text:
Can I get a refund if I bought an article that contains a major flaw?
Is it possible to get a refund from a publisher if I bought an article that contains a major flaw (i.e.,one that invalidates the main results or the main conclusions)? Assume the article was bought through one of the main academic publication's paywall.

Wouldn't that refund hinge upon whether you can still use the article? If you found a flaw, as you describe, you might end up publishing a paper superseding the results from the flawed article, at which point the publisher might see no reason to refund anything.

The analogous question at Movies.SE would of course be: can I get a refund on my movie tickets if I didn't like the film?

@StephanKolassa Yes for movies, some theaters have a policy to refund the customer if he leaves within X minutes after the movie starts.

@O.R.Mapper Let's assume I don't plan to write any article.

@FranckDernoncourt: if you write to the publisher as @EnergyNumbers suggests, you could include on which page you stopped reading. I'm afraid it won't help you much, though.

@FranckDernoncourt If journals refunded fees if people didn't finish a paper, they would immediately go out of business.

EU Consumer Rights Directive gives a 14-day time period to ask for refund for digital goods (including ebooks) unless the seller explicitly tells you that you will begin downloading it and lose your right to refund.

@Hassassin, it might however be that consumer rights might not apply to commercial customers (aka non-customers) which one might be when accessing said paper at the workplace. (Not sure, need to check.)

You cannot get a refund, but you can get the privilege to work for free for the publisher and make them make more money out of your work, by submitting a paper to refute the wrong one. This is what paywalled journals' publishers do!

How did you buy? If a credit card, why not file a claim with the CC company?

@Superbest I don't think it's appropriate to suggest trying not to pay for something that one bought.

@CapeCode If I buy a chair online and it turns out to miss a leg, I'm sure as hell going to want a refund. If I buy an article from a publisher that certifies its correctness (that's pretty much the only real service they provide) and it turns out to be false (read: useless, arguably) then the same rules apply. Not only should I get a refund but every other prior buyer of this should get a note and a refund. (Once the mistake is established beyond doubt.)

@Raphael publishers never grantee correctness of the content. That would be economic suicide since the majority of scientific articles are wrong in a way or another. The publisher only provides access, if you're unhappy about the content it's the authors you should ask for a refund.

@CapeCode  If there is no such guarantee by which we can hold the relevant parties accountable, not even for major flaws, then publishers and peer review are useless.

@Raphael a telephone provider does not grantee that the conversation you will have on the phone will be enjoyable. You can shoot the messenger if you want. The issue remains that the perpetrator of the bad science are the authors and the people who didn't see it during peer review are academics, not the publisher's employees.

If I buy a book and I didn't like it, can I get a refund?

If I publish a paper and I retract it because it contains an error, do I get the fee I paid for publishing it back?

@CapeCode The analogy doesn't work. It's more like, I ask the phone company to connect me to my good friend John Doe, which is a service they (claim to) provide. I then get connected to a commercial line somewhere in south-east Asia where they try to sell me magic stones. Oh yes will I demand a refund for the outrageous sum that call cost! (The idea that outsourcing of the actual work to people paid by tax payers gives publishers a comfortable blanket of plausible deniability in cases of quality issues sickens me even more than the original topic.)

@Raphael publishers provide a service, the content (that can be disappointing) is, like you said, paid largely by the taxpayer. Yet you choose to be angry at publishers instead of asking to sack the people who use deception to advance their career, or are just too sloppy to deserve their position. It's a political opinion to which you are entitled of course.

@CapeCode What makes you think I exclude these people (authors and reviewers) from the responsibility? I most certainly do not. However, this question is about getting a refund, so we are talking about publishers only, as we pay these (ironically). And yes, I am of the firm opinion that they do hold some responsibility -- if not for the quality itself then for how they act when quality issues are made apparent. Withdrawal of wrongful papers, a public note so that people who missed the problem can learn of it (snowball!), and refunding (individual buyers) are the bare minimum, I think.

@CapeCode If they can not or refuse to provide this part of their service, then they are not fit to be (part of) the foundation upon which science rests. (Feel free to call this a political opinion; if that label is what it takes to make the statement, fine.)

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

As much as I really wish this were the case, no, you generally can't get a refund.

This is different from not liking a book or a movie: one of the things you pay for (supposedly) is a proper peer-review process. If there is a glaring error that should have been caught by any reasonable referee, and the paper is useless as a result, you have, at least in principle, bought a faulty product. The claims in the abstract were used to advertise that product, and those claims were demonstrably false.

@Peter you are not paying for peer review. Reviewers are chosen by the editorial board (i.e. not the publisher) and do not work for the publisher.

@CapeCode You are not paying for the reviewer's time (in most cases), but you are paying for the review process. You are paying for the editor's time in finding reviewers, and badgering them. I mean, I don't personally think the publishers actually add any value, but they themselves certainly seem to think they're adding upwards of 1000$ of value per paper.

@CapeCode: I would compare the situation to softwares with an error that makes it useless rather than not enjoying a movie/book. The producer/distributor of a movie cannot guarantee for sure that you will enjoy it. On the other hand, the review process is similar to the quality control or test phase of a software development. If the software is buggy because they missed an important error, then I am entitled to a refund (or a free correction if possible). The fact that the reviewers are not paid is their problem, not mine.

@Taladris without going into the details of why commercial software development and research are two very different things, the content of an academic paper is not a product. At least it's not the "product" you are buying when you pay to download a paper.

@CapeCode: Therefore, what am I buying? The content of an academic paper seems to fit with definitions $1$ and $3$ of product in Wiktionary.

I wonder if there would be some leeway in thinking about this in the way, that the article's abstract and contents don't match. As the abstract is not delivered because of the flaw, they might be blamed of false advertising?

Of course you can request one - just send an email. You'll brighten up the publisher's office for the afternoon, and they'll be chuckling all the way home.
So just as long as you don't seriously expect to get your money back, you'll be fine. When you paid your fee, you were paying for access to read the paper. As long as that access was provided, then the publisher has met their side of the bargain. Peer review is not a guarantee of correctness. It's a first-level junk filter, nothing more.
And on top of you getting what you've paid for, you've got the additional bonus that you've now got a new paper that you can write, that's practically already written itself; the paper where you take apart your bought paper's argument. Magnanimously, the publisher won't require you to pay extra for this bonus - you got it thrown in for free.

I'm not sure what you are saying is legitimate, either morally or legally. If the publishing company knows the paper is bogus, either through their own review or from having been informed by previous buyers' complaints, they are committing fraud if they keep selling access to it.

Magnanimously, the publisher won't require you to pay extra for this bonus - you got it thrown in for free. Unless, of course, there's a fee for publishing the paper.  Caveat scriptor.

"When you paid your fee, you were paying for access to read the paper. As long as that access was provided, then the publisher has met their side of the bargain." That's a very simplistic view that ignores whatever consumer protection legislation may be in force in the asker's country. For example, if the downloaded paper turned out to be literal gibberish, there'd be a very good claim for a refund.

I really don't think the tone of this post is appropriate for a 'helpful' post

Peer review (at least through a well respected journal or publishing company) is a little bit more than a first level junk filter.

"Peer review is not a guarantee of correctness. It's a first-level junk filter, nothing more." -- then publishers are utterly useless.

@Raphael given that over 99% of writing is junk, then publishers are incredibly valuable. If you doubt it, go look at vixra.

@EnergyNumbers Junk is easy to detect. It's wrong not-junk that's important to filter, and doing so for every peer-reviewed, published article you read (for every reader) is a waste of time and money. Hence the peer-review system which should imply the assumption is that what is published (with a reputable publisher) can be generally assumed to be correct. The system does not make sense otherwise, so if publishers don't want to sign their own death warrant they better make sure they stand by that implied promise.

The only thing a publisher sells is their reputation.  Due to their reputation they can get (reasonably) good editors and (reasonably) good volunteers to do peer review, and due to a consistently (reasonably) good peer review they sustain (reasonably) good papers and sustain their reputation.

@DavidRicherby I strongly doubt that anything more then access to the article is guaranteed even in jurisdictions which have very strong consumer protection laws. You might have a claim if the article is mindbogglingly bad (as in obvious rubbish) but otherwise I highly doubt it.

Expecting peer review to ensure correctness is clearly unreasonable, due to the time it would take to reimplement the method and test it (which is what ensuring correctness would require, as a bare minimum, in my field).  While peer-review does perform more than a first level junk filter (at least for reputable journals) it would be unwise to treat peer review as more than a first level junk filter and to remain skeptical of what you are reading.

@Raphael "Hence the peer-review system which should imply the assumption is that what is published (with a reputable publisher) can be generally assumed to be correct." Um....no. I mean, sure, that would be nice. It would be great! It would be a boon for humanity. But it is not the way the world of academic publishing actually works in practice.

