text:
Unresponsive supervisor blocks submission to conference
For context, I'm a software development professional, with 17 years in the trade. I studied towards a bachelor between until 2000, but never submitted my bachelor's thesis, as I was hired by a company and, ... reasons. If you are old enough to remember the rush around the turn of the millennium, you will know.
Anyway, I have now made a bachelor's thesis and got it approved. To my surprise, I found that the study I made hasn't been made before, and as a consequence, the results are not trivial, and may have a bearing on a current debate in my field. (In my professional field, that is, not in academia.)
The bachelor's thesis is my own work, meaning that I formulated the problem, I designed and conducted the experiments, I collected all the data, and I made all of the analysis. My supervisor approved my plan, and proofread the thesis, but did not make any scientific contribution to it.
I've rewritten my bachelor's thesis to an article or a conference submission, taking out the most relevant parts. As I understand it, my supervisor should be considered a co-author here - is that correct?
The thing is, I sent it to my supervisor for comments, and he promised to look at it, but then I haven't heard from him in several months, and he does not reply to my attempts to contact him.
I realize this site can't answer questions about how to approach a specific person. What I would like to know is what my options are.

Can I remove him as a co-author from the article, even though he supervised the bachelor's thesis?
If not - how much do I have to change to be able to do that? Do I have to make a new study?
Can I submit it, with him as co-author, without his expressed approval?
Is there anything else I can do to raise the awareness of my study without his prior expressed approval?

Your supervisor shouldn't be listed as an author on your thesis- that should be entirely your own work. Re. the communication issues, is there a colleague or admin person who works closely with your supervisor who you could ask for the best way to contact him? Could you phone his office or go there in person?

Can I submit it, with him as co-author, without his expressed approval? => NO

Did your supervisor make significant intellectual contributions to your thesis? Like proposing the overall project or at least substantial ideas that made it into the the thesis.

@lighthousekeeper Good point. No, he didn't, and I have added that to the question. Thank you.

@astronat No, sorry, he's not listed as co-author to the thesis. I live in another city, and while I might travel to campus, it'll take me a day there and back. When calling him, I haven't been able to reach him, and I have been a little reluctant to contact colleagues and/or managers for fear it might turn hostile or awkward.

@Bex if it's been several months and you haven't heard from him, I think it's perfectly acceptable to contact a colleague of his. After all, he may be away, on sabbatical or dealing with a personal/ family emergency. A polite enquiry as to the best way to get in touch with him (or if there's a reason why you haven't heard from him) should be fine.

Can I remove him as a co-author from the article, even though he supervised the bachelor's thesis?

Based on the information that his sole contributions were to approve the plan and to proofread the thesis, yes, you can remove him as an author.
As a common guideline applied in many disciplines, the Vancouver protocol of the ICMJE specifies the following four criteria for authorship:

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual  content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.


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In my PhD application, I said that I will be taking course A this academic semester. Will dropping course A negatively impact my application?
For context, I am a an undergraduate in my final semester of a US university. I am currently enrolled in five courses, so dropping the to be mentioned course would still provide me with a normal schedule.
I have just finished applying for a PhD programs in physics. While writing my applications, I was planning to take a physics course somewhat related to my field of interest (not related at all to graduating, it is a completely free slot). The semester has started, and the course is not at the level of content that I was hoping for. Hence, I am considering dropping the course. Would this negatively impact my PhD applications?

No. Admission committees aren't deciding whether or not to admit grad students on the basis of them dropping (or completing) a single course they said they were going to take in a cover letter. Also, nobody on that committee has the time to compare classes you mention taking in a cover letter against your final transcript, and even if they did, I can't imagine a single one of them would care about the discrepancy as long as you completed your major. No need to worry about it.

Chances are that nobody will admit a PhD student based on them having announced in their application that they will take a certain course. That would just be grossly unprofessional, as it is clear that at the point where the application is assessed, there is no evidence whatsoever that the student will know the material of the course. (Even if you take it, you could fail.)
So this shouldn't be a problem with the application. To what extent this means that you don't know certain things that you later will need when actually being a PhD student is another matter. Of course you can work through a textbook or something to make up for this if you think this makes sense.

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HiWi payment in Germany for student with international bachelor's
I am working at a German research institute as a HiWi.
HiWi jobs pay hourly wages based on the education level of the employee.
For instance there is a "without bachelors" and "with bachelors" wage.
Prior to taking the job, I was told that I would be paid the hourly rate "with a bachelors" because I have a B.A in Economics from North America.
Im am currently studying a B.Sc in Molecular biology.
Now the institute says that there is a law which says that they will not recognize my North American education because Im currently studying a B.Sc in Germany. Thus, they are only paying me at the "without bachelor's level".
Does anyone know of the laws surrounding these issues.
Thanks,
D

Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
What the institute says is completely wrong: there is no such law.
The salary of Wissenschaftliche Hilfskräfte (HiWi, student doing scientific work) varies by state and by university, and it is not regulated by law. As explained in Chapters 3.3 and 6 of this document (unfortunately, information about this is only available in German), these student employees are in most cases not even included in the worker unions, and tariff negotiations do not apply to them (the only exception being Berlin). This means that these salaries are almost exclusively decided by the employers.
The only available "official document" are the Richtlinien der TdL über die Arbeitsbedingungen der Hilfskräfte (Guidelines of the Tariff Association of German States about the working conditions of the assistants), which are just guidelines, not a law. These guidelines only provide a maximum salary (not a minimum), and distinguish between three groups of students. The highest salary group is for students with a Master's degree. The second-highest salary group is for students who, among other options, have a

Bachelor-Abschluss

i.e., a Bachelor's degree. There is no clause that says that currently studying another Bachelor's degree disqualifies you from being in this group.
This said, getting your foreign Bachelor's degree recognized might take some effort, but I would at least ask them what law they are talking about.

I suspect that there is probably a university policy to fund based on the program on which (s)he is enrolled rather than the degree one has. Usually, there is no difference, but if the university can save some money... You can ofcourse try, but don't get your hopes up, and expect to be sent from one department to another in an infinite loop if you try.

@MaartenBuis that is probably true, but the university should not lie to its employees by saying law instead of university policy.

In addition, I guess in most universities AStA they have some people responsible for student assistants and maybe some "Ombudsperson" working on their behalf. If so, this would be a good person to talk to without causing much of controversies.

If your job is in the Biology department, it could simply be that an Economics degree does not count towards prior experience in the field and therefore doesn't raise your wage. That's at least how it works with full-time "Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter" job positions.

This answer makes a lot of sense! Even though pay in Germany often depends on abstract qualifications such as university degrees, sometimes the actual (and much more sensible) qualifications with respect to your work is what counts...

Germany maintains a list of accredited foreign universities from which degrees are recognized; you can find it on https://anabin.kmk.org/anabin.html . I would first advise you to check if your American university is there.

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Grammar mistakes in a PhD application
I just submitted my SoPs for PhD programs in Earth Science and I realized I wrote "for these reason" instead of "for this reason". I also wrote "this inquiries" instead of "these inquiries". Now, I am worried that I'm not going to get into any grad school. I am an international student, valedictorian and I gained great research experience in my country and the US. Do you think these mistakes are going to hurt my application?

No. Your application as a whole is not the summation of two grammatical errors.

There is certainly no way that these mistakes alone will hurt your application.  If the admissions committee is concerned about your English fluency, there are other things they can look at: your GRE and/or TOEFL scores and your personal statement / statement of purpose.  If you are doing okay on those, then you have nothing to worry about.
Even if your verbal / writing / English skills do look somewhat shaky, that still should not get your application for a PhD in earth sciences automatically tossed out.  The committee would want to weigh your weaknesses there against your strengths in other areas.  What would be a problem is if your writing skills were so poor that they just couldn't understand you at all.  Based on the five line writing sample given by your question: this is absolutely not going to be the case.
In summary: don't worry, you should be fine.

The only case I can imagine these two mistakes seriously hurt you is when (1) you apply in linguistics, philosophy and related fields (where natural languages are what counts a lot) or when (2) you are evaluated completely equal with another candidate and someone in the committee is nit-picking on grammar mistakes.
Other than that, we all do make mistakes, and these two ones are so minor that they shall be ignored.

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Choosing between two post-docs where one is with my PhD advisor
I am currently a post-doc researcher for two-months at a department (say A). I also graduated with my PhD from the same dept. The post-doc is not funded with any project but with department money and I am expected (pushed) to bring funding from industry partners as soon as possible.
I recently got another post-doc offer where they already have project funding. The place is closer to my home, but I have heard some poor remarks about PI. The project is also well-aligned with my PhD work.
My question/confusion is as follows: my PhD supervisor at department A, who works remotely, insists that I should not leave the current position. She is a great person and I loved working with her. I have also heard that it will not be good on my CV to switch post-doc so quickly (just after 2 months).
Does anyone have experience regarding this? Is it really true that switching positions will look bad on CV?
Many thanks everyone in advance.

