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Journal requires co-authors to register with ORCID, but if I don’t want to – what are my options?
Related but different:

Why would I want to register with ORCID?
Is there a benefit to registering digital identification via both ORCID and ResearcherID?

I'm a co-author on a submitted manuscript on research for which I made a significant contribution.
Note that I'm not looking to build an academic career or name for myself at this point in my life.
I received an email explaining the benefits of joining ORCID, and, as far as I understand, the message that if accepted, they will not publish it unless all authors join ORCID, providing it with the personal information they require so that ORCID can do the things with it they want to do with it, based on their privacy policies (present and future) and the visibility option I choose.
Since I contributed significantly to the research, it's not an option to remove my name. So it seems I have two options: register my information with an organization I may not want to register with, or tell the submitting author they must withdraw their submission.
Are those my only two options?
Note: Comments asking me for details why I might not want to register with ORCID will go unanswered; that's not the point of my question. Thanks.

Comments discussing the merit of OP's decision not to register with ORCID, and not to discuss the reasons for this, have been moved to chat. While a frame challenge might seem appropriate here, OP is specifically not interested in frame challenges, and this a well-scoped question that we can answer as-is. As always, please use the chat link above for further discussion; comments below this one should request clarification or suggest improvements to the question.

It would help us give better answers to your problem if you explained what the underlying issue is, and the reason you do not want to register with Orcid. This might be an XY problem. (@cag51 I don't think this comment breaks any rules; it is a request for clarification. Even if OP refuses to answer, it is still my right to ask.)

@FedericoPoloni: yes, but we’ve already had this conversation and OP’s answer was no. If you want to have this conversation again, please use the chat.

I understand not wanting to register with a third-party organization. What you might not realize is how very little information is needed to obtain an ORCiD. ORCID asks for an email address, which could even be a temporary email address such as you'd get at Temp Mail or Sharklasers. As for personal information, you're asked to provide "the [first] name you're usually known by". No family name is required; that's optional.
The page that asks for an affiliation appears to be the main stumbling block but down the bottom of that page there is a button that allows you to skip having to provide an affiliation.
Ultimately, you're providing

a (possibly temporary) email address that could be entirely anonymous
a first name as an identifier
a password

Providing minimal info could even be done in order to create throw away ORCID accounts for every submission requiring an ORCID (of course completely counteracting the intended purpose). However, strictly speaking this answer does not answer the question because it still involves registering with ORCID. It would be useful to know OP's motivation not to want an ORCID to see if what you write is an option for OP.

I will check again about the surname and affiliation being optional, I did not notice that. But I suppose once the ID is linked to the publication, that’s not so effective.

@uhoh, you can also deactivate your ORCID, see Deactivating an ORCID account. All personal information is said to be deleted, though some info must be kept because the ORCID can also be reactivated. I am not sure where a link in a paper to a deactivated ORCID will lead.

@Snijderfrey, Dilworth: "frame challenge answers" are still answers, and to my knowledge, are welcome.

If you completely refuse to register with ORCID even with minimal information or with a throw away account, then a journal strictly requiring you to do so is not the place to publish your research. However, you or the author handling the submission may still contact the publisher, explain the situation and hope that they will accept your position. It is quite obvious that either you or the publisher must take one step towards the other to resolve the conflict.

For the sake of this answer, I assume that the journal publicly states that having an ORCID is a requirement, in which case there are only the two options you mention, prima facie.
However, journals deviate from their rules all the time and tend not to list all the exceptions to streamline their processes and because exceptions are costly. The ORCID requirement is unlikely to be absolute, since if a paper has a deceased co-author without an ORCID, it’s impossible obtain a posthumous ORCID, and it would be a bad move for the journal to reject a manuscript for that reason. So, there possibly is a third option, which to convince the journal to drop their requirement for this particular paper.
Obviously, it helps if you have a compelling reason not to gain an ORCID, but it may also help if you can argue the publisher’s reasons for requiring an ORCID do not apply to you. If the journal doesn’t explicitly state its reasons, you can only make an educated guess, but one of the main advantages of ORCIDs for publishers is that, in the long run, they do not need to curate their own databases of authors, reviewers, etc. and do not need to manually resolve ambiguities in author names. For example, in a world where every journal requires ORCIDs, it’s easier to avoid soliciting reviews from a recent co-author or somebody who just happens to have the same name as an actual expert in the field. Also, ORCIDs can be used for logins etc. and thus simplify account management.
Now, if you have left academia or are about to, there is little chance that you will ever make a journal account, will build a relevant co-authorship network, are a likely reviewer, etc., which reduces the incentive for the journal to maintain a complete record for you. It may also help if your name is unique and likely to stay that way.

“… the journal publicly states…” It was said to me in a likely automatically generated email from the editor addressed to me. It’s a fair assumption.

It may well be a requirement and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty legitimate.  ORCID is a non-profit and its mission is to uniquely identify authors.  This is not so much about you than about others properly giving credit to you as an author and not to someone else who may have the same or a similar name.  Not to put too fine a point on it, there might be lots of J. Smith working in a specific field.
So if you are really insistent not to participate, then create a burn account and give that number so at least someone else does not end up getting credit for your work.
I was senior editor at a journal where this was required because the journal deemed it essential to be able to reach all authors should some extraordinary circumstance come up.

Your last sentence makes a really important point - I had not thought about that. It's a good reason not to consider a "burn account".

I am curious: How would an ORCID help with contacting an author compared to an e-mail address of that author?

@Snijderfrey presumably authors update their ORCID information as they move through their careers: the email on file with the publisher may not longer be current.  Also some people may change names (in the case of marriages or separation for instances).

@ZeroTheHero, I am not convinced. My guess would be that the majority of ORCID accounts does not have any public e-mail address or is out of date. Especially those which you force on the authors.

@Snijderfrey I believe that publishers can have access to the email on file with ORCID.  I've always found it simpler to look up the most current institution and go from there.  It's not a do-all be-all solution but ORCID is gaining acceptance so maybe it will become something standard.

I'm not cheerleading for ORCID and was surprised to see how adamant some people were about insisting on this.  I suspect the manuscript tracking software uses some data from the ORCID profile.

@ZeroTheHero In Orcid, publishers can access a non-public email address only if (1) the address is marked as visible to trusted parties, and (2) the publisher has been added to your list of trusted parties. The data visibility is pretty clear also in the user interface.

@ZeroTheHero While many people likely don’t update their ORCID, at least they can. I have just been though a name change and am very happy to have had a minimal ORCID that I could get up to speed now. An email lacks the indirection to make that possible and may even be completely gone when changing names or affiliation.


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Can I work under a research supervisor in a doctoral program when that supervisor already has an ongoing research project with my current employer?
Can I work under a research supervisor in a doctoral program when that supervisor already has an ongoing research project with my current employer? (I wouldn't be working on that project of the employer rather a different project)

Why do you think it might be a conflict? And whose? Yours? The advisor? The company? What are the competing interests?

Surely the uni. has guidelines and policies on this.

You intend to both work and complete a doctoral program?

Conflict of interest for me. as my employer has ongoing research project

@Azor Yes, both. I intend to work and complete doctoral degree

@anynomous Good luck lol

We cannot answer this. It depends on your supervisor, your university and your employer. Ask them.

I think it also depends on the research projects in question.

Yes, do not hesitate to work with the same supervisor your employer works also. There is no conflict of interest if you work on different projects.
If you have the same research subject, and you are afraid that your boss becomes a competitor for you, you can change your topic a bit or even suggest a collaboration for them for this project.
Anyway, I would not recommend changing the supervisor - if you have started to work with this person, it will be quite difficult to explain all the things to another one. Moreover, it can reflect on your relationships in a negative way.

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How to politely ask for a pre-defence review (areas of concern/topics that need to be covered)?
Could you please give some suggestions for asking pre-defence review from an opponent. In my case, I have to do it by myself by writing an e-mail. What words would be appropriate and what should be exactly asked (quite likely I shouldn't ask for the whole very detailed review).
For example, how to end this?

Good to hear that the thesis arrived. Once you have read the thesis,
identified areas of concern and topics that need to be addressed,
could you please ...

Is this generally done in your university? Because around here (in Gothenburg, Sweden) we invite external opponents precisely so that students don't already know in advance what questions they are going to get ;) asking for feedback in advance would feel a little unbecoming here, like asking the teacher what's going to be on the exam.

@xLeitix In Germany and the Netherlands, asking for feedback seems very common in the pre-submission stage - the point being that the thesis could still be improved at this point, which seems to be in everyone's best interest. Asking for feedback post-submission, but pre-defense seems less common, though, probably for the reasons you mentioned.

