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How to "know" if I have a passion?
Most students encounter a life-changing decision during their undergraduate years. That is either to choose a high-paying career, yet such that they might not be passionate about or a career they like but is unlikely to be high-paying.
It is not unusual to find career advice popping in various internet circles that fixate on the importance of passion. The general rhetoric is "If you have a "sufficient" passion for X, you are guaranteed a "good" career in X and hence a good life."
Now, on some levels, the advice makes sense. Students are usually willing to sacrifice guaranteed-to-pay-well professions in hopes to excel in their own professions fueled by passion.
Now my question is, What is the sufficiency precisely in this context?
To be more precise, say I think I feel passionate for mathematics. Maybe because I am good at it. Maybe because I contemplate on it in my free time. Now when it comes to the actual profession, the "apparent" passion fades away and I am left regretting pursuing the field (something that is not unusual to see with Ph.D. students).
Or say, I feel I like physics and mathematics but I also get easily swayed away by high paying professions like data science.
How can I come to "know" whether I truly have a passion for mathematics or whether I was merely deluded into thinking that because I was made to feel that I am good at mathematics by the relevant education system?

You are passionate about a field if problems in that field keep you awake at night.

It's okay to be passionate about data science, too. Hard for us to pick your career for you, though.

I don't think the premise in your first paragraph is correct. Most students have no clue what to do with their lives, will figure it out during the next decades, and change careers and lifestyle multiple times throughout their life. Life is a winding road.

Exactly. Also, there are no circumstances which guarantee a good career, much less a good life. I furthermore would hesitate to equate those two.

@BobBrown: that's a pretty unhealthy litmus test.

@CliffAB: It's a pretty good litmus test, nonetheless.

Don't forget the old saying (there is a Chinese version that is more than 1000 years old) - "anybody can find any subject absolutely fascinating, if they study it in enough detail." The path you take to get to the "I've studied subject X in enough detail to become passionate about it" point isn't important, in the long run.

@henning Even if it's true that most students don't face the pressure, there is certainly a demographic in which most students are facing this issue (say students who have to support their families). Consequently, whether the premise is precisely actually true has less to do with the concern I raised.

@mathnoob123 I understand the concern! My advice would be not to expect too much in the way of "finding your calling" soon. It takes time, experimentation, and dead ends.

@BobBrown: Awake with anticipation of a solution, or awake with anxiety about your lack of progress and sense of inadequacy? :-(

Many students don’t find out until after getting hired that a job in their “passion” requires a good percentage of activities NOT in the “passion.”  That’s one of the reasons software documentation is so often bad or nonexistent.

I knew I was passionate about computer programming when I would wake up in the morning, and I would literally jump out of bed with complete joy to do it.

I must be passionate in the field of noisy neighbours.

If you have to ask... the answer is probably no.

An advice from abroad in all senses of the word. Forget everything about heroism. Eat and bathe as you wish. Just be sure to understand what exactly you want to achieve as you're doing something. If you want to get a mark — in all senses of the word — then it's not passion no matter how you like it. To give in a homework, to solve a problem in the test (or elsewhere), to get a degree, to let others see how smart you are, to enjoy your own smartness by yourself in private etc. That's not passion.

But if you know by yourself, without others explaining you, why you need all those tests, and homework, and even a degree, and have some kind of work in mind that you can get done either for your own benefit or one of the others, and that is something that's evaluated and set out by yourself rather than by a common opinion, then that is is a passion, no matter how weak, or faulty, or even misguided. One is passionate to the degree in which he is independent, in the inner sense of the word. Of course, passion is still not a universal solution, it doesn't always result in success.

Passion is all well and good, but in the long run, what you really need is commitment.

@BobBrown I sleep remarkably well, despite having a pretty strong passion for my field.

This sounds very similar to the concept of a "calling" in some varieties of Christianity. And is similarly vague and doubtful.

If you have a "sufficient" passion for X, you are guaranteed a "good" career in X and hence a good life. — unfortunately, that isn't true at all.  There are (far) more people passionate about particle physics or astronomy than that there are positions in those fields.  Fortunately, particle physicists and astronomers tend to be smart and they'll find jobs in other fields, but they're certainly not guaranteed a career in particle physics or astronomy.

If you were really passionate about something, you'd know because you'd want to do it in exclusion of all else. You think about that thing even if you're bathing, eating, etc.
Having said that I can understand what you're asking because if we define passion this way, precious few people would be passionate about anything that they can actually make a living from. That includes academics - e.g. this question

I just want to get married, and have weekends and evenings off, and chill out and play board games, and have nice conversations with friends, and have time to exercise and eat good food, and partake in hobbies, and read books and play computer games and watch movies and write a novel or two.

And from there it's just a short way to "I just want to get married and have my entire week off ..."
So now what? I suggest:

Can you imagine yourself doing it as a career? You don't have to like it more than board games, conversations with friends, etc, but you should like it enough that you can do it for upwards of 40+ hours a week. On the other hand if it starts getting painful to go to work every day, it's not a good idea to do it.
Are you good at it? If you are, then you can get results even if you aren't passionate (by above definition) about it.

It may not be a popular position, but you can certainly base your career around things that you aren't passionate about (by above definition). For example, my mother became a doctor because that's traditionally what all good students at her high school did. She didn't particularly like it any more than other careers, but she studied it, did well at it, became a trained doctor, became a specialist, and eventually managed her own department. She would often complain about her work at the dinner table, and talk about e.g. how she would rather teach language at a local high school, but by all metrics she still had a successful career.

For what it's worth, this is not an unpopular position in most of the population. My unpopular opinion is that people talk a lot about "passion" in fields that tend to be exploitative to newcomers (academia, start-ups, certain branches of politics). As in, it's often a good excuse to not improve conditions for juniors because if you ask for reasonable work-life balance or compensation you're clearly not "passionate" enough. (you may correctly surmise that I am not a fan of the concept)

Exactly!  IMHO, "passion" all too often gets in the way in professional life,  because it's perfectly possible to be both passionate about something, and totally incompetent at it.  Find something that you're good at, which is reasonably enjoyable, and which will let you make enough money to live comfortably, and save your passion for hobbies.

Remembering the times when I asked myself the same question, suggestion 1. would already have left me helpless because I had no idea what "having a career", or even regular working hours would feel like. Also, if things start feeling painful, the time of making the decision is long past... you can't decide based on  data you don't have ;)

If you were really passionate about something, you'd know because you'd want to do it in exclusion of all else. - Do many people define passion this way?  Merriam-Webster doesn't.

@Kimball 4b and 5a and b come down to pretty much the same thing. I’m not sure why a dictionary definition would be relevant though, since knowing the dictionary definition is different from knowing that that is what you feel and exactly that is what the OP is asking. Clearly, the dictionary definition would raise the question how such feelings would manifest in a person.

This might be a necessary condition, but for sure it is not sufficient. You can be extremely worried, stressed, and everything but passionate about something and have exactly the same symptoms. And the funny thing is that sometimes your passion itself drives you in that condition...

@11684 My point is most people (at least most mathematicians) who talk about being passionate about mathematics don't refer a level of obsession where you don't want to do anything else.  I think interpreting passionate in this extreme a sense is more likely to create misunderstandings than good communication.

Most students encounter a life-changing decision during their undergraduate years. That is either to choose a high-paying career, yet such that they might not be passionate about or a career they like but is unlikely to be high paying.

This is false, on many levels:

Students face the choice of what to do after having finished their studies. You don't choose your entire career at once (although certain choices obviously draw you away from certain career paths).
Passion is not something binary (have it / don't have it), nor even a spectrum (have zero, little, lots, maximum passion). People have mixed and ambivalent feelings about their pursuits.
In a sense, you can usually not really develop passion for something you will do later in life - in your actual career - when it's not what you do during your studies. As a student, you study, you don't practice. (Exception: Some degrees have a practical experience phase.)

Now my question is, What is the sufficiency precisely in this context? ...I think I feel passionate for mathematics.

That's rather general and abstract. It may be enough to consider an M.Sc. (if that's customary in your country; in some countries, those are discouraged as opposed to direct Ph.D. tracks) - you'll spend 2-3 years on getting deeper into one particular subject and experiencing research in math. Actually, that's not a very representative experience of what research is like later, but it should be enough to help you decide if you're really into it.
Alternatively - try to think of something you would like to use math for, or apply math in. If there is something like that - consider looking for relevant work in that field. That might arouse your "passion" either for more applied, industrial work or for more academically-oriented research work.