Before I write a full answer, can you elaborate on the following: "I have heard some poor remarks about PI." What are the remarks about and to what extent are they made by multiple trustworthy people? This is by far the biggest potential red flag I see here.

The remarks are not by multiple people but from one former PhD graduate of the department. He had preception that PI may be biased towards students with specific nationalities. The specific remarks that he mentioned were, 1) insulting Ph.D. students by mentioning that this is school-level knowledge 2) correcting and (recorrecting) mistakes in English languages (which I don't mind) and 3) being workaholic, as he received emails in late-night, weekends, during vacations, etc.  However, during my interview, I find him nice.

Remark 1 sounds somewhat rude, but not a complete no-go, depending on the context. Remark 3 could even be a good thing; I found working with workaholic advisors quite productive (as long as they don't expect that you adopt the same level of workaholism). You may want to talk to one or two of his recent PhD graduates to get a more complete picture.

Your primary goal during a post-doc is to improve your chances to land a permanent job in academia. You should compare both jobs with that goal in mind. Especially interesting is the recent track record of both PIs: How many top publications did they recently have? How many of their graduates have made it to permanent jobs? You should absolutely watch out for "red flags" that may make your life difficult, like (trustworthy) hints about a poor working environment. Based on your comment, there is a reason to be a bit skeptical, and you are well-advised to seek more information.
Generally, switching to a different place after your PhD is a good idea. You want to communicate the idea that you can do a good job in different environments and with different people. You also don't need to be concerned about switching after two months. It's quite typical that people do a few post-doc months at their PhD institution while looking for a job somewhere else. (If you're still worried, you don't even have to mention in your CV that the last two months were a post-doc; you can just specify the duration of the full employment at your home institution, and that did your PhD there.)

Many thanks for your input. The current post-doc with the supervisor does have more chances for a long-term contract.

Not all. Switching post-docs especially from your home institution is very well accepted. If you are not interested in obtaining industry funding, that is a legitimate reason. Wanting to increase your networks and work closer to home, are all very good strong reasons as well.
The issue is how to maintain relations with your PhD supervisor and also, how to smooth over any animosity that may result if you leave. Maybe communicating how much you respect her, and how much you loved working with her may be a good first step...

Thanks a lot for your input. I will think along these lines too.


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Prospective PhD advisor encourages me to apply and positively mentions relevant experiences. What are my success chances?
I had recently e-mailed a professor asking for opportunities in his lab. He responded as follows -
Email content:

Dear [redacted]
Thanks for your interest in my lab. My lab is planning to hire multiple Ph.D. students who will start in the fall of 2021, and the application window is going to be this Winter.
It's good that you have some relevant research experiences, and I encourage you to apply to my lab at [redacted]. When you submit your application to the department, please mention my name in your personal statement. Also, please let me know when you submit the application.
Best,
[redacted]

Can I take this as a positive response? Does that mean he will take me in if I apply? How do I respond back to him?

To me this is a standard response, and in particular it means what it says but doesn't mean anything more than what it says.

If what you are asking is "should I keep looking for positions?" The answer is yes. You don't have a position until you have it, i.e. sign a contract. So just don't stop looking for one, just in case.

That message was clearly meant to be encouraging but nothing more.

I would say it means it's better than random. Go for it, but do not expect it to happen if there is lots of competition.

The professor's asking to be kept informed, which is certainly a positive sign because he's interested enough to want to know what you're doing. At the very least he's not outright rejecting you.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee he will take you on until you actually receive the offer letter.
I don't think there's much more to say other than thank him, reaffirm that you will submit an application (if you are planning to do so) and say you will keep him informed when you do.

That's a mildly positive response. You have a chance if you apply, but it's impossible to make any more qualified predictions about your success chances, because they entirely depend on who else applies.

Every program handles admissions slightly differently, sometimes even within the same university.
Some allow faculty to select their own students, with very light oversight from the rest of the university.
However, other programs make admissions decisions via a committee, which chooses a cohort of students based on the applicants' qualifications and the program's needs and capabilities. For example, the committee might want to ensure that wet and dry-lab approaches are both represented in the cohort, perhaps with a skew that matches future TA needs. This is particularly common in programs where one does "rotations" and formally chooses an advisor in the 2nd or 3rd year.
In these departments, no individual professor can unilaterally offer a place to someone, no matter how good they may be. However, professors can advocate for their preferred candidates in these departments. For example, if you were ranked in the middle of the pack overall, the prof might argue that you should nevertheless be admitted because you're a perfect fit for his particular lab.
It sounds like the professor is offering to do this for you. This does not necessarily guarantee you a spot--other professors might make even more compelling cases for their own preferred applicants--but it is certainly a positive sign. It is therefore important that you mention this professor by name somewhere in your personal statement. Personal statements often conclude with a section describing how your interests and skills mesh with the program's focus, and this would be a natural place to do so. Likewise, follow up by email once you've submitted your application so he can bring your application to the committee's attention.
You should, of course, continue to submit applications elsewhere too. Good luck!

Exactly. Depending on the admission rules in that country/university, the professor might have zero say on whether you get funding for the PhD or not.

This is mildly positive as was said. Now you have to seal the deal. I would say that you now should visit the lab. However with covid-19 and all. Find some way to show interest. Good luck.


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Paper accepted at a probably predatory conference, how shall I proceed?
I'm a college student attending a very prestigious university. I did an independent research during this summer, and I recently submitted my conference paper to an international conference. The acceptance letter was very fast (2-3 days), and after doing much research, I realized that the organization is in Beall's list. The DOI number of the conference paper already came out and it seems that my paper is going to be published in a conference proceeding (it's going to be on google scholar as well). I don't want to hurt my career by going to a predatory conference, but at the same time, I think it's going to be a valuable experience for me to attend a non-undergraduate conference, as it is the first time for me. Does anyone have any suggestions about what I should do?

Don't go.
You write that it's a valuable experience to attend a non-undergraduate conference, and it would indeed be the case, but you won't be attending anything like a non-undergraduate conference. Example story, and that actually reads like one of the "better" predatory conferences, since I've read about other predatory conferences where keynote speakers don't show up and attendees talk about completely unrelated stuff (e.g. a number theory talk at a food science conference).
This kind of event won't help your CV either, because if someone checks the conference out they'll discover that there's no quality control, meaning the quality of whatever you presented is now suspect.
Since you gain nothing by going, is there still worth going? Possibly, but any reason for going would be much less tied to the conference than to other things, e.g. perhaps you know someone who lives near the conference venue and have been looking for a reason to visit. If you don't have these reasons, you might as well save on the cost of travel.

I’m curious about that as well. Should I just email them saying that I’m going to withdraw the paper from the conference?

@golden I'd suggest doing it, and/or asking a faculty member from your institution for advice.He/she should be able to offer some suggestions for what to do with the paper.

The first step is to get a professor in the area of your research at your university to help you.  This does sound like a scam conference.  It sounds as if you found the conference yourself, without guidance.
The tougher issue is the paper withdrawal.  It probably is worth some effort to do this.  If what you sent in is weak, having it out there might embarrass you later.  If what you sent is was strong, publishing in this venue might block you from publishing in a better outlet or presenting at a good conference.
At most legitimate conferences, writing to say you cannot attend (didn't your cousin just moved her wedding day) will stop the publication.  If you have not send them any money yet, perhaps withholding money will stop them publishing.
This is not something older professors dealt with during undergrad years.  Browse this site and you will see that you are not the only one caught in this sort of scam.  I like to think graduate admissions committees are getting used to seeing situations like this.


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Change of affiliation after acceptance of a paper?
I will change my affiliation from University X to University Y in mid February, and I have got a paper accepted just before I move. The proofs will be sent back to the journal just a week before I change my affiliation.
Is it valid to use my new affiliation in the paper? This would be useful as it will count towards my publications in my new institution.
I have already signed a contract and will receive my new email address soon, however, my start date in my new affiliation is just a week after I submit the final version of the accepted paper.

Is the rule literally "if our affiliation is on the paper, then it counts"?

