text:
Would I get into trouble if I give out "too many" A grades?
In the next semester, I will be teaching for the first time
a seminar course which is composed of about 25 students.
I am not sure how to respond to prospective students
who have asked me about the grade distribution of the course.
For courses with large enrollments,
I have the impression from my colleagues
that I have to follow the "typical grade distribution" at my university,
which is something like 25% As, 50% Bs, 20% Cs,
and some Ds and Fs if the students really did poorly.
However, for the new course that I am teaching,
I am wondering if I will be given more leeway in the grade distribution
because the course has a small enrollment.
I would like to give grades based on the students' performance.

So if many of the students perform well,
I would like to give 90% or even 100% of the students
A grades (A-, A and A+).
Conversely, if most of the students perform poorly,
I would like to be able to give a low proportion of A grades.

Every semester,
a committee made up of members of my department
which will meet to discuss the grade distributions
of each and every course offered by our department.
I am hesitant to recommend grades that deviate too far from
the "typical grade distribution" at my university
because I am afraid of receiving pushback from the committee members.
Questions:

Should I fight for the freedom
to assign grades according to my academic judgment,
without necessarily following
the "typical grade distribution" at my university?
Is this a fight that I could win, and if so,
how do I go about winning it?

Update
I had forgotten to include an important and relevant piece of information.
The goal of the course is to teach students
how to analyze and present business case studies.
Consequently, by its nature,
the evaluation of the students' performance in the course
will tend to be more subjective,
rather than objective (as it would be for a course on say, calculus).
The grading of the course is based purely on continuous assessment;
we do not have a final exam for the course.
(Given that the purpose of the course is
to develop students' presentation skills,
a written examination does not seem to be
the right way to assess students' learning.)

If students ask about grade distributions in advance of a course, that points to a very unhealthy attitude towards this at the department level. Grade distributions are something that happen on their own, not something that are determined in advance. For large enough courses, one can assume that the student population approaches something like a representative sample and adjust grades accordingly based on exam performance (to adjust for the possibility of the exam being too hard or too easy), but for smaller courses this would be absurd.

The purpose of an exam is to separate "good" from "bad" students: this does not work if the exam is too easy or too difficult. Statistically, this does give you more leeway if groups are smaller, but 25 is not THAT small. All A's does not sound right. For what my opinion/experience is worth: instead of grading exams lower the best solution in that case is to ask more challenging questions. It is unlikely you will get into trouble for handing out lots of A's once, but if it happens often you may have to review your course (learning goals, teaching, exam, everything).

We all dream of that wonderful class of brilliant people that get A's. Reality, however, is rarely if ever a dream, and you shouldn't force it into existence just to try to live it. That said...What, precisely, do you mean by "seminar course"?  Have you talked with other professors who have run such a course to discuss how they approached grading it? I've known graduate special topics courses which were basically "B=attend class" and "A=do homework", because most of the people taking the course were not expected to engage with it deeply.

@louic "The purpose of an exam is to separate "good" from "bad" students." No it isn't. The purpose of an exam is for the student to show that he/she has successfully learnt the class material.

@orlp. I disagree, as do many others. An good exam tests intelligence, insight, and the ability to apply the theory a student has learned. A university is not a school.

There is no one set "purpose of an exam".  Personally I find the "separate good from bad students" purpose distasteful.  It promotes unhealthy competition.  Most likely your exam is not actually a valid instrument for making that distinction (how many good students will be identified as bad and bad students identified as good).  It promotes stress - I have to cram for the exam b/c being identified as a bad student is a bad thing.

However, having said that "separate good from bad students" purpose distasteful if that is the purpose your department has chosen, then you have to do it b/c it is your job and your department has probably decided a priori how many bad students there are and you should meet your failure quota.

@emory: the purpose is not competition. The purpose is good exam design. If everybody passes or everybody fails you are not measuring anything, it just indicates that the level of your course is too high or too low. The "separation" I talk about is from this point of view. A well-designed exam that tests more than the ability to reproduce course materials DOES separate "good" from "bad" students, whether that is your goal or not.

@Iouic "the purpose is good exam design" is tautological.  Of course, the exam should be designed well.  Anyone who says the exam should be designed poorly is clearly wrong.  It is not obvious what the exam should measure or what the level of a course means.

@emory Let me spell that out for you: the purpose of having certain recommendations for grade distributions is good exam design.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

You don't give grades - students earn them.  That said, grading something subjectively vs. objectively is much harder - I find that it makes my life easier if I develop a rubric and just check things off as a student presents.  I'll usually split the points between covering what was assigned, their presentation, and the documentation they submit to go wtih it all.

