text:
I'm looking for an application or workflow which integrates data values into the writing process
Currently, on all of my projects, I do my data analysis, create my figures, put them into a word document, and then I start writing. I say things like "We saw a 35% reduction in the effectiveness of..."
100% of the time, these numbers change. We reach the discussion section and a co-author requests we change the analysis this or that way, or finds an error in my thinking.
Then, I need to go back and re-do the analysis. Then, I'll need to find every point of data that was potentially affected and manually change it in a word document. Occasionally, this back-and-forth leads to the introduction of errors.
I would love a writing platform that would allow me to integrate my data into the writing process. Instead of writing
"We saw a 35% reduction in ..."
I would say:
"We saw a <% print(reduction.round()) %>% reduction in.."
Of course I could do this from scratch on my own computer, but I then lose the ability to collaborate.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this problem, and how they have solved it?

Have you looked into Sweaving with LaTeX and R? If you search for reproducible research you may find more methods as well.

This might be related: http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the-code-1.16261

While other answers have given some very good suggestions, I wish to focus on the part "if anyone has had this problem, and how they have solved it?" of the question.
I use Sweave and can only speak for this particular method. My general thoughts are that:

Yes, it's awesome.
However, the time to make the two sets of code to work may not necessarily be shorter or less miserable than revising the statistics and tables by hand. It has some learning curve. So, I'd suggest considering using this method if you have i) some documents that need to be repeatedly created or the data are repeatedly being appended, like periodic reports, or ii) some analysis that involves a large amount of repetitions.
The benefit really shines for tables and graphs. Yet I found that embedded text can be troublesome. For instance, weird sentence like "the mean energy intake increased by -1357 kcal at the end of the study."
As an extension of the above, sometimes the restructuring of the analysis can be so drastic that the codes will need to be revised extensively. And you'll have two sets of code to revise and two sets of bug to catch.
In my own circle of colleagues, it's hard enough to have them keep the statistical syntax in a standardized format. I will not even ask if they use LaTeX, not to even mention Sweave.

Having said that, it is indeed very satisfying to see a 100-page PDF analysis report being revised with one click. I'd suggest at least find a suitable environment to try once. By the way, Sweave can also work with Stata and SAS (statweave), quite versatile.

Now, back to the root cause. I'd like to share with you how I minimize this Sisyphean situation.

Remember, if you do no take charge, coworkers will take charge for you. Some statements to express firm decisions about leaving and entering a certain stage in the analysis process can be forceful and yield productive results. This is also true if you are just a student and they are your supervisors. Some reasonable assertiveness goes a long way.
Put all the data set details, variables, research questions, proposed analyses, and some reasonable amount of "plan B's" on what I call a DMAP (Data management and analysis plan.) Pay particular attentions to: i) how missing values will be handled, ii) how outliers are defined in the key variables of interest, and iii) recoding scheme if any categorization is to be done. Gather input from all of them. Once finalized, carry out the analysis.
In the next meeting, share analysis report (but NOT write up). Prepare a descriptive statistics package. And then according to the research questions, lay out the main findings in the same sequence. After each summary output, state 1-3 main "talking points" that will be the foundation (or topic sentences) of the Discussion. Show only necessary output and make sure to make them reader-friendly. Highlight or bold the parts that you want them to focus on. Have the group contribute their thoughts on revision or sub-analysis. Revise the DMAP. Have the previous DMAPs handy to avoid the "you said, I said" situation.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 until no more input was given. Be very clear that "you are going to finalize this analysis and start writing the Discussion." Are there anyone not replying your e-mail and can potentially disrupt this finalization? Deal with them individually before moving on.
Go on to craft the Discussion based on the talking points that have been previously agreed upon.
Along the process, keep clear documentation. Keep your syntax files and analysis report files clear and dated. Include section numbers corresponding to the research question, page number, and line number. Date and sign (provide name and e-mail) all your reports and syntax files.

The main point is: do not write the Results and Discussion and distribute them before the analysis is finalized. You may draft them in private, but never circulate them while the analysis is still actively being evaluated/revised. Doing so provides too many distractions to the group, and it's just going to end up with a hot mess.

In my own experience 75% or more of the so-called sub-analyses are what I call "brain farts." They are a healthy sign that the brain is working, but not pleasant if happening too frequently. Most of them are "what if's" and they can be out of control especially if the results do not go with how they want the world to work.
Yet, 1 out of 8-10 times the suggestions can be good. I usually will take the pain to revise the analysis plan and restart the process. Leave the writing, and come back to deal with it with the new analysis is finalized.
Finally, some catch phrases.

"That is a great suggestion, however it's seriously deviated from our
original research questions. For the sake of being succinct, I'd
write this idea down and we can pursue it in another setting."
"Sub-group analysis? Yes, but be prepared that it's going to be
underpowered and please don't keep you hope too high."
"Sub-group analysis? But the interaction terms are not even
significant and I can tell you to rest assure that the two groups
will not show any difference."
"Another parameter? Another scenario? Sure, let's get this done with, once and for all. Let me know all possible parameters you want to try now. I will just loop through them."
"No, it's not related to our hypothesis."
"Would you like to follow up with that
suggestion? I can send you the codes."

Take a look at R Markdown. It allows to generate files (Markdown, HTML, LaTeX, PDF or even some interactive Shiny slides) based on text, LaTeX formulae and code (not only in R - you can use other languages as well!). For a smooth start you can try using a real-time editor editR.

Alternatively, you can use IPython Notebook, it is easy to share, but harder to collaborate on or convert into a nice LaTeX.

One possible workflow is using R for producing the results, LaTeX for writing the report, and Sweave to integrate both. With either TexStudio or LyX (or any text editor that supports track changes) as writing environments and Dropbox, you can set up some sort of "collaboration".

First of all, let's set the terminology straight. The approach that you're planning to use and seeking applications and workflows for is usually referred to as reproducible research, which, in turn, is based on the literate programming paradigm (introduced by Professor Donald Knuth).
The previous answers are nice and to the point, however, they cover only a limited range of tools. In particular, if you're not interested in having fine control of generated data-driven document in LaTeX format, it might be more feasible to use much simpler RMarkdown (or other Markdown variants) instead of Sweave or knitr (for converting generated documents between different formats, pandoc is very helpful and is pretty much the golden standard for such tasks). Also, there exist more comprehensive (but, not necessarily, more convenient) software that attempts to help in automating and managing the whole process of producing data-based written artifacts (reports, manuscripts, etc.). To learn more about such tools as well as other reproducible research aspects and related tools, please see my relevant answer on Data Science SE site.

Pretty sure knitr can use markdown as well as LaTeX.

@SimonW: My point is that, while knitr can handle both source types, it doesn't make sense for someone, who doesn't want/need the flexibility and fine level of control of LaTeX, to use knitr (an extra layer), when RMarkdown is enough.

@AleksandrBlekh RMarkdown uses knitr

@Ilya: I know, but that's not the point. It is the fact that RMarkdown provides more limited functionality (control of fine details of a document) than a combination of knitr and its LaTeX directives. Hope this clarifies things.

@AleksandrBlekh sure. Now I re-read your previous comment, and the context became clear. True, with HTML5 most of the time you don't really need LaTeX

@Ilya: I'm glad we're on the same page :-).

My understanding is that IPython and Mathematica can be used to prepare interactive 'notebooks' that can be dynamically updated based on arbitrary computation.

RStudio (I highly recommend to follow their blog) does amazing job redefining the R workflow with a particular emphasis on reproducibility (see rmarkdown).
Quite recently they added notebooks, much like those in Jupyter (formerly IPython). The newest features are always available in the preview release.

Almost everyone who has written a quantitative paper has been confronted with the problem of reading an old draft containing results or figures that need to be revisited or reproduced (as a result of peer-review, say) but which lack any information about the circumstances of their creation.

Kieran Healy describes a workflow that uses R, Sweave and Emacs org-mode or Knitr to tackle this problem. Dropbox or github can be used to track versions and collaborate with co-authors.

This is an old question, and the answer largely depends on the tools you are using for analysis and writing, but I recently came across a new program to satisfy the need for reproducible research. In the past I have used RStudio and RMarkdown files for analysis, but I'd still end up copying and pasting numbers into Microsoft Word files - for those using LaTeX with collaborators this might not have been as much of an issue (by using Sweave or knitr), but I am predominantly writing with others in Word.
StatTag is a new Microsoft Word plugin that enables you to connect statistical analysis files with Word documents so that the analysis can stay up-to-date. StatTag works with Stata, SAS, or R (or Rmarkdown) analysis files. I have found the introduction and documentation pretty clear. There is also an overview and demonstration from one of the creators at the recent useR conference here. I'm hoping to use it in future projects to lead to more reproducible research.


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Is it right and polite to ask for a free copy of a published paper?
There is a published research paper I would like to read. The website it is published in, charges what I think is quite a lot of money, considering that I won't use this for research or work.
I want to read this paper because its about a subject I am really interested in, but has nothing to do with what I study. I am a software engineering student and had never participated on any kind of research and I do not quite understand how all this things work.
So, the question is: is it right to ask for a copy of this paper to its author? If it is, how should I do it?