@KurtTappe There's a long leap from "the paper is wrong" to "the paper is wrong, the publisher knew it, and they wilfully went ahead without retracting it", and there's a lot of evidence of wrongdoing (specifically on the role and knowledge of the publisher) required to go from "you need to retract this paper" to "you should go to jail for fraud".

I'm not so sure about this. If the abstract claims "in this paper we prove X", and X is in fact not proven, then it was surely mis-sold if you bought it expecting to read a proof of X.

@OllieFord You have got a point. Good luck explaining this to the publisher or a court. You've got a chance, for the publisher, it's cheaper to give some sweet (=refund) to you than to argue with you.

@yo' Oh, absolutely, I'm not even close to a lawyer. I'm sure there's some subtlety that makes it fine for them to not refund, I just meant to highlight that it's not as clear-cut as made out to be.

@tonysdg This answer only says the buyer got a new paper they can write. Publishing it is another matter. ;)

@OllieFord yes, exactly, this could be a case for misadvertisement, and product being a wrong product sold (not just defying expectations). Misadvertisement is legally regulated at least in some countries (then the question would be where's the publishers based).

You can ask for anything you want, but you will not get a refund. The terms and condition of the site where you purchased it most likely clearly stated that it wasn't an option.
One example from Taylor & Francis:

The content in this site is provided "as is" and without warranties of any kind either express or implied.
Taylor & Francis Group Ltd do not warrant or make any representations regarding the use or the results of the use of the content in this site in terms of their correctness, accuracy, reliability, or otherwise.

And another piece of sound advice:

If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use this site.

More generally, the money you pay for the article is strictly for its publishing, the actual research that resulted in a "major flaw" was paid via other channels, on which it's very unlikely that you'll have any direct influence. The people making the original claim about the content of an article, and taking responsibility for it, are the authors not the publisher to which you paid the fee.
If you witness that a given journal has consistently low acceptance standards, make sure to notify your institution's library, they might consider resigning subscription if they gather enough similar complaints.
Sadly, for the occasional 20 bucks you consider wasted for that article (I'm sure this is purely fictional, there are many ways of getting subscription journal's content without paying for it) there are 10 unscrupulous scholars, somewhere who use 3000$ of your tax money to publish complete rubbish in an open access journal. And here the perspective of a refund is nonexistent.

Ah, the marvels of the legalese "as is with no implied warranty"...

@Mindwin sounds pretty straightforward to me.

It is. but I liked "caveat emptor" more.

Many organizations claim that they're providing goods or services with no warranty; this is often at odds with consumer protection legislation. The simple fact that they claim to offer no refunds doesn't mean that's legally viable.

@DavidRicherby Makes me wonder if their TOS was peer reviewed. ;-)

@BrainSlugs83 Probably, but maybe as well as the article in question.

@DavidRicherby : Consumer protection law does not protect academia. The exact boundaries of consumer law can't be explained in this comment, but in general the law is restricted to natural persons. Most researchers don't pay for the access themselves, and for that reason alone can't invoke consumer law.

@MSalters The implication of the question here seems to be that the article was bought by a natural person, however. No point in asking for a refund if you weren't the one paying for the article in the first place, and in fact doing so would probably be fraud.

@MSalters The question says "I bought". But I agree that, if that's a short-hand for "I got my employer to buy on my behalf", then it's a whole 'nother ball game.

I'm confused about where the notion that "tax dollars" have anything at all to do with published academic papers, comes from?  It seems a complete red herring.

@dwoz I'm confused about where else do you think the money comes from.

I wonder if there would be some leeway in considering it as a mismatch between abstract and contents, and in this sense as false advertisement. Since because of the content problem, the abstract doesn't deliver what it was promised and you were given false information on the purchase. The paper is not broken (cf. warranty statements), but it is just not what was promised. Any thoughts?

The publisher does not guarantee that the article has no major flaw. Indeed, for all they know, the reason why you requested access to the article in the first place was to refute it. Or to check other people's criticism of it.
Also, consider how many articles there are that are wrong yet of great historical interest. One example that pops into mind is the papers Einstein published before November 1915, containing his "work in progress" on general relativity, including some blatantly flawed thoughts.
So no, I do not believe you are entitled to a refund. You certainly don't have a legal basis, but I don't believe you have a moral basis either.
I can, however, imagine a scenario in which you might be legally entitled to a refund: if the article in question was based on fraudulent research, and the publisher was complicit in the fraud (e.g., the paper remains available for a fee even after it has been demonstrated unambiguously that it represents fraudulent research). Respectable publishers retract such papers. Other publishers... well, good luck with them.

There is a case where I think you might have a very strong moral claim even if not a legal one: if the paper is retracted, there is no question that you ought to be able to obtain a refund.
Addendum One argument contrariwise: The last science needs is any further disincentive for publishers to retract papers. Maybe better for the enterprise as a whole to have a few readers get cheated than to have fraudulent and otherwise untrustworthy papers remain in the literature.

I didn't downvote, but this seems overly optimistic. Other comments and answers about "no implied warranty" I think are more likely the way things would play out.

Hence the qualification. It's not overly optimistic to say that you have a moral right. It's overly optimistic to think that the publisher would respect it.

How about false advertising: The abstract claims a demonstration of X, where no such demonstration is available.

Did "The Lancet" refund the buyers of that autism article? Because the damages are still piling up to this day. Measels, anyone? (http://www.cmaj.ca/content/182/4/E199.short)

@paulgarrett If I buy a car and it gets recalled due to major flaws, I sure as hell get a refund. Why would the rules be different here?

@Mindwin That would be an interesting lawsuit. Publisher, authors and reviewers should all be on the title.

@Raphael I would at least hope that the consequences of that wrong publishing could vaccinate (pun most intended) the community against poorly done peer reviewing.

@Raphael Reviewers absolutely should not be held responsible. In general, most retractions are due to issues that fooled even the authors -- or due to deliberate misconduct. Unless reviewers redo the original experiments, re-code the original code, etc., we cannot possibly expect them to catch either of these classes of issues. And if you add significant liability to the unpaid job of reviewing, the whole system collapses.

@Corvus Depends on the kind of fault, yes. And when/how it's caught eventually, and if the reviewers could reasonably be expected to catch it at the time of review. Accepting a paper with obvious methodological flaws or results that should be reproducible but are not (e.g. CS algorithms paper without code) is misconduct on the reviewers parts, and they should be accountable for that.

@Raphael I totally disagree. Have you ever tried to recruit reviewers as an editor? It's hard enough already. Have you caught every obvious mistake in every paper you've reviewed? I haven't. Have you made enough money reviewing papers to pay damages if you were held financially accountable? I haven't made a penny. You're expecting way too much of peer review--and placing these kinds of burdens on it would cause the system to collapse entirely. No way I am going to donate a two days a month to reviewing if I face legal repercussions for mistakes despite acting in good faith.

@Corvus And what do you propose we do about deliberately sloppy reviewers? And don't tell me they don't exist -- we've all gotten the "has not read the paper" review. And we've all read the (conference) paper that was apparently accepted for its flashy headline. Currently, there is zero accountability -- not even for the authors, most of the time, since few bad papers are ever called out. Published, on the record, cool, next. What do you propose? How can we (re)establish trust if nobody but idealists strives to ensure quality?

@Corvus By the way, I was not necessarily proposing legal or monetary consequences. Researchers' currency is their reputation, so hit that. Imagine if we had a public record of everybody's reviews with accept/reject stats and error quotas. We could even employ machine learning to uncover reviewer misconduct (reject competitors, accept friends).

@Raphael I do agree that hitting reputation is better than legal or monetary consequences -- but even there, why would anyone ever agree to provide a review?. The system is about to crumble as is. I edit at very top-tier journals and even there I have to send out two review requests to get one reviewer. It's far worse down the hierarchy. As for ML, I strongly oppose almost all forms of dragnetting for misconduct. People who do so very rarely worry enough about the chance of or consequence of their false positives.

@Corvus If we can't manage to have a reliabe review system/culture that punishes mistakes in some way (i.e. encourages quality) I'd say we have larger issues. You seem to say, "our peers do not enough enough integrity (on average) for your system". Well, let's address that issue then. (By the way, one thing that can help any review system is to publish less. I know of subfields of CS in which absurd numbers of incremental articles are pushed out, each of which takes reviewer time. Restrict everybody to three articles per year, and nobody has to review more than nine articles per year.)

@Corvus Regarding machine learning, that's tangential. Suffice to say that -- of course -- you'd use ML to generate candidates which you can then investigate using rigorous statistics. If we believe in statistics enough to build science on top of it, we should also trust it to identify patterns in reviewing activity.