How can I come to "know" whether I truly have a passion for mathematics or whether I was merely deluded into thinking that because I was made to feel that I am good at mathematics by the relevant education system?

You're assuming these two options are distinct. Have you considered they might overlap, or be one and the same? At any rate, my suggestions above are what I'd do to be able to better know.

On MSc being customary or not: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4471/1033

I'm going to just guess that if you are asking the question, then you don't have it. Yet. Or at least, not a lot of it. Yet. But there is time to develop it and, at your age, my suggestion is that you don't worry too much about it. Yet. And you look around at the possibilities.
A wasted life is one in which you can't really do what you really want to do. Too many people have that forced on them by circumstances, but if you can manage it, spend some time to see what develops.
And also expect that at different times in your life you will have passion for different things, some quite distinct from the others. If you can manage to follow those passions then you can have a rich and rewarding life. And you don't get a do-over.
You will know it when you experience it. But first, experience a lot of things.

I think your first paragraph is a bit too simple argumentation. Nevertheless +1 for "If you can manage to follow those passions then you can have a rich and rewarding life."

I have to disagree.  A wasted life is one where you need to resort to dumpster diving in order to eat.  Sleeping in a bed (with clean sheets, even!) is also nice, as are hot showers.  There are lots of things that I really want to do, though I can't say that I'm actually "passionate" about any of them.  Unfortunately, as the world is presently constituted, I have to pay to do them.

How can I come to "know" whether I truly have a passion for mathematics?

If you are considering an academic career, this is the wrong question to ask.  Academic careers do not require passion.  They require work.  If you can put in the required work, you might succeed.  If you do not put in the work, you won't.  That work might require appearing to have passion for something sometimes, but the actual feeling is irrelevant.  There are many passionate students out there who try to get an academic job and fail because they do not have the required achievements.

It sounds like you might have a passion for maths, but are in the wrong environment to allow it to blossom; you're in the right field, but working on the wrong problems.
Consider another passion of yours, and work toward a field where maths and it intersect. You've found the tool you like, now you need to find a project that resonates with you, where you can apply that tool.
This is also a good formula for job security. It's easy to get surpassed in your field by AI, or someone younger, more passionate, with more time on their hands if the field is homogeneous. By crossing two disciplines, you're likely to get much higher job satisfaction, and better job security.

Yes, working in the sub-set of the field that you really like/are actually passionate about is much different than working in a sort-of-similar-but-not-quite sector. At best, you'll still be doing things in your field of study, at worst, you'll see projects you really want to work on being handed to others, since it's not your job title or whatever. Going directly what you're after is almost always the best option, unless it requires time and experience in something else first, which is rare but happens.

It seems the question is broad enough to be considered not necessarily related only to academia, therefore I feel I can submit my 2 somewhat anecdotal cents.
This will be somewhat long, but I think the background is relevant to the conclusion.
First, it should be noted that passion for anything is not necessarily a lifelong thing. Even if you consider you have passion for X now, it in no way guarantees you will have passion for X in 20 years time. And, at the same time it might turn into something different.
Point in case. I was fascinated and passionate about most things computer-related since about age of 5 (at a time when mobile phones didn't exist, PCs had just arrived and laptops were the size of a hefty briefcase).
I learned quite a lot about them and made my profession intimately connected with computers from the very start.
Then at around if 35, I understood that I am not really interested in things related to computers anymore. A somewhat disappointing thing at a time when it becomes cumbersome to switch to something entirely new.
Fortunately, after realising it, I found out (in a new job) that what I really enjoyed was not so much computers themselves, but learning things. And applying my learned solutions to problems relevant to other people.
In this case, since I have somewhat extensive IT knowledge, I am still working with computers, but I have rediscovered my passion for them from an entirely different perspective -- I enjoy creating as efficient IT/human solutions to various everyday problems and projects as I can.
That seems to give me a feeling of meaningfulness I find very comforting. In fact, I believe at least some psychologists consider the feeling of having a meaningful life one of the most important things a person should have.
Therefore, based on what I have experienced, I would advise:
1) try to understand what motivates you. It is probably a more general thing than "being passionate about maths". Do you enjoy learning new things? This sounds probably useful for an academic career. If not, what do you enjoy and how does it relate to your options of future jobs?
2)  It seems that people enjoy doing things they find meaningful. And one of the most meaningful options is doing something useful for other people.
3) There is a perception that academics are the kind of people who are so deeply interested in some transcendent things in their field of study that they don't care about my previous point. If you do have ardent passion for something you might not care whether anyone gives a fig about it. However, then the question whether you are passionate enough would probably not even occur to you.

As people have answered before, think about what drives your mind.

What keeps you awake (except emotional/mental/physical issues)?
What fuels your curiosity?
What gets you in the zone and makes you forget your surroundings?
What gives you a feeling of accomplishment?
What gives you "energy"? How do you want to contribute to society and to the progress of mankind?
Are you willing to put in the work without muttering?

Most likely you're able to answer these questions with multiple topics and subjects. That's why you have to consider your financial goals:

Do you aim for a certain lifestyle?
Do you have to provide?
Are you in Debt?
Shall it just pay the bills?
Does my current employment-/financial-status allow me to follow the passion?

Then pick the "passion" that's in accordance with your financial goals and circumstances.You could accuse me of being a "sellout" but let's face it: this is an economic world - nothing won't last if it isn't at least covering expenses. Yes, A.I. could be making many jobs obsolete within the next few decades. So,choose wisely. But I think with mathematics you're on the right path. You could use your expertise for data-analysis, machine-Learning in medicine e.g..
Edit: I just realized that with certain internet-technologies (e.g. social media, youtube, e-course-platforms, diy-onlineshops, blogs...) you could monetize your passion that has no "formal" carreer. In my field, CS and Software, you could sell a self-written software that solves a particular problem.

I'd recommend improving the writing of this answer, otherwise it'll be downvoted over quality, perhaps eventually deleted.

I think most of the good answers explain what it is to have passion, and how you "already know" if you do have one. I'll give you a bad answer, in the sense that does not directly answer the question.
I think most people have passions. But, they are called different names, depending on what they are, and why we have them. If you have a passion for math, or for electronics, than your passion can be harnessed by the society and people will respect you for that. If you're passionate about alcohol, not so much, but even then, you could become a wine taster if you go the right way about exploiting your "strength".
It is true, your passions might keep up all night, but it's so common that passions get hijacked by the very people paid to nurture them. For example, I love to create and invent stuff, I love to solve problems that seem unapproachable, I love to calculate, and I enjoy even writing the stuff down to explain to posterity what the hell I was doing. Yet, the people I work for, need me only to write long and tedious technical reports no one ever reads, about mundane research that everyone does, they need me to organize meetings and participate in committees, things that tire and disgust me, to the point I'm questioning my passion and career choices (as if I ever had those). Yet, during my vacations, I end up working on my creative stuff that might never get published, because that's the only thing I ever cared about.
Sometimes it's hard to know if you have a passion, or not. I personally don't believe people can ever be passionate about math, physics, history, robotics or whatever. Those fields are artificial, and I doubt someone was ever born with a passion for those. But, as you get exposed to these fields during your education, or self-education, you might find in the structure of one of those fields something appealing to you, some place where you get the freedom to unleash your true self. That is where your passion lie. But, it matters a lot in what way were you exposed to that field. If you are exposed to a field the way a student is, through tests and long, boring, tedious, soul crushing lectures, or the way a researcher is (or should be), through real life problems that are worth tackling.
I honestly can't say I had a passion for my field. I think I was good at it as a student because I was an overachiever, and I was interested in overachieving. When I actually started research in graduate school, it was a shock. I had to discover stuff. I had to do, not to "know" things. My stellar course work, my straight A's, meant nothing compared to the difficulty of doing actual science. It was hard and seemed not worth it at all. I almost gave up. About three years in, things seemed to connect. I started to understand what I was doing, my first paper got published, and it felt like I was good at something once more.
Two postdocs later, I realized I was doing the same type of work over and over, and didn't feel I was going anywhere, so I started thinking about quitting again. So I quit. Then I came back on a permanent position, in an awful place, true, but with a much clear idea of who I was and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
In a nutshell, I realized I would only care about something I created. No matter how many small problems invented by other people I solved, I always came back to my own. This is why I hated my postdoc jobs. I was doing other people's research, while my own ideas were put off indefinitely. In the name of a career and status among my peers, I was living a miserable life.
I'm not saying your passion should be research, banking, music, or your children. All I'm saying, it has to be something that truly represents you. And you will know when you will prefer to do the thing you are passionate about, in spite of the availability of cheap distractions like TV or movies, in spite of what your friends and family tell you, and despite losing your social status, or having a smaller salary.
In my opinion, the main problem with finding a passion is that the passion is hidden within yourself. Most people search for it outside. They go to art classes, they volunteer, they study in universities, go to seminars and get internships. If they are lucky, their true calling will surface during any of those activities. In most cases it never does, or goes unnoticed in the daily humdrum.
Sometimes, you can get "inspired" and you think you have found your passion because someone else who is passionate has told you about their own passion. I think it is the most common way people become passionate about things. I also think that even if you don't find your own passion that way, the "inspiration" would move you closer to it. Just listen to inspirational talks given by people who truly achieved things in their lives (I recommend the one by Arnold Schwarzenegger on youtube, because it's so hilarious). Or read the writings of Nicola Tesla. To a normal guy, they sound like madmen. In a way they are, because passion is madness. The more passionate you are, the bigger sacrifices you will be willing to make.