A grade of 'A' does not mean 'in the top 5% of students', that will come from their overall GPA.  A grade of 'A' should mean "mastered the material".  The only reason you should curve an exam would be because your questions were asking for above and beyond what would be considered 'mastering' the material.  If you ask me, too much curving indicates a bad professor (or a particular personality that asks much of the students).

I hope none of your colleagues adjusts their grades to achieve a certain distribution. I can't remember how many times our professors told us not to be afraid to help others, because "there is no rule that 1/3 of the students have to fail the exam" - this just happened to the typical fail rate in first year exams (taken by 100-400 students).

Surely the right thing to do here is ask the body that you're working for ... they might have their own idea.

It shouldn't assuming these are warranted, however, some places tend to have their own "policy". So too many good grades means that an external examiner may be called in which can lead to people being marked down. (Grades have to fulfil political targets "there".) - The other extremes is management wanting people to pass because students are seen as a source of income only with little attention to teaching quality... In an ideal world, you should give out honest grades, but reality isn't ideal...

@louic a university is a school.

You won't get into trouble if all your students earn grades of A.  It has always been my hope that I'd have a class with all A grades, or even all A and B grades.  It has never happened.
If you "give out" all grades of A, someone, perhaps your department chair or the committee you mention, is going to ask you to explain yourself.
Your course (presumably) has a set of learning outcomes.  You should assess your students against those learning outcomes, at a level of difficulty suitable to the students' standing, e.g. a greater level of difficulty for seniors than for freshmen.  When you've done that, the grades will take care of themselves, and if everyone earns an A, you've done an outstanding job with the course!
Edit: based on the update to the question:  For the purpose of providing useful formative feedback, you need to assign a grade to each piece of work you assess.  Doing so has the added benefit of covering your posterior.  Such grades should be assigned according to a rubric that the students have seen before beginning work.  There is a brief example of developing such a rubric here.
Even in a course such as you describe, grades can be assigned granularly and with objectivity.  If you've done that, your students will thank you and your defense when questioned by chair or committee is that the students got the grades they earned and earned the grades they got.

If a class does get all As, you will most likely be asked to defend yourself on why. While grade distribution may not be enforced (learning outcome should be best measurement), it is often used as a soft measurement to make sure teachers aren't too easy or that the content of the class is    in-depth enough.

"It has always been my hope that I'd have a class with all A grades, or even all A and B grades." Teach graduate classes.  Seriously.

I suppose technically only the higher-ups at the OP's department and/or university can promise that they won't get into trouble for giving out all A's. I could imagine a department having a policy that prohibits this, even though it would not be a very smart policy.

I am aware of one case where all students actually all got A grades and there was a long discussion with the examination office until they where finally accepted. So yes, you probably will have to explain yourself!

@PeteL.Clark  I know.  Sadly, I didn't get to do very much of that.

There are three reasons your students are all getting straight A's:

Your testing methods are not good enough and just about everyone can get an A, even if they didn't study or know the material well enough.
You are just that good of a teacher.
You have many, many brilliant students.

The first reason is the only one that could get you in trouble. The others are not a concern. You might be asked about it and asked for proof that the methods were adequate, and you should be prepared to present them.
Just keep note of what was given in class and what was given as homework. The exams should be a good indicator of whether it was easy or not to someone who is remotely relevant to the course.

This is a good answer.  But I would modify 3. as follows: 3'. The generally agreed upon standard of student performance for an A grade is set at a place that the majority of students taking the course will achieve. This is not the same as having "brilliant students" unless your definition of brilliant is getting an A in this course.  I have encountered university  courses for which most of the students get an A.  This is not so common in STEM fields, but in some other fields / some other specific courses, it does happen.

@PeteL.Clark Grade inflation was so bad even 15 years ago at my conservative university that one STEM course I set the threshold for an A at 75% so the professor could keep grading standards high but not sink all of the scholarship students taking a difficult major.

A fourth reason plausible is that the class material is just that simple.

@liori That's just a less flattering rephrasing of "You have many, many brilliant students".

@PeteL.Clark Doesn't that just mean he set the bar too low or in chrylis' case low enough that people didn't lose scholarships?

@JohnHamilton: Low enough?  Yes, exactly.  Too low?  Not necessarily, and by the way, how low is "too low" is very subjective and context-dependent.

@MateenUlhaq, I don't think so. "many bright students" can change due to demographics (e.g. next year the class becomes less popular and bright students go elsewhere—something the faculty can't control). "material is simple" suggests something the faculty can control: curriculum can be changed, regardless of popularity of the class. The mechanics of the cause are different, even if their observable result might be similar.