It should be noted that most universities will provide access to their students to papers that are behind a 'paywall'. Ask your library on information for how to get access to such papers.

I would be more than happy if anyone wanted to ask for my papers; just sayin'

in the modern era, where it doesn't make sense — What?  Of course it makes sense, especially if the paper is in a discipline whose authors still follow the archaic practice of not making their papers freely available on the web.  And by that, I mean most disciplines.

@JeffE: maybe Ben meant to put emphases on the word "paper reprints"? I would be more than happy to e-mail copies of my papers to people who want it, but if they person writes to ask for an offprint, I would either politely decline (of my published papers only 1 journal has ever sent me any offprints) or just completely ignore.

I assume you've looked for an institutional repository at the lead author's institution - they're often but not always found by googling the paper title in quotes with site:inst.edu as well.  At least here in the UK some public libraries are getting some journal access, that might be worth looking into.

If I were you, I would move my attention towards the OpenScience Movement .
A lot of great people are working there and it is quite likely that you will find a paper of related content for FREE :-) A great place to start is the Figshare data repository (http://figshare.com/) Also, in my personal opinion, I think knowledge should be free and paying for knowledge is unacceptable .

Related: "Is it rude to request a book chapter from the academic who wrote it if you don't want to buy the entire textbook?"

What's the paper?

Perhaps not relevant for your question, but if you ask someone for a copy of a paper, and then you cite it in one of your own papers, I think it is good manners to mention in your paper's acknowledgements "We thank X for supplying offprints."

@Senex However, I suspect the most important thing is you citing it :-).

I don't think that it could be a problem to ask politely for a copy of this paper. It is understood, however, that you are polite and say thank you.
So, if you are interested, you should show it that way. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Use a search engine to see if there's a free copy online – many authors put their papers on their own websites and, in some fields, on ArXiv or other repositories.
Ask your university's library if they already have access to a free copy online or have it on paper – libraries subscribe to as many journals as they can afford to and may also be able to obtain a copy from another library at less cost than from the publisher.
If neither of those options work, politely email the corresponding author (if there is one, or any author, if there isn't) and ask for a copy.

While "libraries subscribe to as many journals as they can afford to" is true and it cannot hurt to ask, the OP shouldn't get their hopes up too much as usually, if a library has a subscription for something behind a paywall, the respective university network will be recognized by the document server and the documents will be accessible when invoked from within that network. At least in my place, whenever I ever get to see a paywall on an academic publisher's site, it is sufficiently safe to say that my university does not have a subscription that would cover the respective publication.

@O.R.Mapper Good point -- thanks for bringing it up. It's possible, though, that the OP tried to download the paper from a computer at home (perhaps I just inferred too much from the OP not saying something like "I tried to download it from a university computer but it was still paywalled").

This would have been my answer, though I would like to add the minor point that in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science, authors often post their papers to arXiv.org, even when it has been submitted simultaneously to a journal.

If you have access to a university library it is worth asking their advice - if you are a student there they will often be able to request it from another library via a reciprocal agreement at a much lower cost than buying from the publisher. Or, depending where you are, try a national library - e.g. the British Library is open to UK-based people.

@O.R.Mapper It might be an old paper and the university library might have a dead-trees copy.

@gerrit: As the question said the paper is published "in [a] website", I implicitly assumed this is about a sufficiently new paper to be published and distributed digitally. Otherwise, you may of course be right.

@O.R.Mapper This is certainly true sometimes, but not always. For example where I did my PhD, it would only recognize that you were going through the university and grant access when using the wired network (rather than the wireless).

In my experience there are a bunch of psychology journals for which my own university has a subscription but where the process is more complicated than just visiting via a university proxy.

There is an issue with this question in that one request "is no request" but if this becomes systematic, each author starts to become a "server" for their papers. I am sure no-one would want to end up in that situation.
I personally do not mind if someone asks for a particular paper as long as they also engage in some scientific discussion on why they want it. There is of course no rule that says you must do that other than common courtesy. Fortunately, I am not in a position to get many requests but back in the day of paper reprints, it was known that some persons (still scientists) were simply collectors who wrote and asked for every paper that was published.
So in the end, if you really have use for a specific paper and you have a hard time finding it, don't hesitate to ask. Saying a few words about why you are interested in the paper may start up a positive conversation on the topic and your interest. The main point is: make it a positive event.

Regarding your first paragraph: a scientific article that cannot be obtained with friction close to the minimum allowed by technology is lost to science. An author who put himself or herself in a position where he or she is the limit factor in disseminating his or her work has renounced science, and might as well take a new occupation, such as patent lawyer. ArXiv is your friend, and so is dumping the article in the public domain before the publisher can extort the copyright out of you.

"each author starts to become a "server" for their papers" -- at least that would be an incentive to put a free version (preprint) on a computer server.

I am always thrilled when someone asks for a copy of one of my journal papers, because I have adopted the pessimistic view that this stuff never gets read.  So yes, feel free to ask, so long as you are polite.  And as someone else pointed out, it wouldn't hurt to indicate why you want to read the paper.

Yes.
I've asked authors for copies of papers several times, always with a note about what in my own research led me to take an interest in that particular paper. The authors have always said yes. One even dug up an old paper copy and scanned it for me. I got the impression each time that they were delighted to hear that their work was relevant and interesting for new scholarship.
Usually the authors' agreements with their publishers allow them to make single copies on request, so legalities are not normally a problem.

Yes, from the authors' point of view it won't hurt to send the paper to someone who asks nicely (unless the corresponding author is the top scientist in the field and gets many unsolicited emails).
Check whether the author has profiles in research networks such as https://www.researchgate.net and ask them through the site's options. This is particularly better for those who keep their profiles up to date, as it gives you more potential of a networking than a mere email.

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Will excellence in professional career be considered for admission or financial aid
If I have strong professional IT skills but average educational background, will a university consider me for admission or financial aid?
I have looked through Stanford's site, including application procedures, admissions requirements, and GRE/TOEFL testing, but I cannot find a mention of anything other than TOEFL/GRE scores required.

For the most part, not a strong connection between CS and IT.

Professional IT skills have very little to do with graduate-level work in computer science. While such skills may lead to a positive letter of recommendation, it is unlikely that you will receive either admission or financial aid (in the form of a teaching or research assistantship) solely on the basis of your record as an IT professional. There may be exceptions to this (for instance, if your professional work is in a specialized area that maps closely to an existing research area at the school to which you are applying), but in general, but that would be more the exception than the rule.
In other fields, such as bioinformatics and chemistry, where "professional work" may be more similar in nature to ongoing academic research, this is more of a possibility—I know several people whose work careers did have an influence on their admissions to graduate programs.

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Is having two MS degrees in the same subject, from different depts, useful?
This question came up after reading some answers to this one.
Is it useful either for applying for a job or for applying for a PhD position to have two degrees in the same area on two different universities without needing more time than usual for the degree (in case of master: two years, or maybe two and a half year)? Are there advantages, are there disadvantages?

I presume you mean two degrees of the same rank—two bachelor's degrees or two master's degrees. Is this correct?

Do you mean doing two master degrees at the same department at the same time? I'm not even sure you can do it.

@Michael: In this case I am talking about two master degrees in different departments, but in the same field

@arc_lupus I still don't see why is that good. When applying for the position what really matters is your research output. If you can get a publication about each topic, while still doing only a single degree that would be best.

I still can't understand the question: do you mean different but fairly related depts, such as CS+Linguistics? Psychology? Economics? Physics + Materials science/Maths Physics? Chemistry+Biochemistry? 'Useful' depends on that context, and to what purpose. Without specifics, this is an academic "How long is a piece of rope?" question.

I would be very confused about why somebody needed two degrees in the same field. If the fields were overlapping but distinct—mathematics and computational science, for instance—that would not be such a big deal. But somebody with two biology degrees or two mathematics degrees from different universities would be such an exceptional case that I would want to have some explanation for this in the statement of purpose. (Why did the applicant feel it necessary to have a second bachelor's or master's degree on the same topic?)

No, it is not useful and will only cause employers to ask “why?” and scrutinize your application. -from an 18 year career professor and director of grad program.

At its core, no. Why did you think it might? Having two degrees implies increased experience academically, certainly, compared to someone with only one degree. But it also implies other things that are not as good, to me, personally. I explain why in the next paragraph, but as mentioned this is a very rare thing and will definitely bring increased scrutiny on why it happened.
My only experience with people having multiple same-rank degrees in the same field has been with failed PhD candidates who immigrated already holding ME degrees and then failed their defenses at the end of their PhDs.