I would reword the second sentence as

Please let me know if there are corrections/improvements to be made.

This is some straightforward, down-to-business tone which feels perfectly fine with collaborators even if you've just agreed to work together (and in a sense, the opponent has agreed to help you work on your thesis!). The original wording has two disagreeable properties: first, it is quite wordy with you beating around the bush in a communication that doesn't need to be this formal (IMHO) and second, you kind of guide the reader through these tasks one by one, as if assigning a job to them. Instead, your intention is to make a request, so "Do X, Y and Z and then please, do N". Maybe it is just me but that rubbed me the wrong way.

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I left a PhD program to take a permanent position that offered full funding for my education. How to explain this when re-applying for PhD programs?
I am an international STEM major graduate. Immediately after I obtained my BS degree in the spring semester, I went on a funded Ph.D. program in the following Fall semester. However, 2 months into the program, I received a very generous "a tenure like" job offer in my home country that guaranteed, after working for a year, that they will fully fund my education and all related expenses with retirement benefits. This led me to quit the Ph.D program after merely 2 months into it. However, right after I quit covid restrictions delayed my employment but I was able to get the job. Now after working for a year, I am applying again to Ph.D. programs in the same field as the program I quit.
Should I mention this in my statement of purpose? Would not mentioning this reflect badly and be considered dishonest?

The last question is answered in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/104671/can-i-legally-omit-the-fact-i-hold-a-ph-d-degree/104674#104674

Are you still working at the "tenure-like" job?

If your employer is going to fully fund your PhD, you should state that very prominently in your application.  Include the dollar amount, if you have it.  Financial factors are often very important in PhD admissions decisions.
It's perfectly fine that you quit a PhD program because you found a new opportunity with better funding.
Hiding your 2 month period of enrollment would be considered dishonest.  I see no benefit from the dishonesty, either.

The statement of purpose is not the place for this. Don't use it to explain the past, and especially not to excuse past decisions. The SoP is a place to detail future plans, both of study/research and thereafter, and how you intend to achieve them.
If you can make a personal statement also, put it there. Or in an introductory statement. At most you might give hints that both COVID and other opportunities caused a delay. If asked in an interview you can expand a bit.
Nothing you say sounds dishonest or disqualifying, but use the available application materials to build a positive picture of the likelihood of your success and some plan, even if not fully formed, about the future.
What you have written is an interesting "coffee room" topic for discussion, but not a reason to accept you into a program.
If you can say "cover and other opportunities" in a few words as an opening clause in some sentence about more vital things then you can make it work. But not as much as a full sentence.


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Is it necessary to have all skills asked in advertisement to get a post doc?
Is it necessary to have all skills asked in advertisement to get a post doc.? I have very ordinary PhD and  due to COVID I spent very little time in lab , although I leant some techniques bit I can’t say I am an expert in these area but I am ready to learn and move ahead. Can I apply positions where I don’t have all asked skills? Any kind of training provided in post doc positions

In my institution's listing there are 'required' and 'desired' attributes. If 'required', well, those are required. If 'desired', those are the set that are evaluated to downselect for an interview.

Yes, of course you can apply.  Whether you'll get the job depends on how close you come to what they really need and how you compare to the other applicants.  When writing up a job description, people sometimes fantasize about all the skills and years of experience and other wonderful characteristics of the perfect candidate.  But if they'd like to hire anyone, they can only choose among the actual living, breathing candidates who apply.
So, yes, it's often possible to get a job for which you don't appear to qualify, especially if you bring something else to the table that makes up for anything you lack. But first, you have to apply and see what happens.   One thing you should not do is puff your resume with false claims to make it appear you have the skills you lack.  You are who you are and that will have to be good enough.  Worst case, they say no or just ignore you.

(+1) Good answer, but I know someone who inflated their skillset and then left the job shortly before they would have been let go. The inflation, in my opinion, was not all that great. But the employer really did want the competence they thought they were hiring.

@EdV  Good point.  I've edited my answer incorporate that.  Thank you.

Since the literal question is "Can I apply..." the answer is yes. Hopefully you will be honest about your skills as it would be a problem if you overstate them, only to be found out later.
But, you can't know "everything", and your training should have prepared you to learn things fairly rapidly.
Another aspect is that you probably aren't alone in having your studies disrupted to some extent by COVID.
In the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, the young Siddhartha gets a job by essentially suggesting that he can learn what is needed and has the skills and patience for that: “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”


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How to negotiate relocation expenses (for a postdoc in the UK) two months after I accepted the offer?
I was offered a UKRI funded position. It was advertised  as two positions. I negotiated my salary given my experience and the PI refused. Since I am International, I was waiting for my visa so I attended some meetings with the team. During these meetings, I realised that my level is much higher than other postdoc who clearly did not know a lot of stuff.
Unfortunately, no one instructed me on negotiation process, I thought it is all about salary. I did not even know about relocation negotiation. I am not comfortable and I honestly want to reject this offer.
It is my first opportunity to work. I need it but I feel I deserved more.
Can I negotiate my relocation expenses to be covered?
How to negotiate relocation expenses? What if it failed?
Should I reject the offer or accept it just because I do not have any other opportunity? I am not comfortable doing a job and I know I should have more.

Where I work (not UK), there is no negotiation possible on a postdoc salary - it is defined by HR to apply to all postdocs. If you want to reject, then reject it.

In general there is very limited scope for negotiating academic salaries in the UK, especially at the post-doc level. Relocation is often an administrative policy depending on the position & length of contract. So there is probably limited scope to negotiate this too. But you could (should) ask about it if you need it.

@JonCuster I need the position. Many people told me to trust my gut and reject it. Others told me to be grateful. I am confused

After the update to the question I will turn my comment into an answer.
In general there is very limited scope for negotiating academic salaries in the UK, especially at the post-doc level. There is a national pay scale which constrains the salaries possible for a particular job category ('band' or 'grades') fairly tightly. You can often find these pay ranges by searching 'University Name Pay Scale'. See example here (not my institution). The Band/Grade will often (but not always) be mentioned in the job advertisement. It would be exceptionally difficult (impossible) to negotiate a salary outside the pay band of the job in question. In most cases you would get a salary at the lower end of the pay band since you increase by one 'point' per year and would then get stuck at the top of the band unless you got promoted to the next 'band'/'grade' (unlikely for a short-term post-doc since this would mean promotion to a permanent faculty position).
Relocation is often an administrative policy depending on the position & length of contract. So there is probably limited scope to negotiate this. But you could (should) ask about it if you need it. At my institution you would need at least a 1 year contract to qualify for relocation (among other requirements). This is managed by our HR department.
Note that UKRI funds are quite restricted in what they can be used for, so it usually isn't possible to pay more salary or relocation from research funds.
We can't say if you should accept the job or not. But make sure your expectations are realistic based on how academic pay/benefits work in the UK.

It is two year contract. In the advertisement, salary was posted as a range. I negotiated but got rejected . I honestly think about negotiating relocation expenses but I don't know if it is good or bad thing to do? They are waiting for my visa for two months? This is why I do not want to reject the offer anymore.

@Samo, as I mentioned in my answer. Negotating relocation expenses is likely not possible (there would be a specific amount available depending on position/length of contract). You should ask what is available for your case. Visas in the UK take a long time at present unfortunately ... I have heard of much longer than two months.

@Samo. Also note the top of the salary range should be interpreted as 'exceptional candidate.' For example someone with several years of very relevant post-doctoral research experience.

@atom44 - perhaps not so much 'exceptional' as 'already experienced' (i.e. second postdoc)?

I have experience but in my country not UK. Is not this considered as experience? Some told me it is not considered as experience as long as not in UK

@Samo, Experience would not need to be UK based (many are hired with non-UK experience). How much the experience is valued - only the PI could decide that depending on their needs for the project.

@JonCuster, I would say that would be the case as a minimum. Not necessarily sufficient to get the top of the advertised range. I would imagine the criteria to get to the top of the range varies quite widely. It has never happened for the post-doc hiring I've been involved in, so seems quite rare in my experience.

@samo You say the project is UKRI-funded. This means the PI has been awarded a fixed amount of money. Often there simply isn't any money available to pay someone a higher salary - even if the PI wants to - except perhaps by shortening the duration of the post.

Do you think I should negotiate my relocation expenses @avid

You have little to lose by asking what they'll help with.