Should I fight for the freedom to assign grades according to my
  academic judgment, without necessarily following the "typical grade
  distribution" at my university?
Is this a fight that I could win, and if so, how do I go about winning
  it?

I'm approaching this question a bit differently, instead of pedagogy let's talk about office politics. I'd humbly suggest fine-tuning this mentality to steer away from being adversary. It's indeed true that most of us found these committees rubber-stamping and paper-pushing, some of them do work as a good quality control and even resources of advice.

However, for the new course that I am teaching, I am wondering if I
  will be given more leeway in the grade distribution because the course
  has a small enrollment. I would like to give grades based on the
  students' performance.

This is the main reason I suggested you to work with the committee. We can't decide if you can have the leeway, they can. I'm not sure what's the office climate is at your place, but generally, I'd suggest:

Prepare your syllabus that has a fully developed assessment scheme. If this is the first time, it's better to have more assessments each with a lower contribution to the final grade. They'd provide more occasions to adjust your question/grading style and opportunities for students to get your style and better understand your requirements.
Schedule a meeting with the chair of that committee, present the scheme. Ask for feedback and express concern about possible fluctuation in grades compared to the historic record; the chair may give you some expected range of change which would be useful. Listen to the chair's advice and concern. Try to reach a conclusion.
After the meeting, send an e-mail follow up to summarize the decision, attach the scheme (or revised scheme.) Save this e-mail.
When class starts, let students know of the expectations required in order to excel. Grading policy and rubrics may be useful to share at this point.
Teach and assign grades. If anything seems awfully off, talk to the dean and/or the chair of the said committee.

From a quick glance through, I don't think any of the answers point out the following:
Grade distributions tend to vary a lot from course to course.
If you're being told about grade distributions from say large introductory courses, the point of this so you can see if you're giving grades in a way seems to be consistent with other classes.  (Note grade distributions can vary quite a bit for different large classes, or even the same class in different semesters---e.g., students tend to do better in a Fall Calc I than a Spring Calc I at my school, for a few obvious reasons.)
If you're not being told about grade distributions for the kinds of classes you're teaching, then that likely means there are no set expectations for what kind of grades you should give out.  Note the population of smaller, advanced classes is quite different than that for large introductory classes, which means that such classes tend to have quite different grade distributions.  Also, when the grade distribution is a statistically much smaller sample, one-off grade distributions can't be used to conclude too much.
That said, I agree with Bob Brown's answer completely.

It probably depends on your department policy; however if there was indeed one that made you give away certain percentages of each grade it would be unfair to the students. A person should be assessed on the basis of that person's performance and the grade should not be dependent on external circumstances of other people's performance (unless we are talking about group projects). As others have pointed out, grades distribution should occur naturally. If you feel that you've given too many good grades that may indicate that your course is too easy and you should maybe consider increasing the difficulty next year.
In the beginning of courses that I teach I usually tell my students that they will earn points (homeworks and exams are the basis for scoring) and their grade will be based on the total number of points. In my country there are three passing grades and one failing and I communicate the thresholds that are connected with each grade (if one scores < 50% of points - that person fails the class; the other thresholds are set at 75% and 90%). I depart from the practice of not taking group performance into account when there are many failing grades - in that case that may mean that the course was too difficult and thresholds may lowered (that possibility is also communicated to the students at the beginning; however it makes me wonder if it doesn't affect student's discipline negatively). I would never raise them though if I gave away many highest grades - I would be happy if that once happened and attribute that to my exceptional teaching performance.
As for the case of getting into trouble after giving away too good degrees - that may, again, depend on your institution policy, but as my experiences go, I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for that. I have known a number of lecturers that are in fact known to never fail a student and nobody is making problem with that. It's the other way around - one of colleagues had a talk with dean after he failed his whole class. If you are afraid of pushback from the faculty you may consider asking more senior and experienced members on the issue as well.

Glad someone brought up departmental policy - it really does vary. At my Uni some faculties enforce grading according to a distribution, while others do not.

Is this a fight that I could win, and if so, how do I go about winning it?
This is a fight you could lose. See the example of
Denis Rancourt who was suspended for giving A's to every student in his physics class.
Should I fight for the freedom to assign grades according to my academic judgment, without necessarily following the "typical grade distribution" at my university?
I would want to make sure my faculty association would support me. Is this something you have at your institution? I recommend checking in with them. In general, I definitely support "assigning grades according to (your) academic judgment". The bell curve simply cannot show up in each and every class, and forcing or coercing faculty to push every class under that curve is a mistake.
As a point of personal experience: I remember being told (as a graduate teaching assistant) that I was required to fail at least 40% of my college algebra class, or I would not be allowed to teach it again. That turned out to be hyperbole, as I only failed 20% and went about my business otherwise.
100% A's, on the other hand? I am positive I would have had a "talking to".