Different journals may have different rules, however, in general:
Affiliations indicate where the work was done (to be precise, where a (co-)author has been working while doing the work presented in the paper).
If you change institutes while working on a paper (including writing up and revising) you should enter both affiliations. When you are affiliated to multiple institutes while working on a paper (simultaneously), add both as well.
However, in a case like yours, assuming that the paper is now accepted (no more revisions), only the old affiliation should be added (unless your journal of choice suggests something else). No work has been done while you are working in the new position.

"Affiliations indicate where the work was done", do you have a reference for this? That is an interesting point I was not aware of. Some of my works have taken so long (I work on theoretical topics) that I have completed them in two institutions, but I only use the current one.

@mover I can't give you a proper reference, just a few links to guidelines, for example elsevier: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/RESINV_GfA.pdf or JNeurosci: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/information-authors You can sure find more examples.

Back when I was still moving around between institutions, my affiliation at the top of the paper would be where the experimental work was done, but the journals I published in would allow a footnote on the first page with my 'Current affiliation' listed there. I didn't count editing time.

The rule that "affiliations indicate where the work is done" is specific to some fields.  In pure mathematics, affiliations indicate where to find the author.

The answer to this question depends on your field.
In some fields, affiliation indicates where you did the work.  In some fields, affiliation indicates where to find you (as of the time the paper was published).  There is probably some correlation to how much research actually depends on resources (e.g. lab space) provided by your institution.
Find some papers by people whom you know moved, and see what they did.


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Are there usually consequences for attempted duplicate publication?
I recently reviewed a paper for a (reasonably reputable) journal and found that it was already published (verbatim, by the same authors) in another journal (a fake one).
I wrote the following review: "This is a duplicate publication, it appeared two weeks ago in Journal X, here is the link to the copy on Journal X's website."
The timing suggests that they submitted the paper to Journal X around the same time they sent it to us.
In retrospect I should have emailed the editor instead of going through the review site. But anyways, within a day or two the review site showed that the associate editor had seen my review, and the editor listed for the piece changed from the associate editor who was originally assigned to the editor-in-chief.
However, the decision letter that went out to the authors was just a standard rejection letter, with my review appended to the bottom. (The standard rejection letter thanks the author for submitting the piece for consideration and wishes them success in finding another venue to publish it in...)
It seems to me that this is a poor strategy for disincentivizing attempts at duplicate publication; at worst, one risks a rejection if found out.
 (Disregarding for the moment what the consequences would be if they were successful, both papers were published, and then they were found out by someone else.)
I checked the publisher's website and though it specifies clearly (and authors have to certify at the time of submission that the piece is not published or under review somewhere else) that duplicate publications are not permitted, I didn't find any specific details on what the consequences might be.
Is this normal procedure? Do editors usually follow up and try to impose consequences for attempted duplicate publication?
If so:
What kind of consequences are usually imposed for trying to publish the same paper twice, if caught by a journal while in review?

Unfortunately, this is also common policy in some journals I publish in.

What bothers me is that there are no automated checks to prevent this. Is this left to the good will and googling skills of the referees? Isn't there an analogous of turnitin for journals?

@FedericoPoloni Well, there is certainly software that can do this, and it is my understanding that many journals do use such software, though I don't know if it is done always, or only in cases that are suspect for other reasons.

Could this decision have been made by software rather than by editors? Some publishers have software handling so much of the editorial process that I wouldn't be surprised if an editor just clicks a "reject" box on the computer and the authors automatically get a standard letter like the one you described. Of course, the editor should have the option to send a letter adapted to the particular situation, but that takes extra work from the editor, who may forget to do it.

Good question. First of all, as far as I know, there is no penal system in academic publishing. Reputation is everything. (BTW Many of us have made big or small mistakes when we were young and ignorant, learned our lesson, everyone moved on.) Of course, a journal could always shun authors "indefinitely", if they attempt to violate codes of conduct. There is not much more a single publisher can do. In cases like yours, the responsibility falls back entirely on the academic community - whose members are also editors and referees like you - and the control power of one's reputation within it.
In your particular case, as you said, the editor presumably consulted with the editor-in-chief, which shows it is not a trivial problem to handle, and they decided to proceed as they did. If the journal had rules in place, such as that they would have to refuse future submissions from the same authors, they would inform the authors, but that's obviously not the case.
You did not specify if those authors are known in your field or obscure. If the editor knows the author personally (which I doubt in your case), the dynamics is different.

+1 for Many of us have made big or small mistakes when we were young and ignorant, learned our lesson, everyone moved on

I stumbled upon last year on a "black list" of authors in the context of an IEEE conference. I don't know if such lists are common and known among editors. I think that each area of publishing (engineering, medicine, biology, etc.) have its own habits. But again, this is at editor/journal level and not at reviewer level.
On the other side, I think that you should give the authors some benefit of doubt.
Take one busy PhD coordinator, an eager to publish student, some communication discontinuities, add in the mix the publishing invitation spam and you get a good paper submitted to a fake journal.
Maybe, after the advisor recognized the error, was too late to withdraw the paper. So they sent the paper to a regular journal so a hard worked paper doesn't go to waste.
My 2 cents.
EDIT
Usually it is allowed (and sometimes encouraged) to extend a paper already presented at a conference with new results, new comparisons etc. and submit it to a journal. However, in the cover letter, the authors must clearly specify that! And cite the older paper.

Certainly: "On the other side, I think that you should give the authors some benefit of doubt. Take one busy PhD coordinator, an eager to publish student, some communication discontinuities, add in the mix the publishing invitation spam and you get a good paper submitted to a fake journal."

Actually, this paper was co-authored by two faculty members and no PhD students :(

I am familiar with one case of duplicate submission (simultaneously, to two reputable journals).  I know that one of the publishers banned the authors for five years from submitting to any of their journals.
In my opinion, that is an appropriate consequence.  After all, the authors gave their word to both journals that they had not simultaneously submitted the paper to another journal.  In reply to some of the other answers posted here, I would say that lying is not the same thing as making a mistake.

No, I don't think that there is any standard policy for treating these cases.
Still, remember that no matter what, all the editors and reviewers are humans like everybody, and they do know it when someone does it, and usually they are from the same branch and meet the authors at conferences etc. And no matter what, some information always leaks out, and such a strong negative information seems to leak out faster.
Breaking the ethics in such a way is seen as a strongly negative thing by many people, and they will likely treat you accordingly, while never saying that they know it. You probably can't speak about a career suicide, but think of it that way a bit.
However (to make the post less negative and more fair): As the other answers say, we all do make mistakes, and others know this.
What should you do? Nothing probably. Especially if one of the journals was a fake journal, I would say.

I am personally aware about the history when as little as several sentences from the introduction of the own article has been reused in another article (not even results or conclusions). The history became public, dragging various of events that were not very severe but unpleasant enough to avoid.
So I suggest better not to do this. Of course, this also depends on the policies of the both journals but most of them disallow duplicate content. To make the long story short, it might be sad consequences.

What is the relation of the last part to the question? Better not to do what?

I use whole paragraphs from another articles, sometimes my own, sometimes others. I mean: if there is one mathematical definition of the term, and someone has found the genuine way how to put it in words, it makes the best sense to use this wording, of course citing the original work, too.

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Ethics questions concerning a referee assignment
Asking this question here as it was suggested in one of the comments from MO.
I recently refereed a paper that I returned to the author(s) for revision. The thrust of their argument relied on a claim whose justification I felt was lacking. I dutifully raised the issue in my report and, in addition, I corrected another portion of their proof. I also obtained partial results on this problem from another paper (I initially raised the problem they purport to prove).
The author(s) have yet to revise their work and, in the interim, I came up with a justification for their claim. I now have a proof of this result (which is important for another paper I'm working on) and would like to publish it (at least obtain some level of attributionfor the correct proof).

What are the ethics/options here? Do I need to provide them with the correct proof? May I submit the result as my own? If so, must I wait until their revision before I submit my own paper? Should I disentangle myself from any further involvement as the referee?

EDIT: I’d like to add a little context to one of the points made in a response below.
The conjecture they purport to prove is one that I made in a previous paper which included partial results on the conjecture. Thus, I have thought about the problem and the “ownership” of the problem belongs to me.
However, it is clear that I wouldn’t have come up with the proof without their submission.
It seems to me that a co-authorship of some sort would be the best for all parties, or I simply pass along the proof to the author(s).

Let me make sure I understand:  Did they have a new approach to a proof, and their proof works, but you found (and now fixed) a small gap?  Or were they just doing fairly standard things, claimed they had a proof, but really didn't.  I guess what I'm getting at is, if you submit the result as your own, to what extent is it really yours?  Or to what extent did you just patch a hole in work that is really theirs?