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Is it permitted to cite works by members of my own family, in classwork?
I'm starting a unit (undergraduate class) at my university which deals very much with topics researched by my grandfather - He has written a number of books and papers on the issue.
I don't yet know if I'll need to cite them but I thought it would be wise to ask now, rather than with a looming deadline. Is there anything I should take into consideration if I end up citing his works?
Additionally, would it be considered unethical (and/or an 'unfair advantage') to clarify anything on the subject matter with him, or does that just constitute "good research"? If I did get clarification from him, would I have to add my communications with him in an appendix?

It sounds like you are talking about citing your grandfather in papers written for a class.  Some of the answers seem to be written as though it is for a paper to be published, which could change things slightly (though not drastically) so you may want to clarify that

Thanks for the suggestion - it is indeed for an undergraduate class. I'll update it to reflect that. This information is all useful though.

Regarding the close vote: How is this a problem specific to undergraduates?

@Wrzlprmft I think some people vote to close anything with the word "undergraduate" in it.

Reverse the question: is it improper to cite works by members of my own family, in classwork?

I'm not aware of any reason you couldn't cite work of a family member. Indeed, a tenet of academic work is to cite your sources and give references appropriately, so due credit is given to previous works.
Were you not to cite your grandfather (or indeed anyone else's work you reference), that in itself would be the improper behaviour.
It is normal (and often necessary) to cite your own work as well - in order to avoid self-plagiarism, you need to reference any previous works by yourself if you use them in a future work, so as not to be re-presenting the same work repeatedly and claiming it as new every time.
Regarding clarifying points, that wouldn't be a problem - it is actively encouraged to discuss and collaborate with others in research. Authors place their email addresses and affiliations on publications to facilitate private conversation and discussion with other researchers, and often this is how collaborations and future advances happen. Conferences are also organised with the principle aim of facilitating dialogue and further discussion between researchers.
You would be able to cite information from clarifications with him as personal correspondence type references, and I don't see a reason you would need an appendix to quote the actual correspondence.
In the event that there were to be any kind of potential for conflict of interest, you obviously should disclose it as such. Also, if you are significantly referencing personal correspondence with your grandfather, he may be making sufficient intellectual contribution to be considered an author of the paper. Simple clarification of points in already-published works wouldn't be an issue (otherwise I'd be an author on any paper as a result of an email I replied to!), but significant intellectual contribution or addition of new material would probably require you to regard him as an author. For assistance and clarifications which don't constitute author him, you could add an acknowledgement to the paper to express recognition of the assistance and advice given.
Disclaimer - there may be discipline specific nuances here I am not aware of, most probably around how to cite personal correspondence, since it's not something I've had to do before. The requirements to declare authorship may also vary between disciplines and publications based on their regulations.

By all means, do not treat your grandfather (or his works) any different from any other publications you come across when it comes to citing. If the citation is appropriate, do cite them, and if it is not, do not cite them.
There is nothing unfair or unethical about using the opportunity to clarify anything on the subject matter with him. Indeed, I would argue it constitutes "good research" to use such a source of knowledge; there is no point in cutting yourself off of possibly significant information and restricting yourself to what is literally written in a paper just because other people may not have the option to casually call your grandfather to inquire in the case of inclarities. The only thing you may want to make sure is that if a paper you want to cite says X, and your grandfather insists he actually meant Y, be aware that your readers will not be able to find the additional information, so the paper in question may not be the best source to cite Y from.
Lastly, there is no need to add any such communications to the appendix. During your research career, you will come in touch with plenty of people who work in the same field as you do, and you will cite numerous of them. You need to make sure you provide all information you get, and you properly reference where you got it and where other people can check it. However, that is for informative purposes towards your readers, there is no ethical obligation to publicize the specifics of when you talked to whom while conducting your research. Thus, you may have received a particular bit of information in the conversation with your grandfather, but (if you ask him!) he might point you to a work that contains the same bit of information that you can actually verifiably cite.

I would say it's definitely permitted. Citing is a part of preventing bias...the point here is "this comes from a published work, so it's trusted." This is a major reason why you are required to self-cite, too. Citing shows that someone already approved the results that you are referencing in your paper, so people it's not just a quote pulled out of thin air from your crazy uncle.
If you contact him personally and use the information he gives you in your paper, that requires a separate citation. Most reference styles have a format for a "personal interview" or "personal communication."

Given that this is for a class assignment, some of the other answers may not apply. For instance, you can't offer co-authorship to your grandfather. The goal here is not only to produce a worthwhile paper on your topic, but to demonstrate that you can do it yourself.
So I think the best course of action would be to approach your professor and ask how she would like you to proceed.
If I were the professor, I'd probably say it's fine to read and cite his papers, but I'd discourage you from involving him personally. There can be a fine line between "he's clarifying his work" and "you're using his ideas instead of synthesizing them for yourself". The line can be hard to judge even for experienced academics, and more so for students. If you do discuss the paper with him, I'd want careful documentation of his contributions, so that I could judge what you had done yourself.

I've had several professors who discussed their own work in class.  Sometimes they explicitly say it's their work, but sometimes they present the work without saying who did it, probably to minimize awkwardness.  Or they'll cite the work, but only in a footnote, and without drawing much attention to the author.
Especially at the graduate level, you'll often see professors who made substantial contributions to the material they are teaching, and the class would have been incomplete without a discussion of their work.


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How to address students in the USA, as a university instructor: first name or last name?
It is often asked whether students should be encouraged to address their instructors by their first or last name. My question is the opposite.
I teach at a large US university but I have not grown up here. Most students address me by my last name or by 'Professor', which seems to be the traditional way to do it.
Questions:
It turn, would I traditionally address students by their first name or their last name? Or just "student"? Is the communication symmetrical or asymmetrical? Is there a difference in email and personal interaction?

I encourage you to ask someone at your own institution. Culture varies.

To many people, especially those of us who've spent time in the military, being addressed by one's last name (especially with no Mr/Ms attached) borders on the insulting.

As someone in the USA with a very common first name - over the course of my life I've been addressed by my last name far more often than my first.  Both in school and out.

I'm a postdoc and recently decided that I'd like to be addressed by my last name in the workplace (without the Dr.) to avoid confusion because many people share my first name, including my mentor. I'm finding it harder than expected to get people to switch!

To elaborate on Ellen's comment - some institutions prefer to use the given or surname. Some cultures have given name first others have surname first. And the students from those cultures are virtually guaranteed not to all share the same method of determining which witch is which.

As a student raised in the US and attending a US university, I've mostly been addressed by my first name and that is the norm. In fact, I find it somewhat rude and impersonal when someone calls me over by my last name only (without the salutation). Makes me feel like I'm just a row in an Excel spreadsheet instead of a person.

First name, at every university I've been. Both for in person communication and email. There are a few charmingly old fashioned professors who use Mr/Miss Lastname, but they're seen as oddities. So yes, the communication is generally asymmetrical.

I have one student in my class who for whatever reason uses "Dr. [My first name]." I still don't get it—particularly since she can see my name in literally every email I send out.

@aeismail Some countries use Dr. Firstname instead of Dr. Lastname. Brazil is one of them. (not only Dr but Mr. as well).

I wouldn't say they're seen as oddities, just as slightly more formal. It wouldn't incur any negative perception.

@jpmc26 Well, for me 'oddities' is not a negative word. They're odd in the same way my old lecturer in maths who always wore a full suit with a bow tie, not in the 'oh wow does he never shower' kind of way.

I had a professor who insisted that he and students use last names until the student graduated, at which point they could be on a first-name basis. It was a little odd (plenty of professors did not mind students using their first name, and most used students’ first names as a matter of course), but it was kind of “nice” to get that recognition after graduating under him.

Throughout high school, and in college, I often got called by my last name. I think it's really a matter of ease, personal preference, and how the name sounds.

In most schools, students are called by their first name, unless there are two students with the same name in a class, or the student prefers their last name. Often, when a student is called by their last name, it means they are in trouble: "Mr. Brown, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Your own personality is a big factor in your decision.
Should you be an easy-going person for whom informality is part of your way of teaching and interacting, first names are acceptable but not required.
If there is no restriction at your University about such usage, mention your preference for informality during interactions in the first meeting with your students. "Good Morning! Welcome to Theories of General Relativity and Subatomic Particles, section IX, My name is Dr. Mason Ambicion, but you can call me Mason."
When you are teaching students who may come from other areas of the US, or from other countries in the world for that matter, standards of instructor <> student interactions will be different. Some US students will be unable to be so informal with you in a classroom situation, or in private consultation for that matter because their schooling demanded it.
When some of your students call you Professor or Dr. Ambicion, there's no need to remind them of your preference. You can try to subtly change their perspective over time by addressing them back in the same formal manner they present to you, while remaining informal with the other students.

I'm not sure your last paragraph is good advice. It seems too subtle, to me. I think the student is more likely to think that a professor addressing some students by first name and some by last name is favouritism rather than anything else.

@DavidRicherby - it is subtle, but it worked on me!

As a student in New England, my teachers almost always address me by my first name. I think it's the same with most teachers, and additionally many teachers ask on the first day if students want to be called by a nickname before calling attendance. It's unusual for a student to be called by their last name, but slightly more common in athletics. Gym teachers like their last names.