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How can I balance the reading requirements for a large survey course?
I'm currently developing the lesson plan for a large (~100 students) survey course in history for the fall semester. Since this is my first time as instructor of record for the course I'm having some problems balancing how I would like to teach the course (several books worth of reading) with feedback from others in the department (i.e., limit the reading). My concern is that while the textbook is quite solid, there are some significant gaps that I think should be addressed. How can I balance the reading for the course so that I don't overwhelm the students in my course?

Some specifics that might be relevant, course is an upper division US Military History course with consistent enrollment of about 80 - 100 and is required due to a ROTC presence on campus. The university is an R2, but since most students are STEM majors they tend to get a heavy homework load from other classes. Very few history majors so for some this might be the only real exposure they get to the topics.

^ Suggest you edit that into the question text?

@DanielR.Collins I'd rather not since I want to keep the base question fairly generic. Once we have a couple answers I will be deleting the specifics.

Survey courses are generally designed to be superficial. The music department offers music appreciation. The fine arts department offers art appreciation. These courses expose you to the major themes of the field for the sake of appreciation and not mastery. The goal is to expose none experts to a field in order to broaden their horizon.
You state yourself that the majority of the students are not history majors. Therefore, why would you treat them like history majors and expect them to develop a deep understanding of military history? Few of us become experts in the electives and GEs we take as students.
If you are worried about the history majors you may want to include additional optional reading so that they can go deeper if they desire but weighing down STEM majors seems pointless. Better to stoke a fire/passion for history rather than burn them up with heavy content.

My undergraduate history courses were probably not anything considered typical at most universities. The reading load was usually a book per week, and the "course text" (when one was assigned) was generally to be fit in on top of the weekly assignments. I got used to it as part of the requirements for studying history at that school and dealt with it.
That said, such a workload is not typical, and there is the need to balance an assigned textbook with supplementary readings. The question is how much you want to focus on the main text. In general, "outside" readings tend to be much more interesting and valuable than the basic text—although you need to understand the basic material to derive greater meaning from the more specialized readings.
So perhaps the way to balance it is to carefully consider which passages in the main textbook are critical, and which ones are ancillary to the course contents, and fill in gaps or extend the work with limited supplemental readings. You can certainly have "suggested additional readings" to help people understand things that you think are worth knowing, but not required to know to be evaluated for the course.

How can I balance the reading for the course so that I don't overwhelm the students in my course?

Select some portions of the textbook to exclude from the reading assignments.
For the supplementary sources, select portions, that is, don't assign the whole thing unless it's short.
Supplement as needed in lecture.

The standard rule of thumb is 2 hours of study time for each hour of lecture.

"2 hours of study per hour of lecture" depends on the school. The schools I attended officially assumed 3, but in reality the multiplier was more like 5.

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What is the proper CV listing for an accepted paper that was not presented?
This question is similar to ones about accepted papers not being presented; however, one thing that other answers fail to mention is how to list the paper in your CV. Quite simply what is the appropriate way to list an unpresented paper where you are are a) solo author, or b) a co-author?

For specific details I suffered an injury that prevented my attendance at an IEEE conference where I was registered as a speaker. The paper does appear in the proceedings, but it remains to be seen if the organizers will submit it to Xplore. However, I'm trying to keep the question generic enough that it can address other situations.

if the organizers will submit it to Xplore — Typically, once the camera-ready papers are sent to the publisher to build the proceedings, they're out of the organizers' hands.  Also: You paid the registration fee, so as for as IEEE-the-business is concerned, you've fulfilled your end of the publication agreement.

@JeffE It seems to be a bit hit-or-miss on that front for IEEE conferences. For this one the chair has requested that moderators keep track of no-shows so that the papers can be pulled form Xplore indexing. However, this might also be an odd situation since the registration fees are paid (I'm assuming it's a sunk cost as well) and it was literally just pesky bad luck.

Sorry to hear the chair is being a jerk, and that IEEE is willing to introduce errors into its index.  Have you communicated your situation to the chair/organizers?  Can you arrange for a backup speaker, or to present remotely via Skype/Hangout/similar?

@JeffE I don't think they are being a jerk, just super busy coordinating the conference. I have heard back from the section organizer though so i might see if I can work something out with them.

The paper does appear in the proceedings

Its appearance in the proceedings makes it a publication, so you can (and should) include it in your list of publications.
If you separately list your conference presentations, you can't include this paper in that list, because you didn't present it.  Similarly, if your list of conference publications indicates which papers you presented [for example, by writing "(presented)" or making the presenting author's name bold], you can't give that indication for this paper, because you didn't present it.

where you are are a) solo author, or b) a co-author?

This is irrelevant.  The publication list in your CV should list all authors of each paper, ideally in the exact order they appear on the paper's title page.
tl;dr: Just tell the truth.

The format that my CV follows has the papers grouped by either "Presentations" or "Posters" and has the authors list along with "(Presenter)" next to the person who actually gave the talk. Would splitting things into "Papers", "Presentations" (most of these were abstracts), and "Posters" and then note the presenter accordingly make sense?

I strongly recommend listing "Conference publications", with a separate indicator for the papers you presented orally and the papers you presented as posters.  Your publication record matters more than your presentation record.  (Presentations/posters without associated publications should be listed separately)

The only rule for CVs is that they must give an accurate record of what you have done. So the answer is simple: list it in a way that is accurate.

I am mainly going to answer what would I do in such a case.
IEEE allows the author to upload accepted version of paper in authors personal webpage. (I have one, so I will upload it. You can do it as well if you have one. Otherwise, upload a copy in Researchgate or arXiv).
After doing that, I will update my CV.
Conference Publications.

R. Varadharajan, Title of the paper, Proceedings of IEEE, 2017. (Accepted, Preprint can be downloaded at [URL]).

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Is it preferable to cite the dissertation or a publication based on the dissertation?
I'm currently in the process of writing a literature review for a methodology and I came across two relevant works by the same author. The first is their dissertation which includes expanded details about their research questions the methodology they developed to address the research questions. The second work is a publication that is based upon one research question and doesn't contain as much detail about they methodology. My instinct is to cite both,

method is used by Author et al. (YYYY) in an evaluation of system, which is described in more detail in (Author YYYY).

but generally it seems like only the publication is cited if available. Is it preferable to cite the dissertation or a publication based on the dissertation, or both?

By "manuscript" do you mean a published or an unpublished paper?

Thanks. "Manuscript" is often used for pre-publication drafts.

If there is a published version of the paper, you usually want to cite that first. The main reason is that it's the version you're most sure has undergone rigorous review and revisions. As a bonus it will often be easier to find (e.g. through DOI numbers), and citations for papers "count more" so it's nice for the author(s) too. The latter two points should be in favor of also preferring citing preprint versions instead of dissertations, if that's all that's available, but it's a less clear-cut case.
However, if you find that the dissertation provides particularly helpful exposition or, as is often the case, contains information or details not published elsewhere, absolutely feel free to go ahead and cite both! (If you specifically make use of that information you clearly need to cite the dissertation.)

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When is it appropriate for a post-doc/grad student to be the senior author?
This is slightly different from What does author order indicate?. Our group has debated when would it be appropriate for a student or a post-doc to be considered the senior ie. the corresponding author.
As an aside, for CV building purposes, would it be more beneficial to be the first author or the last author? Does it matter if one is an academic vs. in the industry?