Publishing this result independently is questionable from an ethical perspective, especially because it sounds like:
(1) you would not have been working on this problem without having read their manuscript as part of your refereeing duties;
(2) the result is your justification, but it is for their claim, which they thought of;
(3) you raised this issue in your referee report, and presumably the acceptance of their manuscript depends on addressing it (in other words, it is not just tangentially related to their work, but affects their publication in a significant way).
You clearly have not done anything unethical in thinking about the problem, and you should seek credit for solving it. However, their paper, and your interaction with them as an anonymous referee, cannot go unacknowledged. How would you feel if you submitted a paper, a revision was requested on the basis of XYZ issue, and while you are trying to figure out XYZ, you find the next week that a solution to XYZ has suddenly appeared in the literature?
As for the appropriate resolution, that may depend on field and even journal. I recommend you contact the editor and explain what your situation. A reasonable compromise might be to publish this result in a separate paper collaboratively with the original authors (which obviously requires you to reveal your identity).


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Double publication & parallel submitting a same study as a Paper and Patent
I have seen some discussions in this community about Academia vs. Market world. However, they couldn't satisfy my this question:
Assuming what is written in answer of Why is Paper Publishing and getting a patent completely unrelated? by @Anonymous_Mathematicia, I can submit my paper and file the same idea as a patent, in parallel. However, it seems that it will cause a problem: Journals normally ask authors to submit only the "non submitted to others" studies and ask them "not to submit it anywhere else before rejection/withdrawal". Now, there are two plans (only the second one seems reasonable but I mention both for covering the possible cases) (a) if I am submitting the journal paper before filing the patent (that seems dangerous), then will I have the right of filing it for a patent? However, for plan 'a', even if for journal it is okay, for patent policy it may be considered as revealing the idea and burning the opportunity! (b) If I have filed (or published) the patent before submitting the journal paper, will I have the right of such submission?
In other words, is a published patent besides its copy as journal paper considered as double publication?

Often "submit" in this context means "submit to a peer reviewed journal". If you want to be certain, ask the journal's editor

Keep in mind that publication in a peer-reviewed journal can count as prior art and invalidate any subsequent patent applications, so be sure to consult a qualified IP lawyer in your jurisdiction before submitting the manuscript to a journal.

@E.P. First of all thanks for your comment (I was in a long trip and came back to work today). Although I am not sure if the paper of the inventor is considered as prior art, it of course will be considered as revealing the idea. That's why I had mentioned it as "dangerous". The main issue is opportunity of having them both without legal problems (related to both patent office and journal regulations)

Indeed, that's the main issue, and both sides require equally careful consideration, in terms of what to publish but also in what order. My point is that there is the possibility that a journal publication will prevent you from filing a patent later on, and if that is an outcome you consider undesirable then you need to take specific steps to prevent it. That includes consulting a qualified lawyer, or you risk the chance of you patent not going through.

Related: Can I patent work after I have published a paper about it?; Does applying for a patent first make it more difficult to publish (or vice versa)?; If a paper or software is released to the public, can the university still file a patent?

In other words, is a published patent besides its copy as journal paper considered as double publication?

Typically there is no copyright problem, because there is no overlap in the text.  A patent consists of formal legal writing, and it generally does not use any of the text of the academic paper.  If you wanted to use some of the same text, then you would need to make sure the publisher of the paper did not object.  However, this is uncommon: academic and legal writing styles differ substantially, and they are aiming at very different purposes, so any substantial overlap would indicate that you are doing a poor job of at least one of the two (and you might as well avoid minor overlap so that you don't have to address the copyright issue).
Even aside from copyright, there is still the question of whether this is considered a form of double publication or simultaneous submission.  I believe the answer is almost always no: patents don't count as academic publications and publishers will not care or object.  However, it can't hurt to ask before submitting, just to make sure this is how it works in your field and for this particular journal.  It's also a good idea to mention the patent submission in your cover letter when submitting the paper, so that nobody could accuse you of concealing this information.  (I'd be shocked if it were a problem, but better safe than sorry.)
Keep in mind that very little of the academic content will actually appear in the patent application.  Academic papers are typically focused on experiments, data analysis, or theory, but these would not be included in the patent application itself.  Instead, it is a description of an invention and how it is used in practice, together with a long list of legal claims laying out which aspects of the invention are worthy of legal protection.  Academics could learn something from the description of the invention, but it in no way substitutes for the academic paper.

This answer is misleading and one-sided. In particular, it's very important to note that publication in a peer-reviewed journal can count as prior art and therefore invalidate a subsequent patent submission. The details surely depend on the jurisdiction, and the OP would be well advised to consult a local IP lawyer before submitting to the journal. In any case, I'm worried that the accepted answer on this site makes no mention of this.

@E.P., if the prior art is YOUR prior art, there is no issue.

@dwoz That is simply incorrect, or at very best it depends on the situation and jurisdiction (and is thus incorrect as a general statement). From e.g. the APS copyright FAQ, "you should be aware that submitting a manuscript to a journal without first taking steps to protect your patent rights (e.g., filing for a patent) could endanger those rights." And, as they rightly say: "Consult your patent attorney".

It may indeed be the case that in some situations a journal publication by the author of the patent may not count as prior art. (If you think that that is a general statement, you need to provide references.) However, publishing without checking first is just asking for a "well, why didn't you...?" if it turns out it wasn't OK.

@E.P., unfortunately you are misreading that APS faq.  What they MEAN by that, as I have elaborated in other comments, that you are at risk that someone else will beat you to the gate with a patent application if you publish first without putting in a patent application, NOT that your right to file a patent application will be itself endangered.

@dwoz Again, that is incorrect. In the US you might have a grace period (and if that expires your patent will be denied, even if no one at all ever noticed your publication or did any work on the subject), but in Europe patent rights can go out of the window at the moment of publication; see e.g. this answer. Have you got references to prove otherwise? Are your claims independent of jurisdiction? As always in legal situations, the standard advise "get a lawyer" applies, and handwaving this away as you do is (I'd say) irresponsible.

@E.P., with all due respect, who is engaging in conjecture here?  I will clarify that I am talking about the  U.S.T.P.O.

There is no conjecture in "check your circumstances carefully because conditions vary from place to place", which is standard advice even if it turns out fine. In any case, (i) there is no mention in the OP's post that the question pertains to the US, and even if there were this is meant to be a lasting resource that's valuable worldwide, and (ii) stating US-only claims as if they held worldwide can be (with all due respect) considered disrespectful by non-US citizens.

One other thing to consider is even if you submitted a paper and a patent application simultaneously...
...and even though the paper acceptance/publishing process can take years...
...the paper will likely STILL come out in print before the patent is granted! (if it's granted)
The key fact though, is that an academic journal and the patent office don't consider themselves to be competitors, and in fact are NOT competitors.

Thanks for your useful answer. Could you please clarify your answer in these two cases: (1) If I have submitted the journal paper (even a little) before filing the patent, I suppose that it will be considered as revealing the idea and burning the opportunity; am I true? (2) If I have submitted the journal paper after filing the patent but regarding the very time-consuming process of publishing a patent, the journal paper will be published sooner, (although journal and patent office are not competitors) isn't it revealing the idea that is forbidden by patent office regulations?

@hossayni, both "concerns" are moot.  Announcing a discovery before the patent is filed doesn't affect the patent.  It represents a slight risk in that someone else could possibly jump in ahead of you though.  Also, filing a patent application is BY DEFINITION making public disclosure of the idea.  The patent office discloses the idea, and other interested parties have an opportunity to challenge it, if they want to.

I suppose that you agree even in america, announcing the discovery affects the patent and the effect is starting the 1-year reverse-chronometer (however, it is as wide as not necessary to worry about). Worse case happens in some where like Europe that to the best of my knowledge revealing the idea to anyone other than patent office burns the opportunity of filing the patent. The point is it is recommended that patent office be the first who reveals the invention.

In the USA, I can announce a press conference for tomorrow, where I announce to the world that I've solved faster-than-light travel, and present a paper.  Then, on Tuesday, I can go down to the patent office with my patent application and my payment check, and they will be utterly happy to take my application and grant my patent...providing of course it succeeds through the process.  The only snag?  If on Monday someone beats me to the window with a patent application based on my paper, I may not get the patent.  However, even in that case, their patent application is relying on my prior art..


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How to negotiate multiple tenure-track offers
I'm in the lucky situation that I received 2 offers for tenure-track positions within days of each other from institutions A and B. Either one of the institutions would be a good fit. So far, neither A nor B know about my application at the respective other institution.
How do I go about negotiating these offers? Should I mention the details of the offer of A to institution B and vice versa? If no, what if they explicitly ask?
Related: How do people get simultaneous offers?