I probably would ask other members of the same faculty what they do if I wasn't sure. Almost certainly they use the students' first names: I haven't been in an institution that requires formal modes of address between students and teachers (exclusive private schools may differ, of course.)
If you're not sure about how to address a student and you don't want to appear to be playing favourites, you can often resort to circumlocutions that avoid the need for exact names (i.e. "the previous speaker", or simply omitting names altogether), or request that students give their name when they ask their question. Many classes that I have attended are lecture-style, so the need for names is usually not very high, and it's unfair for the lecturer to be expected to know how to address each person (even knowing the correct pronoun to use nowadays is a difficult conundrum!)
I know some professors who can remember everyone's preferred forms of address, but they tend to teach higher-level courses with smaller numbers of students.


text:
Should I prepare new homework exercises each year, 20% of the final grade is homework?
This year I prepare a new course (in programming, but it could be any other course). I spend a lot of effort in creating homework exercises. This is fun, but also very time-consuming.
I wonder if I can use the same exercises next year, when I teach this course again. The main problem is that, once the solutions are out, surely some students next year will be able to get them and copy them. It may be possible to use some automatic plagiarism detection tools, but it is quite difficult and not very reliable.
I believe the copiers will not gain much from copying, since the homework grade is only 20% of the final grade. On the contrary, they will lose since they will be less prepared for the exam, which is 80% of the final grade. My fear is that the temptation to copy will harm these students. So maybe I should create new exercises to avoid the temptation to copy.
On the other hand, the students are grown-ups, if they choose to copy, it is their problem and they should bear the consequences of not knowing the material well enough. Should I work so hard each year, only to protect the copiers from their own faults?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I repeated a programming course and was happy that didn't have to write everything again - I already had my solutions and I submitted them with minor modifications or improvements. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Instead of designing new exercises, simply make them so hard that no student is able to prepare a perfect solution. This of course only works for advanced courses.

Just a suggestion, you could always go to https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/ for inspiration.

Would it be a better use of time to interview each student on their solution to one exercise?  (Don't tell them the exercise you will choose.)

I'd like to point to this answer to an otherwise unrelated question, with regard to why tolerating cheating is a Bad Idea.

@AJFaraday most codegolf questions are solved via esoteric golfing languages that are quite different than those taught in universities..

@ErelSegal-Halevi I was talking more about the problems than the solutions, tho.

The main dilemma is that the homework is part of the grades, therefore you should prepare a new one each semester.
I solved this for my programming course in a radical way (after struggling with a similar issue for a few years): I made all homework optional, and only the exams count. I make it very clear that the students will fail if they don't do the exercises (and some prove me right each year which is motivating for the others). Students are getting feedback on their submissions and they can even submit revisions. I'm using the homework results (anonymously) for the course where I'm discussing common errors and best practices.
What I did instead is to build dependencies in our course management website (in our case Moodle based): The students only get access to the next chapters if they at least submit the mandatory (minimum) exercises. Yes, they can submit crap, but it's hard to evaluate each submission in very little time so I'm willing to accept this loophole, and at least up until now, students haven't used this option.
The second thing I do is have three live programming sessions where the students have to solve little tasks (in general quite simple exercises) without an internet connection. You have to pass all three of them. Since this happens during the semester, they recieve a feedback about their progress quite early. Each test can be repeated once during the semester.
The combination of thoses measures results in high participation rates and people have no more motivation to copy solutions since they don't have any benefit from it.

Making homework optional makes your work easier but isn’t doing your students any favours. Don’t get me wrong: it may be entirely justified (your time is presumably limited). But purely didactically speaking it’s bad advice.

@KonradRudolph in fact my work is the same since I'll give feedback to all submissions (or my student co-workers do). And since the students don't get access to the next teaching material, they are forced to do the homework... And I'm even limiting classroom access to people who prepared the topics (which means they did their homework). In fact it's working out better then the years before where many students "found some inspiration" because it was important for passing the course.

@KonradRudolph: can you please explain why you believe that making the homework optional is "purely didactically speaking" bad advice?

@Matteo Because students in general are (or feel) overworked, and will therefore forego optional work where possible, even though they intellectually know that this will hurt them later on. You can argue that this is their own fault — and to some extent it is! But this is irrelevant if the aim is to optimise teaching (which goes without saying, I hope). What’s more, making something optional is (somewhat correctly) seen as an implicit endorsement of this strategy. Educators can be expected to know this, after all.

@KonradRudolph: (I assume you meant "optimise learning"). I don't see how making the students feel more overworked (in my experience, they are not, they are just bad at time management) will help their well being and therefore their learning. The argument seems weak to me. Do you have any evidence supporting the claim that making homework mandatory leads to better (i.e., more "optimised") learning?

@Matteo I’m taking from the perspective of the teacher, so “teaching”. More precisely, you aim to optimise for as many students as possible to learn as much as possible. — You’re correct that time management is part(!) of the issue. But I posit that your intuition is wrong. This is a very well known problem. But I’ll admit that I can’t cite any studies on this off the top of my head (but experimental results via personal communications do support this); it was treated as a “basic truth” during my time as a student teaching assistant, and in my course on computer science education.

@KonradRudolph basic truth has a tendency not to be true if you have no evidence for it. Just because you have accepted it as true does not mean it is, or if it is it may not have a meaningful impact.

@joojaa That’s why I mentioned evidence from unpublished trials. There may be issues with this data (e.g. lack of proper control) but it’s still better than unfounded intuition, especially if that goes against the established experience of educators (flawed as that may be, too).

@KonradRudolph i dont doubt it may be true. But this is still advice from internet strangers. However the approach of the answer is not really just optional as such. It has a interesting way of rewarding progress which done well can cause a sense of accomplishment that can well offset the difference.

Do you consider the "mandatory minimum exercises" to be "mandatory homework"?

@Qsigma technically "no", practically "yes". One could pass the course without doing any homework (e.g. if you are experienced in programming due to a previous job / education), but for nearly all students it is mandatory homework.

BTW: We are monitoring student progress and we are comparing outcome and progress to the previous courses. I hope that we will have some evidence after the second year of the new course format (one year seems to be statistically weak).

@KonradRudolph best thing i learned at uni was time management. Mandatory homework did not do that.

@BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft You did not read the full story: Every student recieves individual feedback on their homework. In fact they can even hand in a revision and recieve feedback again. I updated the answer to make it clear.

Also, homework that is supposed to be graded will have to be made quite a bit easier than what is optimal for a good exercise for optimally practicing the study material.

+1 to @KonradRudolph... people often need extra motivation to do things that they know would benefit them anyway, and homework is in no way an exception to this.

I'm not sure optional is the right word based on the rest of your answer. It sounds like you are still expecting the homework to be done, it's just that there is no punishment if the homework is not done.

I never understood the reason for having exams during my university life as a software engineer. The way programmers survive and learn is they solve problems, and they increase their knowledge with every new problem they get to solve! This is exactly what the exams are not testing. They may give you problems but strip you out of your tools (that you will have your whole professional life) to solve them. So what does the exam then test? It gives you a nail to hammer but no hammer. Whereas courseworks are the opposite, they are the most accurate representation of doing professional work.

I like the idea of having students solve programming problems without computer. I had a course like that in undergrad, where ALL exams were paper-based and we have to "run" the codes shown for each question (no multiple choice), and not all codes were bug-free. I don't think I've ever thought so intensely. But it really gave me a good basis, to this day I'm really grateful.

It is useful to have a pool of questions to avoid having the same questions every year. If you have questions for like 2,5 years, you are able to mix them in every year and it is hard to use the previous years notes of somebody else to copy the answers.
If you do not have enough questions yet, you can try changing some numbers and variable names at least, so simple copying will be noticed. Of course you still need to check afterwards if the new questions and answers are correct, but you will still be faster than when writing new ones.
If the homework is graded in the final grade of the course, you cannot tolerate copying. If it is only needed for admission to the exam, it does not matter. People are grown up and if they want to be admitted without being prepared that's their problem.

This is essentially the idea I was going to suggest. Tweaking questions is easier than writing entirely new problems, and should be effective at preventing copying answers from the previous year.