Assuming that you're not in a field where it's "strictly alphabetical order" (like economics), the question of which position is more important depends on what stage of your career you're in.
If you are a beginning academic—a PhD student or a postdoctoral fellow—then the first-author publications are most important, as these will show you taking an active and leading role in your research. As you move up the chain, however, and reach more senior positions, having the last-author credit becomes more important, as now you're showing your leadership role in directing projects.  You don't want to be stuck in the trap of being a "junior" partner in research collaborations, with the senior PI getting all of the credit for the work.

I'd like to add here that not all fields share the convention that the last author is the senior PI. In my field, the PhD advisor is almost always the 2nd author, possibly 3rd if the paper was shared between 2 PhD students.

Just for edification: in which field does this happen?

@aeismail "atmospheric remote sensing", per his/her bio

In my field (Computer Science), I usually assume that the first author and/or the "corresponding author" is the one who "did most of the work" and the last author is the one who secured the funding to do said work.  In some cases the latter does not exist (e.g., if a publication is not funded by a research grant/contract) or these are both the same person.  In my opinion and experience, the author with the greatest technical contribution should be the corresponding author.  This is because most inquiries to the corresponding author will be technical in nature.  If I were interested in contacting the authors of a paper for a non-technical reason (e.g., an inquiry to team for a competitive proposal) and I were unfamiliar with the authors (which is unlikely), then I would do a quick Internet search to determine if any of the authors are advisors of the others and contact the most senior one in terms of academic rank.
Therefore, I think it is perfectly appropriate and even desirable for whomever provided the greatest technical contribution to be the senior author.  This may vary by discipline and/or country, however.

In my field (theoretical computer science), authors are listed alphabetically.  Always.  (And many journals in my field don't even distinguish a particular "corresponding" author.  And funding the work does not by itself merit coauthorship.)

@JeffE: +1 (my work straddles AI and TCS).  By "funding" I was mostly referring to advisors injecting their names onto students' papers they have funded but about which they have little technical knowledge.  It's by no means desirable or suggested, but I see it happen a lot.

A few points.

Most(?) PhD students don't stay in academia. If they a planning on leaving academia for some other profession, does it really make sense for them to be a corresponding author? Once a PhD student has left Uni it's hard enough to get them motivated to write any papers, never mind answer future questions on it! Ditto for RAs, not all RAs stay in academia.
Let's suppose a PhD student does stay in academia and goes on to do an RA. It's unlikely to be on the same topic, so they won't be able to keep on top of the subject.
As @aeismail mentioned, I really don't pay attention to who the corresponding author is. If you are doing a PhD with a well known researcher, anyone who looks at the paper will automatically assume that the senior person had the original idea. The junior author gets to dispel this "myth" by giving really good presentations or by "author order".

Isn't the point of being the last author to avert point  3?

In my field (statistics), being the last author doesn't mean you are the head of the lab, it just means you contributed the least (if the ordering isn't alphabetical). Instead, the first author position is used.


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How do I become a journal reviewer?

Possible Duplicate:
How do you earn opportunites to review journals or conference papers?

Assume that I have just finished my postdoc and am now starting a professorship/scientist position (I am not). How do I start joining the ranks of peer reviewers? More importantly, how do I become a peer reviewer of a particularly prestigious journal rather than some junk journal? Does the journal contact me or do I start to publish in those journals, the editors recognize my "expertise" and then they solicit me? Even though everything is "blind" does my reputation of doing quality reviews get shared with other editors?

related/duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1498/324

Discussing this on the meta.

The best way to do it, in my experience, is to write. Every single journal I've been asked to review things for (with the exception of one done as a favor) was born of a request by an editor to review a paper in an area where I might be considered an "expert" - because I had a publication, and a decently received one, in that topic area.
Once you get an invitation or two, accept them and as importantly make your reviews useful and timely. Establishing yourself in an editor's mind as someone who gets their reviews back, and gets them back on time (or communicates when they aren't able to do that) can't do anything but help in ensuring that you'll get similar requests in the future.

So if I was a post-doc, how would editors know that I am now peer-review available if I don't have any articles as the corresponding author?

@bobthejoe I'd make yourself reachable. I'm the corresponding author on some of my papers, but it's a dead email address - you have to be findable. Beyond that, I'd talk to your supervisor - they might be able to pitch some requests for reviews your way.

@bobthejoe: So be the corresponding author on your next paper!  (But... does being the "corresponding author" really matter that much?)


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Do we really need gold open access if publishers permit self-archiving and sharing?
Several well-established journals nowadays allow self-archiving or sharing of articles through an institutional repository. For instance, Elsevier allows immediate sharing of the accepted manuscript via the author’s non-commercial homepage and, after an embargo, through their institutional repository. Springer has similar rules. More in general you can check on Sherpa/Romeo for any journal’s policies.
So I am wondering: is it worth it paying for the open access option, when we can just choose our publisher wisely, and then prepare a nicely formatted version of our accepted articles to share them online?

By definition option means something you do not need to do.

Changed "do we need" to "is it worth it".

One should also keep in mind that it was not always the case (and in some cases, still isn't) that authors could immediately share a PDF on their homepage. That is is allowed more and more these days might very well be due to the push for open acces (and preprint repositories like the arXiv)

If you mean is it worth it for you personally to pay out of pocket, no (at least to me).  But if you have research money for this, then it depends on you.

Related, borderline duplicate: Does gold (i.e., author-pay) open-access really help access to science and save taxpayer money?

@CapeCode, I admit I did not find that question before asking mine, but I am more interested in the dissemination of the paper rather than in the economics of it.

What you're describing is open access. It's simply a different form of it to the one Springer want you to pay for...
There are effectively two-and-a-half routes to open access, with a lot of subtle variants between journals -

Gold - the article is available immediately, freely, and in perpetuity, via the journal's website, probably with a permissive copyright license. The big open access journals (PLOS One, Scientific Reports, etc) are generally all-gold. It is usually paid for, but not always - many journals are gold but don't charge.

Hybrid gold - a special case of the above but for a single article in an otherwise subscription-access journal, rather than an all-gold-OA title. Usually costs more than an all-gold journal and almost always paid for.

Green - a version of the article (usually but not always the accepted manuscript) is available through a repository (or personal website, etc), often after a delay of around a year, and usually without a permissive copyright license. Usually no charge (other than standard publication costs if relevant).

Almost all mainstream journals allow green open access, though the rules are complicated, and they often refer to it as something like "permitted distribution" rather than "open access". Most journals from the big commercial publishers offer hybrid open access, though exactly how common it is for people to take this option is still a bit of an open question. (Finally, most all-gold journals also permit green open access, but obviously it's less important in that case!)
So, the question becomes - assuming my journal allows green OA, as almost all Springer and Elsevier titles do, what is the point of paying for hybrid? (This is a question I answer a lot for people looking at OA option forms, and most of them decide not to...)
Possible reasons to take gold over green, assuming you've already decided on committing to that journal, might be -

Audience. If you expect the title to be of wide public interest (= lots of non-academics want to read it) or valuable to particular audiences in regions without great journal subscriptions (Africa, South America, etc) then hybrid gold may make sense.
Timeframes. If you know it is likely to be of particular interest now, and making it publicly available a year or two down the line would be much less valuable, for whatever reason, then hybrid gold is more useful.
Distribution. If you know you'll want to make a lot of copies of your paper and distribute them widely and publicly, having a permissive copyright license through hybrid gold may help do this.
Discoverability. Hybrid OA papers are marginally more discoverable than green OA ones, as you can find them through the journal website, the DOI points to them, etc. A repository or personal website may not always be as easy to find.
Policy requirements. In some cases, funder or institutional policy will require that a hybrid OA option be taken if available. This is rarer now, and most of them are starting to pedal back on hybrid spending, but it may apply.

In practice, most people don't take the option. And if you want those specific benefits, you can get most of them from using an all-gold OA journal in the first place...

the one Springer want you to pay for...* that's a typo, you mean the one people running "publishing companies" out of internet cafes in Hyderabad want you to pay for.

Thank you for your thorough answer, and you are right: my question is more about free Green VS Gold for a fee. I agree with all your points but Timeframes: Green OA often allows immediate self-archiving.

@Zep yes, but in the majority of cases there is an embargo period on the more discoverable versions (=repository) as opposed to the personal website versions, so I think timeframes can still be an issue here. It also interplays with audience - if you know there'll be immediate public interest, the ability to point to the more authoritative-looking "real" one can be seen as valuable.

@CapeCode those guys are a whole other problem, but Springer will still happily steer you towards giving them an extra 2000 EUR if you give them half a chance ;-)

@Andrew are you implying a publisher makes more money out of article processing charges than from charging readers...? Now that's a thought!