It was not in my offer. How should I start the conversation? Can I email my supervisor to ask if he can cover my relocation expenses. @avid

I agree with atom44's answer that there is usually a very limited opportunity to negotiate postdoc salary in the UK (see also my other answer).
Regarding the relocation expenses, your University should have a policy on that. Sometimes relocation is covered for all new staff, sometimes only for permanent, sometimes only for lecturers and above, sometimes only for international, sometimes only for local. This is not in your offer, because it is in the "collective agreement" which is an internal document negotiated by University senior management, staff unions and sometimes academic Senate. HR will know the rules and will tell you whether they can reimburse your relocation from the Uni's budget. Importantly, this is not the UKRI budget, which your PI is responsible for. This is why you should ask HR, not PI, about it (but you can cc your PI in the email of course).

When I emailed them asking about accommodation for staff, they told me, this is relocation and it was not in your offer @Dmitry savostyanov

Too bad. Unfortunately, this is a sad reality of many UK Unis - they advertise their "international outlook" to attract international students and their high tuition fees, but they don't show much support for their international staff.

Yes, that is why I thought I should negotiate with the PI because PI asked about the offer

It is not a bad idea - sometimes there may be some money under-spent in their UKRI budget which in principle could be spent to cover your relocation. But this is assuming there are actually money to spend and also that your PI is keen enough to ask UKRI's approval to re-purpose the funds, which is not an automatic process.


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What is the process for getting a non-EU PhD "validated" in Germany so I can continue working as university associated faculty?
I am a medical doctor in Bosnia and Herzegovina (which is not in the EU). I also hold a PhD title and am an associated professor on the medical faculty. I am moving to Germany (Oberbayern). I have already done all the necessary additional work so that I can continue practicing medicine in Germany.
I also want to continue my career in research and possibly work at a German university. I have several publications. For this, I assume my PhD will have to be "recognized" by some German institution. How does this work? Who do I contact?

Like many things in Germany, recognition procedures vary from one Bundesland to the next. For example, according to this possibly outdated document, in Hamburg you would contact the Behörde für Wissenschaft,  Forschung und Gleichstellung (something like "Board of Science, Research, and Equality"). In other parts of Germany, there's probably a local body with some other name.

Your career is relevant - if you want to take work that legally requires certain qualifications (examples might be in architecture, engineering, teaching, among other things), then going through the recognition procedure (or at least verifying that it's not necessary in your case) will be important. If your job doesn't have those legal requirements, it's essentially up to potential employers to decide whether they accept the qualifications or not.

PhD is often less problematic than MSc. It helps if your country is in the EU, but expect some bureaucracy. Contact the Bavarian ministry of education.


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Is it possible to accept research that contradicts several experiments?
I have research and reached logical and impressive results, but there is a problem that one of the predictions of my theory is that antimatter cannot be found on Earth and cannot be made, and this makes scientific research and experiments that talk about finding antimatter wrong. Could it really be that?  The research is wrong and they lied to us about antimatter, or am I wrong? Is it possible to accept a scientific research that contradicts previous scientific experiments and is in line with other experiments?

Antimatter exists, can be made in various facilities, e.g., the LHC, and is even produced, in tiny quantities, in the upper atmosphere.

An experiment can falsify a theory, but a theory cannot falsify an experiment.

No need to take a trip to a particle accelerator to find antimatter. Go to a hospital and find their PET scanner - it works by emitting positrons.

This research--if it is based only on an accepted theoretical framework--could, indeed, be published.  It would be a demonstration that something is wrong with that framework.  And therefore this research would be a valuable contribution.

"Could it really be that? The research is wrong and they lied to us about antimatter, or am I wrong?" is outside the borders of this stack.  The last question begs a list.

Of course, it could be that "they lied to us about ". But I'll answer with Feynman whether asked whether "it's not possible that extraterrestial UFOs exist". He said (paraphrased) "it's possible; of course it is - the question, however, is not whether it's possible but whether it's the case."

The question about whether your antimatter theory could be correct is, of course, off-topic here. I would edit it to remove those details and focus only on the title question, but then it would become a duplicate of this. So, I am going to vote to close.

@cag51 I disagree. There's a difference between abstract mathematical formulations that have no real existence outside of mathematicians' heads and actual experiments. Voting to reopen since its not a duplicate. I agree that whether his theory is correct is off-topic, but that's not what they actually asked about.

Understood. I stand by my decision, but note that I merely voted to close as any user might; I didn't use any mod superpowers.

It is highly unlikely that anyone will accept theory-based research that concludes that a large range of experimental results are impossible to have been observed, even though multiple groups report observing them.
You would have to offer an alternative explanation for why those groups have observed what they have, or accuse not just one scientist, or even one group, but multiple groups across the world of lying, which is unlikely to ever be accepted.
In almost all cases in science, experimental evidence trumps theory.

(+1) And the decay of potassium-40 in our bodies produces hundreds of positrons per second, so antimatter is not far from home.

It's certainly possible to accept research that falsifies several experiments.* Einstein's theory of relativity has come to be accepted even though it falsified mountains of experimental evidence for Newtonian mechanics.
But there's one very important thing Einstein's theory did: it is able to explain why previous experiments saw the evidence for Newtonian mechanics. It is able to explain why those experiments didn't see deviations (e.g. speed not large enough), and it is able to predict where to look to find deviations. Put differently, Einstein's theory reduces to Newtonian mechanics in the limit of small masses and small speeds. If it didn't, it would never work.
Any new theory needs to be able to explain why the old theory seems to work. If your theory claims that antimatter does not exist, it must also be able to explain why so many experiments, conducted by different people across different generations, appear to see antimatter. It must be able to explain why PET scanners used by doctors works even though positrons don't exist. If it's not able to do this, your new theory is dead before it even begins and no physicist will pay it serious attention.

*Here by "falsifies several experiments" I mean "falsifies a theory that was previously accepted as the explanation for several experiments".

Hmmm. No. It didn't falsify Newton. It complimented it, providing better, not contradictory, ways to explain observed phenomena. The only thing "falsified" was the notion that Newton provided a complete and final explanation. But at a certain scale of measurement, they are consistent. Newton wasn't able to make observations at the necessary scale. But if Einstein falsified experiments then the world would be very weird indeed. If Einstein's theories couldn't incorporate the experiments (results of observations) of Newton then it would be wrong.

Your first paragraph is at the very least misusing terminology, if not plainly wrong. You cannot falsify an experiment.

@Buffy You are quite right. I didn't notice this, this should be amended.

@CaptainEmacs, hmmm. There is now a theory that Captain Emacs and Allure are one person. Can the theory be verified or invalidated?

@Buffy I do not understand what you are trying to say. Here's what happened on my side: I originally gave the answer a +1 vote, because I liked a formulation there, but overlooked the serious flaw that you pointed out.  I completely agree with your comment. So, what's your point?

@CaptainEmacs, your penultimate comment sounded like it came from the author. Your moniker hadn't yet appeared in this stream. I'll take it the theory is invalid.

Another way of putting it is not that the experimental data is falsified, but that commonly held interpretation of the data is incorrect.

Experiments are the arbiter of what's correct. Given this, an experiment cannot be falsified by theory, as many commenters have said.
I'd like to add another angle to the existing responses. Experiments need to be interpreted in the light of a theory. In other words, most experiments need a theory to be put in context. So, both experimental questions and answers need to be translated into the language of the given theory. This is not always an easy task.
To give an example: when you do General Relativity Theory (GRT), the theory determines not only the dynamics of the objects, but how your observations are going to look. If you assume that GRT is flawed, you have to correct not only the dynamics, but also what you expect to see with your measurements.
A related problem is the discrepancy in the Hubble constant as delivered by various measurements; it should be unique, but different measurement techniques give different and incompatible results. So, either we do not understand the measurement theory correctly, the measurements themselves are flawed, or - but very unlikely - the Hubble constant is not a well-defined unique concept, which would indicate new physics or at least a substantial reinterpretation of GRT. However, that last is the least likely - it is far more likely that the experiments themselves or the tools to evaluate the experiments are flawed somewhere. See also the apparent discrepancy of proton sizes depending on measurement technique: more careful measurements have now confirmed that proton size is consistent across measurement techniques.
Bottom line: updated theories can provide better interpretations for existing experiments which explain discrepancies, permit to resolve inconsistencies or suggest alternative experiments to be tried. A theory that just makes existing experiments look more inconsistent is worse than being wrong - it's completely pointless.

(+1) A famous chemist, I. M. Kolthoff, used to say “Theory guides, experiment decides.”