The main concern here as I see it is:

typical grade distribution

This requires further explanation as to how the "standard" is set up. There are several scenarios that can exist.
Fixed material: For example, if you are teaching specific course with specific requirements like Calculus I for example and at the end of your course 100% of students are able to show that they learned 90-100% How can you give some one a C? Your only option in making such course more difficult is by including content from Calculus II. This is exact area, you don't have to "fight" it, just present it as self evident fact that can be proven by looking at results of Exam papers.
Flexible material: This is for courses like Literature, Sociology, Politics, certain Core/Intro courses. (Although even these courses often have fixed departmental boundaries) However, here if all your students get A's that could mean two things. Either they were all smart, or you've made your course too easy by not including enough/complex materials. This is a grey area. If I'm the chairman and also a professor in the same department. And my students get much worse grades than yours, (or to put it in ego's words I'm a bad professor and you're a better one) I could just present it as a "fact" that you're being too lenient and too easy on your students. But here too, Exam papers are your proof of understood knowledge.
Whichever the scenario may be, make sure you conform to the pre-approved curriculum/syllabus and your Exams reflect that the students have actually grasped the materials you've set to cover. I would then ignore this "typical grade distribution" system and play it dumb asking (whoever challenges you) for advice on how to make things more "challenging".
Bottom line is, there is only so much material one can present in any given course - time being the limiting factor. There are some good professors/teachers and some bad. I've had both kinds, and everything in between. It's easy to tell which is which. The better the professor the less time students have to research the course-related information looking for answers elsewhere.

I would think this depends on what sort of institution you're at. There's a lot of variation. Once as a graduate teaching assistant, I was told that the several TAs leading discussion sections under one lecturer would be largely independent of each other, but that "If everyone in your section gets an 'A', there will be a row." This was not a serious possibility, unless it was.
Once a student newspaper and then a local regular newspaper published an article about a student threatening a lawsuit because she got an "A" where she deserved an "F". She was sure the grade was intended as a bribe to stop her from complaining about the professor. Early in the term she complained about lack of sufficient feedback on her performance. Then she dropped the course. But she didn't officially drop it because that was too much hassle; she was still registered. The professor decided everyone except one weak student should get an "A" and that one should get a "B". So he located that student's name on the list and wrote "B" and then entered "A" after all the other names, without looking at them. This student had fallen off his radar by not being there. After the matter got public attention, the department head intervened and changed the grade to an "F".
Three times I taught a course for (about a dozen) engineering graduate students in the joint program of MIT and WHOI, where I gave some feedback on homework but no scores on homework and no quizzes or exams and at the end certified that everyone passed. This wouldn't work at a community college nor even at a fairly well respected flagship state university.

Have previous test(s) results as a proof of fairness of your grading
First-hand experience: I went to a very selective college, they intentionally do not use "gaussian grading" on the behalf (which I fully share) that, since they are preparing students for the outside world/for higher academical achievements, it is not fair for individual scores to be influenced by how "good" the other classmates are, since a "class", for how big it may be, it is just not a representative sample of all the students in the field.
In a course full of talented students it is fair that there will be a lot of "A", in a less gifted/less previously prepared class it is absolutely ok that most of them will have positive but not so great grades.
In a course that I followed the group was less than excellent, as a result the negative results on finals (we have no mid-semester assignements or whatsoever) were over 70% of the total.
When challenged by a few students the professor simply showed to the board that the exams were really similar to those from past years, the material provided the same and the only real difference was, well, in the results.
End of the thing.
What you need to do, if challenged, is the exact same thing (albeit with opposite data). This way you will show that you simply encountered a very good group of students and are giving them the high scores they deserve.
There is no point in lowering grades of very good students because they happened to be in the company of other great individuals, and the opposite applies too.
It leads to questions like "Yes, X has good grades, but was he a good student or just happened that the other ~40 people he was in class with were just not that brilliant?"
EDIT: I feel adding my comment to another answer as part of this answer.
In my graduating group there was an abnormally large amount of great students who went on to purse phds or got into great companies, both with excellent results. There were a LOT of top marks in a lot of tests. It would have been very unfair if tests were made harder to have the grades fit a gaussian and thus have way less excellent students who happened to be in other "less gifted" groups get higher grades and get ahead of them when competing for doc.s, positions in r&d etc. The assumption that a group of ~50 people should fit the general normal distribution for whole field is a HUGE one

As a student in Germany, I learned that professors seem to try to adapt grades in classes to the Normal distribution, So that "average" students are in the center and the rest move along with them.
The problem hits when trying to apply this to different classes and you got a very good one, a "normal" one and a bad one. now the curve is normal among these classes but not the good or the bad class. But is it good to change teaching in the good or bad classes to get the normal distribution inside of these? That's what most teachers tried to do during my time in school.
But I think it's just a thing of mileage, by getting older and having taught for a long time, it's easier to get it right. I don't think you can hit it in the beginning. Your best bet is to ask the students from time to time if it's good or not.