There's only a few narrow reasons you might demand a refund in this case:  first, if the download/manuscript was somehow damaged or malformed, e.g. pages missing, or somehow "broken";  secondly, if the precis you used to make the purchase decision described something fundamentally different than what the paper delivered;  third, if there was something fraudulent about the paper.
Being "incorrect" or "false" is different than being "fraudulent."

To be successful in a request for a refund, either the publisher would have to be remarkably generous, or they would need to conclude that it is in their best interest. I'm skeptical that appeal to threatened "public hue and cry" would persuade them, since academic publishers are generally immune to negative publicity. A potentially more powerful motivating force would be legal pressure, for which I see two bases. One would be fraud, where the publisher knowingly represented falsehoods as truth. It would be challenging to establish fraud. The second is via warranty of merchantability (in the US enshrined in law via the Uniform Commercial Code article 2). In some cases, e.g. Taylor & Francis (following the lead of every known software producer), publications are offered as-is, in which case you have no option. Any product without an as-is disclaimer carries a warranty, to the effect that if the seller knows (or should know) that the item is used for a particular purpose, then the item is fit for that purpose. This is why one can sue a company for negligence, if they sell something as fit for a purpose when it is not.
In order to make any traction with a threat for violating the implied warranty of merchantability, you would have almost certainly have to enlist the aid of lawyers willing to help you pursue the matter. The two main things that you would have to objectively establish is that the article has a known purpose, and that the article actually is not fit for that purpose. I don't believe that you would have to establish that the publisher was aware of the defect (I'd like to be more assertive about that, but that's what lawyers do).
If you just email them asking for a refund, they will probably say that they don't make any guarantees. However, if your attorney uses suitable language, they would probably reply that they have a stated as-is policy (you're out of luck), or, that there is no way they could know of the mentioned purpose, or that the article is in fact fit for that purpose. Since "merchantability" isn't defined under the law, courts would generally compare the item in question against comparable products. The reason is that no product can be absolutely flawless, and a claimed based on merchantability would have to show that the product was egregiously defective, not just less than satisfactory.
That all said, you did not actually purchase "the article", you purchased a license to copy the article in a particular manner, for which reason it is not clear that UCC article 2 is applicable.

If you are just looking to get your money back, then I am afraid it is not worth an effort; you probably will spend more on the telephone calls than they charged you for the article.
However, it could be nice to set a precedent like this: to request a refund and eventually to sue a lazy publisher, who do not bother to introduce a proper level of scrutiny in their peer review process, and instead charge the authors to publish some bogus papers and then charge the readers to access them. I have no idea whether or not such a case can win (and I guess it depends on jurisdictions). The question just adds to the bigger question of very complicated relations between academic publishers and academia.

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text:
Should I waive my right to view my recommendation letters?
Most graduate applications provide a choice for applicants to view their recommendation letters at a later date. There is a mention of some US mandate alongside.

Is it a better option to forgo this choice in the application? Will the recommending professor feel more secure then?
What is the procedure for the applicant to see his/her recommendation letters? Does the university readily show them when asked?
How ethical is it for the student to ask for the same, especially, for example, after being rejected from a program?

I suggest that this question should be tagged to show the countries where things work this way. It is certainly not universal to expect that the student should not see the content. I've been dealing with German Arbeitszeugnisse (roughly "certificate of job performance") and letters of recommendation from middle europe and Italy, and over here they are usually given to the student who can then attach them to their application. Coming from this culture, waiving the right to see the LoR sounds to me like asking a student to waive their right to see the marked written exam and their final mark.

The secret to getting a good letter from someone is making sure they're going to write you a good letter before you have them write one. You should never need to look at a letter someone wrote for you, as you should basically know what they're going to write without ever having looked at it. In most cases, if someone doesn't feel comfortable writing a 100% positive letter about you, they'll let you know when you ask them and recommend you get someone else to write the letter.
With that in mind, it is definitely better to forgo this choice, for the reason you suggested... people will likely feel more comfortable to write freely and honestly when they know you won't read it. Regarding the procedure, I'm not familiar with the mandate, but if it is a US mandate, then they'll probably show it to you after a lot of waiting. It is definitely uncommon for someone to ask to see a letter written about them, and it likely would be looked down upon.

If someone doesn't feel comfortable writing a 100% positive letter about you, they SHOULD let you know when you ask; unfortunately, they don't always.  Professors are human, too; some of us have trouble saying no.  To be safe, it's best to swallow your ego and ask directly: "Are you willing to write me a strong recommendation letter?  Do you have any concerns?"

Among the faculty members I've known (at US research universities), there's a widespread feeling that recommendation letters should be completely confidential unless the writer chooses otherwise, and that viewing them using FERPA is unethically taking advantage of a legal loophole.  Almost all the students check the waiver box, and if someone doesn't, then the letter writer is more likely to assume it was by accident than on purpose.
In this context, my advice is:

You should always check the box.  If your recommenders believe you may look at the letters later, they will probably write weaker, vaguer letters.  (For example, the most compelling letters often involve comparisons with other students, which may be omitted if you'll be reading the letter.)
If you are not checking the box on purpose, you should say so explicitly.  If you do this silently, people may assume it was an accident, and then if they learn later that you viewed the letters, they will be more offended than if you had announced this plan in advance.  (And they may actually find out, since the staff who handle your request may find it troubling and leak the information even if they aren't supposed to.)
You would learn less than you might expect from looking at the letters.  It's remarkably hard to judge letters out of context, without having seen other letters from the same people, and it's not likely you'll discover a clear reason for your rejection.  If anything, it might mislead you: you might decide that Professor X was damaging your chances by being insufficiently enthusiastic, without realizing that Professor X is never enthusiastic and in context this letter was viewed as very positive.

I think the fundamental worry many students have is of a terrible letter, a single letter that ruins what would otherwise have been a successful application.  This can happen, but I see an example only once every few years.  And even in those cases, it often looks like it should have been predictable to the applicant.  (For example, if you have had difficulties with someone in the past but things seem better now, don't ask for a letter without a serious discussion of how they think things stand now.)  So I wouldn't worry too much: the chances you could dramatically improve your application by substituting a letter are small.

There are some simple precautions, too, that students soliciting letters can take. Don't ask for a letter from someone whose direct protege/student you'd be competing against, for example. Comparisons are everything...

"If your recommenders believe you may look at the letters later, they will probably write weaker, vaguer letters. (For example, the most compelling letters often involve comparisons with other students, which may be omitted if you'll be reading the letter.)" This makes a lot of sense.

"If you do this silently, people may assume it was an accident, and then if they learn later that you viewed the letters, they will be more offended" -- funny how people are most offended when their own serious mistakes come back to bite them ;-) That's why it's polite to be explicit -- you protect them from the opportunity to make such an elementary error as overlooking that you haven't waived.

You should definitely waive access to your letters of recommendation.  If you don't, the people reading the letters have reason to suspect that the writers, knowing that you might see the letter, would omit (or at least soften) any negative information that they would otherwise have included. As a result, your failure (or refusal) to waive access can weaken the letters in the eyes of the readers.

Indeed, not waiving may subliminally create a suspicion that you have something to hide, etc., and are attempting to prevent the letter writers from hinting at whatever-it-is.

Idk, many of the application site indicated that the reviewers wouldn't be privy to know if you waived or not.

I was explicitly told by my recommending professor that you're supposed to waive your right to see the letters. In particular they said that it might not matter if your recommender is a respected individual with an established career in the field, but it definitely matters if your recommender does not carry that weight.

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text:
how not to burn bridges between two academic jobs?
Last year I have been submitting my CV to different faculties for a lecturing position. Of all the ones that I applied only one was more serious and wanted to keep in touch (institution A), the other one (institution B) was completely silence and only they reply with a general "we are interested, but we will tell you when there are open positions". Actually the following has happened:

Institution A has offered me a full time position with good salary, and the freedom to make research or even to work in other places part time.
Institution B contact me a few days before the offer of institution A, telling me that they would like me to work part time with them; when I told them that I would like to have a full time position they started to tell me "that procedure is going to take time". A couple of days passed and I got the offer from the job that I mentioned in the first point.
Now last week Institution B called me and they told me that they want not only to offer me a full time position, but also a position as a student coordinator of the career. The drawbacks are: the salary is 14% less than A, the hours are not; fixed that means that one should stay for overtime unpaid if the goals have not been reached, the research is keep to the minimum and I will not have the chance to work in another place part time. The only benefit is that I will be have a higher rank than in A. This same institution has already booked me for some partial hour lecturers in a couple of courses. I have been sincere with them when they called me and I told them that I have been offered another position (from institution A), so I need to wait to their answer. Even with that institution B has continue insisting me for getting the job with them.