@CapeCode hybrid OA is currently a perfect moneyspinner - you make it OA, and while in theory overall subscription costs should go down in proportion (5% hybrid = 5% less subscription fees, right?) there is not much clear evidence this is actually happening as envisaged. The numbers are so small for most journals that it's lost in the annual inflation, and most publishers only make vague statements and don't quote actual reductions. So even if it's only a small income stream, it can be effectively free money.

@CapeCode having said that, there are some programs to offset subscription/APC costs on a per-institution basis, and these are broadly looking good, but it's still a bit of an open question as to whether they do truly cap the amount spent. And not all publishers offer them, and not all institutions can take advantage of them, so...

In short: don't pay to publish.

You forgot the third option: Diamond open access: Neither authors nor readers pay for papers, which are written, typeset, refereed, and edited  by volunteers, and published exclusively online, typically under a Creative Commons license, with the author retaining copyright.

@JeffE That's really just a special case of gold - "gold without money changing hands". Gold doesn't require the payment of an APC or the involvement of a professional publisher.

I think the distinction is important. Most gold open acess journals do charge authors rather exorbitant publishing fees.

But green open access makes an article available before it is accepted, which is much faster than gold!

One of the reasons why authors sometimes choose hybrid open access is that their funder accepts only a maximum embargo period of e.g. 6 month (e.g. FP7, Horizon 2020) and doesn't accept papers posted on a personal webpage since the availability is vague and the indexing in scientific search engines is low. By the way, Elsevier's typical embargo period varies between 12 and 48 month.

The distinction between diamond and green is very important. When authors pay to publish, there is a strong incentive for journals to accept more papers than they should.

in many fields, e.g. in mathematics, arxiv.org version of the paper would be often cited, instead of the journal one. all these pay-for options in such fields are merely extorsion. don't pay for things you can get for free.

There are several strands to the question, that I will try to answer separately. But I want first to stress that one should not make the confusion between Open Access and Paying author charges.  These are distinct notions, the first being about who can read the paper, the second about the business model. There are several way to make one's article open access without paying any charge (let me take this opportunity to advertise the Fair OA Principles) and there are journals that have authors pay charges without making their papers open access (e.g. color figure, excess pages charges, front cover seem to be commonly paid for in chemistry; one of the top economy journal needs all authors to be paying members of a learned society to publish a paper).

The opposition you frame between Open Access and self-archiving is misleading: there are several ways toward open access, and self-archiving is one (called "green OA"). So, in the most common terms, when you put your paper in a public repository, you are actively engaging in Open Access.
Many institutions have their own repository, and several fields have world-wide field-specific repositories, but this does not cover everyone's research. For those who have no good repository available (good meaning in particular not owned by a legacy publisher who can shut it down any moment if it threatens its revenues), putting papers on one's web page is nice but not sufficient for many purposes (such papers go dead often, e.g. when the author changes institutions or retires). In such case, publishing Open Access with the publisher (sometimes called "gold OA", but here the precise meaning may vary) can be a plus.
In most cases (including Springer's and Elsevier's policy in the matter), subscription journals only allow the postprint (author-formated version of the paper, after peer-review) to be shared in repositories and web pages. This may be an issue (e.g. Theorem numbers may not match between the published version and the postprint, which can be an issue). It would be preferable to have a clear, unique version of record, properly identified (with a DOI) and available to all to read. Thus having journal publish OA is a benefit.
Once we look at the problem not author-side, but reader-side, then OA policies matter a lot, because much fewer papers are actually deposited in repositories than could be. So access still is an issue, even in fields that are assumed to use repositories a lot such as maths (to the best of my knowledge, high-energy physics is probably the sole field where nearly 100% of papers are actually available OA).

That said, to answer the question in your text (rather than the title question), I would not advise paying OA fees (often named APC for "Article Processing Charges") unless maybe if you are in a field where this is common and in a position where this is easy (e.g. you have access to specific founds); I would strongly advise against paying OA fees in hybrid journals (journals that mostly run on subscriptions but make individual papers OA for a fee), since the revenue from OA articles seems not to be really offset from
subscription prices, and I would strongly advise against paying high fees (high usually start at more $500 or more than $1500 depending on who sensible you ask - note that Nature would say that $30,000 is not that high). Be wary that predatory OA publishers usually charge moderate fees (a few hundred dollars), which are nonetheless extortionate given they do no work and no peer-review, so publish only in journal for which you can establish they have a serious reputation (this is also important for non-OA journals).

Thanks. I clearly DO confuse Open Access and author charges. I guess I should not mix them because I never paid author charges, and still all my articles are available for free, in some form or another.

Don't pay them for refraining from restricting access - which is like paying them for not beating you up. And do make your papers available online - in a place that's robust and visible to search engines (e.g. ArXiv, or your institute's repository of online publications).
We are in a state of transition - with copyable work in general - between the age of copy restrictions and the age of free dissemination and sharing.
The previous age has its roots in the church in the middle ages with monks transcribing forbidden texts while the masses can't even read; or with English printers getting the crown to forbid independent printing. Publishers like Elsevier and Springer have these behaviors and this mindsets as their heritage.
In the new era, we only hide private information (or rather: we only let the NSA and the other state agencies who spy on us see our private data); but anything else - like scientific and artistic creations - are publicly accessible, to be copied and used for whatever cause people might have.
As more and more people expect to see the latter in the world rather than the former, the publishers are trying to have sort of a compromise which people would be willing to stomach. Let's put more pressure on them.

-1 Lots of unsubstantiated claims, speculations, soapboxing and no real answer to the question.

Your first paragraph contravenes several funding body and institute regulations (which require accessible, archived OA publications). Do not do this unless you’re allowed to.

@KonradRudolph: How is putting papers on, say, ArXiv, or your institute's web repository for publications, not accessible and archived?

@einpoklum That’s completely fine. But it’s very different from self-hosting the paper on an ephemeral server without DOI, which is what the OP was asking about.

@KonradRudolph, Institutional repositories are usually accepted by funding bodies for article dissemination, I believe.

@Zep: Konrad's comment was from before my edit...

And what stops them from selling that private data and using it to make people not believe you if you push an agenda that risks destroying their income model? The only thing you basically can do is to go on strike. But doing so is probably gonna make you mostly look like a maniac / burned out loser. Just give up, get back in line and don't do anything fruitful at all except for exactly what you are getting paid for.

@mathreadler: Nothing stops them. Which is why we need better encryption and distributed platforms to supplant Google, Facebook et al. There are lots of things you can do other than go on strike (although strikes can be useful in various contexts). About the "making people not believe you if you push an agenda etc." - already happening, in a sense. See this story for example.

It is not worth it. They can so easily break you if they want. But chances are that they really rather want you to help them if you are smart enough to understand those things. They have no lack of money. They have a lack of skilled people.

@mathreadler: I'm not sure where you're going with these comments... but - one person can be broken, while a mass of people - not so easily.

They have people employed for this. Don't know how many percent but quite a large overhead.


text:
Only one student answered an exam question - and I strongly suspect he cheated
Today we (professors + teaching assistants) proctored a midterm exam for a class of about 80 students.  There was undoubtedly a "hardest" question on the exam, since nearly the entire classroom of students asked us how to proceed with that question. To be fair, we didn't give any hints, but it was clear that one had to use a definition to be able to proceed.
When we collected the exams, all of the exam booklets had that question unanswered -- except for one student's exam.  And this was the only student who asked to go to the bathroom.  I gave him permission to go, but I did not ask for his phone, which I now highly regret.
What can we do in this situation, in which I strongly suspect that this student went to the bathroom to look up a definition on his phone, so that he could answer the question correctly?
We still have to look at every exam to be sure that only one student got it right (the bathroom student), but if this were indeed the case, do we have any power to accuse him of cheating, or, have we missed our chance by not asking for him to leave his phone in the room?
I feel a big injustice will have been done to the rest of the honest students, if we let this one slide ...

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

...nearly the entire classroom of students asked us how to proceed with that question... - what does it mean? Is it ever acceptable for students to ask for hints during the exam?

I apologize in advance for my frankness.

What can we do in this situation, in which I strongly suspect that this student went to the bathroom to look up a definition on his phone, so that he could answer the question correctly?

Nothing.

have we missed our chance by not asking for him to leave his phone in the room?

You missed it, but it doesn't really matter: the student might have had a mate with a phone in the bathroom. Or not. The student might even have known the answer.