Academia is a small world - it is possible that the members of the universities know each other and share some information about you as a prospective candidate. Assume the information is shared and act accordingly.
FYI: https://sites.google.com/site/postdocrumor/

@DmitrySavostyanov: But ethically speaking, the offers are made confidentially. So if I play with completely open cards, aren't I'm violating that confidentiality?

No offer letter that I've ever seen binds the candidate for the position to confidentiality.

I agree that you are under no obligation to keep the offers secret.  If anything, your obligation is to turn one down or start negotiating as soon as you have clear in your own mind what you want.

What a nice problem to have!

First and foremost, you need to become aware of your own preferences and requirements. Knowing that "both would be a good fit" is nice, but it isn't enough. You'll need to know what your preferred option is, and how much better the offer from the other institution needs to be to change your mind. As long as you don't have a pretty good idea about this, I am unsure what you are even negotiating for. This should also be informed by your initial offers. Don't forget that offers are not just salary, but also (and maybe more importantly) also include a startup package.
From then on, I suggest playing with open cards. Go to your second option and tell them that, while their place is great, you have an offer that you would prefer more. It probably does not hurt to tell them specifically which other offer you have, and why you prefer it (especially if the reason is something that can potentially be fixed, e.g., a better package). See if they make any motion to improve their offer. If they don't, go to your preferred option. If they improve their offer and it subsequently becomes preferable, you can also talk to the other offer to check whether they also agree to an upgrade of their offer.
After that, I would probably stop. One round of negotiation should not annoy anybody, but going back and forth between offers too much may leave a sour taste in the mouth of your future employer, and it seems unlikely that you will be able to increase your offer much more after the first round of negotiation anyway (at least that's what I have been told).
Some things to do:

Keep it professional. Negotiating your salary / package isn't dirty, but make sure that you are not getting greedy and/or ridiculous in your demands.
Don't let yourself be fooled by non-arguments. If, for instance, one institution justifies their weaker offer with internal arguments ("You would be making more than some Associate Professors here!"), you should be aware that this may or may not be true, but it is entirely irrelevant for your decision process. A weak offer does not magically get better for you because an institution cannot offer more for whatever reason.
For similar reasons, try to keep discussions on an objective level as far as possible. As soon as somebody starts to argue based on fuzzy factors ("Ok, we don't pay as much, but the research environment here is much better than over there."), negotiations tend to take a turn towards the personal. That is not to say that you should not take these factors into account (you most definitely should), but your actual negotiation arguments should be based on objective data (salary, package, travel grants, tenure conditions, etc.).
Never try to use an objectively worse offer to improve the already superior offer. That is, just having another offer is not enough to negotiate, you also need to be able to tell the people you are negotiating with (with a straight face) that the other offer is actually better for you. If you have one offer for 80.000 USD and one for 75.000 USD, the fact that you have another weaker offer helps you not at all to negotiate the 80.000 USD.

In many cases it can be easier to negotiate aspects of the start up package than the salary itself.  Because of the morale problems caused by assistant professors being hired at salaries close to (or above) those of associate professors, it's easier to put money into the start up package.  Don't be afraid to ask for everything that you can think of that would help you in your research, but keep in mind that those perks will go away in a few years.


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How to deal with a professor skipping his office hours?
As a preface, this is a related question but it is from a different perspective.
I am an undergraduate student in physics and have a professor that routinely ignores his own office hours. He has three scheduled office hours/homework help sessions each week (two hours on one day and a third the next).
The professor has (and has had all semester) a known staff conflict during the second hour of the first help session and as such has missed at least one hour every week. He has not and will not reschedule this hour.
He also is routinely late to the first hour on the first day as well. As such, he is only at his office hours for twenty or so minutes for the first session. The second day he holds office hours he also often comes late but is much more consistent in attending. Unfortunately for me, I have a class conflict at that time and can rarely attend.
As a student, I learn best while working on homework problems and in one-on-one (or small group) interactions with the professor. Because of his unavailability, I feel like I am not learning anywhere near as well as I could. This is extremely frustrating to me as a student and overall I would like to know what, if anything, can I do as an undergraduate student to encourage my professor to attend his office hours?

Email him...? Talk to him after class and arrange a time to meet?

Jeez. That sounds very very bad and very much like something the administration (or at least the department head) should be made aware of.

Contact him after class and set up a time. Either email or in person. He should be there once you set it up. Else, TA.

If universities place more emphasis on research than pedagogy, then an academic favoring research to the detriment of pedagogy is unlikely to be accountable for things such as maintenance of office hours.

Most faculty members state that they are available during their scheduled office hours or by appointment. If this is the case, then the most effective way for you to handle this situation is to send an email (or in-person) request for a short meeting outside of the regularly scheduled office hours.
If the request is declined, you may want to speak to the person in your department who is responsible for undergraduate education to let them know about the situation, and ask for help in resolving the situation.

While my professor doesn't explicitly state ( on the syllabus for example) that he is available via appointment, he does tell us to email him with specific questions or if we need to schedule extra time with him. However, every time I try and ask for an appointment, he redirects me to his office hours (which he promptly forgets about). Should I confront him about his availability? It seems wrong (in one sense or another) to go above him to a department chair. And I'm not sure my complaints would be taken seriously since he is one of the higher ups in the department.

I would send a very polite email to your professor about the situation. If he continues to be dismissive, you may need to "escalate" things to get resolution. The issue is that office hours are something faculty are supposed to offer, and they shouldn't be able to skip out on them!

Unfortunately, I have a pretty hard time thinking of a scenario where escalating ends well for the student.

@Corvus: that's a matter of checking the culture of the institution, and escalating in the "right" way if it's possible at all. Are professors on the whole honest and committed to teaching, or are they on the whole liars? If the former, then this professor might be shamed into acting more like his peers, by a series of polite queries from his students to someone with specific responsibility for undergraduate teaching arrangements, saying they went to his office hours and he wasn't there, what should they do next? If the latter, he probably acts with impunity: watch your wallet in his presence!

@Steve Jessop If by escalate you only mean sending a series of polite emails, I totally agree. By escalating, I meant complaining to a chair or dean -- and I just can't see how this could end well irrespective of the culture of the institution. It might end worse for the professor than for the student, but even then the student isn't feel comfortable going to the enforced office hours and getting the help needed.

Having been a chair in this situation, I can say in all honesty that this can end up OK for the student.  When I was presented with such complaints by students, I investigated, and if it was true that the faculty member was routinely skipping office hours, I spoke with the faculty member without naming specific students.  In this case it seems clear that the faculty member isn't doing their job, and I'd hope that most department chairs (or if there is one in this department undergraduate coordinators) would be able to deal with the situation appropriately.

This is also something that the student can and should complain about in teaching evaluations at the end of the semester.

The end of the semester is a bit late! Those evaluations are alright for fine tuning but if something needs to be fixed immediately there is no point in keeping it to yourself.

As an alternative to escalating immediately, you could ask the professor if there is someone else available you could meet with. Maybe a TA, former student, or another professor. Granted, this requires someone to be willing to help out your professor, but it should be his job to find someone if he's too busy to meet with you.

@BrianBorchers in that case you have to escalate immediately, without first trying to ask the professor for an appointment, otherwise he'll just know it was you who complained.

@Corvus, unfortunately, hit a nail on the head in his heavily upvoted comment. The danger of escalation relates to the reason why whistleblowers rarely succeed. I would slightly clarify and say that on paper, all institutions say that you can escalate without retaliation, but in my own experience, good faith efforts from someone who is powerless can meet frustrating consequences. Wish I could say more.

Which is exactly why we have student councils that take care of these kind of things. They can keep the 'whistleblower'-s identity secret and have the power to actually get the situation resolved. But yeah, It's been made clear to me that some other institutions have student councils that don't work so well.

The professor should honor their office hours but it seems like you want a mini-class every week to sum up what he has already taught.
I would first try to engage the professor during class.  If your questions are answered during class then you are done - and great for you because now you don't have to go back to his office.
If the professor tells you that he does not have time for your questions or that to ask him during office hours, then great again because now you have a solid reason for having his office hours enforced.
I would follow up with the professor via phone or email to make sure to schedule an appointment.  And then also show up at the office hours and email the professor then.  "Hi Professor X, I am currently at your office during your designated hours.  Are you going to be available soon and if not when can we make up the hours?"
The tone of your question worries me a bit though.  If I were a professor and there was a student who expected me to tutor them one on one then I may take appointments with that student less serious, especially if this student isn't asking any questions in class.  Can you imagine if everyone said "I learn better in one on one situations"?  The professor would need 40 hours a week of office hours and his classes would be useless.