So by factors of time, research and money; institution A seems a pretty good choice, but how I can reject politely the offer from B without being "marked" for not working there or not to burn bridges with them. Maybe somebody could say "why I do not want to burn bridges with them?, well it is just to have like a backup plan. Also institution B has the story that they are used to cut off their lecturers at any time they want, so what to do?
Thanks

What does "director of the career" mean?

ok, fixed; it is the person that is in charge of admin issues like hiring lecturers, advise students, propose syllabic changes and so on

What balance of lecturing, research and administration do you want?

Is either of the positions permanent or tenured? Duration and stability of the job should also be a consideration.

What stood out to me is:

This same institution has already booked me for some partial hour lecturers in a couple of courses.

Have you, in any time, either written or orally, communicated with institute B indicating that you will take up the position (even just the part time one)? If so, the polite thing would be to honor this commitment with Institute B, even just for one term (if you really want to work at Institute A, you can try to talk to them to see if they can arrange for the offer to be deferred for a year or a term).
If you have not indicated to institute B that you would take up the position, and they, without your knowledge, advertised you as a part-time lecturer for their courses, I would be very, very wary of joining their faculty. It is simply not the case that a department can strong-arm a potential hire into working there just by listing his or her name on a website.

Aside from the above: the job market is competitive. It is expected that you will be looking out for your best interest. As long as you have not made any formal commitment to either of the institutes, you are free to choose which one to affiliate yourself with in the future. If you really prefer the offer given by Institute A, you should just be honest and reply to Institute B and say that Institute A has given you a better offer and you regret that you will not be able to work for Institute B.
This really should not be a situation that counts as "burning bridges". From your description it sounds like just the normal competitive hiring process. If the administrators at Institute B are the type that will hold your declining of their offer against you in the future, I really doubt you will want to work for them anyway. (That just doesn't sound like a healthy work environment.)

+1 B just does not sound right... Who with the right mind will mash and mush a faculty position and a key admin position to a newly hired? That just sounds a bit too much.

@Penguin_Knight well they want me to put me in that key admin position, because they need somebody that it is from that special field of expertise and that could propose changes to the career. Here is something usual to mix the lecturing with the administrative stuff at universities.

I completely disagree with the "polite thing" sentence.  Everybody knows that a full-time position is just cause for immediately abandoning a part-time position, and nobody should judge you negatively for this.  The only exception is if you're in the middle of a term, you should probably complete the courses you're currently teaching.

I would add that if employer B would be so annoyed that you chose A that they never want you to work for them again, then you shouldn't work for B. I wouldn't touch a rancourous employer with a 10-foot pole.

You should very politely say to institution B that you appreciate their efforts to get you an offer, but it's not as good as your other offer.  Then there are three options:

Say your better offer is for 15% more money.  This commits you to institution B if they raise their offer 15%.  If they don't raise their offer, it commits you to institution A.  If they raise their offer less than 15%, you may choose.
Say your better offer is for 15% more money and no overtime, and that you will need 25% (or whatever you choose) more money to make their offer competitive.
Say your better offer is for twice the  money.  They can't match this, so this commits you to institution A.

Re 3: I would not recommend lying about A's offer.

1 and 2 are great.  For 3 instead of lying just say "I've decided to take a different opportunity" and leave it at that.

@NoahSnyder, this would be fine except OP specifically asked them to create a full-time position.  Now that they've done so it would be insulting to just turn it down without a compelling reason.

But there is a compelling reason: he's been offered a better job!  There's nothing at all unusual about turning down a job offer for a better job offer that would require lying.

Don't play games.  If you prefer A, just say so. You don't have to explain why.

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


text:
lecturing one subject with other lecturer's material
I have been appointed to teach one course in Artificial Intelligence in one university. The reason was that the main lecturer is involved in other duties and for that reason he could not teach one group (there are two groups actually). The thing is that this lecturer has given me all the material: slides, exercises, exams, practices, final project and so on; and he told me explicitly to follow that material.
I have been always a big fan of the freedom of teaching. I mean I believe that if two different lecturers teach course X; then it would be better if they can get two different approaches for the same topics. The Faculty academic coordinator has told me that I must follow the material exactly, because the examinations would be the same for both groups.
I wonder what to do in this situation? I am keen to take published material as a reference for a course, but not to follow all the material exactly from the other lecturer like if I were some sort of "academic monkey" (that only mimics what the other has made). I really feel frustrated about this situation and I do not know what to do.
Usually when I have gotten into this situation, in which I had to drop one group and that group has been assigned to another lecturer. I have given him/her full freedom, and only we gather around for making the practices and exams together. I really believe that is the correct way to do this things.
Any advice?
PD Some clarification points:

The other lecturer and myself be both have the same rank, I mean we both are lecturers, only difference is that the other lecturer has taught the course before and that is why he was appointed coordinator of only that course.
In academic ranks, I got more academic background in CS (two master's already done); in the other hand he is a die hard programmer programmer that has participated in programming contests, but that's it. He has only a bachelor in Information Systems.
The material handed to me is simple, but it gets to my nerves that I must stick completely to it. I mean if a student is well prepared and every teacher follows the syllabic contents; then at the end it does not matter who made the final examinations. The student should be prepare for everything (except that the course is about, for example a Java certification, and I do not teach Java, but C). The point is that is a CS related course, and for that it should relies more in the algorithmic part that on some tricky-twisty programming stuff that tough programmers know.

If the final examination is common, the lectures must share a common spine. It is important to cover all the fundamentals and basics from a common set of notes. You may however improvise/include material based on your research/other books as an addendum. I have done this for undergraduate courses I have instructed with common final exams and such. A lot of material I cover as addenda are innovative approaches to using the same fundamentals described in the core/common notes. I am assuming that this is an undergraduate/bachelors level course?

thanks @drN, yes, it is an undergraduate course

What advice to give depends also on your own status at the university in question: if you are being hired as a part-time/adjunct instructor of this one course, then you have been hired to do a very specific job, and while in principle you still have "academic freedom", in practice it seems reasonable to teach the course as they are asking you to.  If you have a more permanent position at the university, then the request to teach the course exactly as some other instructor wants you to seems much less reasonable, although there are still some nuances involved.

@PeteL.Clark What I would add based on your pertinent comment and my experience when I was a "temporary instructor" is that the academic freedom I recvd to re-construct a course was also because of the open-mindedness of my department and their faith in me. I suppose this ends up being a multi-dimensional optimization problem? What quantum of your own essence you could add to a course? =)

How's he gonna know if you don't do what he says?  Just by virtue of being a different person you're going to teach the class "differently" no matter what you do.

In Academia there is always a lot of egos involved. Do not take it personal and let your ego get in the way. As you admit, you are not the main lecturer. He is. He prepared the slides, exercises, exams, practices, final project and so on. Excellent. Less work / stress for you. It is not your time to shine. In any job (academia or not) you must learn how to play "second fiddle" if needed. And this is one of these times.
On the other hand, teaching is much more than the slides, exercises, final project or exams. It is the teacher's personality, how he is in sync with the classroom needs, how to make the students participate in the course and how to make the lesson an unforgettable experience. You can and must try to do all these, regardless of the slides you use. So you can still make all the students want to watch your lecture (instead of his) if that is what it takes to boost your ego. Although it clearly is not a competition. It is just a job. So, do it as best as you can with the tools you are given. It is really that simple.
Update.
From the comments I see, there is too much focus on "No-one should tell how to teach...". But this is not really the point. If professor B was supposed to teach both lectures and due to a newly assigned duty he cannot, would not that be impolite / inconsiderate for the new professor (Layla) not to give her (at least) the materials and slides he uses? If someone steps in for me, I would most certainly do all the necessary work for my coleague to have the most seamless transition by alleviating some of the stress /work for preparing lectures / slides, exercises. And if I was the subsitute I would appreciate this offer. Why must egos be involved in such a process and why should anyone not accept the offer given? If this situation continues for the next semester - year, Layla should have a saying on how the lecture should be done. But for this year I do not see the point in making too much fuss over it.

Does "the main lecturer" mean something technically specific to you?  I don't really understand what it means: what I can see is that there are two sections, each taught by one person.  Why does the OP necessarily need to play second fiddle to the other person?  (Maybe she does, but I don't see enough specific information in her post about this.)

Yes it does. Many times in my country (Europe) there is one main professor (in charge of a lecture) but the students are split in separate lectures or labs (because they are too many for one classroom). So, he is in charge of what should be taught (within the syllabus) and where to focus most.

But the OP describes a situation in which roles are reversed and she did the opposite thing.  So it is not clear (to me) that the other lecturer has any seniority over her.  If there is an instructor giving a lecture and a TA giving something else, that's one thing.  But if it's just one person telling someone else what to do: why does the other person have to listen?  Should they?

@PeteL.Clark From what I understand he has taught the lecture before. Layla has not. This makes him senior at least in this lecture (even if they are in the same hierarchical position).