I feel a big injustice will have been done to the rest of the honest students, if we let this one slide

In your career you quite probably have already let others slide.
I wrote in this answer that, on the basis of my (now sufficiently long) experience, if a student wants to cheat, they will. Therefore, one has to accept that, from time to time, a student cheats, and one doesn't notice or is not able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the student cheated (and you don't want to accuse someone of cheating if you're not able to prove it, right?).
So, move on.
NB: As some have remarked in various comments, the fact that almost all students were unable to answer that question can be a major issue. In this answer, I specifically wanted to address the cheating part only, because I think that this other issue is a totally different matter, which can be also culture-dependent, and which is probably worth of a different (interesting) question.

I also was a student once, and in one exam I, by pure luck, chose a particularly convenient representation, and solved a question in a super-compact elegant way that no-one, including the professor, had seen before; I had a one-liner response for a question for which several pages of computation were expected. Now, I didn't go to the bathroom; but assume I had, and assume that I had later been falsely accused of cheating, by asking a clever friend while out - how do you think I would have felt? It would have been adding insult (accusation of cheating) to injury (the loss of marks). Cont'd.

Now, I had never been accused of cheating (in fact, I made a point to myself never to cheat), but I was typically known for bloated overcomplicated responses; this compact solution was  completely out of character and style for me. So, it could very easily have been that a suspicious tutor would have decided for themselves that I hadn't found elegant solution on my own and canceled the marks. I would have been furious (or demotivated) and definitely would raised a major fuss, if only to clear my name, not even for the marks. No. OP messed up, and without proof, OP cannot accuse.

@CaptainEmacs, from your story, I am very interested what you think of my answer to this question since it is essentially just to consider and explore that possibility (of an ingenious student solution).

Your answer is good, but should include Wildcards answer as well to extend  on what you can do now realistically.

This should be the accepted the answer. There is no "calling the student later" or this sort of somehow passive/aggressive things. The exams is the same for everybody and unless there is some clear proof of cheating what is done is done. Next time, be clear about bathroom policy/phone policy. Learning is neverending for both teachers and students, this time your lessons are:  -Should I really give questions that can be solved only thru the "luck" of remembering a clearly not-that-central definition? -Should I be more proactive against cheating?

@QPaysTaxes Had the same thing. Teacher accused me of looking at my neighbour (with an eye so short-sighted I can't even read with it unless the paper is less than 10 cm from the eye) and refused to grade my exam. After I raised a major stink it turned out the guy I "cheated" from scored a 3 (out of 10) and I had a 9.

"...if a student wants to cheat, they will." I know someone in IT security who would always say that security systems are mostly intended to deter the casual attacker, but a determined attacker will find a way in eventually. I think the same thing applies to preventing cheating students. I have heard rumours of students developing hand signals or Morse code for communication during exams. There's not a lot you can do to stop the most determined and creative cheaters. Just try to make it so secure that they need to spend more time developing their cheats than it would to study for the exam.

I would +1 this if not for the last sentence. OP must not move on since, irrespective of that individual student, his/her course staff gave an exam with an answer which they failed to teach the students how to solve (or it was too obscure, or whatever). That needs to be addressed.

@einpoklum You're right that there is a major issue in the exam, but I specifically wanted to address the cheating part only, because this other issue is a totally different matter (which is probably worth of a different question), which can be also culture-dependent.

@MassimoOrtolano: If you were to at least allude to this in your last sentence I'd +1.

@einpoklum I've added a note about that.

-1 If you see something (likely) unfair and you can check into it, then check into it.

I don't think there is any harm in asking him how he solved it, face to face. Even if you accept that you won't proceed with the accusation beforehand, it can be just to judge his response for your own piece of mind. If he breaks down on his own, great, if not, you at least have more insight into what happened.

@CaptainEmacs similar story here. I was doing an advanced maths course, and was asked to prove the existence of a mathematical function with certain properties. My proof didn't use any of the methods taught in the course, it went beyond what was asked (instead of just proving existence, I gave an example), and it resembled the style of a well-known mathematician who happens to be my father. My prof discreetly asked him if he'd helped me. There was a simple explanation: I'd been distracted that semester and hadn't absorbed much of the lectures, so couldn't use the methods we'd been taught!

@einpoklum That's not necessarily a bad thing.  Sometimes students get into the habit of expecting every question on an exam to be just like all the example questions in the book and homework questions.  Some teachers/professors like to test other aspects of problem solving by getting the students to apply knowledge in ways that they haven't been "taught" to do.  It's a legitimate way to teach critical thinking - all my good teachers and professors in the past have asked those questions.

The fatalistic attitude that students will cheat if they want to disturbs me. There are obviously measures that can be taken to make the cost of cheating sufficiently high as to make it undesirable as an option.

@k_g It's not a fatalistic attitude, it's a realistic one. I've seen cheating happening also when quite strict countermeasures where in place. And recall that also the implementation of those measures take a cost from us teachers, and there should be a trade-off between the cost involved in the countermeasures and that of allowing a bit of a cheating, because we are not hired as policemen (and see my other linked answer to understand what is my position).

@MassimoOrtolano I think we might be more in agreement than my initial comment suggested, given your other answer. I think that making exams cheat-proof is probably a good strategy in general, but I disagree that we are not police in any sense, to a certain extent we should be preventing students from gaining unfair advantage and circumventing the system to the extent we can.

@k_g in most circumstances, students are paying tuition (and thus ultimately call the shots).  if students collectively are angry about cheating there will be strict enforcement.  if students collectively are OK with cheating there will not be strict enforcement.  it is not the job of the professor to determine how much resources should be allocated against cheating.

There is something to be said for cheating. As @CuriousFindings points out, students have used morse code and whatnot to communicate information in a supposedly 'secure' environment. Such things obviously can't be tolerated if discovered, but at the same time demonstrate some mental capability that the exam in question wasn't asking about. I'm not sure calling a friend in the bathroom is quite as inventive, but this student did something no one else was able/prepared to do.

@CaptainEmacs Would be interested in knowing what that problem was

@alphacapture I don't remember, it's too long ago and I never took the exam problem sheet with me.

I remember taking a number theory final exam. About half-way through the exam, I had to pee; as in HAD TO PEE. The professor would not let me leave. I rushed through the exam, tossed it onto her desk, and ran out the door. She posted the grades and I saw that I had gotten a C on the exam. I asked her if I could see my exam paper. Every question was marked correct with no deductions. Confused, I turned the paper over. There were more questions on the other side. At the time, it didn't occur to me to turn the paper over before I turned it in. I just marked it down to hard lessons learned.

Call him in.  Ask him how he solved it.
Don't imply that he cheated.  Just ask how he solved it with genuine curiosity and interest.
If he asks why you're asking, tell him he was the only student in the entire class who solved it and you'd love to get an insight into his problem solving process.
Either you have a genuine genius on your hands or you have a cheater.  Don't do anything yourself to imply the latter possibility.
If he really IS a genius, you will be glad you had this interview with him and can now give him the scholastic accolades he deserves!  Rather than going on falsely believing he is a cheater.
If, as you suspect, he was cheating, he may "fess up" to it.  Or he may not.  But if he can't explain the answer or how he arrived at it in any way, shape, or form, you will know he was cheating.  And he will know that you know.
And that may be enough to change his behavior for the better in the future.

If it turns out he was cheating (either by his admission or by his total failure to be able to explain anything about the answer), the lightest thing you could do would be to not give him credit for that question.  So then no one gets credit for it, since no one else answered it.  Or, as others have said, you might just let it slide as far as grading is concerned.
But having the above interview gives you the chance to (a) discover a possible genius or (b) put a little bit of discipline on the student so he's aware he didn't "get away clean" and will be less likely to cheat again.
The very least it will do, if he cheated, is to make him sweat.