I think that your concern about extra office hours and appointments may be a valid one (it's certainly one that I have faced), but I don't think that there's any ambiguity in the situation described.  A professor must be present for scheduled office hours (with obvious allowance for rare and unavoidable exceptions).  If a student wants to use those office hours to work homework problems or get one-on-one help, and is not preventing other students from getting help or being disrespectful to the professor, then I think that it's the professor's responsibility to accommodate that student.

@LSpice - I completely agree.  I am more about handling this without getting higher ups involved (and possibly setting off a professor) and trying to set expectations for the OP.

One-on-one with a professor? Great expectations. There are universities with 2-on-1, but one on one would be pretty luxurious. That being said, it's ok to ask for appointment slots (or set appointments) being honoured.

If the professor is refusing to play ball, and you have reasonably done what you can to sort it out between the two of you (polite requests by email to arrange other times, dropping in during the hours to ask), you should escalate this up the chain of command. Make a complaint to your student representative, if you have one, and be sure to ask to be notified when a reply to that complaint is made. Also, make a complaint to the head of the undergraduate studies committee, or whatever equivalent you have. If that doesn't go anywhere, CC in the head of department. If you really want to be annoying, do this in person.
There is a reason to get another person involved: if the professor is tied up in another teaching or administrative commitment, one perhaps she would rather actually avoid, she now has some wriggle room to say "sorry, I'm busy, the head of department wants me to do this instead".
Believe me, academic staff spend a huge amount of time dealing with student matters. If you make the right request through the appropriate channels, it will be heard. And actually, 99% may privately grumble about having to teach students, and the time commitment that is, but they do enjoy it really and they do like to see enthusiastic students.
I don't know which country you are in, but where I am the undergraduates now pay a lot of money for their education. From that point of view I would expect as a paying customer to get my money's worth.
Obviously, you better have some good questions to ask when you do get her attention.

+1 for "There is a reason to get another person involved: if the professor is tied up in another teaching or administrative commitment, one perhaps she would rather actually avoid, she now has some wriggle room to say "sorry, I'm busy, the head of department wants me to do this instead".

-1 for "From that point of view I would expect as a paying customer to get my money's worth." -- smiley or none. This view of higher education as a commercial exchange is one of the worst changes we've seen over the past two decades.

Well, a commercial exchange is what it looked like when I paid a lot of money to go there. :) Now we can agree that it isn't the most optimal design for a higher education system, but that does not change the situation as it presently stands.

I don't think this will get the professor out of an unwanted administrative commitment. If I schedule an office hour at the time of a committee meeting, the department won't just excuse me from the committee meeting (or from holding my office hour); I'd be expected to move the office hour to a time when I don't have a schedule conflict.

Try sending an email directly to the professor in question, and bring up this concern in a reasonable manner.

Unfortunately, some professors are more rigid than others. Other things to do:

It seems like small and personal interactions are more your liking. Form a study group with classmates and/or friends. Would recommend talking to someone you sit next to in lecture regularly, your lab partner (if you have one), or the likes of those.
Attend a different professor's office hours who also teaches the same course. Course syllabi are usually archived on department websites, and office hours should be listed on them. Who knows, you might like this professor better.

Just another thought, when asked to schedule a time you can ask to schedule during explicit office hours in which you can come. The professor does not have much leg to stand on if you ask to meet during the time the professor is routinely late.
Giving the prof. the benefit of the doubt, it may be the case that the professor is routinely late during that time slot because no one uses the office hours, so they are not punctual. (Although I totally agree it is unprofessional even if this is the case.)
I agree as presented this case is problematic, but you have to remember the perspective of the professor. No matter what time slots you have the office hours it will always leave some students on the short end of the stick due to conflicts -- it is impossible to make everyone happy. I've gotten both complaints about office hours and times I've held extra study sessions. I'm willing to meet alternative times due to a tough work schedule or class conflicts, not so much because it conflicts with your afternoon workout session or because you only come to campus on certain days of the week.

It seems that "No matter what time slots you have …" is not related to the poster's concerns.  The poster mentions an incompatibility with some scheduled office hours, but does not seem to be complaining about it.  The complaint is directed at a professor who is unavoidable at a time that the professor has scheduled, which is, as you say, unreasonable, and I think does not deserve any attempt to see it from that professor's perspective.

@LSpice - the point of these Q's and A's is to address situations that generalize to more individuals. I agree as the OP stated it the professor's behavior is unreasonable. You should always try to have empathy though for whomever your dealing with, and that statement holds true for both this OP in the future and anyone else reading this question.


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Improve learning skills
I want to improve my learning skills. Is there any advice or a good method for that? For example, I want to read an article or book and retain as much information possible. But sometimes I read and lose focus, or when I read I can't remember everything as well as I'd like to.

Take notes. Rephrase in your own words. Practice using the information. When I was really unmotivated, I used to read some textbooks aloud in a mock-German or -Indian accent just as a way of forcing myself to focus... There are many good books out there on study skills; I'm biased toward the ones from Judi K-Turkel.

Vary up the tasks you study for. Have objective goals for what you want to read and know specifically what you want from what you are reading. Take notes. Design courses around what you read.

Depends on the subjects you want to learn IMHO. There are two things to consider, keeping the general idea in mind, learning the key facts and absorbing them. Both learning skills have different strategies to improve.

Short answer
Practice!
Long answer Practice (smart)! The more time you spend being a student (studying, reading, summarizing, asking questions, taking notes, and pursuing answers) the better you will become at being a student. For more specific tips, check out this article by Scott Young. He focuses on methods that allow you to study smarter rather than harder. The key to this is to recognize that all knowledge is interrelated; everything connects to everything else,  and therefore no learning is wasted. I find his tips and hints to be useful, though I cannot learn quite as efficiently as Young claims one should be able to.

Something to look into is style of learning. For example, I'm a haptic learner, which means I learn best through doing. 'Doing' in this case can be a simple as making flashcards. On the other hand, I can try and read a text book all day, and I won't retain much at all. Therefore, 30 minutes of making and drilling flashcards is a much more efficient use of my time instead of an hour spent reading.
Everyone learns slightly differently. If you learn best when you hear something, try recording the lectures and playing them back. If you are a visual learner, maybe look into plotting out lecture points on a white board. Honestly this is just something that you need play around with, though you'll find many ideas to get you started on the internet.


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Good responses to "Ivory Tower" accusations?
Recently I have come across a few articles on Google that are really distressing.
I typed in "professor real world" and it just mentions how professors have lost touch with the real world, how they need to step down from their ivory towers, etc.
Why is all that bad? It doesn't make me reconsider my dreams a little, but it does hurt.
Is it ultimately subjective from the pessimists' point of view? I have come to terms with the fact nothing ultimately matters, we are just grains of (smart) sand in the universe. Whether I did industry or not wouldn't matter, since I love academia.
How can I help others see that academia is a 'real job' too?

Some people are just jerks.  Ignore them.

Welcome to AC.SE. It is not really clear to me what you are asking.

I think this is just an invitation to discussion. [Chat] is the right place for that. I don't see what sort of objective answer could address this question as posed.

Speaking from experience in Computer Science:  "Ivory Tower" professors who have "lost touch with the real world" are unfortunately quite common.  They're the ones that don't have experience outside of academia, but treat their way as the One True Way, when those of us who do have more experience know that their way not only isn't the best, but might actually be detrimental in the long run.

“What do you care what other people think?” (Arline Feynman)

The good news is that people with extreme opinions often say foolish things.  For example, "If a medical or dental-school professor has never had to perform a type of surgery he is teaching, how does he know the best way to teach it?"  (Sure, this could be a problem in principle, but does anyone actually think it's a widespread problem in practice?)  If you want to argue with them, this will give you an advantage.  However, I've never actually seen such an argument change anyone's mind.  If someone doesn't like academia, you won't convince them to like it by telling them their facts are wrong.

I think you ask an important question. I've been in both camps - CS professor and practitioner. Teaching is hard, necessary work - no question. At the same time, I have to work with their product, and, sadly, their students have picked up some of their look-down-their-nose sanctimonious attitude toward pragmatism. Once I heard Jon Bentley say: "Don't care about constant factors? Would you object if your salary were multiplied by 50?"

There is no point talking to people about the job they cannot do themselves or about the parts of reality they cannot even see, not to say enter. Most of them are, probably, just envious (that's why the words "easy life", "good salary", and "tenure" appear in such articles more often than not). The rest are frustrated that our work doesn't provide any immediate personal benefit for them. As to "stepping down from ivory towers", in Soviet Union the students and professors were sent for a month to collective farms to help with harvesting every year. It turned out that we could do the farm work. Sending help in the other direction wasn't considered practical.