There is always a trade-off. While it would be really nice to have new exercises each year, you need to ask yourself if your time would not be spend better someplace else, for example in better preparing other parts of the course. Additionally old exercises have the benefit that you can learn from your mistakes. In my experience, each semester there are a few exercises which I thought were easy and straightforward but which were really problematic for the students. Furthermore I am much more incentivised to create good and comprehensive solutions for myself (and possibly the TAs), if I am most likely going to use them several times in a row. Finally there are also some exercises which are kind of mandatory and do not really have an alternative, usually the more theoretic ones.
That does not mean that you should not prepare some new exercises. Usually you get some new ideas throughout the year and personally I try to make a habit of noting them down for possible later use. On the other hand there are always some exercises that did not quite work as intended and can't really be fixed or which become obsolete due to slight changes in the course material or its order.
So in other words, this is not a binary problem, the middle ground of changing only some of the exercises is quite valid too.
If you are worried about plagiarism, often there are also some quick changes that can be done without much work, such as changing some numbers and descriptions, as well as the text of the exercise and its formatting. While it will not fool everybody it at least requires students to recognize that the problem is isomorphic to an old one and enough understanding of the old solution to see where changes need to be made. Of course this does only work if you hide it in real changes, that is add in some new exercise and tweak their order, otherwise it will be too obvious.
As a final idea, you could even outsource things a bit. This will not work for every course but should be fine for a programming course. Near the end of the course, as an optional additional exercise problem, ask them to design their own exercise on one of the topics of the course, including a short description of why said exercise will be helpful in understanding a certain topic. If you offer some prizes such as a bottle of wine (if your students are allowed to drink) and some chocolate for the runner ups, you might get some good new ideas for next year.

Nice out of box thinking with student-designed exercises!

Legal note: Make it very very clear that you are allowed to use the suggested exercises later.

@ErelSegal-Halevi I like this answer, and was going to suggest essentially what mlk suggested in the second-to-last paragraph: mix up parameters of your problems so the answers will be different. Students who figure out what you're doing will still have to understand enough to make the requisite changes to previous answers to get the correct output.

In some sense, this is actually preparing them for the real world: if a client has an existing codebase but their contractor left or whatever, and the student (as a consultant) comes in and the client says "hey we've got this program that gives us X when we put in A B and C, but now we need it to factor in D and give us Y too", being able to dissect the old code and modify it to perform as expected is an important skill! Even learning to read others' code is a very important skill, which is what they'd be doing if they're looking up answers from previous years :)

I don't think you would need to offer any prize. Many students will simply change slightly one of OP assignments and present that as their own exercise, adding little variation to the set of exercises (still better than making tiny variations yourself, though), yet it's an nice challenge for which some people will provide interesting exercises.

It depends what you think the role of University is. For me, it remains an institution dedicated to learning and understanding. Grades are important for employment but ultimately, University should give those that want to learn an opportunity to learn.
Do new questions enhance the learning experience? Possibly yes, if the old questions and solutions are available to the students, then they can use it to help them learn how to approche such problems.
At the same time, if the old questions were good enough to help students learn last year, then they are good enough to help students learn this year.
I do not think that it is the role of the university to enforce disciplin for students that do not want to learn. There are a myriade ways to cheat, I think it is sufficient to remove solutions for the problems at the beginning of the year.

Even the "remove solutions at the beginning of the year" is pointless, since important basic examples can be found all over the internet, regardless of one's own web pages. And even if one argues that many of the internet's "solutions/discussions" are inferior, novices will not necessarily recognize this, and will "learn" inferior versions of things. Better to keep good-quality solutions/discussions on-line all the time...

Yes, but if the old questions were good enough to help students learn last year and some of those students posted their answers online, then this year's students may not actually learn, because they realize they can find the answer online and copy/paste; that's one of the concerns OP brought up: "The main problem is that, once the solutions are out, surely some students next year will be able to get them and copy them."

If students do not want to learn, they will find a way. You can lead a horse to water ... I think a University should not try to force students to learn.
Personally, I always learned best when having the solutions, so I always put off doing (ungraded) example sheets until I had solutions. People learn in different ways and in the end, one can only provide them with good tools to do it.

From my experience as a student. I would say that you should have a 2/3 year cycle where you repeat the question. Some lecturers in my university did the same assignment every year and most students had a connections with the students the year above and were able to obtain the answer easily and cheat.
The 2/3 year repetition cycle would allow you to built in depth answers as well as solve any little problems (i.e. too difficult/easy) in the questions whilst the reducing the chances of student obtaining the answers from the previous students.
Edit 1.
The idea one lecturer used was to repeat the same questions every year however he would very slightly tweak the numbers which caught some cheating students who obtained answers from previous students but forgot to change the numbers.

I believe it is worth your effort to create different (or even just slightly different) sets of assignments every time you teach a course.  I believe it gives current students an incentive to solve the assignment without copying from others.  If you give the same assignment every time, then even the best students may be tempted to just copy the solutions obtained from previous students.
To make it more difficult for students to copy from each other, I usually have at least two sets of assignments (call them sets A and B) and I take note of which set was given to which student.  This makes it difficult for students to copy from others in the present.  Then the next time I teach the course, I try to create two new sets (C and D).  This makes it difficult to copy from others in the past.  (If you don't have the time to create totally new sets, then just make some small changes.)

Creating new assignments every year does not prevent students from copying solutions from fellow students in the same semester, which imho is just as big of a problem. From my own experience this was rampant in my courses where something had to be submitted as a solution to very specific tasks.
Students would come up to you and just ask "Hey, did you already finish this task? Could you send me your solution for inspiration purposes." It is usually hard to decline this kind of request if you are friends with these people. Some really only use it as a help if they are stuck but some just change variable names and the "worst" submit a verbatim copy.
Therefore you should focus on making sure students actually solved a specific homework regardless of when it was created.
I see three possible solutions:
1. Make the content of the homework highly relevant to the exam.
I had several assignments where e.g. I would have to create a small software project and spent nearly a week finishing it. Then in the exam, there were only few questions about very basic stuff that you could have gotten from reading 2-3 slides. This would be OK if all students were honest and everyone would have dealt with the subject already so you could skip it in the exam. But because many weren't it was very frustrating for me who actually did spend one week on it and then in the exam there was no reward for having done everything myself. This decreased my motivation to do things properly next time. All the work felt wasted. If you work hard, you want to get some kind of appreciation grade wise.
So make as much of the final exam about subjects covered in homework. Then people will feel the need to actually study it and "the good" students will feel like it was worth investing this much time.
1.1. This is also solves the same problem for group projects
The majority of many group assignments are done by a minority, i.e. the one most motivated student. It was my experience that a lot of my group work ended with me doing most of the work but the others still got the same grade.
If the homework is very relevant to the exam, they will be penalized then. And again the one who put in all the work will feel rewarded.
2. Be specific in the requirements but vague in the implementation
As @WGroleau already wrote, make the task description specific in the requirements but very open in the implementation. This will lead to more individual solutions and plagiarism will be easier to detect.
3. Let students present their solution individually for 5-10 minutes.
If someone submits a solution but can not explain a simple loop or why certain methods are called or what they are doing, you will be able to filter out cheaters quickly.
Caveat from personal experience: Sometimes the presentation was a week or two after the submission so when it came to presenting it, I had forgotten some things, and was struggling to explain basic things in the first few minutes. This was because I did not prepare for the presentation thinking I could do it on-the-fly. A hint to students to prepare might alleviate this.

On the subject of group projects, I had to do one during my first year.  A group of four: one whiz-kid (me), one average student, one guy who was going to drop the subject after that year, and one arrogant, lazy S.O.B.  I could probably have done it all myself - but instead I delegated two modules to code, took on responsibility for the core logic and coordination, and had the "will drop it" guy handle testing and documentation - all that he had skills for.  I also ended up writing the S.O.B's share, and reported as much to the professor.  Otherwise it went very well.

Our group ended up placing second, partly because my last-minute extra workload (having realised S.O.B. was AWOL) precluded adding many optional extras (which were encouraged).  I did score points for not only presenting a Java-based project on a Mac (under Classic MacOS!), but using that same Mac to rescue several other groups stymied by the buggy beta version of Java 2 on the lab workstations (their projects having worked fine on Windows).

No. I recommend that you do not spend the time making new programming homework every year.
Consider that as a tenure-rack academic (U.S. perspective here), you will be rewarded and promoted based on published research, not on teaching effort. It's self-destructive to not take those goalposts into account; you should be prioritizing and rationalizing your time spent on teaching appropriately. This particular task can take an extremely large amount of time (creatively designing new tasks, creating new grading rubrics, re-inventing the knowledge of where the tricky spots are, every cycle, etc.), and there isn't a very great advantage in educational outcomes.
For the cheating issue, I have been very happy using the free Moss (Aiken, Stanford U.) code plagiarism checker. What is highly educational, and gets very rapid student attention, is to have a clear first-day discussion of plagiarism principles and then hand out several zeroes on the first assignment or two for those who violate them. In that sense, confronting them with the opportunity/temptation to plagiarize and correcting for that is itself a more salutary lesson than the rest of the assignment.
But in short: The priority is your limited time. The payoff for the time making new exercises year is woefully insufficient.

While I don't entirely disagree, I think this account (especially the 2nd para) is more apt for the North American systems than, say, the UK ones -- speaking as someone who's worked and taught in both

If a university's practices reward NOT providing a good education, something is seriously wrong.