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

Not exactly an answer, but perhaps some perspective: a long time ago, I went to one of the U.S. service academies (Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, nevermind which) and, like all incoming people, was subjected to an extensive battery of placement tests, some generating college credit, and so on. Far more systematic than most U.S. colleges and universities even today.
Having been an avid student of mathematics for some years prior, I had indeed read a lot, and in particular had known how to do calculus (which was the basic entry-level topic in mathematics) for some years prior. While doing generally well on the other exams, apparently I only mis-answered a single question of 100's on the calculus exam. Since even competent people rarely do that well, and since I did not have high school calculus on my record, this was suspicious. (Let me remark that, yes, I did in fact know how to do calculus pretty well, and, yes, I also knew how to "game" multiple-choice questions. And I guess I had a good day, too.)
A point is that at the U.S. service academies, any lying or cheating or anything-at-all is a dismissable offense. So, given the suspicious nature of the situation, I was called before an "officers board" to account for the situation (since there was certainly no overt evidence of cheating).
Being a naive, scared kid standing at attention in front of officers, to the question "how do you account for this?" my initial response was "Sir! I read a lot of books! Sir!" (That was the required style of address...)
(This got a laugh, which did not calm me, by any means, because at the time I didn't know how to interpret it.)
The wrap-up was that I was not punished or dismissed from the place...
So: in your situation, you'd definitely need to interview the student before thinking in terms of accusations. Some people are not typical, even though, yes, statistically they are.
Also, the whole "deny bathroom break" thing is silly, and insisting on "accompanied breaks" is silly/rude, and so on. The complications to "testing" are not solvable by outlawing bathroom breaks.
Nor by outlawing phones, because dedicated cheaters can get much smaller devices...
"Catching and punishing cheaters" is obviously not the primary goal of education of any sort, so we don't want to let that goal corrupt the rest of it.

Unfortunately in the military they hold a lot more cards than a teacher (particularly public school).  While it's not actually constitutionally so (at least in the US), public education is seen as being basically a right.  And any misstep is under the guise of a government entity.  Such that lawsuits are even a more common event.  At the least, most schools are now quite rapid to dismiss teachers at even the hint of an issue that may cause media attention.  One student gets "interviewed" and is "fragile", you've got a crying kid on tv, and a mess.  It's a world of scary caution anymore

And in this world, a cartoon like https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5b/91/09/5b910943f0a80e3b63425b0d5a887261.jpg... hits far too close to home :-/

Oh, and while in no way am I suggesting that the very vast majority of sexual assault allegations are anything but true... it's nonetheless real that students who are willing to cheat may be willing to go to other means to get their way. Places like military academies will generally quite naturally filter down to be those motivated by a purpose, and ethics. But at public schools (even many CCs/universities) some are there because they're told to be/fairly aimless, and may be uninterested with morality not seeing any benefit to them... and so may seek revenge or means to restore control :-/

I once was that student as well. Failing nearly every easy question, but succeeding the hardest one(s). The first time it was suspicious. The second time, it became even more suspicious. Since then, I had a personal supervisor during my exams. Until the third and fourth times came. The supervisor didn't find any cheating. I was only bored and wanted challenges: I overlooked easy questions and focused on hard ones. I became known as the one who solves only the hardest questions and teachers left me alone. That doesn't make me a cheater: the system was inadapted for me (or vice-versa).

@OlivierGrégoire, off topic, but you would love the book Concrete Mathematics if you haven't discovered it already.  It has virtually nothing in it but interesting, challenging questions.

If you can't prove that a student cheated, you can't prosecute or penalize them. Bear in mind cheating is a very serious charge, and can ruin a student's academic career.
Don't throw this charge around lightly.
If you're the teacher, and if your test isn't well-written enough to be able to discern if someone knows the material (v.s. googling the topic in the bathroom for 5m), your test-making skills could stand some improvement.
In other words, rethink your student evaluation process if it can be defeated by a cursory google search, or a 'cheat-sheet'.

I am not sure if I agree with the thesis that professors have to pay a price (rewriting exams to be ungoogleable) simply because students cannot be trusted to abide by the honor code that they signed. It's an interesting question. I prefer an explicit policy that gives the professor the right to ask the student to explain a solution, and gives the professor the right to change the grade if the student cannot demonstrate an understanding of the work they handed in.

First, a bit of (my) perspective: Don't overestimate the significance of grading people, in general. As a researcher I have not found that much use for the exam grades of undergrad/grad students I encounter. It's basically something the capitalist economy needs, or thinks it needs, for employee selection. This, as opposed to giving students feedback on their answers - what they got right or wrong and where their mistakes seems to stem from; doing that is super-important. So the fact that the bathroom-student's grade may be wrong, in itself, would not seem to me like the sky is falling.

On the other hand, fairness is a big deal in my book. Thus the prospect of someone having gotten phone help on a hard question and "sticking it" to his/her fellow students would bother me. However

Either the question you gave was solvable - in which case you have no basis for suspicion - or it was objectively practically-unsolvable, in which case I don't believe you even have a moral leg to stand on for accusing the student of misconduct. To quote the line from the biblical Samson: "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle" - if it were a question which half the class answers, you never would have been suspicious of the "bathroom student".

You should adopt the proposal of @SolarMike and just cancel the question, so that the grade is based on all of the other questions and this one doesn't count. If that student complains, you can figure out whether he actually understands the material well enough to have solved the question him/herself... also, +1 @SolarMike's answer.

Next time, Have the least experienced TA in the course, who had not seen the exam in advance, sit down and solve it - before administering the exam to the students. That will save you a lot of grief if you can manage it.

The greater injustice in this case is you guys either writing an inappropriate exam question or failing to educate your class to answer a question on an appropriate exam. Try focusin on bettering yourselves rather than on punishing the misdeeds of others.

"- or it was objectively practically-unsolvable, in which case I don't believe you even have a moral leg to stand on for accusing the student of misconduct. " I do not see your logic.

@Acccumulation: It's like an abused spouse shooting their abusing wife/husband. Sure, shooting people is wrong, but the abuser doesn't have a moral leg to stand on and complain about having been the victim of this kind of violent act. If an unsolvable exam drives someone to cheat it is not for the person who administered it to complain. Ok, that's not a perfectl analogy, but you catch my drift. Or - read the Samson Riddle story.

Giving hard questions isn't unethical, and it doesn't force people to cheat; anyone who cheats in that situation is making that decision on their own. Your analogy relies on the premise that the professor was unethical, which is the whole issue at hand. Analogies are for explaining claims, not for simply reiterating them. I'm not clear on what relevance you think the Samson story has. Is the professor Samson?

@Acccumulation : Yes.  More broadly, Samson represents whomever is innocent and whom the wrongdoing was against.  Which in this case I equate to the professor.

+1 for the first bullet point. My question(s) for OP: OP says "I feel a big injustice will have been done to the rest of the honest students, if we let this one slide ..."  Why? If the goal is to produce skilled graduates, how does one student getting credit for one question harm everyone else?  Is this a two-question midterm?  Will this one question even impact the entire course grade, much less whether the person graduates?  This seems to be a lot of stock in just one question.  Or is judgement of students' ability to answer questions your actual ultimate end goal?  Why is this so important?

@Acccumulation: If nobody found an answer, the question wasn't "hard". Also, no, the student is Samson - which was indeed cheating with his riddle; but the Philistines couldn't have known that without their own inappropriate conduct.

+1 for "Next time, have the least experienced TA in the course, who had not seen the exam in advance, sit down and solve it - before administering the exam to the students."

@Mico: Actually, I like my last point the best because it's more spiritual, but the one before is very practical. It's a time-honored tradition in the 1st-semester programming course in my old department, in which I TAed a bunch of times.

Just remove that question from the paper - on the grounds that so few managed it or the material had not covered that sufficiently...

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

I often feel like a nonlinear scale might be a good idea, or be able to earn bonus points (i.e. answers add up to >100% if you get them all correct). No need to dismiss it just because only one person got it correct (especially if >0 got it correct). If someone genuinely studied very well, had some bad luck with the other questions, and got the bonus one(s) right... that should be good. And anyone scoring >100 is just capped to 100%.

Disclaimer: I have never to date taught a class and never compiled, overseen or marked an exam.
As much as I believe cheating or attempting to cheat is a bad attitude and as much as I want cheaters to be punished accordingly, I also believe that proving cheating must come down to hard evidence. Hard evidence meaning enough evidence that you would win a criminal case in court if it were taken there. One key principle is in dubio pro reo and this applies here: you do not have proof, you only have a hunch. Unless you manage to find actual, factual evidence do not accuse this student of cheating and do not adjust only their mark in a way that suggests cheating.

I for my part know that I sometimes remember the weirdest details while missing out on often-repeated details. So I might well have performed poorly or averagely in that exam because of not knowing general stuff — but by chance I may remember exactly that definition almost word for word (or symbol for symbol if this is a mathematics exam) and be able to answer that question.

Cheating isn't as serious as murder, so it is acceptable for the burden of proof for the former to be lower than for the latter.

I hereby accuse you, @Acccumulation, to have insulted me. Now, insulting someone may, depending on the details, be less severe than exam fraud.  Therefore, the burden on proof is on you. In case you cannot prove your innocence, German courts grant me some amount of money up to 2,000 EUR. Yay :) Oh, while we're at it, I accuse you of illegal disposal of oil. And because it isn't murder, the burden of proof is on you, too.

