methods as accurately as possible. If the survey was worded in a specific way, you should report that wording in the paper. Describing your methods inaccurately to avoid embarrassment is not really acceptable in my view. You can't prove that the changes made no difference to how the respondents understood and answered the questions.
Additionally, you say it would be unusual for a PhD student to seek edits on survey questions before posting them online - I strongly disagree! English is my first language and I would still go through at least one round of feedback on any questionnaire I developed before using it to collect data.

Its pretty much like asking if its OK to change data points after the experiment is over...

@Dee. Again, I want to distinguish between feedback on the content and organization of a survey and final copyediting of a paper as the last step before submitting it to a journal.

@Eggy What people are trying to say is, why are these errors noticed in the final steps of the writing process and not before the survey is administered? If the feedback process before the survey doesn't catch them, that feedback process isn't good enough. However you seem to already have a feedback mechanism in place that can catch such errors, so it seems weird that you only want to apply it too late.

So view the comments you have been getting from this point of view: the answer to your literal question is a clear, straightforward, resounding "no", but people are worried how such a question could come up in the first place.

@Noiralef. As an editor, I am the last person in the process. I have to deal with the realities and imperfections of the process. In the US, the quality of PhD programs varies from lower-skilled faculty and students at online universities to higher-skilled people at top-tier universities. Graduate students report lack of detailed supervision. Professors report lack of time for detailed supervision. I see problems in the planning and wording of research questions constantly in my work across the spectrum from lower- to top-tier institutions, in the papers of both students and faculty.

@Eggy: As an editor, it is your duty to ensure that any problems which may have affected the results are accurately and completely disclosed to the reader. To do otherwise would be to mislead the reader about the quality of the research. If this makes your students or professors look bad, then all you can do is advise them to consult you (or someone else) before the survey has been given, so that you can correct the problems before they affect the results.

@Kevin "As an editor, it is your duty to ensure that any problems which may have affected the results are accurately and completely disclosed to the reader. " Really no, that's neither my duty nor my area of authority. I do point these problems out to authors, but they're free to accept or reject my feedback. I'm not a journal editor. I'm a freelance academic editor.

@Eggy: I don't know the precise division of labor between you and the authors, but at the very least, it is your duty to avoid hiding such problems from the reader in your own editing. If the authors choose to mislead the reader, that may not be your responsibility, but when you actively help them do it, you commit misconduct.

As a short addition to Bryan Krause's answer, even if you're assuming that the formatting of your survey questions did not affect the understanding of the questions, not only it can distract respondents and increase non-response, but also prompt them not to take the survey seriously and to give poor-quality answers. So the quality of the answers resulting from the badly formatted questions should be questioned, and you should definitely report the survey questions as they were asked.
As your question is whether it would be a violation of ethics not to report the problem, besides the other answers in this thread, you can certainly refer to ethical guidelines relevant to your discipline if you need references. It might be useful if the journal where you intend to publish insists that you don't disclose the original version of the survey (but in this case, I'd be wary of publishing a paper in such a journal in the first place). For instance, the American Sociological Association's Code of Ethics say:

Sociologists take particular care to state all relevant qualifications
on the findings and interpretation of their research. Sociologists
also disclose underlying assumptions, theories, methods, measures, and
research designs that might bear upon findings and interpretations of
their work.

The American Statistical Association's ethical guidelines state:

[...]
The ethical statistical practitioner seeks to understand and mitigate
known or suspected limitations, defects, or biases in the data or
methods and communicates potential impacts on the interpretation,
conclusions, recommendations, decisions, or other results of
statistical practices.
The ethical statistical practitioner:

Communicates data sources and fitness for use, including data generation and collection processes and known biases. [...]

To generalize the issue at hand, methodological details should be reported as accurately as possible in all circumstances. Publishing an edited survey would be no different from making a different type of experimental mistake like using the wrong reagent or setting the wrong algorithmic parameter and deliberately mis-reporting the design to match what you meant to do. Without evidence, you shouldn't conclude that the difference doesn't matter anyway and take the decision away from the reader.
What you could do is publish the intended design alongside the actually implemented one, and make some argument that the difference was minimal, or hypothesize about the differences. If the experimental flaw was significant enough that it may have affected the outcome in a major way (for example if the survey question is later determined to be easily misinterpreted), this should be directly addressed as a limitation of the design. Publishing a corrected version of the design might not be particularly useful for survey questions, but it might be helpful in other fields where the experimental design might be replicated more closely.

I should have greatly simplified my question by asking, "Is it okay to change 'france' to 'France' in a survey question when editing a paper for publication? I'd be interested in opinions on that.

@Eggy I dont think it is ok to change france to France.

Thank you, lalala.I do want to hear people's opinion on france/.France, but it would also be good to have an authoritative source on this.