Actually, during my time working in Germany I was expressly encouraged not to adopt such a style, but instead find a minimum passing grade and an appropriate single "delta" for the transitions to the higher grade levels. That way there's minimal "I deserve a higher grade" ranting after the exam grades are posted.

That's how it should be, but I got a lot of old and new teachers that tried to get this curve.

I had an incredible professor in college. He told us that, by definition, most people are average, and a C is by definition an average grade. That's how he would grade on a curve.
He expected to see a distribution like this:
 F       D      C      B      A
0-10%  0-10%  50-75%  5-10%  0-5%

If he saw too many A's he felt like he needed to increase the difficulty of the tests.
If he saw too many D's and F's then he needed to decrease the difficulty of the tests.
It was kind of interesting - there were a few of us who were paying for an education. We worked hard, studied, and got A's and B's on the tests, and I suspect we actually learned, compared to other students in the class.
He also ensured that there were extra credit opportunities - worth a full letter grade in the class.
And he also encouraged us to come by during office hours pre-tests to make sure that we had prepared enough, and he would happily help us improve where we lacked.

That contrasts with the "cheerleader stats" course that I took, where we could bring a full 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, one side totally full of notes to the test (coupled with my insane courseload that particular semester)... I got an A in that class, too, but not because I actually learned anything. I actually feel bad about that class because there were a lot of interesting things that I know I missed out on.

All of your students have different motivations for attending your class. Some want to be there because they want to learn. For others, they're just doing it because that was the next thing to do after high school, and do we really have to come to class every time? Uuuugh!
Decide what kind of teacher you want to be, and then tailor your tests and curriculum around that.

He might have been a great teacher, but his grading policy is nonsense. There is no reason to expect a normal distribution of student performance, nor a distribution with a slight skew toward better performance. The grades should be calibrated towards the learning goals, not toward some theoretical distribution.

Well, as a philosophy professor, I think he had a philosophy that most students were interested in getting the maximum grade for the minimum effort, and he wasn't interested in teaching them. Though I could be wrong about that :)

In my graduating group there was an abnormally large amount of great students who went on to purse phds or got into great companies, both with excellent results. There were a LOT of top marks in a lot of tests. It would have been very unfair if tests were made harder to have the grades fit a gaussian and thus have way less excellent students who happened to be in other "less gifted" groups get higher grades and get ahead of them when competing for doc.s, positions in r&d etc. The assumption that a group of ~50 people should fit the general normal distribution for whole field is a HUGE one.

It is certainly not true that by definition, most people are average.

What exactly is "extra credit"? There are certain opportunities provided for students to do things that will improve their grades in a course. What is the effect of calling some of those opportunities "extra"?

It depends on how "trouble" is defined.
If you are tenure track but pre-tenure, consistently giving out a very high percentage of A's might cause trouble for you that you never saw coming. A senior faculty member once told me that the problem with giving too many A's is that, when I go up for review, my reviewers will think my classes are "fluff". It is natural to think we need good teaching evaluations, but I get the sense that departments want good teaching evaluations together with evidence that you are challenging your students and holding them to the high standards of your institution (as well as being an effective teacher and other things...). Perhaps unfortunately, grades might be used as such evidence (despite how arbitrary the grades may actually be!)
This answer is not advocating giving artificial low grades, but rather highlighting a potential pitfall of designing courses in such a way that most students will get an A.


text:
Course assessment for programming courses
Next year,
I will be teaching a course that has a significant programming component.
While I have taught other courses before,
it will be my first time teaching a programming course.
Consequently, I was wondering:
what is a typical design of the course assessment for a programming course,
e.g., intro to Java/Python programming?
In particular, how many assessment tasks are there, and how are they weighted?
The assessment tasks that I have in mind would include
individual assignments, group projects,
and individual assessment (quizzes or a final exam).
Are there other assessment tasks that are typically present in a programming course?
(I have taken a few programming courses in the past---unfortunately that was more than 10 years ago so,
so my memory of my classes is quite hazy at this point.)
Response to comment: ask your colleagues who have taught similar courses
Unfortunately,
my department is focused on an academic discipline where programming is not central,
thus, most of the courses in my department do not involve any programming at all.
Also, the course that I will be teaching is a new course
that I am in the process of developing,
thus I have a lot of freedom about deciding how to design the course assessment.
Nevertheless,
Nate Eldredge's suggestion is helpful in that I can ask the one or two colleagues in my department
who are teaching programming courses (different contexts, different languages)
how they assess students.