This is more an explanation than an answer.
For a theory to be valid it has to be able to explain all observed phenomena, even if only approximately. "Approximately" since we can't measure at an infinitely fine scale. So, the theory that the Earth's orbit is elliptical is valid, but only with certain assumptions and only at a certain scale of measurement. Perturbations occur, for example. But a "theory" that the earth's orbit is circular would not be valid, since observations contradict it.
However, one theory can be replaced by another if the new one provides better explanations for all observed phenomena, in particular those that weren't able to be made in the time-frame of the earlier theory. At one time the theory was that "atoms" were fundamental. That theory has been replaced since new measurements called it into doubt and newer theories (quarks...) provide better explanations. But the new theory still has to be able to explain older phenomena to be valid.
There are two ways (at least) that one theory can be considered "better" than another, and opens the possibility of one replacing the other. The first is that the new theory provides better (more accurate) explanations of existing phenomena, and especially a better way to predict what is likely to occur, even if only approximately (remember the importance of "scale" as above).
The second way that one theory might be considered superior to another is that if it is conceptually simpler. It has to pass the "accuracy" test, of course, but scientists prefer theories that are simpler and with fewer interacting elements.
Now, to the question at hand. If you can create a theory that can provide a model for existing phenomena but that doesn't need "anti-matter" as part of the explanation, then it might be simpler. It isn't a question of the "existence" of anti-matter, it is which theory can better explain the phenomena and, within those boundaries, which is simpler. Such a theory, if valid (see above) would make questions about the "existence" of anti-matter moot. But no such "theory" would be valid if it predicted things known not to be true. So, the answer to the question as you posed it, would be no.
And the new theory will only be known to be valid at a certain scale of observation and might be invalidated by new observations. The universe "is what it is". Theories are an attempt to explain it, not define it. The universe is "messy". Theories try to make sense of it to make the complexity understandable.


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I need to translate my scientific article. Can I offer co-authorship in exchange for translation services?
I have a scientific manuscript and I do not know how to translate it. Nor do I have the money to have it professionally translated. Can I ask another academic to translate it in exchange for co-authorship? If so, what percentage of authorship would they be entitled to?

I took a stab at clarifying the question, but not sure I got it right. In particular, I'm not sure in what field you would have to specify each author's contribution percentage. Is someone asking for your contribution percentage?

If it is a pure language translation, then the translator doesn't contribute to the ideas of the paper. In that case, the translator can be acknowledged by name (with their permission), but is not a contributor, nor an author.
To be a "contributor" means that you contribute intellectual content - ideas.

Thinking more about the issue, let me suggest two potential solutions. One is to find someone and open a collaboration with them on the topic with the intent of jointly developing a paper that includes the already developed ideas. Then, if they contribute, they are an author and can also provide the language version you require.
Another possibility is that someone would want to do a translation, as a gift, both to the community and to you. They aren't authors, but can be thanked - profusely - for providing the translation. If the work is important enough to be shared, someone out there might be willing to do this. The problem would be finding someone with the necessary skills. They are "paid" only in satisfaction.


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My assigned postdoc mentor is not a good fit. How to proceed?
I finished my Ph.D in applied mathematics in a US institution last May. I have now started my postdoc position at another US institution last Fall. My post-doc is funded by the department of mathematics here (which means I have a relatively heavy teaching load) with a "formal" assigned mentor/advisor. The initial contract is for one year with the possibility of renewing for additional two years.
However, my "assigned" mentor/advisor has a totally different background from the training I got during my Ph.D and I feel like my assigned mentor/advisor is not "mentoring" at all. To be precise, my assigned mentor/advisor wants to do research and have publications in an area in which I am also very interested, but they literally spend no time on our projects. Instead, they just send me a lot of papers and tell me to read them and do the work myself.
I would prefer to spend time on other projects (some of them are with my Ph.D advisor, which in my mind is a great advisor) instead of "meeting with my assigned mentor/advisor" (as you can not expect my assigned mentor/advisor to guide you anything if you encountered questions/problems about a particular paper). On the other hand, I am afraid of telling my assigned mentor/advisor that we are not a good fit at all and we should stop meeting in the future (as I am afraid that if I do that, then my contract will not be renewed for additional 2 years). How should I approach this?

Can you clarify, are you literally told "you must read these papers" or is that an assumption you are making?  Are they just forwarding relevant papers and suggesting you have a look at them?

@TerryLoring  I am literally told "you must read these papers" (and then "go over the paper with me"), while he/she won't spend a minute on these technical manuscripts. All he/she wants is "progress" and papers/publications, he/she doesn't want to help you nor guide you.

Is there anybody else at the department who can serve as your mentor?

@MoisheKohan There are potential options but as a postdoc I guess finding a person who can technically help you and actually guide you (during the process of transitioning to a relatively new field from my PhD topic) is a bit harder

Do you think you can find somebody at the department who would be willing to serve as your formal mentor while in fact your actual mentor would be your PhD advisor?

Hello, as I said, I am afraid that doing so might trigger the anger/unsatisfaction of my current assigned mentor...

If you were hired by an institution rather than a specific person, then I believe you have some leeway in choosing whom you collaborate with. I suggest that on your next meeting with your advisor you discuss your plans and intentions for the postdoc. It sounds like your advisor means well, and just wants to get you interested in their field of research.
For post docs the general expectation is that they work more independently. The objective is to prepare you for a faculty position and see you take the initiative. If you show that you’re moving in that direction then it’s likely to be well received. It’s all about how you present your concerns!

Hello, as I mentioned in the OP, my mentor here does not familiar with the (new) field that he/she wants to dive in, that is not good in my mind if you want your "students" to be interested while at the same you couldn't help them (during the process of struggling)

I really think the best way forward is to set expectations and a plan in your next meeting.

I suggest you talk with the department chair to clarify your research obligations.  In cases I am familiar with, when a math department hires a postdoc, that postdoc can work on what they want and with whomever they want, in the department or elsewhere.  That might be the case where you are, but the mentor does not realize this.
These days, funding agencies and deans assume postdocs are too immature to seek advice as needed and require a formal mentoring plan.  Perhaps you can see this mentoring plan.  That might clarify things.
Be sure to find out how your performance evaluations will be done.  Who is to write these, and to what standards?  Look at your offer letter and your contract.  Are you obligated to do research in a particular area, or with a particular person?


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Advantages of different citation styles?
I find it hard to find a comprehensive overview about what kind of citation styles there are, and what should be taken into consideration to choose one.
It seems to me that the most important factor is when the journal/conference requires a specific citation style. Another factor is that it might be better to use what the people in the field are used to. But what advantages are there for different citation styles, apart from the fact that some are more established?
E.g. I see that numbered citations sorted by occurrence make it easy to find the citation listed in the bibliography while reading the paper from front to end. (Author,Year) citation styles allow the reader to recognize names but could possibly be ambiguous when an author published two papers in the same year. Why aren't both approaches combined to keep the advantages of each, and cite in-line with (Name Year [1])?

There exist strong differences in humanities vs. STEM how literature is read, written and therefore cited.
For example, in humanities it is much more important due to e.g. schools of thought who has written something than in STEM. Even in STEM some journals ask you to give the page of a book when citing those, some don't.
There is likely no good overview, because in the end the editor should know best, what citation style is the most efficient and useful one for the content, format, author- and readership of that journal.
In STEM many journals don't want all author names in the reference list, rather due to shortness than usefulness imho. To me, personally, it's often much more important to see which last author/group leader conceived an experiment rather than which first author PhD student did most of the experimental work with >5 other co-authors which becomes more and more common.
For review articles with >100 references it's often simply not practical to show all co-author names. For letter articles, representing often high importance of the results, the first author et al. often publishes several papers focusing on a distinct research question/method/object and deserves more highlighting and fame.
Even within a single scientific branch like physics you will therefore find very different citation styles serving different purposes for different publishing formats.

As you note, the most important factor when deciding is what the publication venue requires. But sometimes (e.g. a thesis) you may have a choice. There are lots of variations in detail, but ultimately (at least in STEM) it comes down to "Author/year or numbered". There are advantages to both, IMHO (and this does come down to opinion in the end):
Advantages of Author-year

It's often easy to see at a glance what paper is being referred to. Sometimes you've never heard of the author, and have to look at the reference list to see which group it is... but sometimes it's a famous paper, and you don't have to check the end of the document to identify it. Numbered papers provoke much more front-to-back flipping for me than author/year ones.
Sentences can sometimes flow more naturally : "Bloggs and Stevens (1903) showed that..." is nicer than "[1] showed that". Note, though, that there's nothing to stop you including a name from time to time with a numbered scheme ("Bloggs and Stevens [1] showed that...")
Some people feel that because it's more up-front about the contribution of others, it's more "collegiate". (er, OK. By "some people", I mean "somebody said to me once").

Advantages of numbered

Brevity.
It can make it easier to let one's eye skim over the citations and concentrate on the content, without being distracted by lots of names and years.