@Eggy This can be incorrect to assume that respondents have the same attitude as you relative to spelling mistakes. Taking your specific example, there are people who are sticklers for spelling, or nationalists/regionalists who would interpret it as indifference or contempt toward their home place, influencing in turn their attitude toward the survey. Even if you could measure the effect of the formatting issues rather than guessing from your personal experience (i.e. by testing adequately two versions of the survey) and find the effect is trivial, you should still report the two versions.

For example, French people might feel insulted by the use of lowercase “french” and some will change their answer to what they feel annoys you most. In other words, some answer will have a lower percentage than the  same question with “French”. If I know the original question, I can take this effect into account. If you change the question you report then I will misinterpret the results.

Don't change it.  There is no legitimate reason to say you used method X when you actually used method Y, even if X and Y are very close and unlikely to have any difference. It's hard to argue that there is so little difference that X and Y are equivalent, yet different enough that you don't want to simply state you did Y.


text:
Should number of years of adjunct teaching experience be mentioned in a cover letter for a tenure-track position?
Job candidate has seven years of adjunct teaching experience, no full-time experience. Proposed statement in a cover letter for a tenure-track position requiring teaching experience: "I have seven years of experience teaching XXX to undergraduate and graduate students." Notice that the word "adjunct" doesn't appear in the sentence.
The issue here is wanting to conceal the fact that the candidate has been been searching unsuccessfully for a tenure-track position for seven years, which is a common challenge for most new PhDs in today's job market. The question of research vs teaching isn't at issue here, only how to phrase one's adjunct teaching experience where teaching experience is required.
Which of the following is true, and what evidence is there to support your choice?
(1) Adjuncts should state the number of years of their teaching experience because a significant number of years makes them more competitive. Someone who has taught for seven years is far more valuable to the university than a recent PhD graduate with little teaching experience. The former has a better understanding of pedagogy; a portfolio of teaching activities; skills in classroom management, online and in-person teaching, grading, conflict resolution, mentoring, etc.; and broad cross-disciplinary teaching experience. These experiences are of the same quality as those gained from tenure-track teaching.
(2) Adjuncts should not state the number of years of their teaching experience in the cover letter because adjunct teaching is not highly valued and drawing attention to it and to the number of years spent as an adjunct without finding a tenure-track position will make the candidate less competitive. The candidate should only state, "I have taught XXX to undergraduate and graduate students" without stating the number of years.

Does anyone actually read cover letters? My guess is no. This should go on your CV.

I don't see a possible way to "hide" how long one has been an adjunct. Surely that time is going to appear on the CV in some fashion; tenure-track hiring committees aren't going to stop at the cover letter.
I think it's best to be honest, but no need to be verbose or apologetic.
The emphasis on teaching versus research is very much going to depend on institution. At an R1 university in the US, faculty may be hired to teach a bit (maybe 20%-30% time to start, though field-dependent) but the primary hiring criteria for tenure-track is going to be research output and potential. If they were only trying to fill a teaching spot they'd be hiring an adjunct instead. It probably matters less how long you've been on the job market as an adjunct and more how you've been able to keep up research over that time. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to keep up a good research program on that schedule, and I think that's going to be a bigger contributor to difficulty finding a position than an implied "oh this person has been looking for a job too long, they must not be good".
At a primarily undergraduate institution where research is mostly a side-project for faculty and teaching responsibilities are primary (more like 80% teaching), then I think there would be a lot more emphasis placed on teaching experience, especially at a small institution where they are hiring you to be the instructor in some area and they're counting on you to stand on your own.

As an aside, I think most people are fully aware of the difficulty of landing a TT position in the current environment. There is no shame in working to keep connected to academia in bad times.

I don't think this is really an answer, but only some observations that might help.
First, some adjuncts are highly valued and do it for the love of teaching, not because they need the money and are otherwise career blocked. Some of the best ones I know are highly valued industrial researchers who just want a connection to the university. The money is chump change for some of them, I think. If they wanted a full time faculty position, they would be welcome.
Second, times are hard and the pandemic ain't helping. It was already bad before 2020. People understand that. We go through cycles in this. I finished my degree in very bad times. I was lucky to stay in academia at all, but the position I first took was far below my expectations and the expectations of my professors and peers. But, I gave myself no options and was able to build a career. But it would have been impossible if I'd had to put together a bunch of adjunct gigs to support myself. People generally know how bad it has been and how few opportunities there are compared to the number of graduates.
Third, if you have been doing other things such as industrial research along with adjunct teaching, don't neglect that as a positive aspect of any application.
Fourth, see if you can't exploit some of the contacts you already have at the places you've been teaching. Make it known that you'd like a permanent position.
Fifth, there are a number of very highly respected universities (CMU, Duke, Stanford, ...) that offer a position (this is in CS) called, perhaps, "Professor of the Practice". They are non-tenured, but full time and with long term contracts. They don't require the same research that tenured faculty are expected to do, but respect it when done. Many don't require a doctorate, but most of the folks I know have one.
Last, stress your dedication to teaching (and academia generally). Whether you say "seven years" or "several years", don't lose track of the fact that you can do a quality job.