This can very easily be very region-specific, so it might be a good idea to include your region. If you want to get answers from different regions, it might be worth mentioning that in the question.

I would start by asking your colleagues who have taught classes like this, to get a sense of what is common practice at your institution.  You can read their syllabi.

@NateEldredge That's a good suggestion. See my response in the edited question.

You can also ask colleagues in other departments.

It is the content of the assessments that matters, not the number and weighting.

And you can look on the web, and you can choose a textbook.  If you find a textbook you're comfortable with, you can use that as your primary structure.

As a background, I have a BSc in Applied Informatics in Physics, and I have followed many programming courses in C, C++, Java, UML & Design Patterns, Matlab & Simulink, Xilinx, etc. Usually at my institution the final grade is composed by the following sum: 40% final exam(which can be also practically some problems in 3 hours, or more theoretically on paper), 30% individual project, 30% group project. The individual homework have a deadline to be proposed, usually at the half of the corresponding semester. Concerning the group project, I have to say that this is the most problematic. Many times I had to do almost the core of the project of it by myself, since the other members were not so focused. Hence, the bigger the group, the bigger the problems within the group. But I have to say that there were some group projects which turned to be a very collaborative, and this highly depends on the group members and their motivation. Concerning the curricula, the best would be to adapt it on their background. For example, it would be easier for them to follow a course in Java if they have already a strong background in OOP(C++/C#). Either way, from my point of view the only weakness in our faculty programming courses is that the transition from academic usage to industry is not very well performed. In particular, we haven't had many courses where the basic frameworks in different programming languages were presented and studied practiacally. Of course, that would require a lot of time, but the knowledge gained by the students increase very much and helps them adapt immediately to industry.

Yeah I've usually been in about this ballpark myself.  I usually save 10% for "class participation" or something of that ilk.

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text:
For what reasons might a full professor lose tenure?
Recently, a full professor at my university lost their tenure and had their employment with the university terminated. I have never heard of a tenured faculty member "being fired" before. I am not sure why this happened or what the former professor did that resulted in this outcome.
I know that assistant professors can be denied tenure for poor performance. But for what reasons might a full professor (or an associate professor) lose tenure?
(In this question I use US-centric academic ranks. An assistant professor is tenure-track, an associate professor is tenured, and a full professor is tenured with a slight increase in pay/benefits/responsibilities.)

Given your final note, I've added the US tag because it's probably not possible to give a general answer (in some countries revoke of tenure may be subjected to local laws).

You use US-centric position names, sure. But is your question entirely about the US? Exactly what "tenure" means surely differs from country to country; some places, such as the UK, have no concept of tenure at all. If you're asking about the whole world, this is surely too broad.

Just for accuracy, you can be associate without tenure, but the requirements for tenure as associate are different (harder), so people usually get tenured then bumped to associate in one swoop.

There are US universities, like Harvard, where full professors do not or not always have tenure.

In my discipline, an example would be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Verd%C3%BA

The details are likely institution (and or state) specific.
From the University of New Mexico Faculty Handbook one sees that the options there are:

"Adequate Cause", including academic incompetence, neglect of duty, serious violation of policy, serious crime, loss of license (medical), or other serious deficiency.
Financial emergency - that is, the university runs out of money to pay them.
Termination of the program/department.
Health reasons (permanent disability with no reasonable accommodation possible).

Note that financial emergency isn't a true dismissal, but a furlough. The university has to hire back furloughed faculty before anybody else. This is true in most places, and is also affected by collective bargaining agreements (unions).

@user71659 - For sure, but if a college shuts down (perhaps unlikely for a state school) there is not chance to be rehired.

It's an important protection to prevent the case where they want to fire somebody, so the Dean withholds 1 FTE's worth of money to the department, and oops, financial emergency.

Is seducing the students included in point 1?

@RedSonja - one would have to carefully check the wording throughout the faculty handbook, and likely see if there are any examples at the institution. Likely the use "serious" rather than a long list to allow for  judgement (good or bad) in a process.

@user71659 In the case of the quoted school that's limited to a two year period for that exact position. If - as is common with financial trouble - multiple places get assimilated into one that wouldn't even apply. So yes, it is true dismissal, just one where conditions apply.