Layla didn't say that she hasn't taught the course before, but let's assume that she hasn't.  Are you really saying that the right way to handle multiple sections taught by different instructors is for whoever has taught that course the most times to tell everyone else exactly what to do?!?  That is not the way things work at any university I've ever been involved with: even adjuncts, graduate students and other extremely temporary and inexperienced instructors have some degree of autonomy.

For instance, when I was a 23 year old graduate student instructor, our courses would have common homework and  exams.  That meant that we met regularly to write the exams together.  There was a course head who was a permanent faculty member, sometimes a very famous and senior professor, but never did such a person say "You must cover exactly this material: use these slides."  What is the point of having an instructor at all if they have no autonomy and creative control?

Honestly, I think your role in this situation is precisely to be an "academic monkey". The other lecturer presumably wanted to teach both groups so that both would have access to his particular teaching style, including his expertise regarding what topics are most important and how to explain them. But he could not do so because he was too busy. So he does the next best thing: he brings in another lecturer, i.e. you, with the expectation that you will give the students a similar experience to what he would have given them. Make no mistake, emulating another lecturer's style is not an easy task, and the fact that he wants you to stick to his prepared materials does not reflect a lack of faith in your abilities (just in case you were thinking that).
In general, when there are different lecturers teaching different, disjoint sets of students, I think the benefit of having different lecturing styles is largely negated. After all, the main reason to have different styles of teaching is that different styles appeal to different people, and a concept that an individual student misses from one style, they may pick up from another. That only works if the students attend multiple lectures with different instructors. (Or if you manage to sort students by their learning styles and match up each one with the instructor that best suits them, but that is very difficult.) And in this case, if the main lecturer will be preparing the exam(s), it seems natural that he will do so according to his own teaching style, which means students who were not exposed to his style will be at a disadvantage. So it's really in the best interest of your students for you to emulate his style as closely as possible, which means using his materials and structure.

To be clear, this answer and my first paragraph in particular is intended for the situation where the other lecturer is in charge of the course and, in your capacity as a lecturer of the course, you are acting as his direct subordinate. If that's not the case, my answer doesn't apply.

I don't really follow the logic in your first paragraph.  Last semester I was teaching a section of linear algebra. I asked for two sections but was only given one.  If I went to the person who was teaching the other section and said, "Sorry, I didn't get to teach this section but here is how I am teaching the other section.  Please teach it the same way" then he would look at me like I was crazy...or better yet, respond with the exact same request.

Just because someone else is teaching a course a certain way is not a good enough reason for you or me to teach a different section of the course in the same way.  There are some issues of compatibility between sections but what the OP has been asked to do seems to go way beyond that.  Even when I cover someone else's class for a day or a week, I am usually given rather specific instructions on what I could do and then told that I can do something else along the same lines if I want.  I say the same thing to those who cover my classes. "Trained monkey"ing requires some justification.

Sorry, I read the question a bit more carefully and deleted my last comment because it does not apply in this situation.

@PeteL.Clark in the situation mentioned in your first comment, were you in charge of the entire course, in particular maintaining creative control, except that you were prohibited from directly teaching one of the sections? If not, I don't think your situation is the same as the OP's, and also my first paragraph isn't meant to apply to you in that case.

In the situation I am talking about there was no one "in charge of the entire course": there is a departmental suggested syllabus, and beyond that the instructors of the individual sections have autonomy.  Are you reading the OP's question as saying that the other lecturer is somehow "in charge of the entire course" or senior to her in some formal way? That's not clear to me: in fact she describes what seems to be the analogous situation in which she behaved in the manner in which she now wants to be treated.

@PeteL.Clark ...The reason was that the main lecturer is involved in other duties...

@Alexandros: The reason that I or anyone else doesn't teach all the courses that I don't teach in any given semester is because I am involved in other duties.  I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around "I was supposed to teach this course, but I'm not because I'm doing something else, so I will tell you how to teach it exactly the way I would."  Doesn't the person who is actually teaching the course have the authority and the control, not the person who would have taught it except for XYZ?

@Pete (3 comments up) yes, my understanding of the OP's question and the phrase "main lecturer" in particular was that the other lecturer is formally in charge of the course and the OP is in a subordinate role. I wrote my answer with that situation in mind.


text:
I used a fork of a GitHub repository whose paper I cited – should I also cite the fork?
I want to cite a GitHub repository in scientific publications.
The repository that I used is a fork version of the original GitHub repository which is accompanied by a paper.
Both repositories are the same, but the fork has additional code for further calculations and plots.
I cited the paper to refer to the methodology.
But I did not use the original GitHub provided by the paper. Instead, I used the fork.
Should I cite the fork?

Welcome back, nikki! Would you mind to explain "fork" to make the question more seldcontained?

You can be generous with citing. It won't hurt you, but give credits where credits are due.

If you didn't use the additional code, you could have used the original repository. Assuming you did use the additional code, of course you should cite the fork.

You should cite the original paper and the GitHub fork.  You are obligated to cite all sources you used, even if they overlap.  Your methods should also state exactly what code you reused.

The licence on the original repository might say all subsidiary works need to reference the original. The licence on the fork might say it needs to be referenced too.

For simplicity, original code refers to the software provided by the original repository or paper, and additional code refers to what is only provided by the fork.
A good litmus test is this: Suppose you had written the additional code yourself. Would you mention this, what algorithms you used, etc. in the paper? Or would this code be part of your publication, e.g., to ensure reproducibility. If yes, you should also cite the fork.
For example, if the original code allows you to perform some simulations and the additional code is only about plotting and does not touch the actual simulations (and you checked this to a reasonable extent), do not cite the fork for the same reason that you would not mention or provide any own code or plotting library that does nothing but plot some existing data. There is no reason to assume that the original does not suffice to reproduce your results. If it considerably helped you in preparing your plots, consider acknowledging it.
If, however, the additional code modifies the original code in a way that could affect the results, cite it.
It does not matter whether the code added any functionality you used, but without this citation your work could not be reproducible anymore.
Remember that citing does not only give credit but also shifts blame.

Better err on the side of giving a potential replicator of your results too much details.

This does not account for the licenses on both repositories. The license on the forked repository might state that accreditation is required.

@RobinDeSchepper: In my experience, licences requiring accreditation are rather unusual in science (and in general), because they prevent the inclusion of the software in larger bundles, distributions, etc. and thus do more harm than good. But yes, if that applies here, you have to account for it.

Cite the most relevant version.

Could you please let me know if I should cite the fork version? or not?

You used a repository that forks the original to add code for further calculations and plots.*
Given that you cite the paper's methodology, which appears in the original repository and is unchanged in the fork, I'd suggest using the original repository. That said, it doesn't really matter which you use.
If the paper is published, then cite the published version, rather than GitHub.
* I don't immediately understand why a fork would be needed for additional code. That code could have appeared in the original repository.

Perhaps the additional code was added by someone different than the owners of the original repository (neither of which is the OP), which would explain having it in a fork.

Could have appeared, but didn't.

@vonbrand Indeed. It raises questions.

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


text:
Professor announced that he would send me a project before master’s but didn’t
I am looking for a master’s position. I emailed a professor and we arranged a meeting on Skype, where he said that he would send me a project on which I should work for two months. I agreed and afterwards I sent him an email and thanking him and asking for the project.
One week later I emailed him to read my mail which I had sent him about six days ago, but he did not answer me.
How should I write an email to him now to ask for the project that I was supposed to do? I want to tell him: “Please consider my request, my future depends on this.”

First, about the email:

Do you have a deadline coming up, for applying for a master’s? If so, then you should probably send him a polite reminder, something along the lines of:

Dear Dr. X, I was wondering if you had given any more consideration to the projects you'd mentioned earlier.

Do not say something like “my future depends on this.” Firstly, your future does not. If this particular master’s opportunity doesn’t work out, it is by no means the end of your career. Secondly, it will come across as rude: The Professor is aware that master’s applications are important to your career.
Don’t expect professors to respond terribly soon. They receive a large amount of email, and are often extremely busy balancing research, administration, supervising, and teaching. If you have an impending deadline, or it has been long enough that you believe you have been forgotten, you can send a polite reminder. But pestering will only annoy the professor.

Secondly, about the projects:
Is he asking you to do projects for him, unpaid, before you have been accepted as a master’s student? This is highly unconventional, and seems like it might possibly be a scam, to get you to work on projects without paying you or giving you credit towards an academic degree.
What country is this master’s in? Usually, professors do not directly choose who is admitted to a master’s program. So your professor may not be able to guarantee your admission, even if you do good work for them on this project.
In any case, it’s not normal to be given months of homework to “prove yourself” before starting a master’s. Usually your bachelor’s grades and projects, along with reference letters, are what you are judged on.
So I would be very wary of this situation, unless I am misunderstanding what is actually happening.

thank you for your kind reply. yes, he asked me to do a project for him, before accepting me as a graduate student. on skype he told me that he is going to send it to me. then I have been waiting for it for nearly one week. this professor is one of faculty members in the USA but he isn't an American he is from my own country(countryman) (he told me I do in this way for all students who wants to apply for this program from your country). there is no pay jut he wanted me to prove myself.