I'm hoping that repliers will select option 1 or option 2, as that's my only question here.

If you think it has no value you can vote it or flag it as a non-answer.

People's explanations do have value, including yours about "no shame in working to keep connected to academia in bad times," thank you.


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Should my supervisor acknowledge me in his recent paper?
In my chemistry undergraduate I did a project with my supervisor, I worked on it for around 8 months. Around a year later they published a paper on this same topic, after my project was handed in they asked for more details about certain elements that weren't clear in my final draft and I helped the best I could.
To be clear, none of my data was published in the paper and the research that was published was leaps and bounds more advanced anything I did. But I feel so they perhaps used my research to rule out certain things that didn't work or need repeating. Do you think my name should be mentioned anywhere in the paper as just an acknowledgement?

Related: Asking for an acknowledgement

What deserves acknowledgment and what does not is vague. It completely depends on the author(s). In my view, what you did definitely deserves at least acknowledgment. Maybe they decided that because they did not use your data, then there is no reason to mention you. Maybe they did not really care about you and what you think, given that this was some time ago.

Yes, and maybe just a stupid oversight.

Yes, I do think that you likely deserve to be acknowledged. But that won't help you if you weren't. I think it would be a mistake to raise the issue with the professor since the past is past and it might compromise your relationship going forward.
But, take pride in the work you did and know that others would have done differently, provided that they thought of it. It may have been an inadvertent oversight, of course. I would think that it would be a forehead-slapping-moment if the prof was reminded that s/he should have provided an acknowledgement.
However, for future work, mention early on that you would like to be acknowledged in any work you contribute to as it will help you in the long run if you decide to pursue graduate work or an academic career.
Note that I'm assuming that the paper has been published already and is not just in the final stages. In case it is not completely finalized, you could ask the prof if s/he thinks you could get an ack for the same reasons mentioned above.

Thanks for the comment and I'll take it all on board. I just know that I want to do a PhD and it could be an important part of my application and not really for bragging rights!

Make sure the prof understands your goals as well as your need for any support s/he can give.

For the PhD, what the prof says in a letter of recommendation will be much more important that the formal paper acknowledgement

@Dawn, yes, agreed. But being mentioned in a paper is a life-long indicator.

Probably you should have been.  Of course we don't have the details, but your account rings true.
Realistically, an acknowledgment is not worth fighting for (too small beans).  A co-authorship starts to matter.  Of course it is something to keep in mind in any future collaborations with this research group.  Just make sure you are upfront and follow instructions below, when dealing with these people in the future (since you know you had a slight previously).
One lesson to take forward is to try to be on top of these issues upfront and ahead of time.  Have seen a lot of questions here (and situations in real life) where contributors got snubbed, etc.  It may be a little abrupt but I think it is better to be upfront ahead of time:

Try to be the first author.  The one driving the bus, primary part of any collaboration.  It is a lot easier to shape things when this is the situation.  And then you can show how you are fastidious about taking care of contributors as co-authors, acknowledgments, citations to previous work (to include dissertations, unpublished manuscripts, etc.)
Write things up (to include projects you have to put on the shelf, that aren't perfect, etc.).  It can be very frustrating to have something part way done and then others invariably move things forward.  Rarely is it the case that interim publications get you scooped--you have a time and effort advantage over the rest of the field.  Also it is more efficient for science.  If you end up getting a job at Goldman or the like, people can build on your work, likely produced at taxpayer expense.
When working with collaborators, ask "Are we going to get a publication out of this?"  "Will I be a co-author?"  "Depends on how it comes out" is an incorrect answer.  You want to work with people who have a plan.  This is particularly important if you will be the secondary author.  You have limited time and effort...you need to decide who you work with and that your time is not wasted.  The same applies in reverse if you are co-author...you should take care of contributors and make sure they know you will do so.


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CV - How to put article type projects on CV
I will going to apply for masters (in physics) and I am trying to write a CV. I have wrote two "article type" papers during these years with my advisors. I am wondering how can I put them under my CV ?

Just make a separate category for "Articles Published" and include full references. If they weren't refereed then this would probably be better than mixing them with publications that were. If it isn't obvious from the names or venues that they are not refereed, then you should probably add that to the classification. "Unrefereed Articles Published".
Normally the CV is a categorized list of things, possibly with some explanations. The categories are normally up to you.


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Is getting certificate at PCEP important?
I am a physics student and I almost finished my third year (I am in sixth semesters ). So I am trying to learn python. I still did not try to learn classes but other than that I know the other stuff in general. I am solving problems at CodeAbbey (currently 80) and at Project Euler (currently 83 problems in there). I am also reading "Learning Python" to improve my skills and learn more about the syntax classes etc.
Next semester I'll apply some places to do an internship. Also, I want to work as an astrophysicist in the future. And as we all know coding is an important skill in the area. Also I' ll go abroad for graduate school. (At least I 'll try)
In this case, is it important to get a PCEP Certificate to show my skills?
Or is it enough if I open a GitHub page and upload my projects/codes?