I think there is a big different between an academic planting seeds and an academic promoting a business model when the academic has never experienced the life of a businessperson. If someone claims a theory works in real life, there should be evidence to back up that statement.

@earthling To be honest, I have never tried to promote any "business model", so I cannot comment on this, but I was involved in a few engineering consulting projects without ever experiencing the life of an engineer and believe it or not, my math. worked the way it was supposed to.

This answer could be improved with reference to a proof overturning basic sociological arguments about the knowability of social relations.

Plenty of "ivory tower" complaints come well reasoned from within academia itself.  Responses like this that simply presume the complainant is unqualified and bitter are not constructive to the overall conversation.

@Nick Bastin When they come well-reasoned, the answer is different. Unfortunately, when somebody says that "one cannot understand business without being a businessmen himself", it just reminds me of "you cannot tell anything about penguins without spending a few months in Antarctica walking with your hands tight against your hips and diving for fish". Observation and deduction are not less powerful than the first hand experience and the fact that they are used in a wrong way occasionally or even often does not disqualify the general idea.

As every sturdy Soviet scientist, @fedja can undoubtedly fix the running faucets at home, or tune up the engine of his car. Most other academics, however, have to rely on technicians to do the jobs they cannot do themselves -- both in 'real life' where cars break and toilets don't flush, and even in their professional track (i.e., run an experiment in the lab). If you don't like the mechanic on the corner because he keeps charging you without delivering, and your brakes keep screeching, you can go to the next one. Who do you go to if a multimillion clinical trial fails?

@StasK Affirmative for the first and questionable for the second (I understand the carburetor operation and timing, not mentioning such simple things as sparking plugs, but I need to learn more to fix the fuel injection system if it goes astray for a non-trivial reason). If a multimillion clinical trial fails, you just pick up all the data and go back to your ivory tower to figure out what went wrong. The same happens if a businessman opens a shop and there are no sales to talk about. Only his tower is called "corporate headquarters".

@fedja, I guess it is similar: by going through bankruptcy, one can get some of the debts written off, and move on to the next enterprise. Just like a faculty would get their next grant.

I can only speak to my personal experience, but it stems from the fact that professors are supposed to be training in a new generation of productive people in the work force. If they have not spent a significant amount of time being productive themselves, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to passing on useful education to future productive people. This is not to say that such education is impossible, or even uncommon, simply that the education is typically based on applied theory as opposed to experience.
As an example, I once was in a lecture about computational complexity. My professor had said that if I could take an algorithm from 4n^2 to 4n that my boss would be happy, but if I could take it from 4n^2 to 2n^2 that he would not be happy. I told her the entire business model of the firm I interned at relied on running our computations as fast as possible, and that if I could cut the time in half, my boss would be thrilled out of his pants. She immediately dismissed this as naive, as such a performance gain would be insignificant: only a reduction in the order of complexity would be noticed - simply reducing the coefficient would not.
I called my boss after the lecture, and he said if I could cut our simulation time in half, he would fly me back to work and double my pay (since it would still be cheaper than the expansion of our beowulf cluster we were planning). We looked up the professors credentials, and despite having a PhD and over 20 years experience in academia, her only real world experience was a 6 month internship that, according to the description, consisted mostly of paperwork.
Now, is this representative of most people in academia? I don't think it is. But it does happen, and it's more common than it would seem from the inside looking out. And because it does happen, it feeds the stereotype of academics who couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag. There are stereotypes all over all industries. Software developers have a stereotype of being nerds who couldn't possibly get a date, and yet in North America 70% of developers are married, with only a 3% divorce rate (compared to 40% of the population). While I certainly know some nerds in my line of work, and yes they do feed the stereotype, they really aren't represented by the majority of the population.
The conclusions I would make is that the concerns raised by those yelling about "Ivory Towers" I think are valid concerns. They do not apply to all academics, and of course, research should be judged on the actual research, not the researchers. But you should keep in mind that the there are certain individuals who speak with authority based on experience, while others speak with authority based on the assumption that they have the experience. When it comes to published, peer reviewed research, it's easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the classroom settings, where such authority is not to be questioned, it can be very dangerous for young, impressionable students.
So how do you respond to an ivory tower accusation? Well, clearly if you have industry experience, put it forth. If you lack industry experience, make it clear that you have no intention of trying to pass off your education as being backed by industry experience. When it comes to your research, encourage skeptics to review your research on its own merits. If they're true scientists, they will.

Computaional complexity theory and software engineering are NOT the same thing. Complexity theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the limitation and nature of computations. It is studied for pure intellectual curiosity just like number theory or theoretical physics (even though it has practical applications just like physics and number theory). A complexity theorist is not working to increase revenues of software companies.  And what she said is absolutely right  a factor of 2 is irrelevant for complexity theorist.

@scaaahu the point of that is to illustrate (factually) exactly how wildly inaccurate the stereotype is on the general case.

@user774025 to a theorist, you're right. She wasn't training theorists, she was training software engineers.

Yes, I don't know why it would somebody teach complexity theory to software engineers. It is not of much use to them

@user774025: complexity theory is of incredible use to software engineers.  It should not, however, be a handcuff to the practical concerns of actual runtime.

"I could take an algorithm from 4n^2 to 4n that my boss would be happy, but if I could take it from 4n^2 to 2n^2 that he would not be happy". You misunderstand the idea. The point is that if you can do it with $n=10^6$ now and reduce the running time to $2n^2$, then you'll be able to do it just with $n=1.4\cdot 10^6$. However $4n$ will enable you to jump to $n=10^12$. "Happy boss" means "a real breakthrough", not "bringing your particular application down to acceptable running time". For the latter, sometimes even a 10% reduction may be enough if you are close to the goal already.

@fedja You seem to misunderstand the idea that if you're a firm that does nothing but thermal modelling and you can double the number of thermal models you run in a given amount of time, you essentially double the revenue of the company. Last time I checked, doubling the revenue of the company is a happy boss.

@corsiKa We have a pure communication problem here. My point is that both the professor in question (and I) understand all this perfectly well. However, it seems that she has long given up trying to explain the ideas of "order of magnitude", "asymptotics", etc. to her students and decided to do the (very sloppy) translation to the language they can comprehend instead. What I tried to do was to translate back and my point was that the construct "happy boss" in her language had nothing to do with the company revenue, the promotion, or anything else in that venue whatsoever.

@corsiKa: You make excellent points. My perception is it differs by field - I thought my professors in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering were far more practical than those in Computer Science. I personally have had testy exchanges with academics on-line such as here and here.

I typed in the same Google query, read the article I think the OP was referring to (this one?), and was filled with a similar hot burst of indignation. (How dare they!) But while the author of that article paints with a broad brush, I think it might not be inappropriate for us, as scholars, to examine ourselves with the same brutal honesty that we take to our intellectual disciplines.
Some of the complaints I've heard about ivory-tower academics simply reflects a misunderstanding of what higher education is about -- for example, as a computer science professor I've heard students complain about not being taught how to use Excel spreadsheets and the like.  But I've also seen colleagues who have grown complacent and uncaring, whose courses really do shortchange the students.  So yes, the author of that article paints with a very broad brush, but I think that we'd do ourselves a disservice if we just blithely ignored him.
I think it's important for us to be able to articulate why we do what we do. I routinely explain to my reviewers why my research matters -- I should similarly be able to explain to my students why they should study what I'm teaching;[*] and I should similarly be able to explain to my neighbors why their tax dollars should pay my salary.  (I may not have to do these things, but I should be able to.)  Whatever explanation I come up with -- and it'll be different for different people -- that's the "good comeback" the OP asked for; and if I can't come up with any explanation at all, then maybe some deeper introspection would be in order. :-)
[*] In my grant proposals I say what difference I think the research will make if it's successful.  In my classes I tell the students what I want them to remember of the class five years later.  I've found this sort of exercise very helpful for distilling out what I think really matters.

Thank you for the link you provided. I think that one is the one (@Jossie Please confirm it if you can). I, too, feel the same way as you do.