Some fields are wedded to one approach, some use both. I gather that some in the humanities have methods that fall into neither of these categories!

Advantages and disadvantages of the different citation styles have been listed already in the other responses. However, for myself as a reader of many papers, thesises etc. the citation style for the reference in the text has become more and more irrelevant with time because I know what I am interested in. Acordingly I adjust my way of reading and I assume many other people do so.
What is more relevant to me is the entry in the bibliography and how many pieces of information are included. For example I prefer a complete author lists and also the title. And this is - I think - not really opinion based because such information is always helpful and never unnecessary.
Therefore my advice, if you have a choice: include as many relevant pieces of information as possible in your bibliography and choose the representation in the text (numbered, author/year etc.) according to your personal taste.

"Such information is always helpful".... well, usually. Unless you're citing something with a thousand authors :-)

Then it is also helpful. The number of co-authors is an important information by itself.

This is essentially personal opinion, I'd be very surprised if there is a measurable difference.
That said, areas have their traditional citation styles, most journals have templates and suggested citation styles. Uniformity makes it (a tiny bit) easier to get the information across, and that is the central goal here. It also makes the journal (or book, for that matter) look more orderly, thus professional. Also a goal.


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Is it normal for a full-time instructor to be required to be present physically on campus 40 hours a week?
I am a new Instructor, started during the pandemic and am only going into my second year. I work for a smaller local college, full-time. The college is a located in the U.S. in the Mid-West (Ohio), it offers 2 and 4-year degrees.
When starting in 2020, I was hired with the understanding that I come into the college, teach, hold office hours and then I could go home. However, this year they have decided that all instructors must be on campus 40 hours per week, 8-5. I teach business courses, many times I have questions that come in after hours, plus I typically grade and do prep work after hours.
So my question is: is it normal to be required to sit at a desk (in this case a cubicle) 40 hours per week? Or, can one typically come and go as teaching requires, with scheduled office hours for students?
Being new to the industry I am trying to understand the norm.

Is this policy perhaps a bit of a backlash to remote-focused instruction during the pandemic? This might be something to discuss with a more immediate rung of the chain of command, as these rules might not come from someone who has any idea how academic instruction works, nor care that the specific rule is followed.

Are you represented by a union, such as the AAUP?  If so, talk to your union representatives. There may be clauses in your contract about working hours, etc. If not they may be able to negotiate something mutually agreeable. If you are not represented by a union, and if other instructors at your college also dislike this policy, then perhaps this would be a good rallying point to start one.

Welcome to Academia.SE. I have edited the bolded question a bit; while we can advise about norms, we don't really take survey questions like "Does your university...."

Have you had a chance to ask long-timers about this? They can often provide some interesting history -- the phony-instructor scandal of '18 or somesuch

@newprof This is weirdly similar to a scam of a job a friend of mine dodged recently. Can you elaborate what institution is this one? You might be in trouble if they aren't as legit as they appear.

The admins at one school I taught at started talking about having the faculty punch a clock.  They were taken aback when the faculty was supportive.  The faculty never likes the stupid ideas coming out of admin, so what's the deal?  "We'd love to work only 40 hours per week."  No admin wants happy faculty so the idea was dropped instantly.

What about the answer to Douglas MacArthur's rhetorical question, "How did I become one of only three Army Generals awarded 5 stars?"  I always found some way to support my superiors.

Time on campus should include doing library research and participating in meetings in other buildings. Many universities have standards that encourage community involvement. I spent a lot of time doing work with a state health department that required driving almost two hours each way and usually a half-day meeting, all voluntary. Read your Faculty Handbook carefully, since all policies must be written and must usually be approved by the Board of Trustees.

I find this unusual in the US, but you say you are in a smaller, local, college. I've taught in such places and the rules there seem to sometimes diverge from what you see in larger places, even private colleges and universities. Proprietary and for-profit colleges may diverge more from the norm.
The typical rule is that you need to spend a certain number of scheduled office hours per week and also be "responsive" to students. But not that it is considered a 9-5 job. That doesn't serve anyone very well. In the age of covid and zoom it is entirely possible to fulfill all of your non-classroom duties and never go to the office. Teaching, itself, is a more difficult proposition, of course. An additional constraint might be that you spend some time in the office 4 or 5 days per week.
A typical professor probably spends much more than 40 hours per week on things related to their employment: teaching, helping students, research, service to the college and community. In return for this, the professor is normally allowed to set their own schedule with only a few limiting parameters.
The issue with this scenario is that, like a worker in an auto factory, once the bell tolls you are free. You have no job related tasks at all. I'd hate to be a college president trying to make sense of that.
Intellectual work, in particular, requires breaks and not just five minute scheduled breaks. If you have to sit in your office, staring at the wall when you are suddenly stuck then you are wasting time and reducing productivity.
I can foresee that there are places with such rules. I predict they are rare. I suggest that you look for other opportunities if you have no influence on academic policies.

Cuts both ways, for sure. "Due to change in policy this year, I will be on campus from 9-5 M-F and have scheduled office hours accordingly. Also, I will be replying to all e-mail questions, etc., during that time. If you send an email after 4:55pm, it is unlikely that you will receive a response before 9am the next business day. Please try to begin work on assignments early enough to allow for delay in response to questions. (Note that assignments will be posted X, etc.) I apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who have job and have difficulty being on campus during those hours."

@user3067860 On the other hand, I don't think it's reasonable for a student to send an email at 4:55pm, and expect a response that evening, in ordinary circumstances.

No, it is not normal at all, in all my observation in the U.S.
The by-far-usual idea is that since class prep, grading, committees, and so on, take such irregular amounts of time, usually more than 40 hours a week after teaching (and research), the administration is happy to get the work done. That is, they're happier with people working ambiguous 50+ hour weeks than closely monitored 40 hour weeks, and necessarily in the office.
Occasionally, also, various administrations have had spasms of need-to-control faculty. Years ago, here in MN, a state legislator saw a well-known senior faculty person mowing their yard mid-day on a Thursday... which precipitated massive turmoil about whether faculty were earning their pay, what's the work-load, etc., etc. Seems that we recovered from that.
A few years ago, there was an administrative spasm which wanted to require that all faculty with grants paying summer salary should be present on campus M-F, etc. It was pointed out that this failed to make sense in several ways, and we recovered.
It is not hard to imagine that the tension of the pandemic has addled some administrators' brains to the extent that they want to "regain control" (rather than tolerate people "working" from home, sitting in their pajamas in comfortable surroundings, rather than crappy offices/cubicles...?)
So, as you suspect, this is a very hostile attitude, and is a very bad sign about the administration, if it really persists. All the more surprising/disappointing after the pandemic has shown that much work can be done remotely.

Sometimes people get inappropriately voted down for ranting.  I voted this up because it's clear, reflects first-hand experience, and captures the frustration of dealing with admin idiots.  Well done.

There’s a line somewhere between how present you should be vs how present you must be.  Although some admin. are severely afflicted by “control-freakness”, some equally idiotic faculty are abusing the current situation.  Of course reasonable people in the middle are the ones that have to pay for the excesses of others.

You don't say whether your school is private or public, whether it's a for-profit school, whether or not you're represented by a union, or whether your employment contract addresses this issue. It's very difficult to say what is "normal" without this kind of context.
But no, in general, this is not normal at most schools in the US, and it doesn't sound like it's normal at your school either, since it was imposed on people who were already working there.
There have been some comments to the effect that administrators doing this kind of thing would have to be knuckleheads or obsessive control freaks. I don't think that's quite right. If the school is trying to maintain high quality of instruction and offer in-person learning during covid, then it's reasonable for administrators to be concerned about getting faculty to have a significant in-person presence. It's just a little extreme to make that into an absolute mandate for being on campus M-F 8-5.
I'm retired from a job teaching at a unionized community college in California, and during the time when I was at that job, before covid, there were ongoing tussles between the administration and the union over attempts to require faculty to be present on campus for a certain number of days per week and to be available for required in-person meetings. The union saw this as unreasonable, and many of my colleagues were angry about it, but I have to say that it didn't seem completely unreasonable to me. A certain percentage of the faculty were trying to do the absolute minimum possible amount of work without getting fired -- and that amount was pretty low if they were tenured. I overheard one of my colleagues bragging to his student in a health class about how easy his job was and how few hours a week he spent on it.


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Whose contact information should I provide in the cover letter when submitting a paper to a journal?
I am planning to submit a paper to a journal. Journals require a cover letter.  So, I wrote a brief introduction to my paper and some reasons for its publication.
After I looked at a few templates, I found that many cover letters had the contact information of the corresponding author at the end.
The corresponding author of this paper is my advisor. But he's very busy and I'm worried he might not be able to check his emails in time.
I am the first author of this paper. Can I leave both of our contact information at the end of the cover letter?