This is really a matter of opinion, but coding certificates are not widely respected. The problem is that they are generally multiple choice questions and easily crammed for. That is, you can study for a couple of weeks and pass the exams without writing very much code at all. Frankly I've been a Python programmer for well over a decade now and I'd never heard of PCEP. I would much rather see a GitHub repository or contributions to open source projects.
Save your money and spend your time writing more code.


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Gamification in Asian Classrooms
I've been thinking about how to improve attendance in my classes as well as how to get my students do the expected work outside of class. I've tried a lot of sticks but the weak students care very little and I end up failing what seems like too many of them.
Lately, my mind has turned to gamification (that is, using elements of the gaming world such as badges, points, and similar things used even here on SE sites) to encourage student engagement.
While reading in English, a lot of what I found is about students in western countries. There has been plenty of research showing that there are significant differences introduced by culture, and to paraphrase Blaise Pascal, what is true in one country is false in another.
Since I teach in Asia, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any studies (or has any experience) using gamification in Asia to improve students' performance.

Many of your questions here are similar to the problems undergrad professors in Taiwan are facing. There have been some discussions and reports about undergrad education in Taiwan recently. Unfortunately, those reports are in Chinese. After I use Google translation tool, they become very much unreadable. I don't want to use the reports without proper citation. I am hoping they will have English version in a while.(They usually do).

@scaaahu There's nothing wrong with list a few key points from the report(s). Indeed, I have my students write in English using source material from their native language all the time. While I would never ask you to translate a paper, a few points could help (me) a lot.

I'll see what I can do. I need time to organize them and find proper English translations.

Which country are you talking about? Even in Asia, situation might be different in different countries..

@user13107 I'm interested in any Asian country. Do you have any work referencing any Asian country?

@earthling no, but we did have a prof who promoted it. He used to give a simulation assignment and first 10 people who submitted correct code/results would get mentioned in the class.

I am not aware of any study on using gamification in Asia to improve student performance. The following is based on my observation of college education in Taiwan in Asia.
Gamification can certainly be used as a tool to assist you with encouraging the student engagements. I don't know how effective it will be and how long its effects can last.
Everyone knows that students' motivation is the key reason for students to learn. Gamification will make the game awards to be one of the motivations. You make them learn for the game points they earn. I am not too sure this is a good thing in your environment. There is one difference between Western world and Oriental culture. Gaming is generally considered a not serious good thing. Some students/parents/school officials would resist it. You could get back fire when you use it. You need to be careful. I would use it as the last resort when everything else fails if I were you.
Many Taiwan students attend college because their parents want them to. They are in your classroom not by their own will. They lack motivation to participate in your class. All they want is to graduate to make their parents happy. And then they can do the things they truly want to do.
For those students, I seriously doubt gamification would do any good. I don't believe their parents will be much happier when they see that their kids earn some game points in the classroom. What they truly want to see are degree diploma and good transcripts.
Now, my suggestion as how to encourage the students to learn.

Talk to them to find out what they truly want to do after graduation. Convince them what they learn in your class will be helpful to their future.

For example, many college students in Taiwan want to run coffee shops after they graduate. (Please don’t laugh, this is for real. I don’t understand why either.) As a business professor, you can tell them they need to learn business management so they can run coffee shops successfully.
I have reasons to believe whatever happen in Taiwan may have happened in other places in Asia because the cultures are similar. The problem you are seeing in your area may be different. I believe my suggestion would still be helpful, that is, talk to them to find out what’s the best interest for them. Once you find the root cause, the solution will be right there.

"Gamification will make the game awards to be one of the motivations" No!! Gamification is about going way beyond "points".

Your answer is very helpful but I find talking to them doesn't actually help that much. That is, the strong students know what they want but I don't need to motivate them (they are self-motivated). The weak ones have no idea what they want (out of life, out of school, etc.). These are the ones I need to motivate but I'm not sure I can do this without becoming their best friend and helping them do some soul-searching (and I do not think it appropriate for teachers to be friends with students).

@earthling In the culture I was raised from, teachers are the most respectable people. You don't need to be their best friends for them to listen to you. However, you need to show them you care about them. They would be afraid you'll tell their parents/school about what they tell you, etc. You need to let them trust you first. It's hard to do. Some of them will never tell anything. Some will do. Gamification can be a tool for you to get acquainted with them so that they would recognize you as one of them. You could get back fire from other people, though.

@earthling I searched the literature in Chinese about your question. Gamification is a relatively new idea in my environment. There are some articles about using games to teach English in college. I could not find anything directly applicable to your question. I will keep an eye on it. Will update the answer as soon as I have more info.