Yeah... this sounds suspect. I would make sure to find out if he actually have a say in if you get accepted, and verify that he is in fact a reputable researcher. This is particularly  odd in the US, where (my understanding is) most Masters are course-based at first. I can't say for certain that it's a scam, but it's strikes me as not quite right.

Is it really enough to say,
Dear Dr. X, I was wondering if you had given any more consideration to the projects you'd mentioned earlier on skype. Regards,
should I give him information about the date that we had a conversation on the skype?
more over the deadline is on 31 July and he wanted me to work on it for 2 months. Is it proper time to mail him again?

That would mean you start at the beginning of June. I would mail your professor 1 or two weeks before the beginning of June, and just mention that you'd like to get started with the project.

Seems reasonable

Thank you! what would be the best title?

Doesn't much matter. "Master's Project." Do be careful though, I fear that this professor is taking advantage of you.

thank you for your reply. anyway, I have to think positive at the moment to see what is going on! I had that experience. one of my BSc professors took advantage of me to further one of his projects and after doing the project he never gave me what I made, the device was  GSM module for sending and receiving temperature. He took it away! :( I allocated lots of money and time to implement that device all on my own. without any financial aid.

... are you at a predatory college? This sounds highly unusual. Please do be careful, and look at your options for Master's. There are many colleges you can attend.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

He sent me a project, how and when can I ask about his funding for master if I do well in this project and I will accepted at that university?

@nikki You can ask, but that information shou also be available from the school or department. You should not do work for this person unless you have clear expectations, preferably in writing. As for how to ask, just ask. Professors are People. Be calm and honest, and to the point.

Read the application instructions for this department.  I very much doubt they say anything about doing work for a professor prior to enrolling, and outside any class or employment arrangement.
Contact the director of admissions of the program where this professor is employed, and inform him or her that the professor asked you to work on a project for two months, as part of your application for the Master's project.
Do make sure you follow all the posted recommended steps for applying for admission.


text:
Tense for literature survey
I am writing a literature survey for papers from 2000 to 2017.
Should I use a present tense or past tense when I am describing methods that were used in those papers?

This is a duplicate question: see https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=past+present+tense. Quite a few of those questions refer to literature review sections of articles, theses, etc.

Either past or present tense is reasonable for a literature survey. You could argue for the past tense since the work was already completed, or use the present tense because the papers currently exist and describe something that can be found now.
The main issue is to be consistent in your usage throughout the review.


text:
Is it common to buy a gift for a supervisor when he invited me to a dinner?
I am an international student. I have just started my master degree in Canada and I have been invited to a group dinner by my supervisor.
This situation and culture are quite new to me; I have not had this experience before. How should I act? Should I buy a gift or something?
 And if so, what sort of gift seems appropriate?

No, don't buy a gift. It's not a birthday party for a ten year old, it's a business dinner.

@astronat That's a little rude, considering we don't know nikki's home culture, where it could be totally reasonable to exchange gifts with your supervisor in a situation like this.

Would a bottle of wine count as "something"?

@FábioDias Bring a bottle of wine when you go out for dinner?

Can never have too much wine.

No, there is no reason for buying a gift. The most you might do is send a follow-up email thanking your supervisor for the dinner.
Having lunch/dinner with colleagues isn't uncommon, and they usually aren't all that formal unless there is a special occasion (e.g., it is banquet organized by the department/university).

Could I buy a box of chocolate for him?

@nikki2 I wouldn't buy anything.

If you are invited to a party it is common to take a bottle of wine for the host/hostess, but otherwise gift giving in such situations is uncommon.
However, I'm hearing warning bells if you are female and this is a one to one meeting. Since a supervisor has some power over your future, you need to make sure that you aren't put in an uncomfortable position. Bad things happen. Not always, but they do. Perhaps you are already comfortable with the professor and know of his reputation in social situations.
Two colleagues that aren't in some sort of hierarchical situation may alternate buying a meal for each other (or splitting a tab). But a professor would be less likely to buy a meal for the department head, for example. A supervisor might buy a meal for a group of students.
Actually, I've never been in such a situation, either as the supervisor or the student. It feels a bit weird to me, actually. Hence, warning bells.
I once did some work for a professor in my department when I was a grad student. This was things like baby sitting and yard work. He paid me as he would any employee. We were actually good friends - first name basis - but the relationship was kept very formal so that favors weren't offered or accepted. He wasn't my supervisor, however, but that should make no difference. My spouse and I had dinner with him and his a few times, but part of that was just that we had kids of similar age.

I will leave this answer here for the future, since it wasn't originally clear that this was a group situation. If the group dinner is in a restaurant there is no need to bring anything except your verbal thanks when it is over. If it is at a private home then a bottle of wine is often brought as a token for the host/hostess (assuming alcohol is accepted in your country and his). However, if you are from a different culture/country than the host, then a small souvenir from your home country would often be especially welcome. Something that is typical and might be found in a tourist shop, for example. Preferably, the gift should not have a lot of monetary value - just a remembrance.

hey Buffy. what do you mean? "However, I'm hearing warning bells if you are female. Since a supervisor has some power over your future, you need to make sure that you aren't put in an uncomfortable position. Bad things happen. Not always, but they do. Perhaps you are already comfortable with the professor and know of his reputation in social situations." WHAT kida power and what kinda problem? I am a female, BTW.

@nikki2 to be blunt - and not rude so I hope the mods get it - Buffy is pointing out the possibility of a "romantic dinner / encounter or other sexual motivation" which you may or may not have considered... I hope you have and best wishes anyway.

@nikki2, I obviously don't know the whole story, but yes SolarMike spells it out. There is a movie, Moonstruck, with Cher, no less, that has one character who is a seemly nice but predatory professor. The movie tries a bit to excuse his behavior as "he is just a lost soul", but actually, he is just a predator.

hey guys! do not worry. he is a nice person and I am also with my classmates. what are these stuffs are you telling me.:|

@nikki2 To avoid misunderstandings, you might want to edit your question to specify that you've been invited to a group dinner, not to a one-to-one dinner.

@nikki2 Sorry to worry you then - I have to be very careful towards female students - if I have to have a "one to one" chat then I arrange that there is a witness so I can't be accused of impropriety... Sad but true. Anyway enjoy the dinner.

these comments were all made prior to the edit to the original post about the dinner being a group dinner - which changes the original question drastically... quality of edit ?


text:
How does peer-review work for "gigantic" collaboration projects?
Big collaboration projects such as LHC experiments  (ATLAS, ALICE _e.g.) and LIGO result in academic papers featuring hundreds or even more than 1000 authors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in fields like particle physics, researchers seem to belong to one of a small number of possibly competing collaboration projects. So if a paper resulting from a huge collaboration is submitted for peer review, the number of qualified referees would be very small (excluding researchers from competing collaboration projects), such that the anonymity of the referees would likely be compromised.
Is peer review still meaningful for papers resulted from huge collaboration? If yes, how should it be conducted?

This is an interesting question, and I am looking forward to the answers. Hopefully somebody from physics can chime in here.

There are actually efforts underway to design high-sensitivity gravitational wave detectors on bases other than stabilized Michelson interferometers, but they are still in early days because they are meant to go space-borne. So there are people qualified to comment who are not in direct competition, as well as scientists from the other big interferometer experiments (who are in direct competition but really know what the you can expect from this class of instruments). I would guess that Phys. Rev. got one of each or something like that.

Actually, having referees from competing experiments is THE norm. Who is better qualified than someone who is doing exactly the same thing, just with a slightly different equipment?

While I am not certain about physics, I can speak for biology, which also has a large number of mega-author papers.  There, the overall field is large enough and well enough connected that, although a massive number of biologists may have a conflict of interest, an even more massive number of biologists are not directly involved but still working in areas close enough to be good reviewers.
I also have a suspicion (though I cannot back this up with data) that mega-author papers may in general have an easier time in review than typical small-collaboration papers.  Peer review evaluates papers along several different axes,
key among which are presentation quality, significance of problem, validity of experimental method, and interpretation of results.
In the case of a massive collaboration, typically the questions of significance and validity of experimental method are long resolved: by the time the human genome was submitted for review, nobody was questioning its sequencing methods and a large scientific community was just waiting for enough data to accumulate; likewise for high-energy particle physics experiments.  Similarly, no mega-author paper should be able to be submitted without enough eyes on it to ensure that the presentation is decent.  That leaves interpretation of the results, and my understanding is that these mega-author papers tend to more focus on presenting data (which is already known to be of interest) rather than on its interpretation, and the interpretation (e.g., "What can we learn from the human genome?") is sorted out across many later publications.
Thus, review of a mega-author paper may actually be much easier than a small paper, simply by virtue of the difference in its goals and scale.