Has your advisor told you that he is (should be) the corresponding author? That's a job for the person who will actually read and respond to queries about the paper. Ask him if he wants that job or thinks you should do it.

In our school, tutors must be corresponding authors. Otherwise the thesis will not count when judging graduation requirements. My mentor took on a lot of administrative duties and he didn't always have the time.

Will you submit the paper? Then you will usually receive all communication from the journal during the whole submission process provided you will give your contact data in the submission system of the journal. Nobody will extract any e-mail address from the cover letter.

If your advisor has set themself as corresponding author, then they have taken responsibility for actually corresponding. I worry that many people think of corresponding author as an honor of some kind rather than a job. Perhaps you are a better choice for corresponding author if you are the primary author of the work with the most to lose if things go wrong.
But that is a conversation you need to have with your advisor.
But it is probably a mistake to suggest that Alice is the corresponding author but you should really correspond with Bob instead.


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Accused of cheating on a class that I passed a year ago. Can my "pass" be revoked? Could this missing prerequisite affect other classes I have passed?
I’ve been accused of cheating in a class that I passed a year ago, and since then I have proceeded to pass the next class in line after that class. This class was a first year class, I’m now in my second year and I’m unsure on what this means. Are universities allowed to revoke a class that I have passed and other that I have passed. I don’t understand why that would be going back through an assignment from a year ago. What happens to the classes that I have passed since then that relied on the class that I am accused of academic misconduct.

Note that revoking the class isn't the only possible form of punishment; there may be other possible disciplinary actions, such as a suspension, expulsion, a formal warning, losing university housing or other benefits...

So far, you have only been accused, right?

Perhaps OP has professional sports has in mind where they don't penalise certain cheating/foul play discovered afterwards via cameras?

Did you actually cheat?

Are you sure this is something you want to post on a public forum with something that looks like your real name and a photo ?

Universities have revoked degrees and titles on the basis of fraud, years or even decades after granting them. This is certainly allowed. The bar for revoking a class should be expected to be lower so this seems perfectly fine. Of course only your university can tell you the finer details of their policies.

The problem with your comparison is that usually when a degree is revoked, it's because of misconduct in relation to a dissertation or other work central to the degree. If the student went on to pass more advanced classes without cheating, in my view this makes the difference between "didn't demonstrate the required competences" and "demonstrated the required competences, but violated academic norms in the process". If someone buys their BSc thesis and has their degree revoked 10 years later, but in the meantime got their doctorate the honest way, I doubt the doctorate is revoked.

@Nobody as in this answer, it depends on the institutions involved. The institution which granted the doctorate may revoke the degree or refuse to revoke the degree depending on their own policies and decisions. Revoking degrees is rare, and usually the culprit doesn't have a further degree, but as the doctorate can be revoked for scientific misconduct unrelated to the dissertation (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal precedent), it technically could also be revoked for that in an appropriate situation; but there are also opposite examples where a later degree isn't revoked.

@Peteris Interesting case, thanks. But this guy published a lot of fraudulent papers after his doctorate and even then the first court actually came to the conclusion that the degree couldn't be revoked and the university had to appeal. So I don't think it can serve as a counter example to my argument.

This is like answering a question about paper cuts with a story about beheadings.

I'm unclear what you mean by "this seems perfectly fine". It certainly isn't fine for the OP. Are you saying you find it acceptable? The OP didn't ask for opinions on the acceptability of this policy, but rather what it is.

That doesn't seem conceptually wrong to me. If you rob a bank but escape without anyone recognizing, you can't expect to keep the money either: If someone later finds out that you did it, you will have to return the money (and possibly go to jail) regardless of how far after the crime the discovery comes. (There is generally a "statute of limitations", but that's a different topic.)
So, by this analogy, I see nothing wrong ethically with a university reserving the right to revoke credit for a class you passed a long time ago if in the meantime evidence has surfaced that you cheated. The fact that you passed other follow-up courses in the meantime is unrelated -- you also can't say that you shouldn't be held accountable for the bank robbery because you have managed to invest the stolen money successfully: a crime is a crime, regardless of what you have done in the meantime.

I think that the concept of "statute of limitations" (the time period under which an offense can be prosecuted) is precisely the sort of thing being asking about. Your answer sort of equates to "Ignoring things which would limit the time, the time period is not limited." which seems about as vacuous as "If you ignore the questions I got wrong, I got everything on this test correct."

I interpreted the question differently: "Are universities allowed to revoke a class that I have passed and other that I have passed [?]" reads to me as saying "I can't see how it is legal to retroactively punish me even after the class has ended". I think that it is legal and makes sense.

Check if your university has an official policy and guidelines on academic integrity, as well as the possible penalties.  Some universities and instructors teaching online are swamped with investigations into cheating, so long timescales are not surprising.  I am not aware of any statutes of limitations, though some may exist.

are universities allowed to revoke a class?

Yes, and much worse, for gross academic misconduct.
I don’t believe that your entire prerequisite tree will collapse, that seems excessive, but you should discuss this with your department if you are indeed at fault.
In my university lecturers can opt for an informal resolution: in order to avoid the hassle and trouble of a formal disciplinary hearing and damaging a student’s record and future prospects irrevocably. Students who actually cheated and I have proof for it take this route. You should as well if you’re given the option (and are guilty).
Another thing to consider is whether you cheated on other classes. If you got caught in one class your department might check other classes. If more cases arise the consequences will be far more severe, and you may even be expelled.

Out of curiosity: what is the informal resolution?

Informal resolution simply means that the instructor and student agreed to some penalty, and the disciplinary action ends there. If both sides agree to this (in writing) then it is applied. If not - then we move on to a formal proceeding. Informal resolutions can be % grade deduction from one's grade, failing the assignment/exam where cheating was observed, resubmitting a new assignment or stuff like that. It really is up to the instructor.

The obvious benefit of the informal resolution is that it does not appear on your grade transcript, and is usually not as harsh as the formal hearing's penalty. Generally, if you cheated and got caught, this is the best option you have. In my university, the infraction is noted internally, so that if there are repeat offenses a pattern can be established. If you get caught cheating once - it is strongly suggested that you stay on the straight and narrow after that - you're obviously not very good at it if you got caught :)

Prepare to attempt to challenge/test out of the class. As you passed something that has it as a prerequisite it shouldn't be too hard.
I can't help you beat the charge of cheating. I can offer advise on what to do if the class falls.
If it falls, you have a hole in your class prerequisite chain. With a first-semester class such a hole may be attempted to be filled by a placement exam for some classes, but for others they may not be prepared. If you can test out of the class in the testing center (every university has one for various reasons anyway), than that would provide the prerequisite. It also provides a way to claim "I didn't need to cheat", which only carries so far with a cheating charge but it's better than nothing.
Cheating charges aren't unbeatable, but this might be a low-energy solution compared to some other things that could happen.

A cheating charge would appear in your academic transcript, and that could be seen as a black mark by potential employers for at least the first five years out of university. It would be much better to fight or avoid the charge if possible.

@user7868: I suppose so, but I've had no potential employers ask for my transcripts. I'm not going to say you're wrong though. I just had an answer for another pathway.


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Would it be possible to rank North American graduate schools from "most competitive" to "least competitive" (in terms of admission)?
I would like to understand if it is possible to rank graduate schools in the US and/or Canada by the entry/admission standards/requirements (this could be based on GPA/GRE/etc). While it seems that the common university rankings do not provide this type of information for graduate schools, perhaps, there exist some publicly available data sets. I tried looking around and I noticed that some individual universities (or departments) provide this type of information, but this is not very common. I am only interested in the STEM fields and I do not mind if the information is partial (e.g. only Mathematics departments in Canada).

I believe that this is on topic and not previously asked/answered. I would like an explanation for the downvotes. How can I improve the question?

This question is actually university specific. Only general academia is dealt in this forum. Although on the broader scale it might not look so but the information highly depends on the university.

@Aymuos I think I did not state the question in the best way if you think it is university-specific. I was wondering about the existence of (for example) government databases that collect statistics about such things, e.g. average GRE/GPA of admitted students and so forth. Do you think I should delete the question and try again?

Oops, my bad. I did not understand that. I guess you could ask another question stating exactly this in short. "Is there a government databases that collect statistics about  average GRE/GPA  etc. of admitted students and so forth."

Not sure why this was closed. The question is not asking for a specific ranking, but only whether compiling such a ranking would theoretically be possible.