While not exactly an answer to your question ...
I should start by saying I am not an expert in the field of education or learning sciences, but it appears your gamificiation strategy is based upon extrinsic motivators. In my opinion, Malone and Lepper (1987) make a pretty clear case that intrinsic motivators are the way to go. Therefore, asking a question about how to optimize extrinsic motivators seems like a premature optimization problem. The framework that Malone and Lepper (1987) set out with individual motivators (challenge, curiosity, control and fantasy) and interpersonal motivators (competition, cooperation, and recognition) seems like it should be universal, although how to achieve those motivators, and the relative strengths of them, will likely vary with culture.

Thank you for this pointer. I've not read it before but I just read it after your recommendation. Very helpful.

I don't have any citations or literature for you and I can only base this off personal experience. So, consider this answer as a single data point and completely anecdotal. I went to one of the top Indian schools for statistics as a masters student. Usually, it was all about doing math in each one of our courses.
However, in one of courses, we had a really cool professor who had just returned after spending about 10 years teaching in various other universities internationally. He didn't use any techniques like badges etc. However, we had a online running tally of points based on certain things in class - homework, data analysis, coding etc. - based on the understanding that he would take the top students out for lunch as a reward for doing well all semester.
Anecdotally, it was a lot of fun. :)

I should point out the possibility that other students in your class may not have liked this idea of points tally. Usually students who are most competitive like such schemes.

I qualified my answer with "anecdotally." Meanwhile, the very idea of gamification is that it hits the crowd unequally. For instance: http://www.maritzmotivation.com/~/media/Files/MaritzDotCom/White%20Papers/Motivation/The-Power-of-Play_How-Gamification-Will-Drive-the-Evolution-of-Channel-Loyalty.pdf

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Does putting poor performing students on academic probation improve student performance?
As we enter a new school year, I'm wondering if the is any evidence to support or contradict the idea that putting a poor-performing students on academic probation improves their performance. Does anyone know of any such evidence?
I can imagine that schools are naturally concerned about eliminating students whose tuition keeps the doors open and my school does not have any formal rules on academic probation. I'm thinking of proposing some, but only if there is evidence that it will actually improve performance. If it demotivates students (for example creating a stigma which is a very serious issue here in Asia) and bounces students who might otherwise just pass then it does not seem so appealing.

I can imagine that the answer might be very culture-specific, so it might be worth mentioning which country you're asking about: Asia has very different cultures within it.

@EnergyNumbers Confucian Asia in particular but I'm eager to hear any information about this for any part of Asia or any part of the world.

Do note that academic probation servers at least two purposes; to entice the student to perform better, as you suggest, but also to ensure that the program attracts and maintains only high-performing students.

@eykanal So weaker students are simply not welcomed? Do we normally only see academic probation at the top universities?

Assuming you're referring to academic probation due to poor grades, that's definitely part of the message. I imagine that any department with a minimum GPA requirement for their masters and PhD students—which is likely the vast majority of departments—will use academic probation when necessary.

Yes, that's correct.  Weaker students are simply not welcome.

@JeffE: It might be worth explaining why: weaker students can slow down the class, and drain faculty of their available time.

Not an answer to the question, but universities abuse students who are not prepared for college by not dismissing them quickly enough.  A student who reaches the stage of academic probation should be given as much help to succeed as the university can provide, but a second failing term should mean dismissal, not "double-secret probation."  (I know of a university that abuses students that way.)

I'm wondering if the is any evidence to support or contradict the idea
  that putting a poor-performing students on academic probation improves
  their performance

Whose idea is this? I quick look at what US universities think academic probation means does not suggest that its purpose is to improve performance.
At University of Tennessee Knoxville

Probation serves as a serious warning that your academic performance
  needs improvement, alerting you that you are in jeopardy of Academic
  Dismissal.

At Harvard Academic Probation is defined as

a serious warning to a student whose academic performance for the term
  is unsatisfactory. Academic probation is a formal action of the
  Administrative Board and becomes part of the student’s official
  record.

It seems that in general "academic probation" is an administrative state between "good standing" and "academic dismissal". The purpose is to warn the student if they do not improve that they will be dismissed.
A potentially relevant question might be are things like the Success Plan of University of Tennessee Knoxville successful. This, however, is a really broad question. Each University is going to have a different "success plan" and implement it differently. You might also wish to consider how to build and implement a successful success plan.

The idea is that it is a serious warning which should wake up students...And is not just an administrative step, since if the students take the warning seriously, they are not dismissed.

I'm a little confused. You say there is no evidence that the goal is to improve performance then you get two pieces of evidence that show students enter probation because of poor performance (implying they get out by improving their performance). Am I misreading this (note: I've not slept much recently so it is possible).

@earthling the interpretation I think is that probation is an administrative step that happens before dismissal can. So in this view it is nothing more than giving fair warning to the student that they are not performing well. This is independent of whether the department is interested in keeping that student or not. Things like probation are part of the bureaucratic tradition in the US at all levels.