I think that making new sets of questions is not necessary, and having same assignments can actually be beneficial for students. If they get stuck on something they can look at the solution, even one line can make everything click, be it in math, programming, physics etc.
You already said, that the students are grown ups, and choosing to copy will only be detrimental to their understanding, so the serious students, who look to understand the subject better, not just get a passing grade, will still do the assignments by themselves.
You also specified that you teach a course in programming, so you have an advantage - when students hand in their assignments you can ask them to make a simple modification in their software, but one that requires them to understand what is written. At least that is how it works in my university, where modification is 40% of the grade from the assignment.
An example modification, just as I was doing last week would be: Assigned software gives solutions to a 3x3 system of equations, make it work for 5x5 system.
That is just the perspective from a view of a student, so all in all if I were teaching a course, I wouldn't change them.

The modification idea is interesting, and it would be interesting to hear further logistics. Is that done in person, and is every student asked to make the same change? Also, your first paragraph assumes that all students have the solutions available, and not just the ones who cheat.

Modifications are done in person, at the start of the class in which you are asked to hand in your programming assignment, the teacher tells what modification to make, and then during that class all students make the same change. As they finish they ask the teacher to come and grade them, they show both the software with modification and source code, and are graded accordingly. In big classes, for example 50 people it probably would not work, but we are split to groups of ~20 people, and it gives enough time during a 2h class to grade everyone.

As for every student having the solutions available, there is no official channel in which they are distributed, but in the age of internet, they are available, and used by almost everyone. We have a giant collection of solved assignments, and materials like presentations, summaries, notes, etc. from past students, and each year it grows, as everyone with an url(shared on facebook) can access and add to it.Of course it might not be the case everywhere, but almost all my friends, even from different universities, have a similar system, so it is safe to assume all students have the access.

Although you said “any other course,” my answer just applies to your programming situation:
Specify the requirements at a high enough level that a good solution requires declaring/defining additional variables, data types, subprograms, etc.  Then plagiarism will be obvious (unless the cheater carefully goes through the code changing all the identifiers).

There's an extent to which there's nothing you can do about this. Presumably you're not going to get a new textbook every year. You said this is a programming class: I don't suppose you're going to switch to a different language every year. Etc.
I think a system many teachers use for tests is to build up a body of questions, and then use a different subset in a different order every year. Like one year ask questions A, B, C, D, and E. The next year ask D, B, F, G, and A, etc.
You could do something similar for homework. Have a set of problems and shuffle them around.
For a programming class, I think an easy solution would be to alter the problem just slightly every year. Life if one year a programming assignment is "read in two numbers, add them together, and display the result", (presumably a very early assignment!) maybe the next year it's "multiply them", and the next year it's "add them together and add 2". The suspicious part of me notes that this could make it easy to catch the very lazy cheaters. If this year's problem looks very much like last year's problem and just has a couple of words different, then if someone turns in an assignment that solves last year's problem rather than this year's, good chance he copied it from another student.
For any non-trivial problem, the chance that two programmers will come up with identical solutions is small, but I suppose checking for that would require keeping a database of every homework assignment ever turned in. And many cheaters are smart enough to change a few things around so it's not identical.

I always try to prepare a new set of homework questions -- regardless of the percentage.
As you have mentioned, there will always be a subset of students who will copy their way out, no matter how original your questions are. But there are also students who do not copy, and put their effort to solve the questions. They take the course seriously, they do not try to reach the ones from previous years.
So, I feel like should respect them and bring out a set of new questions.

If the serious students do not copy, then why do they need new exercises? They can just be given the set of (good) exercises that I already prepared for the previous year.

Simply because they are previous year's questions. Would it be OK if a student handed in a good answer from previous year?

So it is not, in fact, simply because they are last year's questions---because an honest student gets the same internal academic benefit from doing the work regardless. The benefit is that they fare better in comparison to students who would take the dishonest route.

The Stack Exchange volunteers' perspective.
You have in other answers the perspective of other academics, and the perspective of students.  Now have the perspective of wholly third parties not at your institutions that are nonetheless involved in this because your students are coming to us.
We get the fallout from this here at Stack Exchange.  For some several years now volunteers like me have been spotting computer science/programming coursework problems that students take and simply re-post to Stack Exchange, to get people from around the world to solve for them for free. They aren't copying prior answers.
From this perspective:

Hiding coursework questions behind a kind of adventure game interface, where they are not visible except to people who have completed a quest (i.e. handed in the preceding coursework), does not help us volunteers.  It actively thwarts us, as we rely on the questions being public in order to find whose course work, at what institution, they come from.  The same goes for restricting WWW spiders from crawling the questions.
Varying coursework from year to year does not address the problem.  Students just submit this year's variant to Stack Exchange, and some eager volunteer happily swoops in to do someone else's school or university coursework afresh.
Slight variations, enough to make the answer different whilst still triggering memories of years gone past, are better than drastic variations for us.  We volunteers only have pattern recognition for your chosen example names and scenarios, and seasonal memories such as Oh, is it the end of the Epiphany Term again so soon?, to go on.
A hyperlink to your institution's academic honesty policy that is direct (e.g. no Word documents), stable in the long term, and specific (i.e. your policy should not be tens of paragraphs down a single page containing lots of policies without an anchor for its specific section heading), is a useful thing.Also note that people will read "archived" as "no longer applies".  That's not a useful way to present a current policy, either.

In a sense, you are committing the same error as military organizations do of preparing to fight the last war rather than the next one.  The students of the world have already, years ago, worked around the detection of copied answers.  They nowadays use WWW sites including the very family of Q&A sites that you are asking this on to get eager people, from potentially multiple far away countries, without pay or indeed any connection to the students or to you, to solve their year-to-year different coursework problems for them.
Further reading
From my own direct experience, and I am just one volunteer who can only recognize a limited number of patterns.

ULI101/UNX101

https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130208180515AAV778P
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/168076/unix-grep-confusion#comment558984_168076
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/164762/remove-parent-and-sub-directory/164764#comment558985_164762
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/162354/how-can-i-copy-a-file-from-another-directory-to-the-current-one#comment558983_162354
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/353471/linux-unix-tree-diagram/353478#comment626268_353471
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/209262/what-command-would-i-issue-in-order-to-complete-this-question#comment353747_209262
https://superuser.com/questions/996053/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/318075/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/317816/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/211656/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19193933/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45194004/

CSCI132

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/396925/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/396574/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/396912/
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46739658/

Meta

https://unix.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4206/

Do you change how you teach the class based on how it goes each year? Unless you're a veteran professor, you should be doing this. So your homework questions will naturally change.
Putting that aside:
Make two years worth of different questions, and then alternate every year you teach the class. Most students don't know classmates 2 years ahead of them, making it hard for them to cheat.
So if you teach the class 2 semesters per year, 4 "full sets" would prevent the vast majority of cheating.

Failure to create new material each year is the reason fraternities and sororities in the US gather homework and test banks.
Professors give an advantage to students who are members of any organizations that may use such tactics if they don’t make new homework and new exams.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GreekLife/comments/2hiz1p/how_is_your_organiations_test_bank_run/

Fraternities and sororities are a US thing and the questioner doesn't appear to be in the US. Maybe you can expand this to take into account a possible different context.


text:
I'm a professor being mistaken for a grad student, how to handle this?
This question is the flip side of Mistook new faculty member to be a student, how big a faux pas is it?
I'm an associate professor, and apparently I look young for my age. When I meet new people at conferences, they often start the conversation with something like  "So, are you a grad student or a postdoc?"  It doesn't particularly bother me in itself, but when I politely say something like "Actually, I'm faculty", they get embarrassed and it kind of puts a damper on the conversation.  I think this sort of thing has probably spoiled a few potential networking opportunities for me.

Are there more tactful ways I can respond to this kind of mistake?
Are there things I could do to "look" more like a professor?  I already dress reasonably neatly (e.g. no T-shirts) and faculty in my field don't normally dress up much more than that.  Should I carry a briefcase instead of a backpack, or something like that?

(I happen to be cis male, work in mathematics, and live in the US, but it would be good to have more generally applicable answers if possible.)

Did you forget to attach your complimentary elbow patches?

People frequently ask me who my advisor is. I usually say "god, I wish I still had one".

Mandatory phd comics link: http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1841

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Indeed, "insert joke here..." As in "oh, I'm too beautiful for this world" :)      (Ok, yes, I myself am that wonderful, but am not entirely confident that everyone else might be... :(

please update your question, did you grew older? how are people reacting to you in 2022?

I would take it as a compliment to be mistaken for being younger. And, even if you don't actually feel complimented, that's a good way to respond. For example, you could laugh and say "Thanks. I wish I was still a young and carefree student, but, unfortunately, I'm a professor."
If you make it appear like you take it as a compliment, people won't feel like they have offended you and it is less awkward. The other party may also intentionally be erring on the side of underestimating your age, because it's seen as less of a faux pas that way.
(I often get people commenting on my height. I always act as if I take it as a compliment and that seems to work well. However, in reality, I'm pretty bored of discussing my disinterest in basketball.)
At conferences, you always have the option of putting "Prof." on your nametag. There is a small risk that this looks pretentious relative to the norms of your community, so it's a tradeoff.
Finally, one sure-fire way to appear older is to use gray hair dye!

You could dress (a bit) more formally... depends on what is the custom though..