@cag51 IMO, the original title on the question is most easily interpretable as asking whether a ranking based on these measures would be informative (rather than just "possible" as in "data for this variable exists"); your edit may still be interpreted that way. If OP wants to ask whether there is a database of GRE scores/GPA for students admitted to grad school, there is no reason to have "ranking" even enter the conversation, except perhaps as a footnote in motivation.

@Bryan - sure, but even with that interpretation, it's no more opinion-based than why is PhD GPA considered irrelevant, which was very well-received. But oh well, I will not pursue it, these things are a bit stochastic at the best of times.

@cag51 I think the difference might be when someone is feeling like the answers bundle into "no" and "yes" arguments. "Why shouldn't I do X" is more of a solicitation of arguments, "Should I do X" asks for a yes/no opinion. I agree it's not an obvious distinction and that the decisions can be stochastic, I'm just trying to put some organization to the anecdotal evidence observed.

I also put this comment on another question.  Such a ranking is not possible.
This is a long comment, not an answer, but I often see this misconception in particular with students from India considering graduate admissions in the US.
Graduate admissions in the US are decided by committees of professors in the department that will admit you. The professors will read your application, and then they will make a collective, subjective, judgement about which students are most likely to succeed in the program, and admit those students. There are no other criteria. Different professors may have different opinions based on their own experiences of what indicators make a student likely to be successful (and different definitions of success!), but these tend to average out in committee discussions.
This seems strange to someone from India, where these kinds of decisions tend to get made based on some formula involving various numerical criteria. You might complain that the US system is subject to bias from the professors and even possible corruption. It is, but in the US we have decided that the benefit of being able to take into account subtle, unmeasurable considerations outweighs (in our context) the disadvantages of bias and the risk of corruption.
It is, of course, possible to make some generalizations about whom committees tend to admit and what they tend to consider in admissions, but these are predictions about human behavior, not rules.

Thank you for your long comment. It is helpful. However, note that there is additional information contained in the body of the question. I mention that I am interested not only in the requirements but also in the admission standards. It is possible to collect the GRE/GPA of admitted students and sort the universities based on the score. This information is available from the websites of many universities/individual schools. I was merely wondering if there are some (e.g., government) databases that collect/store this type of information.

@John I'd say that this answer is arguing that wouldn't make sense. Universities aren't admitting on those criteria, so even if you had the data it wouldn't necessarily mean much. GPA also doesn't mean much if you don't know what schools those GPAs come from and lots of programs don't require GREs.

@BryanKrause I agree, GPA is not very relevant, but GRE is a reasonably objective measure. However, there could be other statistics that one can gather. Either way, I know that in some countries some regulators and/or professional societies collect this type of information and make it available publicly. I was merely wondering if this is the case in the US/Canada. It appears that it is not, it also appears that I failed to produce a good question...

@John - If you don't think carefully about how you calculate this, probably all you'll find out is which universities have the largest med schools (because large med schools means lots of biology/health PhD funding which means large biology PhD programs compared to everything else and those are probably outliers one way or the other for GPA/GRE scores)

@AlexanderWoo Ideally, it would be possible to break the data down (at least) by subject.

For example, see https://www.cis.upenn.edu/graduate/how-to-apply/admissions-statistics/, but many other schools provide similar data. There could be other useful criteria... I only used GPA/GRE as an example.

Also, when I am part of graduate admissions, I usually don't even look at GRE scores.  Particularly for international applicants, I find them about as useful as knowing the height of the applicant.  I'll look at grades in the context of recommendation letters, but not GPA.

I fully understand what you stated in the answer: the admission is not based on GRE/GPA. Whether or not the data is useless is another question. Again, it was my failure to put an emphasis on GRE/GPA in the question, as I am interested in any indicators that could be used in this context.

@John - You haven't fully grasped what I wrote.  There are NO useful quantitative indicators.  It's all qualitative.


text:
Should I use bold text in my personal statement?
I'm an undergraduate student applying to the graduate programs in the U.K. I'm preparing the personal statement and have a question about the format. From the website, there are no general requirements on that, but I wonder is it appropriate if I highlight (i.e., make bold) the part in a sentence to grab the reader's attention? For example:

After that, I took a leading role within my team for the second application of this method.

I don't know if highlighting some words in a sentence would be an asset or make the statement look less formal. Thanks for the suggestions!

While not exactly what you're asking, it's worth noting that for some statements, such as for the NSF GRFP, it is standard practice to highlight key sentences.

I suggest that you don't do that. This is a professional communication. If people read it at all, they don't need the emphasis, which is a bit like shouting. Make it as professional as possible.

Thank you! That helps :)

A subtle way to emphasise the important bit, commonly recommended for CVs (resumés) is to start the point with yourself. This is harder in prose than in bullet points, but can be applied at the paragraph level, so this might be "¶ I took a leading role after that in applying..."

You can bold a heading on a separate line but do not bold individual words within a paragraph. If you'd like to emphasize text within a paragraph, italics can be used sparingly.  (Substituting italics for bold in your example would still be too much.)  Also, take care to use only one font family.

Thanks so much!

And shall your font of choice not be Comic Sans. Amen.

Some of the submission tools might only store text.  You probably can't be guaranteed that a reviewer actually sees your bold, suggesting you should avoid it.


text:
Most efficient way of booking academic supervision appointments
I'm wondering if there's a more efficient method of booking an academic supervision appointment. The method I experienced was a schedule on the professor's door, first-come-first-serve.
How do we employ technology that is the most efficient (reduces scheduling time, permitting all students to view sign ups)?

You don't have regular meetings with your supervisor that are scheduled over a long period?

Not sure what you need beyond standard calendaring software, such as Outlook or Google Calendar or whatever. Simply set up a recurring meeting and meet at that time.

I use Doodle a lot. It is possible to tie Doodle in with Google calendar (which also means I see it in my calendar on my Android smartphone). You can set up available time slots in Doodle that can only be filled by one person. Once it is filled it becomes unavailable to others. There may be similar tools but I have only used Doodle and find it extremely efficient. The only drawback are those who insist on having access at some other time but there will always be a few of those, and, it is easier to accommodate a few exceptions this way. I use the method for the 50 grad students in our department, with who I need to meet once a year. I schedule hours at the beginning of the term and ask them to book as soon as they can.
So using Doodle with Google calendar or some similar combination is a useful tool.

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


text:
Teaching Online at US Universities without a proof of authorization to work in the United States
Good morning,
My name is Gretel Echazú, I am an Argentinian anthropologist who researched in Brazil, Argentina and Peru. I got my PhD in anthropology with an investigation linked to health, race and gender issues in the Peruvian Amazon. I have a Post-Doctoral scholarship at a Federal University here in Natal, Northeastern Brazil. I´ve thought online once, for a plataform linked to ethnobotany. To make my work experience wider, I would love to start teaching online as an adjunct professor. I see that the majority of job offers come from US institutions that ask for "proof of authorization" to work in the US. I wander if it is possible for me to teach online from Brazil to create materials for institutions that are in the US.
Same question would go for European academic settings.
Thank you very much.
Gretel

Your best chance might be to find a U.S. or European institution with a campus in Argentina.  That way, you could be hired (and paid) in Argentina while teaching students elsewhere.

This is probably a better fit at expats.se because it is about working internationally and what permits are required. If you flag it I will be happy to move it.

If the job advertisement mentions that proof of authorization to work in the US is required, that means you should obtain a visa to work in the United States before you apply for the job.  Your application will probably not be read if you do not have the visa and are not a US citizen.
It is not worth obtaining the visa to teach one course.

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


text:
Why is the concept of self plagiarism in coursework not manifestly absurd?
You did very similar work on your own before, and now you happen to have stumbled upon a similar assignment. Why exactly would reusing your previous work be unethical?
If the university has such overlapping courses and lets you take them, why should the student be punished for optimising his time/resources?

Notice that the concept of self-plagiarism across different university courses is quite country and, possibly, institution dependent. For instance, at my institution, there's no policy against this kind of self-plagiarism, and it's up to the professor to decide their own policies. So, I suggest you to specify which country you are interested in.

@MassimoOrtolano: I'd like to add "field-dependent", as well. In applied CS, I definitely see it as a good thing if a student recognizes they can repurpose or extend something they previously wrote for a new assignment. I do not know whether the same would be true for other fields.

Could OP please clarify whether both assignment topics are set exclusively by teachers, or the student has some choice in the topic (especially for the second assignment)?

I suggest to make the title less opinionated.