@earthling my read of the guidance is that the goal is not to help students get out of probation by improving performance, but rather as a step towards dismissal. If they see it as a wake up call and improve performance, great, if not, then they are dismissed.

I think this is your personal reading @DanielE.Shub. I've always been under the impression that academic probation is a warning to encourage you to do better, not a notification that we're working on kicking you out. (Use of the royal 'we' to mean the university)

I saw it more as "a notification that we're working on kicking you out". In my first term of college, I failed a calculus 1 class (passed 3 others, but that F pulled my gpa down to a 1.6). and was therefore placed on academic probation. My advisor then forced me to register in the second semester into 2 classes for which my failed calculus 1 class was a prereq (calculus 2 and physics), virtually ensuring that I would fail. I signed an agreement to enroll in the class, added the class, dropped it 15 minutes, and then enrolled in several easy classes in order to boost my gpa. I actually got over a 3.0 my second semester because the classes were so much easier, but I no doubt would have received F's in both the calc 2 class and the physics class had I taken them. After my second semester, I transferred out in good standing, went to the local community college for a year, and transferred to another university. Had I followed my advisor's advice, I almost certainly would have experienced academic dismissal. My take is that they were trying to get people to flunk out.

Hooray for passive-aggressive advisors.  If they wanted to kick you out, they should have just kicked you out; otherwise, it's their damn job to help you succeed.  Kudos for ignoring them.

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Is it common to ask students to help the teacher in the teacher's normal duties?
It seems quite common for other teachers at my university (in Asia) to have students help with what are the normal duties of a teacher. Examples range from asking a student to help carry one of many stacks of books (because the teacher cannot carry all of them) to asking students to carry very small things (which the teacher could easily carry but the teacher would prefer not to carry anything at all and let the student do it) to having students complete marking sheets for graded assignments (where the teacher has already decided what the marks should be but prefers to have a student do the typing and printing).
It's very strange for me because I've never seen it in my own culture (which doesn't mean it doesn't happen), but I'm not Asian so perhaps I'm just not yet adjusted to the local culture.
Do most universities allow a teacher to put some of the teacher's regular duties on the shoulders of some students?
Note: This has nothing to do with teaching assistants, I'm just talking about regular students who appear willing to help (either to learn/understand more, to get in good graces with the teacher, or perhaps for other reasons I cannot see at this time).
[EDIT] I've modified the questions slightly away from ethics towards being common due to concerns from other users feeling it was too much of a discussion / opinion question.

Confucius once said (in a rough translation) "It's student's job to serve the teacher when the teacher needs help." (the source in Chinese)
I think in most places, where Confucius's principle is still being followed, helping the teacher in his normal duties is considered normal.
However, help marking the sheets is not normal as far as I understand. At least, Confucius never graded his students. He did have comments about his students, though.

It is highly unusual for students to be asked to take part in teaching duties such as the ones you have ascribed. It would be unusual to ask someone to help with "mundane" or "brute force" tasks—although you could see asking anyone to help out in such circumstances, so I wouldn't think much of being asked to move books or other materials, if the individuals just happened to be standing there at the time.
As for grading and more "official" tasks, I think it would be highly inappropriate to ask a student to prepare the list of grades, or to assist in grading, if the student is actively enrolled in the course. That is because you are then placing those students in a position of authority over their fellow students, and potentially creating a conflict of interest. Note that this does not preclude the use of "graders," as they are not also enrolled in the class at the time.

I disagree with the last paragraph; peer grading is quite common and (in my opinion) perfectly appropriate if done carefully. For example, a graduate student at Berkeley, I took several classes where all homework was graded by the students. Every student was expected to grade at least one problem (all submissions) during the semester, and all students were given about the same number of problems to grade. Students could (but rarely did) appeal grades to the instructor. No student had power over any other, because everyone was grading everyone else.

I can only provide anecdotal value from the 3 european universities I attended up to this date and from what I heard from others.
It is not common at all to do this here.
It would however not be a problem to ask for help occasionally either. If a professor did this regularly, especially if it would affect the grading process, problems would arise very soon as students would not be fine with this and intervene by talking to other professors or the director etc etc.
I believe this can only work in cases where the students massively respect or depend on the professor, right? Because if a professor was known to ask students to help them outside of the classroom, most students would probably have better things to do and find an excuse when asked.

Have you heard of any school policies against the teacher doing so?

Nope, but the tasks you described are often given to teaching assistants which are employed by the university. This implies to me, that the universities don't want the students to do unpaid tasks like that.