@phresnel I think the "insult" example is better than the oil spill. The damage is "virtual", and therefore the similarity is much clearer. Apart from that, I agree with your point.

@phrensol  I said that it's acceptable for the burden of proof to be lower, not nonexistent. There is no way your comment could have been made in good faith, and I am flagging it. Making up bullshit arguments and pretending that they follow from someone else's comments is wildly disrespectful.

@Acccumulation I'm going to say that Phresnels arguments were very likely made in good faith.  They're a bit cheeky, but the ridiculousness of them was presumably intentional to show that (s)he was not serious in the accusation, but instead trying to point out the problems inherent in a sliding scale for the necessary evidence for the burden of proof.

@Acccumulation: Had you cited my display name correctly, I would have received a notification and not just lurk by by accident. Anyways: I wonder what's more "bullshit"'esque: Giving practical counterexamples for arbitrarily flipping the burden of proof. Or arbitrarily flipping the burden of proof.  // edit: Ah, now I realise my mistake. Please accept my sincere apologies. Yet, your "no way in good faith" is quite an accusation itself, excluding the possibility that I was basing my examples on a mistake.

the burden of proof is whatever the university says it is.  however, as an outsider I do not have to respect university decisions.  if I think the university is rigging its plagarism charges to unlawfully expel African Americans, then a jury (external to the university) might get a chance to decide.  I think most juries would find this stupid shit to be extremely questionable.

@emory I can’t quite tell how this comment is relevant to my answer or the rest of the discussion …?

I pretty much agree with Massimo Ortolano's answer, but there might be one thing you can do. Run a search on the web with some sentences of the suspicious answer. If the student copied verbatim some text available on the net (something more extensive than a single generic sentence), then while you won't be able to prove he or she cheated, you will be able to prove plagiarism. That may, or may not be useful.
I had a similar problem once in a course preparing to a national competition. At one test that was taken from a former competition sheet, three papers where copied extensively from a correction of that test available on line. The students argued they learned the solutions by heart to several of these competition sheets, which might be true (I don't know if it would makes me more sad if that where true, or if they had cheated with phones and lied to our faces). I tried to make them understand that plagiarism was a serious offense even without cheating involved, but we did not proceeded with the disciplinary board. That test was not used for grading the course at all, and I explained why to all students (without giving names) -- this was possible because we train student with numerous such tests.

There are people with exceptional memories. And knowing solutions to known problems for such people can be like knowing vocabulary of a language: an anchor. Neither punishable, nor a legitimate reason to deplore anything, but a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring knowledge. It does not even mean that these are not original, as they may save their creativity for other problems.

@CaptainEmacs: In my 2nd paragraph, the point was not to punish memory, but to punish plagiarism - if one memorizes a solution and uses it word-by-word without using quote marks and mentioning the source, then one commits plagiarism: using other's work under their own name. If they memorize and understand the answer, they are free to rephrase it in their own words.

What can we do in this situation, in which I strongly suspect that this student went to the bathroom to look up a definition on his phone, so that he could answer the question correctly?

You can examine your suspicions:

Is the student’s conduct suspicious? What conduct? At worst, the student went to the bathroom, with permission, without surrendering a posession that they weren’t asked to surrender. Not suspicious. At best, they didn’t have a phone to begin with.
Is the student’s answer suspicious? No, based on this question.

Now you say that it’s suspicious because the student was the only one to answer it. But you must have expected that someone would be able to answer it, or you wouldn’t have included it, right? And since you are a competent teacher, it had might as well be one of your students, right?
So the answer is: Unless you can come up with some better evidence, do nothing.
(Or, if your university has an integrity board, let them handle it. In that case, you shouldn’t even be here asking about it.)

If the question was really too difficult for 79/80 students to attempt, you should consider not punishing them for missing the answer.
Note that this is not because 1 student did answer it, but despite that one student did answer it.

Practically the implementation may be the same (e.g. everyone gets full/partial score for the question), but because this is about ethics it is important that you only do this if it is not to punish the 1, but because you want to be fair and the question was too difficult.

If the method offered by Wildcard doesn't help you determine whether the student cheated or not, your best bet is to either let it go, or find a way to adjust how you weigh the entire test in the final grade.
You may consider dropping each student's lowest test score (for example).  You can even drop each lowest-scored question on this particular test (assuming all questions have the same point values).
However, (since you are troubled enough to ask for help here) I assume you understand that you cannot accuse a student whom you suspect if you don't have the proof to justify the accusation.

I am puzzled by the fact that this "hardest question" could hinge on just knowing "a definition." A pragmatic approach would be to exclude this question from the exam, on the grounds that with 79 out of 80 miss rate it was clearly inappropriate given the reasons we organise these exams, and rescale the remaining questions.

If you think that you failed to teach the class sufficiently enough for any your students to be able to answer the question on an exam you gave them, then the things that are unfair are these, and a few others:
1. You put questions in the exam that you did not teach them adequately
2. You assume that your student cheated
The exam and its results have no value in the real world. The knowledge gained from a well-taught class has value. The skills learned while studying subjects has value.
Do a much better job teaching the subjects. Do a much better job building exams that test the students on only the material that you sufficiently taught them.  Grade your teaching skills on the results of the student's ability to answer the questions.
If you had the only student who realized that it was completely unfair of you to have put a question that you as the teacher thought not one student should have been able to answer, and that student decided to make it fair, by looking up the answer themselves, then that student deserves extra credit.
You are not the only teacher who has their perspective on what matters wrong.
Praise the student for being the only one to get it right, and ask them about how they got the answer.

Deciding to cheat is not an appropriate answer to unfair exam questions. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I understand the sentiment you are expressing regarding unreasonable exam questions, but it's quite a leap to suggest that would somehow validate cheating (if that is even what happened here).

Condemnation of the teacher solves nothing.  However, if I were the teacher, I might (disingenuously) say something like, “Congratulations to the one student who got ___ correct.  Since everyone else had trouble with it, it’s possible I didn’t teach it.  So the exams will be scored as if they did not include that question.”  So the student now knows that IF he cheated, it was to no avail.  And if you catch his eye while you are saying it, a very subtle change of expression will make him think you suspect cheating.

WGoleau, that's unprofessional behavior. Students are no less intelligent than teachers, just less knowledgeable. Let's not use our podium as a chance to play "clever" word games with hidden accusations.

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text:
Does "bad credit" affect postdoc application in math?
Does a bad credit score affect my chance in applying for a postdoc in math? In my case, I have a credit card that had the bill sent to the wrong address and this impacted my score with all three credit agencies.

Crosspost on money.stackexchange?

I've never heard of academic employers screening based upon credit scores. A bad credit score might affect your ability to get a postdoc position that requires a security clearance (e.g., NSA or a DOE national lab).

Okay. I suggested edits to make your question more general. Also, where are you looking for a postdoc? Academia, gov't, private sector?

It could affect your chances if you mention it in the interview. It will show that you are irresponsible and absent-minded; if you are also bright this could help.

Be careful; some of the people answering do not have any experience with hiring for math postdocs. (For example, a comment above referenced interviews; but there are no interviews for math postdocs.)

@Tom Church: Each of the 3 finalists, of which I was one, for a math postdoc I applied to had a conference-phone interview with the hiring committee. But this was for the 1996-97 academic year, and maybe it's no longer done.

@TomChurch Oh yes; even in things I have experience I like to proceed from thought/understanding rather than inferring from experience.

I have a lot of experience with postdoc hiring in mathematics at several institutions.  There is no mechanism by which faculty who are reading postdoc files would know your credit score, so you shouldn't worry that it will affect your application.
HR departments don't really play a role in academic job searches (aside from technical things like approving the wording of job ads).  It is all done by academics.  So though in the private sector HR departments do things like run credit searches, this just doesn't happen during faculty and postdoc searches at universities.

It depends on the position and organization you are applying to. Since it is in math, I would say no. Your employer will most likely not check your credit score/report. When I was in HR, I only ran credit checks for people who would have financial control over a certain department (i.e. CFO, budget officers, etc.). Since pulling credit reports/scores require explicit permission, it will be stated in either the job application or the recruiter will tell you - it might also be possible that it's listed on the job description - in which case you can either agree, or disagree to it.

What do you mean by "recruiter"? That's a common role in hiring in the private sector, but I've never heard of anyone with such a title being involved in academic hiring.

@NateEldredge In HR, anyone responsible for posting job descriptions and/or doing the initial resume review is known as a recruiter.