@JonCuster Public schools are more susceptible to financial emergencies and department closures because their budget is allocated year-to-year from taxes, and is essentially dependent on the economy. Private schools won't see a major drop in operating funds unless enrollment significantly drops, besides the large endowments they sit on.

@user71659 - I think you over estimate how big of an endowment many small liberal arts colleges have. The Ivies may have billions, but many have much less than that. You might consider the drama (and lawsuits) at Sweet Briar College (endowment of around $74M) over the last few years. And, big state universities get a surprisingly small amount of support from the state (UC Berkeley is somewhere around 15% of the budget is from the state).

@JonCuster The problem with your observation of Berkeley is that budget dollars are not interchangeable. Faculty's 9-month salaries, and accompanying overhead, must come from tuition and fees, which is fundamentally State funds. A professor cannot support their own position on grant money outside summer. On top of that auxiliary slice is off limits, as are big chunks like medical center services. Also in the UC System, all overhead goes directly into the state's general fund then are apportioned by legislature, so it is subject to political factors, including unequal returns to campuses.

@user71659 - Note that tuition and fees are not allocated by the state.

@user71659 - but we are straying far from the original intent of my answer. If the university is broke, it shuts down and doesn't pay anyone anymore.

@JonCuster Not in the UC System, as in most public schools. The legislature says you have x resident enrollment and $y state funds to do that with. The difference between resident tuition and non-resident tuition is the effective taxpayer subsidy ($29k in UC right now).

Even tenured professors are required to adhere to a certain level of standards. They are given academic freedoms, but not complete freedoms.
Committing a felony could in many cases lead to your dismissal, regardless of if you have tenure or not. Rape, murder, sexual assault, multiple DUIs, etc. all could result in being fired (even if you have tenure).
Committing fraud with department/grant money would also likely lead to being dismissed.

I heard about a professor back in the 1990s that defrauded his postdocs out of money (he told them they had to deposit their wages into his account, and he will pay them, and in the process he cut himself some of the money). The university caught up to him at some point, and they told him that they will let him keep the money if he resigns quietly and never comes back. Or something like that. Not exactly getting fired, but close enough, and I guess a lot of headache saved for the department in terms of de-tenure process being skipped.

When a professor receives tenure, it means that s/he may not "let go" in order to  be replaced by the university by another individual, even if younger or "cheaper." Thus, a tenured professor may be terminated only for "standalone" reasons.

Financial reasons leading to the discontinuation of the professor's department or at least courses, without the possibility of the professor's reasonably being transferred to a new department or courses; one or more positions was eliminated and not replaced.
Violation of academic or legal standards against plagiarism, sexual harassment, drug use or commission of other civil crimes, usually felonies, such as fraud or assault. These are typically violations of university policy as well as civil law.
Possibly minor "violations" that go to the heart of the academic experience, such as repeatedly not showing up for class, and teaching far fewer hours than courses require.

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Is there maximum amount of salary for postdoc?
I'm a Ph.D. researcher at a company, and my company wants to send me to a laboratory for postdoc training.
In this case, is there maximum amount of salary for postdoc?
Of course my company will fund me for the postdoc position, but I realized that postdocs salary is around $50k in many cases.

And the lab is at Harvard.

Expected position is an actual postdoc, whose project is funded by my original company. For more information, it would be appreciated that you can explain in both cases, visiting researcher and actual postdoc.

If you care about money, don't do your PostDoc.

No, there is not a "maximum salary", in that as far as I know an employer can pay you as much as they like. But I don't think that's what you meant to ask. What do you actually want to know?

This seems either a misunderstanding or a bizarre situation. Many times that I've seen over the years staff members of companies are sent by the company to do a PhD or a post-doc somewhere else. They have always remained employees of that company, since the company generally wants them to come back with new skills and knowledge to use on the job. Terminating you to go do a post-doc at Harvard is definitely not a good way to be sure you come back. You should remain an employee of the company, with a salary commensurate with your current position.

In the United States there are no general regulations for such things. Salaries are determined by the people who fund them (with some room for negotiation in most cases). For post-docs funded by the government (federal or state) there will be regulations that must be followed, but for privately funded positions it is up to the funder.
On the other hand, Harvard, being a private institution, is free to impose its own regulations on research in its own labs, so you could check with Harvard to see if that is an issue. I doubt very much that such would be the case, however.
If your company is funding the research and funding you, then your company can, in theory, pay you whatever it wants. Of course, if you are earning more than the PI on the project there might be some resentment, but that would be a personal thing.