I got my first grey hairs at seventeen.

@TRiG a friend of mine was bald by his 21st birthday... Still ok though..

‘…you always have the option of putting "Prof." on your nametag…’  Indeed, you can put your full job title, i.e. “Jane Doe // Assistant Professor // University of Kilmarnock”, which (at least in fields I know) would be slightly less likely to be seen as pretentious than “Prof. Jane Doe”, since what’s generally a bit old-fashioned/stuffy is asking for “Prof.” as a term of address.

Good answer, and I'd just add something that's usually a sure-fire way to leave an awkward moment behind: Pretend it never happened. Continue the conversation just as you would had the comment never been made. If you're awkward, it'll make them awkward.

@SolarMike In my experience with US academia, dressingly nicely is inversely correlated with seniority/prestige.  As Sabine says semi-jokingly in the comments on the question, a surefire way to find the distinguished professors is to look for the pizza-stained t-shirts.  Dressing nicely is likely to be counterproductive, in my experience.

@A_S00  down to each uni then - works with the ones I’ve been at...

But being bald can sometimes make you look younger instead of older. Not always though.

"I wish I was still a young and carefree student." I wish I was a carefree student...

+1 For having to discuss disinterest in basketball as a regular thing in your life. I can relate very much. :)

Storytime. When I was lecturing, I once waited for the students outside the classroom (casually against the wall).
A student came to me and asked "Hey, do you know dr WoJ? Is he tough?". To what I replied "Oh yeah, but he is a great guy".
We came in together, our ways split while he was walking towards the other students and I went to the head of the classroom. I smiled a few times when looking at him when he was trying to somehow shrink.
I still smile when I think about that, nobody makes the mistake anymore (sigh).
Bottomline: enjoy being seen as younger than you are. The way you look is only a part of how students will see you (from experience on both sides of the fence - the part "how do I look" is not that important).
Ah, another story. I had my first lab as a lab  teacher (during my doctoral studies - I was running the lab for the students, asking them questions, marking, etc.). I was late. I ran to the lab and the janitor stopped me yelling that I have to change because if all the students came with their stuff it would be the end of the world (more or less).
He closed the door and told me to be back when I am without my coat etc. - and that I am lucky that the teacher is late :)
It took me some time to get in.
Bottomline: you may actually consider, in specific conditions, to look like a teacher.

I've read that Wojtyla (the same who later became the pope John Paul II) had pretty much similar situation, just it was before an exam. A very nervous student asked him if this Wojtyla is very harsh, so he asked if the guy was prepared for the exam and started asking him questions as if he was checking how well was he prepare. Imagine how the student felt, when eventually Wojtyla asked for his examination card to put there a note (a decent one as the student indeed was well prepared) ;-)

I mentioned to my wife during dinner this story and she told me that her brother had almost the same one. He was going to his office when two students asked him about himself (not knowing him, they were on their way to meet him for the first time), they chatted on the way and ended up in front of his office where he invited them in.

I laughed and cringed so hard at these, thank you all for sharing :)

This isn't academic, but this is a social issue across the board. My aunt was sitting in a bar eating dinner and drinking a beer. The enforcement division of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission had been waiting for a violation and raided the bar.  They demanded her ID as she was clearly not eighteen yet. She pulled out her ID as a manager in the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission and her driver's license that said she was 50.
Until recently, I looked much younger than I was. I have also probably been called "doctor" less than ten times total. Dress for the role you are playing.

If you'd like to be more readily recognizable as a professor, change your dress to be a little bit more formal than the graduate students and postdocs around you dress.
In US professional dress for men, there are actually quite a number of noticeable gradations between T-shirt and suit. The rough levels that I've observed, in order of increasing formality are:

T-shirt
Collared shirt without buttons
"Comfy" button-down shirt with pocket (e.g., a flannel)
"Nice" button-down shirt (generally thinner and finer fabric, more subtle pattern and color)
Formal button-down shirt (i.e., the sort of thing you might iron and wear under a sport coat)
Tie without coat
Sport coat + tie
Suit

Those middle levels from 3-5 are subtle but highly communicative.  Graduate students and postdocs usually land at levels 1-3, while professors more tend to land from 3-6. From what you've written, I would guess that you're probably typically coming in at around a 2-4 right now, and could upgrade yourself to somewhere in the 4-5 range.
For a woman, the general advice would be the same ("dress a little bit more formally than the graduate students"), but the specifics of how to achieve it are a) more complex, and b) can often take advantage of accessories such as jewelry.

There's also Button-down Shirt and Sport Coat w/o tie.  Personally, I think this would fall in at 6.5 on your scale.

Also men can take advantage of accessories: Think of a wristwatch or 'serious-looking' glasses

Be careful though. If you reach too high on the scale, the impression you give is more "Ready for an interview" than "senior in the field".

I would actually replace 6 with "Button-down Shirt and Sport Coat w/o tie".  I frequently see male faculty with a sport coat and no tie (and sometimes dress that way myself).  I can't recall ever seeing a professor wearing a tie without a jacket.

@MarkMeckes: "Tie without coat" feels kind of old-fashioned. I would associate it most with "classic" engineering jobs in industry (i.e. before Silicon Valley started the "engineers dress down" trend), rather than with academia.

@Kevin Maybe that's why I primarily associate it with more senior (and thus typically older) professors?

I'm trying to imagine what a collared shirt without buttons is if it isn't a blouse.

@ElizabethHenning Polo Shirt. Normally have /some/ buttons but not a 'button-down shirt'

@Kevin: What I should have said is that specifically for male professors, I'd replace "tie without coat" with "coat without tie" in jakebeal's list.  In my experience, a tie is the last thing a male professor will consider adding to an outfit (and no one would claim that male professors, as a group, are fashion trendsetters).

Since everyone can google this, I hope that it’s ok to share this. This is the OP’s professional environment: https://owpdb.mfo.de/detail?photo_id=17657 I think that this should be taken into account.

Am I the only one who thinks 2 and 3 should be swapped?

Facial hair could help
As a guy in his upper thirties who until recently was still getting pegged as being in his upper teens to lower twenties, growing facial hair (a mustache and goatee) has helped quite a bit.  I now routinely get called "sir", which didn't happen before.  I'm not saying this will solve your problem, but if it's an option it can definitely help.

Indeed!

As it happens I already have a full beard (trimmed shorter than the guy @CountIblis mentions, though), but I agree that it would be even worse if I didn't.

Fair enough.  Though @CountIblis brings up (visually) a good point, which is (and not saying this applies to you) that at least in current U.S. fashion how you groom yourself while wearing facial hair matters; if trying to look older, it's important not to choose a hairstyle and clothing (and facial hair style) that aligns with the current fashion trend of young adult guys, many of whom also wear facial hair.

People often think I am much younger than I am, and they might express said confusion with remarks similar to the ones you get.  When people do get my age/position wrong, I normally point out they are ~ a decade off in their judgment, which always elicits surprise, never embarrassment.
My take therefore is that if you point out people are misjudging your professional position people might get embarrassed and forever try and avoid you, whereas if you causally drop 'thank you, but that was X years ago!' people will not feel so embarrassed.  Do not drop you status as faculty on their heads immediately after correcting them, let them ask you.
Let people think they complimented you for your superiors youthfulness rather than tell them off for dissing you -- that seems the outcome you wish to get.

First answer that actually addresses the OP's stated problem rather than telling them to be glad about being seen as younger than they are.

As a staff member (in the no man's land between students and faculty) who dresses casually, others on campus would always ask what I'm studying.  Then over a summer vacation I stopped shaving my salt-and-pepper beard.  When I returned, everyone suddenly treated me like I had tenure.  I was flabbergasted.

absolutely, it is the beard. it really is.

It doesn't particularly bother me in itself, but when I politely say something like "Actually, I'm faculty", they get embarrassed and it kind of puts a damper on the conversation

I'm answering this based on that you do not appear to be bothered my the initial mistake, but how the conversation ensues. In that case, I'd recommend against changing things like how you dress or what you carry, and instead focus on how you respond. Being polite when you tell them the mistake is fine, but the way you express it will define the rest of the conversation. So yes, if you're polite, but serious, they might feel awkward. But if you smile and take it as humorous mistake and tell them with a light, almost laughing tone (not actually laughing, but maybe a little chuckle) that you are a faculty member, then, yes, they might still be a little embarrassed, but they will probably be comfortable about it. Maybe even inject an "I get that all the time." This would be less drastic than changing your dress style or daily behavior.

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text:
Is it a bad thing if my Personal History Statement reveals my intention to immigrate?
I am an international student applying for Computer Science PhD in US. Some universities I plan to apply to require Personal History Statement in addition to Statement of Purpose. I believe that I described my research interests, talents and motivation in my SOP quite well. I happen to be pretty "diverse" person as well, so I wrote about it in my PHS. The only drawback is that my PHS reveals some details of my background that may serve as a "red flag" of my lack of intention to come back to my home country after I graduate. I know this is not a good thing for visa approval, but I wonder what kind of attitude the university departments have to such students.
I received a lot of criticism for this approach. People say that I must not appear to be desperate and should avoid saying anything that is not directly relevant to my interest in Computer Science, but I believe that my history is an important part of my identity (and a chance for alternative funding sources), and I'm out of ideas of what else I can write about Computer Science that is not already mentioned by my SOP, Resume and recommenders.
So what would you suggest? Should I omit any details of my history that may raise suspision of my immigration intention?