Can we assume that a paper with 100+ authors was duly reviewed by those 100+ authors and several other colleagues before being submitted for peer-review, and that amount of different points-of-view from the people above already worked as a sort of (biased) peer-review?

@Mindwin It's definitely not reasonable to assume that all of the authors reviewed it (unfortunately, that's not even reasonable to assume for a 5-author paper), but at least a significant fraction likely did.  Thus, there is some degree of internal review, but so is there for any paper with co-authors.

I hope that the order of magnitude is closer to a kilo-author than to a mega-author.

@jakebeal should I make a site question to ask about your comment? Because I am now very confused...

@Mindwin You mean about how many co-authors really fully read a paper? That certainly seems like a reasonable question to ask.

@FedericoPoloni Not an SI prefix.  :-) "Mega-author" paper is how I've seen anything with more than ~100 authors referred to in articles on the subject.

In the nuclear and particle physics collaboration I've been part of, our major papers typically went through an extensive sequence of internal consultations during which every member of the collaboration had the opportunity to review the entirety of the drafts. My very non-scientific polling suggests that perhaps 1/10-1/4 would actually read the whole document during any given round, many would read it at some point, and most would read the section(s) most closely related to their contributions. And we'd still get requests for clarification from the journal's peer reviewer.

@FedericoPoloni Aw I was just coming down to make that joke.

You are correct in implying that in these cases (few, very large experiments on the same topic), your peers are most likely also your competitors. However, when it comes to peer review, the issue is not one of competition, but rather one of bias. As some people have replied, there are extensive internal hierarchies and editorial committees within these experiments (I was in the ALICE experiment), which set the agenda and conduct  internal review. The research is essentially reviewed by the time it reaches publication. However, it could suffer from bias, which external peer review may correct. The experiments at the LHC are very similar in their mission, but wildly different in their setup, so systematic errors and bias may be corrected.


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Applying to PhD programs when you have two research interests
I am in the process of trying to formulate my statement of purpose/intent for a PhD in criminal justice. I’m not sure how to go about this when I have two distinctly different areas that I’m very interested in. The first is wildlife crime (falls into conservational criminology, a very new field) and the other is biosocial criminology/mental illness. These are not related to each other in any way, but I’m fascinated by both.
There are a lot more schools that have faculty working on biosocial than wildlife crime. However, I have found one school that has one professor working in wildlife crime, and the rest working on mental-illness-related issues. I don’t know what to do. Should I write two different SOPs and submit them to the appropriate school? One for wildlife and one for biosocial?
When my past professors ask me for my research interests, I want to mention both of these, but I don’t want them to think I’m unfocused. I am going to a criminology conference in November, and I will be talking to the professors who are writing my letters of recommendation. Should I tell them everything I’m interested in or narrow down one specific thing?

Maybe you can find a common base for this. I am not into this field at all but I have heard of people suspecting a connection of mental illness/violent psycopathic behavior and early childhood animal cruelty (which could well be against protected wildlife).

I'm not sure how to go about this when I have two distinctly different areas that I'm very interested in

A PhD research project is judged on many attributes, one of which is if it has a single focused reasonable, scientifically interesting and unique research question or null hypothesis that can be studied/test.
You seem to have a problem identifying between two of your interests. This is quite common, scholars always have a number of interests and choosing one among them could be daunting and anxiety inducing, but the simple fact is that it is better to take control of the situation and decide between one of them, lest other external factors decide that for you with you having no say.
Also, please mind that it is not just your interest that decides your research project, but a myriad of factors such as your guide's and the research group/department's own long-running interests, laboratory facilities, your long term plan (how will your PhD help you in your career), etc. Please look at the topic again against other factors you might have ignored - you will find that your two topics are not equally attractive.
If you still can't, you could probably identify two guides and write two research proposals. The quality of each may suffer since you will divide your attention between them. But you might have postponed your decision crisis.

When my past professors ask me for my research interests I want to mention both of these

Guides usually will prefer their PhD candidates to be utterly loyal to their one research project - fidelity will ensure that the project has your undivided attention. Having two interests is not wrong in any way, but might be less appealing to a Guide. You may want to downplay the other interests.

When you say "guide" is that referring to the professor you are working with? I'm not familiar with that term.

Yep. Guide = Supervisor, the professor who oversees/mentors the research


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Re-asking a professor if I can write my thesis after I chose another one
I am currently a student in computer science. Because of my specialization, there are only two groups I could choose for writing my thesis. I spoke with both and then chose one.
But now, my current professor is very hard, unfair and personally attacking me when giving feedback. This is a known issue with him amongst the other students but until my last oral test (which was not good), I never encountered problems with him.
I want to speak with the other professor and ask whether I can write my thesis in his group. I wonder what I should answer if he asks why I changed my mind. I would answer that my professor is becoming enormously rude. But I do not feel that this is the professional answer. How can I prepare for this second talk?

The second Prof might be reluctant to "steal you" from the other one.

Compromise perhaps. Does your institution allow cosupervison?

All you should admit is "a discrepancy, strictly on a personal level, not subject-related". That must be sufficient. You might add you made an error in your first judgment (probably due to the limited time-frame for decision) - which actually seems to be the case: so don't lay the blame on prof. A.
Even if prof. B knows everything about the conduct/character or prof. A (which is more than likely!), he or she will probably appreciate integrity - coexisting with your ability and willingness to admit a mistake and to revise your decisions in order to find a solution.
Please, don't get prof. B into a situation where he has to (or could feel obliged to) comment on the actions of prof. A. They have to get along on a professional level until retirement (while students come and go, in a manner of speaking).

In particular, you should be the one that breaks the news to prof. A and explains it to him.


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What does “temporary faculty pool” mean?
I have seen university career postings for a “temporary faculty pool”. What does this term mean?

Could you provide a link to the posting in question at least?

Looking up a few such postings, it appears to be another name for "adjunct faculty".  In other words, temp work for academia.


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How can I emphasize my interest towards PhD with no real research experience?
I am 23, I have a Russian diploma in Computer Science and I am interested in getting into PhD in Computer Science in the US. But after reading this post and some google search I realized that I have some major problems in my application.

I don't have any research experience and results to show:
when I was 17 I moved in (big Russian city) to attend university there and I had to work really hard (40-60 hours per week) in night shifts to pay for myself (rent, food, books, etc). So I have got major health problems and haven't got any time (and other resources) for high-quality study. Now, a year after graduation, I still don't have enough time for this kind of project because I have to work hard towards exams. I also have to work hard to earn money for application because of the difference between dollar and ruble.
Recommendation letters from my university professors probably will not have any weight outside my country:
my university hasn't any famous projects or labs or publications even according to the standards of my own country. Of course, I remember that the most important thing about recommendation letter is that what does it tell about my professional and personal abilities. But will it make any sense since it's written by someone totally unknown for admission committee?

Also, I figured out some good points for my application:

I am very motivated and I already know what it's like to be alone in big city by myself. I already know what it's like to work hard and live on very limited amount of money. I know the difference between what I'm capable of and what I'm not.
I am good at doing an independent work. I did my diploma in digital sound processing and learned all the maths I needed during 3 months without guidance and without any background in this field (when I started I didn't even know what is a bitrate). Then I worked as a research C++ developer in one karaoke project, again in DSP field. There I learned how to work with angry bosses, how to summarise any completed work to present results to managers, how to deploy mathematical models in real project and how to do it fast and so on. This project had some business problems so I quit and started to freelance. For this purpose I had to develop a system for organizing myself and skills to set goals and to meet my own deadlines.
I have a lot of practical knowledge. I worked as a linux system administrator in a big hosting company for about a year, I can write on C++, python, php, Objective C and Java. I know how to work in team and how to communicate with different people.
For last two years I did great amount of work with myself. I quit smoking and drinking alcohol. I totally stopped to take caffeine in any doses, I lost more than 15 kilo (results of my health problems), I gained a lot of muscles and started to do some yoga. During all this time I learned a lot about neurophysiology, cognitive sciences and the basics of biology. I've got really inspired by all this knowledge and now I'm looking forward to work with neuroscience.
I have already took the TOEFL iBT test and have score of 104.
I have a GPA 4.98 from 5.0.

So my question is: how can I make my good points to overweight my problems?

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/45513/19607 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/26791/19607 and http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13453/19607

The graduate committee will care about your academic good points, not your personal stuff (learning to live in a big city and with limited funds, quitting smoking and starting to exercise -- it's all irrelevant). Also don't say you learned how to work with "angry bosses." Do you see how that could look strange to faculty, i.e., your potential thesis advisors? Be realistic about the schools you apply to: find out from professors at your school if previous students have attended graduate programs in the US, and if so where. (Кстати, в каком «большом русском городе» находится Ваш университет?)