The main reason behind banning self-plagiarism is the implication that any research you publish/hand-in is not only original but also new. Whether the second part is indeed implied is dependent on the context. However in a scientific paper it might be very relevant for the reader to know where and when something was first published. For a professor, it might be very relevant to know that parts of an assignment were already written, so the student didn't learn anything new from writing that part.
Given that it can be relevant, I'd suggest a "better safe than sorry" approach here. Also: if the work can stand on the merits of only the new work, why not cite? If it can't, why rely on adding previous work without citing it?

The reason - at least at our institution - is that you cannot earn points twice for the same work. Imagine an extreme case in which you take three courses, all of which require writing an essay. The idea (and that's what's in the approved curriculum) is of course that by the time you graduate, you have shown to write essays on three different topics. If you manage to "trick" the system by finding a topic that is at the intersection of all three courses so that you handed it in three times, then you obviously have done only a third of what was expected (and thus have less experience in essay writing than the diploma you get suggests).
Of course, there are less extreme cases, but the same reasonig also extends to, say, copying half an assignment. Obviously, I am not talking about trivial things (like using occasionally the same sentence) here - that's quite unavoidable.

This is specific to coursework, not journal publications. Atleast part of the credit for any assignment is for the efforts and/or time put in. In a pedagogical context, the output is not as important as the process and  what the student learns by following the process.
I should also mention that optimizing time/resources is not something that overrides learning effort, atleast for a student.

"the output is not as important as the process and what the student learns by following the process and what the student learns by following the process" - agreed, but as far as I understand the OP's question, the student has followed the process. The question is whether it makes sense to force the student to follow the very same process a second time, and thus without learning anything new.

That's a fair interpretation, if the assignment is specified and happens to be the same as a previous one. I interpreted it as a student choosing an assignment topic (like a term paper for instance) such that it overlaps with some previous work.

Ooh, indeed; choosing one's own topic is a completely different question (that is, one where I'd have to make up my opinion independently of what I've said here in various comments). I agree that this is problematic, though I'd argue the issue in that case is not so much reusing of previously existing work/results, but rather the very action of deliberately picking a topic to make this verbatim reuse possible (as opposed to, say, building upon previous results).

Good point, asking OP to clarify the case that they specifically refer to here.


text:
What do you do when your best friend cheats and has become top 10 in class of 250?
My very best friend cheats, not just looking over her shoulder for two answers, I mean full out cheats - raising each grade from what would be a D to an A. I feel very guilty for doing something wrong, so I can not cheat.
I have a rank 35 in the school (I have only made 3 B's in 4 years of school). Most students above that cheat constantly. She takes mostly AP classes and I do too, but I am getting very frustrated that she and others look very intelligent when they cheat on the whole test before hand. My friend always brags about how she will be awarded a very prestigious award for her grades in Calculus, but my friend just told me she cheats on all the tests. Just recently she got a list of all the answers for a test and just bubbled each in knowing nothing. She will be awarded with many awards she does not deserve. I just don't think it is fair considering colleges look at rankings.
I don't want to lose my friendship with a really close friend, but I can't let this stand. I have tried warning her it was a bad idea. She wants to be a medical doctor and I feel like its important now for her to not cheat. People say that bad things will happen in the future because of what she does now, but I honestly believe she will continue to cheat without consequences.
Side-note: Another friend said, "Why would it matter if she cheats, that isn't affecting you." I just feel like it is affecting me when rank is what colleges look at.
What should I do?

I don't want to sound too harsh, but really, in my experience, a student who is able to get away with cheating so many times is a sign of badly designed tests or of lack of control by the professor.

Adding to what @MassimoOrtolano said: If your observation that ”most students above that cheat constantly” is correct, something is wroung about the whole system, but maybe this is something you should not address alone.

You can either a) just accept it and look past it b) cease being friends with her c) bring it to a faculty member. C will most likely become a huge deal and could lead to a lot of stuff you can't anticipate, and will also probably lead to (b). Those really are the only options available, unfortunately.

This is certainly a difficult situation, but unfortunately questions about high school are off topic here (we focus on postgraduate level and above), and the environments are different enough that I don't think answers are likely to transfer.

Could you approach a faculty member and say something very general, such as. "I'm concerned about how easy it is to cheat. All I would have to do is X."

@JeremyMiles I +1 this idea. Reasonable teachers should understand that you are 1) not the one cheating, and 2) not willing to betray anybody. However, it can improve the system in the future.

@NateEldredge isn't this question applicable to higher education?

@NateEldredge I also believe (with Bitwise) that this is applicable to higher ed. While our students do not 'bubble in' the issue of cheating still very much exists.

@Bitwise: Well, as it pertains to undergraduate students it would still be off topic. I suspect this is a much less common issue at the graduate level (as coursework is less emphasized) though it is possible. However, I think any advice offered for a grad student would be unlikely to be helpful for the very different situation of a high school student.

Maybe your friend should read this: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30539/i-got-caught-cheating-in-an-engineering-exam-my-life-is-almost-over

@naughtyjojo a true student though would tell, as the misbehavior of unscrupulous students devalues the achievements of the students that don't cheat, and results in regulations that restrict all students, not just the cheats.  A true friend might not tell, but they would try and stop them from cheating an potentially risking the severe consequences that can go with being caught.

I don't know about "never".  If being friends with someone implies that they should allow you to be as antisocial as you please, then that does not seem to me to be a very satisfactory definition of friendship.

Get new friends.

Some valuable thoughts in http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20648/how-to-handle-someone-propositioning-me-to-collude-cheat-with-them-on-an-assignm

You say that several students are cheating. This is actually good in the sense that you maybe can avoid specifically naming your friend.
One option is to contact a relevant faculty member (ideally one that you know and trust) and say that you know that several of the top graders are cheating. A second option is to do this anonymously.
The advantage of doing this anonymously is obviously that people will not know that you reported this. The disadvantage is that it may be less credible.
BTW your friend is completely incorrect. It definitely does affect you, since the ranking and the prizes can affect your future career. If she can't understand that, then she perhaps isn't such a good friend.

I find it unlikely that somebody would want to take credit as "the person who ratted the cheaters out" especially when the cheaters are your friends. So the disadvantages of anonymously submitting a complaint are not that bad.

@Alizter what I meant was that if one reports anonymously, it might not be taken seriously by the faculty member.

The whole situation is totally translatable to reporting plagiarism & misconduct among faculty members. In my experience "if one reports anonymously, it might not be taken seriously' is exactly what happens, for a number of reasons. Mainly because it is just easier to ignore anonymous complaints than acknowledge a system flaw.

I strongly recommend you take action in order to end your friend's cheating ASAP, either by convincing her (first thing, obviously) or letting the professors know. You can do that anonymously, the professor will have to catch your friend in the act anyway so the credibility issue should not be too much of a concern.
Why? Well, just because you friend wants to be a medical doctor. Habits die hard, thus she is more than likely to cheat her way through medical school, and then real problems will arise. Patients treated by doctors who do not have the right credentials will suffer, some may die. Think about them, their loved ones. Makes sense?!

None of this is theoretical.  Watch this American Greed episode about a dishonest cancer doctor who faked positive test results. He disfigured people who did not need treatment.  All for a little more money. What if someone -- say, a former friend -- could have gone back in a time machine and stopped that one person from their life of crime?

It is far better for your friend and classmates to learn the consequences of cheating now before the consequences become more severe.  Cheating in college often becomes part of a student's permanent academic record.  Cheating on a job often results in employees getting fired with loss of income and increased difficulty finding a job.Definitely report it, anonymously if you prefer.  Share everything you know including methods, frequency and duration.  You don't have to tell your friend that you are reporting it, but she may figure it out.  Include the names of the students who you know are cheating.  This will make it much easier for the teachers and administration to correct the situation.  Let the teachers decide what to do.  Realize as a former teacher myself, I occasionally suspected cheating but did not have enough evidence to do administer consequences.

When cheating is reported to me by students, it's often the case that I can't prove that a particular student cheated, but I typically can take steps to stop that particular method of cheating.  I appreciate it when students make me aware of these situations.

I agree with the general point of your answer, but totally disagree with "Include the names of the students who you know are cheating". As you stated yourself, they may figure out. And then the OPs life would be hell. The system is flawed, a general notice will help to fix them, without any names. On the other hand, if they are unwilling to fix their system, all they will do is punish the students you reported.

Do not let this get back at you.
One of the first things to do is: protect yourself.
In an ideal world, you report the cheaters, they get punished and life goes on.
I've seen that situation happen. But we don't live in an ideal world, what happened was that the cheaters didn't have any other consequences other then a: "guys we heard that", and the girl who reported them had a real shitty 2 years, because the cheaters weren't so forgiving to the "rat".
So: I'd argue that the best thing is to look after your own interests first. If there's a way to get it of your mind without getting identified, go for that.