You're conflating different kinds of assistance under the title of "students helping their teacher". Let's consider the examples:

Carrying a stack of books to be distributed among students: This is merely an extension of each student helping her/himself to a book, just in a more organized way. It's also a one-time activity. It's an activity the teacher is almost certainly not getting paid to do (as opposed to actually teaching, writing exams, grading etc). It's not pedgogical in any way and there's no benefit in a trained/educated teacher doing it. It can be construed as a courtesy among any two people - helping someone carry a heavy physical load; and that's especially true if the teacher is older and not as strong physically and the student is not scrawny and weak :-)
Carrying the teacher's stack of books to his room: That is a sort of a personal service rendered to the teacher; it can be construed as a display of loyalty and even fondness, and certainly a recognition of status differences. It is something the teacher is borderline being paid to do (it depends on how you look at it I guess). It something that moves the student a bit into the 'personal space' of the teacher - you get to look at what s/he is reading right now, walk the hallways with him/her and no other people closeby, perhaps glance into his/her office, perhaps even have a chat with her/him. It's a often-repeatable activity.
Typing up grades is something the teacher is definitely getting paid for; or rather, either him or the teaching asistants. It's, well, assistance in teaching. It's repeatable - many sheets, many homework assignments or exams. It's a task of responsibility and confidence, as you get to see personal information about other students.

The proprierty and the prevalence of each of these types of activities is a completely different question, I would say.
From my experience, and by the order above: Requested when relevant (but not often); Extremely rarely or never requested; Never requested, and if it is that the students can sue and win easily.


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Borderline on appropriateness from teacher
Being a western (white) teacher at an Asian university I constantly have to worry about being the subject of gossip and rumors between students (and others). So, I do need to be more careful about my actions with students and how my intentions are viewed by others.
What if I see a student has a strange blink pattern? Should I consider that (potential need for glasses) integral to the learning process and pull that student aside to tell them or is it generally considered that teachers in my situation should only consider issues directly related to the subject matter?

Has the student's performance in class suffered?

@scaaahu I think your answer had some good points in it and indeed include my exact concerns.

@debray The semester has just begun but it is clear this student is quite weak and I'm concerned the symptom I've seen might be related.

First of all, I am answering this question from my own point of view. My opinion may not represent the majority of Asians (although I am an Asian myself).
I think one of the reasons your school invited you to teach there is for internationalization and diversification besides your excellent academic credentials. They would like to have not only your expert knowledge but also the views you can bring to them.
@UV-D gave an excellent answer. The strange blinking pattern could be a medical issue, so you need to take it to somebody else’s attention. I think he is right.  However, as you noticed, you need to take care of the issue carefully.
Fairness and consistency would be the keys.  Suppose you are a male professor and the student happens to be a female, there is a possibility this could become a gossip, something like “Our teacher likes that girl”. The gossip would spread until the next time you do the same or similar thing to a male student. Everybody would then say “Ah, he is just a very nice teacher, take care of everybody”.
I think people (not only Asians) would like to be treated fairly. Consistent actions between multiple events will make people think you are being fair. So, my point is, you’ll be fine as long as you keep your actions fair and consistent and do whatever you think is right.
An important note. Be extremely careful when dealing with the students outside the classroom. I noticed in your question, pull that student aside. This could potentially become a harassment case.  Talk to an authority may be a better way to handle it. A western white lecturer in an Asian university is always the focus of the students and the faculty.


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What is the proper way to cite an image source, if they were given to me by a company?
I am writing my thesis and use images that were created by a company. These images are not available online, they were handed to me.
How would I properly give them credit for their images? If it is relevant, I have to use IEEE citation style.

The answer to "How do I cite X?" is always "Clearly and honestly." in this case, I'd suggest something like "Images provided by Yoyodyne, Inc. (personal communication)."

@JeffE and where would you put that information, in the description of every image or in the information sources?

(shrug) Either in an explict acknowledgement at the end of the paper, in the bibliograhpy as a normal citation, or in each caption. Whatever works.

The most important function of a citation is to inform readers where they can find the information you are citing.  If the information you are using was provided for your privately, then your source is “personal communication”, meaning that the information cannot be found in any published literature, but only through personal contacts.
In this case, I would do the following:  In figure captions and/or the body text discussing the figures, make an explicit statement that you received the images from the company involved.  One statement may be sufficient (something of the form: “Figures 3–6 were provided by Prescott Pharmaceuticals,” when you are discussing figure 3).  For each figure, also provide a citation in the caption to “Prescott Pharmaceuticals, private communication” (or however private communications are formatted with the citation system you are using).


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Return midterm exam paper or not
I wonder how common for professors to return scored midterm papers to students when the final is not accumulative? I want to reuse some of the questions next year and also is not willing to spend about 10 minutes class time just for returning the papers (90 students).

I've had profs who wouldn't return midterm exams ever - but they were happy to go over them with interested students during office hours.  I'm not sure if it's common - I just know that it's definitely done.

you might see the same mistakes in the final that you saw in the midterm, since students wont know their mistakes.