At first, thanks a lot to @Enthusiasticstudent for editing my question in more proper way that I did.

@Kimball, thanks for the links. I've already read this but didn't come up with keywords for the another two. They were really helpful.

@foobar The search bar results aren't always so great anyway (the possible duplicates suggested when you ask a question are much better).  Tracing through some of the links in the "Related Questions" sidebar is often helpful.

@KCd, thanks for your critics about "angry bosses"! I didn't thought about that in this way before. Actually, that's why I've asked my question in a such detailed way.

@KCd, students from my university are not doing very great in both academic and career fields, so I kinda don't care if I'm the one insane person doing this. This statistic means both "no one tried" and "no one succeeded" simultaneously and makes no sense in helping me with my preparation. (Конечно, в нерезиновом)

You can ask that the application fee be waived due to financial hardship.
Then try to take the attitude, there's nothing lost by applying -- and what the heck, you might get in!
Try to choose the departments you want to apply for based on the research interests of the faculty, and the courses that are regularly offered.  (It is not enough to go by just the catalog, since some institutions have mouth-watering courses listed in their catalogs but they somehow never actually get offered.  So look at both spring and fall schedules of classes.)
The Comp Sci department at U of Wisconsin - Madison used to, and probably still does, encourage people to apply for their graduate program who have worked in the field, as you have.  That might be a good one to apply for if you find several professors whose research interests appeal strongly to you.
Computer Science is a field that generally needs to employ a large number of teaching assistants (TAs).  The better your English (in practice, not just in a test result), the more effective you will be as a TA.  A TA typically grades homework and exams, and offers office hours, where students can come in and ask questions and get help with their homework (both paper and pencil and writing and debugging programs).  TA work takes, on average, 20 hours per week, or possibly a little less -- but don't count on it!  If you get a TAship, your tuition will be covered (i.e. you won't have to pay a cent) and you will get a stipend to live on.  You might want to continue your freelance work in the summers, to bring some more income in -- otherwise you might have trouble paying for an occasional plane ticket to visit friends and family back home, or elsewhere.
As the other answer said, the points from your outline that you will want to emphasize in your application are:
- motivation
- your initiative in doing independent academic and paid work (this is often called being a "self starter")
- the list of computer languages you have worked in
- your experience with DSP
- your company experience working in a high-paced development team using mathematical models (put that in your CV, please -- note "high-paced" means rushing to meed deadlines; "team" is code for impatient jerk bosses)
- your interest in multidisciplinary research related to neuroscience -- you can use this as a topic for your application essay, but please don't list the types of things you learned; instead, describe, à la science fiction, if you have to, some dream of what you'd like to do with your present and future computer science knowledge and skills to further the field of neuroscience
- your GPA
- some well-written recommendation letters.
If your department could come up with some sort of prize or honor to give you, that would be helpful.  There doesn't have to be any money associated with it.
I have no idea how to interpret your TOEFL score, sorry.
In my experience, research experience as an undergrad is icing on the cake for an applicant in computer science.  If you don't have it, I don't think that will count against you.  However, the truth is that if we look at you, the whole person, we would have to say that you do have research experience.  Research is being given a problem, or finding a problem yourself, and figuring out how to solve it, and then explaining it to someone else.
My personal opinion is that your weak suit is your English, and that it wouldn't be a bad thing for you to take some time off the formal studies to get immersed in functioning in spoken English, either through travel or by spending a lot of time with tourists or exchange students.
The reason I say this is what I mentioned about computer science departments needing people who can do office hours for students with questions.
I know there are people active in Academia SE who may disagree with me, and say that it is detrimental to take a year off one's studies.
Your best chance of getting a TAship (i.e. funding for your studies) will be to start the program in late August (13 months from now), so you'll want to get your applications in by about February 2016, and you'll need to spend some time working on your essay, and taking the GRE.  So if I were you I would work enough to pay your bills and build up a little bit of savings for a rainy day, but mainly concentrate on improving your conversational English.  Around November you could start working on your essay, and please find a local mentor to help you edit it after you've written your draft.
Try to choose three schools to apply for, and make sure that one of them is not too hard to get into.  But make sure that all of them feel like a reasonable match for you, in terms of weather and research interests.
You will apply for a doctoral program, but they will probably want you to get a masters degree before you start the PhD.  That's okay, they're generally pretty organically connected.

Thank you very much for your reply! the terms for the resume and the approach to the essay you suggested are very helpful. Also, it didn't occurred to me that my English skills could be of such importance -- most of the universities's faqs and other resources say that TOEFL (or any other English exam) score is only for the guarantee that I will be able to communicate with people on minimum level.

Well, universities want to attract tuition-paying students!  But if you want to pay your way through, as a teaching assistant, you'll want to be comfortable communicating with the undergrads.

Yes, of course. But there's usually a requirement for the foreign students because of which they can't have a TA before they live in the country for about 1-2 years (it's different from school to school). So I thought that my English skills can't have much weight anyway. But now the most important question is how often can this requirement be avoided if student has great language skills.

This is a pretty specific question but I'm going to try and answer it broadly.
Generally speaking, applicants with no research experience are not appealing or competitive candidates to professors for graduate school. When professors want to admit a student to work with them, they want someone who is going to be able to hit the ground running somewhat - who knows the basics of how research works, who has some ideas about what interests them, and who knows how to do some basic research tasks. Furthermore, they're looking for students who aren't going to realize halfway through their first year that they hate research and decide to drop out. (Which makes me turn the question back on you: Why do you want to get a PhD, if you have no research experience?)
That said, if you have no research experience and you still want to apply for a PhD program (which I don't recommend), you'll have to demonstrate that you have acquired the knowledge and skills to succeed in a PhD program in another way. Being able to live alone isn't the way - they expect that as a basic part of being an adult.
-Recommendation letters will go a long way. Your professors don't have to be famous or personally known by your graduate program committees. They just need to know you very well, and be able to comment on your ability and potential to do research and succeed in the field.
-If you had to do research-like tasks for any classes - like a final project or capstone - you can discuss that, and what you learned and how you will translate that to research in the program. The research C++ developer position is a good example. You did research; use that experience as a basis for further explanation.
-Motivation is good, but you can't just say that you are motivated - you need to demonstrate it in an academic sense. What academic things have you done to show that you are motivated?
However, you will probably need to apply to an MS program first and get some research experience that way.


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How do withdrawn courses in my transcripts affect my PhD admissions application?
I'm currently finishing up my masters degree and hoping to apply to quite a few good PhD programs. I've gotten perfect scores in all my classes thus far as a graduate student and as an undergraduate, I got perfect scores in my major classes.
I'm currently taking only one class because I'm working full time (and I've taken all the graduate courses in my field already (at my current university), so there isn't really much left for me to take), and it's taking it's toll on me quite a bit (I'm barely sleeping, constantly stressed, anxious, etc.).
I'm considering dropping the one course I'm taking, but it's halfway through the semester and I would end up receiving a W (withdrawal) on my transcripts. I plan to leave my job at the end of the semester, so this shouldn't be a problem in the upcoming semesters.

How does having a W on ones transcripts affect PhD applications?
How do admissions committees look at it?
Any advice to students in a similar position as my own?

Note: I've read this post with a similar title, but it doesn't directly address my concerns; it's primarily asking about the proper protocol to follow when sending transcripts; in this case, the transcripts will be sent regardless.

I've been heavily involved in graduate admissions at a top-20 program for many years. A single withdrawal never bothers me; I realize that life happens. It's when they start to become common across a transcript that I start to worry.

You should plan on explaining this "W" as part of the application process (perhaps in the cover letter of your application.)  The fact that you're withdrawing from the very last course that you took at this university looks suspicious.  For example, it might be what we would see if you were caught cheating by a professor.
The explanation that you weren't able to complete the course because you took on a full time job is a quite reasonable one.  My point is that you will want to communicate this information along with your application (and perhaps have one of your recommendation letters address what happened.)

From the question I don't get the sense that this is the last course ever at the university. Indeed, the poster talks about "upcoming semesters."

I read the question as saying that the OP was working full time and planning to enter a PhD program this fall, in which case this course would be his last at the institution.  If he's going to take one or more semesters of course work at his current institution before transferring, then I wouldn't be concerned.  I hope that the OP will clarify this.

I've withdrawn from a course where the graduate secretary told me to sign up, look at the course and see if it interests me. If not I could always withdraw from the course within the first 4 weeks. I withdrew because it was too far from my area of research, but contrary to my expectation, it is listed as "withdrawn" on my transcript. Is this something one should justify on an application? (I didn't think so, but I was surprised to hear that some people might think I could have withdrawn for being caught cheating, which seems to be a much more serious issue.)