My guess would be that university departments wouldn't care about a lack of intention to go back to your home country after graduation (frankly, I perceive the expectation that a foreigner must have an intention to go back to their home country as quite a xenophobic idea, unless it is uttered by a border agent, who is arguably doing their job by expressing that view), but I would be more concerned about university departments seeing a lack of genuine interest in the studies and instead using the studies as a means of getting into the country.

Thank you for the reply, I've taken your advice into account when I rewrote my PHS. My reluctance to live in my home country can still be inferred, but now it doesn't look like immigration is my primary reason for pursuing PhD.

@O.R.Mapper: While it is probably unlikely that the INS will see what is written in the university application (or is it?), the official designation of a student visa is to obtain "Nonimmigrant (F1) student status;" and part of the requirements is to prove "your intent to depart the United States upon completion of the course of study" (source). I fully intended to stay after my PhD, but there's no need to advertise this. It's an issue best taken seriously, and moral judgment doesn't help in giving advice.

@gnometorule: The possibility that immigration agencies might get to see the university application is a good point, which may complicate the issue. The regulations you cite illustrate why I grant an immigration officer expressing a view along the lines of "immigrants have to go home eventually", but that does not mean the university people processing the application share those views. (In fact, the opposite sentiment that foreign students should stay around after graduation to "give back" to the country that provided them with education is not unheard of in some places.)

@O.R.Mapper: I wholeheartedly agree, and the "giving back" comment in particular made me smile. As a grad student, I kept thinking exactly how silly it was to educate me in the U.S., to then not be interested in receiving something back. I left a somewhat sharp comment (sorry!) because I take INS issues extremely seriously. I'm currently renewing my Greencard, have no criminal record, and am married to an American; it still makes me uneasy, and I live  by the letter.

@gnometorule: Sure, your advice about how to deal with the INS is certainly helpful. I didn't elaborate on that angle because the question seemed to be more focused on what to tell the university than on what to tell immigration officials. And in that respect, I felt it worth pointing out that the underlying idea for immigration procedures, that foreigners are expected to go home at last, is not necessarily shared by others, as well as a slight need to distance myself from that idea (I'm not in or from the U.S., but as it is said: "Border officials are the same everywhere" ;) ).

@gnometorule: no, your comment wasn't sharp, I know it's true. But I'm immensely relieved that professors don't mind me staying.

People who get a Ph.D. and also try to immigrate are generally quite welcome in US academia.  The problem you may run into is that some people who just want to immigrate sometimes try to use a Ph.D. program as a visa source without having any real interest in a Ph.D., and then drop out when they find a company that can hire them.  This is understandably annoying to professors, who may have spent quite a bit of time, energy, and money on such a student, only to find the student has been disingenuous all along.  Thus, if you "smell" like such a student, you may find difficulty getting admitted.
If this is your intention, don't do it.
If you truly want a Ph.D., however, and the immigration is a separate desire, then I would advise you to just focus on the things that are about getting a Ph.D. Let your passion and your focus shine through, so that's the main thing that the professors notice.  Don't worry about trying to hide your desire to immigrate: if it comes out naturally as a small part of your statement, that's OK, since the professors reading it will likely be guessing you want to immigrate unless you explicitly say otherwise.

But depending on the current conditions at Immigration and Naturalization Services, any indication that a student is not intending to "return home" after degree completion might cause fatal troubles at INS. Our math dept has had some cases of students who misunderstood what had to be said in this regard, said the wrong thing, and did not get visas.

Yes, I truly want a PhD. I think that even if I won a diversity lottery or something, I would still apply for PhD. I think that I made sure that my passion is still the main thing the professors notice. I don't mention my intention to immigrate anywhere, it can just be inferred from my situation (wishing to come back would be strange and irrational).

@PaulGarrett: I know about visa issues, I guess I'll just have to ile a bit if I am asked directly. I hope it will be the last major lie I'll ever have to say. But it may turn out to be unnecessary, PhD students with full funding (no other options are available to me) are rarely denied.

I think it is unwise to drop out of PhD, because it may seriously harm my recommendations and reputation, a social institution that really is important in US.

To reiterate the point of the other answers and comments, without this getting lost in a long suite of comments...
During the Bush administration, the INS was very strict about students' promising and giving some evidence that they'd return to their home country after degree completion... no matter what the regime was there, etc. Some kids from PRC had trouble because they could not adequately document that they had family in PRC giving them motivation to return! (I've been involved with grad admissions in math for the last 30 years and have seen the evolution of visa issues...) Also in that era, a Lebanese student who'd gone home to visit was detained (by INS) for some days without any charges, etc!
As far as I know, in principle the same rules still apply, but, as always, the question is about the degree to which they are enforced by INS.
As in some other comments, the illogic or self-inconsistency of the supposed need to declare no interest in immigrating... seems to be irrelevant to INS.
The separate issue of departmental/program reactions is less artificial. Still, over the years, a significant number of grad students have made clear, once here, that they would have taken any available route to get into the U.S., and, yes, this is a bit annoying, even if understandable, because it causes our departmental resources to be used somewhat less efficiently than we'd hope. Maybe this is inescapable...?
Nevertheless, we are reconciled to the fact that a certain rate of grad students discover after a year or two that they don't want to do PhD's in math, and that's fine. It's not obligatory, etc. If anything, the rate of attrition among domestic students may be higher than among international students, but/and we attribute this partly to the fact that a typical B.S. program in math in the U.S. does not have as much substance as many B.S. programs elsewhere, much less M.S. programs elsewhere, so there can easily be a larger element of surprise for U.S. undergrads going to grad school.
In summary: instead of thinking about "lying by omission", consider that "telling the truth" loses some (even more?) of its pretended-objective nature when the context in which questioning occurs is highly contrived, so that words take on different meanings and have surprise consequences...

The majority of foreign students would like to immigrate to the US after completing their degrees.  Most faculty have no problem with this, but then again we're in the business of educating students, not smoothing the pathway to immigration.  I wouldn't discuss your immigration plans in your application for a PhD program.
As others have mentioned you will also have explain to US government officials why you want to study in the US when you apply for your F1 student visa.  You must have the intention of leaving the US after your studies in order to obtain this visa.  Saying that you ultimately intend to immigrate to the US will most likely result in denial of your visa.

Does US immigration draw no distinction between an aspiration to eventually immigrate, and an intention to outstay a visa? Or putting it another way, is it insufficient to have a conditional intention to leave, conditional on not successfully immigrating? Would an immigration application made while in the country on a student visa be routinely denied anyway, on the basis that by the point the application is made, the person now would clearly prefer not to leave and that such a preference is unacceptable in an overseas student?

I ask because there might be a lot of mis-steps the questioner could make, if the expectation is that anyone on a student visa must be adamant that they have no intention ever to take any step that could result in them legally remaining.

The requirement is “present intent to depart the U.S. at the conclusion of his or her studies.”   That is, any aspiration to maybe eventually immigrate would be enough for denial of the visa.

Hmm, it seems on the face of it that if the questioner admitted to an intention to complete the studies, depart the US (perhaps briefly), and then re-enter the country should there be a successful immigration application, then the requirement you quote is met (intent to leave), and yet there is also some aspiration to maybe eventually immigrate. So it's counter-intuitive (and therefore well worth knowing) that any aspiration to immigrate is unacceptable, and that it's not just about intent to correctly terminate the stay(s) relating to the studies.

Also that depending on the questioner's status, "my lack of intention to come back to my home country" needn't necessarily imply a lack of intention to leave the US, although I suppose immigration officials wouldn't see it that way unless you had convincing evidence to show them concerning some third country to which you do intend to go and in which you have the right to reside. Anyway, whatever the details and edge cases, of course I have to agree that admitting in an application that you're lying on your student visa application is a spectacularly bad idea.

I doubt that the consular officials who interview applicants for F1 visas would want to draw that fine line between "intent to remain within the US and switch to an immigrant visa status" and "intent to leave the US and then apply for immigration to the US."  You could certainly try to make that argument but I wouldn't count on it working.

It'd be weird if the officials haven't twigged that the majority of applicants are lying to them about their intentions and getting away with it, but I'm sure they know their business. Presumably they turn a blind eye to the deception, and your job as an applicant is not to make it so obvious that they can't.

@SteveJessop It almost sounds like you expect logic to play some role in  immigration policy. Sadly, no.

@JeffE: I merely expect logic to play some role in analysing and describing the actual state of affairs, even if the actual state of affairs is neither sensible nor corresponds with the law or the written policy ;-)