Jossie, you are a scientist, right? Define the 'real job' for us first, please. "The real job is a job in which..." what happens? You get a real paycheck, that's for sure, and if that's the main indication of the 'real job', then you definitely got one. If, on the other hand, you define a 'real job' as the one from which you can be fired, then a tenured professor is not a real job.
Aside from that, there are several layers of complications that your question uncovers. Apparently, you are a smart person with a dedication, given that you were able to finish your Ph.D. It is, however, also apparent to me that you cannot really explain what you do to a layperson. You are not alone in this: the portrayal of academia as the ivory tower stems from this same lack of communication between professors and the general public that just cannot understand the value added that academia provides.
I have worked as an assistant professor on a tenure track for three years, was booted from it, and found home in industry. I can tell very specifically what the value of academic research is for me in my position: it can produce new efficient ways for me to make the product that my company delivers better... where better may include concepts like "more accurate" (I am a social statistician, so that's a relevant dimension of my work), "faster", "more robust wrt various uncheckable assumptions", etc. Unfortunately for me, academic research produces hell of a lot of noise that's irrelevant for me: from ~100 papers in the top general interest journals, I would find 1 to be of relevance to my work. The ratio is of course higher in specialized journals, where it can be 3:1 or so. (Nature or Science or PNAS are out of my league; they may publish statistics papers on a cute little topic from time to time, but generally the ratio will be what, 1:10000?) So I am the natural selection process: out of all the random mutations that academic researchers publish, I am selecting the relevant traits that need to be preserved because there is a survival value in them.
Now, the question that I keep asking myself is, "How much of that random noise does need to come out so that in the month of October 2013, I will read up something that will change the way I work?", and apparently the answer is, well, several hundred papers (out of which I will get may be 10 or so to read). That's a costly enterprise: if an average professor is paid $120K, and they publish three papers a year, then that's $40K per paper (we can ignore teaching: first, nobody really cares about it, and second, you can buy a teacher for $5K/course, way below the cost of a research paper that I just derived). So the total for one usable academic result is [drum roll] $4M for the hundred papers that need to be published. That's A LOT of money... although I would humbly hope that for each disgrunteld StasK, there are hundred other statisticians who would find the other 99 random papers useful for them.
If the ratios are better in other disciplines, that's great. For what I heard in education  research, the ratios are about the same: at some point, that depository had reviewed ~300 papers, and found only 6 of them to be usable.


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Are there any downsides to receiving BSc, MSc, and PhD all from the same university?
Like the title says, are there any downsides to receiving BSc, MSc, and PhD all from the same university?
My university is not very well known outside my home country. I did not enter the PhD program yet. If I would stay here, I would already have many good contacts (~10 professors/academics). Also, because I perform quite well, I assume I could get to do exactly what I want. On the other hand... I think I could get into Europe's top-ten universities.

There is an obvious downside of staying at the same university—you will only work with one set of advisors and contacts throughout your career. That will mean that you may not benefit from the experience and diversity of viewpoints and philosophies that comes from working with different groups of people across the length of your career.
However, if there is a compelling reason to remain at your school, that's a different situation. This could be financial, personal, or educational. For instance, a family member may have a job that makes it difficult to relocate, or a new project may be starting up that provides a unique educational opportunity.
Beyond that, though, I would lean towards going somewhere else for your PhD program!

Good advice, @aeismail! But how can I get to another university? Is there any site to know about available PhD positions in foreign countries?

@gaussblurinc That's a very broad question and the answer depends on the field.  I would ask academics at your current location.

@gerrit actually, I am master in computer science and I would like to continue education, but not in my country

@gaussblurinc Right.  My recommendation stands, ask someone with domain specific knowledge for job boards and mailing lists.

A top university has many advantages. Better universities provide better Professors, better academic environment, better scientific connection, better equipments, better laboratories, they can get better grants, they can give better scholarship, etc. You can find better friends and get better reputation.
@aeismail has very good points on the reason you may or may not stay in the same university for all your academic carrier.
Some universities has large department and so many professors. there is a chance you don't even know them yet after 6 years being there. They work on different fields and you can work on different field if you want. but that's not true for all universities.
Despite all of this, consider that you will carry your university names forever in your CV! This will affect your feature job opportunity a lot, in industry and mainly in academic world.
But as one my professor says: "sky is the same color everywhere" ;)
All said I suggest you going to a better university. At least try to.

What does he or she mean by the sky is the same colour everywhere?  (It's not even true).

He lectures me about finding the right teacher (guru) and go everywhere the science is. but then he says sky is the same color everywhere. and he means that you can do the same everywhere. The more important thing is you. no matter where you are you can be the best.


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Techniques for teaching reflection and critical analysis to unprepared students
I have a group of undergraduate students who are best described as 'unprepared' meaning that they were not well prepared for life in university. They are, as a group, under-performers, although there are certainly stars contained within the group. One more point of complexity is that the students are studying in English, which is not their native language.
Reflection is something that has been identified as useful not just for performance while at university but also for encouraging life-long learning for the students. While strong students might take to reflection quite readily, critically analyzing the countless decisions that they have made on any given academic project, unprepared students seem to have a much more difficult time with this.
My question is, are there particularly effective techniques for teaching reflection to unprepared students (or academically weaker students)?

Are you talking about reflective teaching or teaching reflection? Or both?

@scaaahu I'm talking about ways to teach the students to reflect, specifically critical self-reflection (students reflecting on their own work).

So you want to find effective techniques for teaching students how to prepare themselves well?

@scaaahu I would like to find effective techniques to teach students how to look at their own work and see what they did right and what they did wrong, and what they could do better next time to improve.

I think you might be dealing with not only an ESL but also a cultural problem.  I know from experience that some students have been raised their whole academic lives to remember and regurgitate and under no circumstances think. Two suggestions.  1) Learn about their cultures.  It will only help.  Ask one of your "stars" what challenges they face in the class and what they've done to overcome.  2) Communicate your expectations clearly.  "I expect you to think."  I find when I say things explicitly like "Don't look at me like a policeman, look at me like a resource" or "The most valuable thing you can do in this class is raise your hand" I get better results.  Sounds a bit corny but I'm telling you, it works.  And you won't reach all of them, but you'll reach more of them.

Almost certainly this is going to be a multi-stage, complicated process, with no simple answer. However, here's something relatively simple to start with, maybe.
I'd suggest starting with collaborative peer-evaluation. Create an assignment which has a peer-evaluation stage (with no reflection on the final grade). The peer-evaluation stage consists of sitting them down and working through each person's output as a group. Ideally, you'll act mostly as guard-rails for the discussion, keeping it on-topic and professional, while providing some initial thoughts.
The goal of the peer-discussion phase is to start getting them to think critically about the output, from both the perspective of a creator and a consumer.
After the discussion stage, then allow them to take the feedback and re-edit their work to improve it, grading only the final result.

I find this especially useful if both the original version and the edited version are graded (just the revised grade counts), so the student has real feedback about how the review process improves things.

Peer evaluation is not the same as self evaluation.  Consider the possibility that students will find evaluation more threatening if it is performed by peers.  They may actually get worse at it.

I have two suggestions.
First, I think it would be helpful for students to see live demonstrations of reflective/critical analysis, compared side-by-side with non-critical (rote, superficial) analysis.  As much as possible, the students themselves should be involved in these demonstrations, taking both roles.
(NOTE: I realize that many students are nervous and uncomfortable about going in front of the class and that they fear public embarrassment.  But if everyone takes a turn, then it's possible to get past the concern that only certain people will be taking the risk, and it will support an ethos of "we are all in this together".  A side benefit is that it will boost their skills and confidence in public speaking.)
These demonstrations should be very short.  For example, you could give a prompt with only one or two sentences that make an assertion or an inference.  Then ask the students to first write an uncritical analysis, and then to write a critical analysis.  Their analysis would only need to be a couple of sentences. Then two students would come to the front, each taking one role but not announcing which role they are taking.  They read their analysis to the class.  Then you can have a short class discussion where students guess which role they were taking and why these were examples of critical analysis, or not.
The second suggestion is to engage students in Socratic dialogs, either in the class as a whole or with small groups or with students individually.  You, as teacher, only ask questions aimed at revealing the basis and justifications in the student's analysis.  Students could also do this with each other, either in small groups or in pairs.  This could be done as part of homework assignments.

When I was an undergraduate, written reflections (also called process notes) were required on many assignments.  Learning to write them was part of the orientation.  The overall strategy for teaching writing was

Free write
Focused free write
Write essay
Write reflection
Faculty feedback
Revise essay
Write additional reflection

I think the focused free write is a particularly good tool for helping students reflect on their process.  It may be easier to start with reflecting on the revision process because students have a set of faculty comments which they need to answer.

I'm working on a similar question in a different population.  I developed a question rubric that they are using to learn analysis.  I am hoping this self-questioning becomes ingrained as a metacognitive skill.

Can you elaborate a bit more? I'm having a hard time following how what you have written answers the question.

Agreed.  For an "answer" this is pretty vague.