@tonysdg  What if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please see this question

@luisluix Exactly! Or  the department as a whole could see the same mistakes in a future course? What if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please see this question

In mathematics in the US, as far as I know, I have never known any professor to ever not return midterms. I always do, and everyone else I know does as well.
Seeing their graded midterm gives useful information. It lets students know what they have gotten wrong and what they have gotten right; it also lets them know what answers they thought were "right" but in fact are incomplete or inadequately explained.
I personally believe the downsides are miniscule in comparison to the benefits for the students.

Anonymous, what if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please help me with this question I just posted.

What do you think of Ishan Mata's answer here please? https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/162373

I personally think your students would find it very odd were they not to receive their papers' back. I can imagine a couple of scenarios in which not returning them might cause problems.
Not returning the papers would mean that your students would be unable to see what they got right or wrong. This could be a practical issue for you if some students wish to challenge their grades. If you haven't given them their papers back, then they could argue that your pulling numbers from thin air. Furthermore, even if they aren't going to be tested on the material later, some students may wish to see what they got wrong so that they properly learn the material.
To specifically answer your question, I think that it's incredibly uncommon. I've never encountered such a thing. One thing you might consider re: managing time is to leave the papers in an envelope outside your door, give them to the department admin to be picked up by the students (if the admin is willing to do so), or put them by the door at the end of class.

leave the papers in an envelope outside your door - I realize people do this anyways, but in the US it's a FERPA violation.

Galen Harrison, what if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please help me with this question I just posted.

This depends a lot on local practice and rules. In the university (in Spain) where I work, the rules require the professor to keep exams (this includes midterms and similar exams) for at least a year after final grades are assigned. On the other hand, a student has a right to see an exam and to examine how it was scored, but it is not consistent with the rules to give the exam to the student to keep it. A common thing is to return the graded exams and then collect them again. Another is to designate a time and place for students to examine their papers. When I was a student in the US, the practice was similar, at least with respect to final exams. One reason for such a requirement is that, in the event of disagreements about grades (and for other reasons, such as inspection by an acreditation agency), it guarantees the availability of the exams on which the grades are based for examination by a third party.

Dan Fox, what if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please help me with this question I just posted. In this question, I quoted and mentioned you and your answer :)

I would suggest you discuss your idea with your department chair before taking any action.
That being said, I don't necessarily see any problem with keeping the midterms in your possession. In my experience, final exams are never returned to students. If you are not going to test them on the material again, I don't see how a midterm would be different. You should, of course, give students an opportunity to go over their exam with you if they choose.
I am a bit more critical of your plan to recycle questions from year-to-year. It's not that I think you can't ever recycle questions, but it seems to be better policy to have a variety of questions which assess the same skill. This way, you are only reusing questions every few years.

David Hill, I notice you said 'of course' in ' You should, of course, give students an opportunity to go over their exam with you if they choose.'. What if the professors aren't allowed to go over midterm or final exams with students during office hours by some university policy? Please help me with this question I just posted.


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Should I mark every glossary term, or only the first one?
There are some terms in my Bachelor's thesis which I would rather add to a glossary list. Say that the term appears on page 23, 25 and 31. Should I only mark the first occurrence, or should I mark them all?

A pattern that I have repeatedly seen and that seems reasonable is:

mark all occurrences (maybe excluding mere mentions of something that is not discussed or applicable at that location)
bold the page number of the "main" occurrence (e.g. definition, detailed description, etc., not necessarily the first one)

I have looked at many thesises but most of them randomly marked some terms and some terms not, and some thesises did not mark their terms at all... I guess my university's requirements are not that high. Thanks!


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How to find out people interested in the same paper and discuss?
I am reading an academic paper, but I cannot understand a lot of things in the paper, especially some proofs. If I ask someone else who is not reading the paper, or who is not studying the similar research field, then he/she might need to spend much time and may still turn out to not understand the paper either. So is it possible to find out people who are also interested in the paper or have read the paper, then to create a discussion group? I think this will definitely accelerate my understanding of a paper and make research easier.
Most of the time, I find out that I am the only one in my research group to study on some problems, and it is difficult to discuss with others on specific research problems. How to seek help from others who have different research topics? I do not want to waste other people's time if they cannot help eventually.

It might be helpful to include your field. For example, carefully reading a paper in mathematics is a much bigger investment than in biology, so finding other interested people is probably harder.

Professional societies often have mailing lists and a request there is probably an appropriate item.
Departments sometimes have bulletin boards on which you could post a request.
I found it very useful (before retirement) that our doctoral program had an internal mailing list to which every student and every advisor was subscribed. In fact, there were several lists, some specialized but one for everyone. Communication on such a list is very useful and I encourage others to establish these if they don't already do so. Our program was small, so a single overall list made sense. In a larger place it might be necessary to do this per specialty.
But, don't just look for such things as a place to get help. Consider it as an opportunity for sharing. If you give you can get, but if it is just a request for help, it might be better directed at the faculty - say an advisor.
But if you are faculty, then work to establish cross-university collaboration efforts so that like minded people have a way to communicate ideas. Having a wide range of collaborators is a good thing for most academics.