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Co-author refuses to share final manuscript or list of submissions
While completing my PhD, I was assisted by my advisor in writing three papers. Because he had to go on medical leave for a period, we have been slow in getting them submitted for publication. (He did not allow me to submit the papers myself. He insisted on controlling the submission). I am first author on each of these papers.
Now that my former advisor is back from his leave of absence, he has begun submitting the papers without my knowledge. (I emailed him to ask about plans for submission and he informed me that he had already submitted the papers a few weeks prior). He has refused to share the final manuscripts or a list of journals that he has submitted the papers to. He just tells me to wait until the papers are accepted, then he will contact me. From what I can determine, he has told the same thing to another co-author (who was also one of his PhD students).
I find this behavior to be not only odd, but moreover incredibly unprofessional. While I am still a young researcher, I am not a complete push-over. I believe it is completely reasonable to ask that I be included in the publication process.
One major issue that I worry about is the authorship order. When I became his PhD student, a few people warned me that he would try to creep his way up to being listed as the first author on the final publications. (I guess that he did something similar to a previous student: drag on the submission process until the student graduates, then secretly slide his way onto the publications as first author).
What steps can I take to ensure that I am given a more reasonable say in the publication of these papers?

Side note 1: My advisor was fired from his previous position (where he was my advisor). As such, our former university is not likely to be willing to do much about this. He now works as an assistant professor at a different school. Because he is almost 10 years into his career and still not tenured, he is becoming desperate to get some first author publications.
Side note 2: I am in a stable position currently and am not reliant on my advisor for anything. My career is not leveraged by him.

I would stop working with him - you have little to no chance of any control.

To be honest, unless you want to shoot down your own papers (assuming that you are still author), there is very little leverage you have. If he does not mention the publication outlets, you will have to wait until it's published and visible in the search engines and then contact the editors. If you are thus happy to go to war, you may also try contacting the new school. However, if your name is on the papers and they are not a complete mess (i.e. you are not averse to be associated with them), you best bet is probably to cut your losses, let them be published and get away from this person.

Are you sure everyone is appropriately listed as authors?

I forgot to ask: Why was he actually fired?

@CaptainEmacs He did not quite seem to understand that one has to actually get official approval to miss a year of work for health reasons. (He just moved to Florida and didn't tell the department he was going on leave). He also was insanely hard to get along with. Politics probably played a role in his firing. I do not think he was well liked. Professors with 25 years in the department do not enjoy being falsely accused of plagiarism by an assistant professor.

@Vladhagen Ah, this type of person. Anyway, do you trust him to keep your name on the publication?

@CaptainEmacs I do not trust him when it comes to authorship order. I already agreed (about a year ago) to some concessions on authorship order. Originally the deal was that my advisor would be 3rd author (me, co-author X, advisor) on these papers. He now has worked his way into an agreement where he and I are listed as co-first authors on one of the papers. I agreed to this just to get him to submit the papers (which still took him 10 more months).

@Vladhagen Assuming he keeps his promise, I think this is the best you can hope for, unless you are happy to fight him and have the papers go down in flames. If the papers are acceptable at all, you probably will find more important hills to die on in the future. Wrap up, and leave as soon as you can.

How is the professor getting copyright consent?

@PatriciaShanahan I think that once the papers are accepted, then at that point he will ask for copyright consent.

Not in Academia this may be a bad suggestion--why not complain to his current university? At least to get him to cough up where the articles were submitted and copies of what was submitted. Maybe ask his department chair.

@mkennedy OP seems to be his student; an action might work, but also may backfire, especially if this person has as "fluid ethics" as it appears from the story. If a peer, or already a postdoc stronger measures might be viable.

@CaptainEmacs I am a former student. I have already graduated (2 years ago). My former advisor does not have any career leverage over me at this point.

@Vladhagen Well, then it's up to you how strongly you want to press the point. It's clearly unethical and infuriating, but, as long as your name is on and the paper is not being grossly messed up, it might be sufficient to just let it go. Of course, sometimes people want to even out the roads for their successors. I guess this is an investment into the future of the community, at possible cost to the initiator. Only you can decide if that is what you want (e.g. via losing the authorship on the papers or having to fight a dirty battle with a colleague of questionable morals).

Yes, your advisor behaviour is unprofessional and certainly against the ethical policies of virtually any serious publisher. I'd contact the other coauthor and write a joint email along the following lines (modify according to your knowledge of the situation):

Dear X,
We are disappointed by your refusal to share the final versions of the
  manuscripts and the journals which they have been submitted to. Journal policies require all authors to approve a submission, and not
  only does your refusal go against such policies but it also undermines
  the trust that should exist among coauthors.
We kindly ask you to comply with our request. In case, we will take
  all the necessary steps to exercise our author's rights.
Best,
  Y and Z

If they still refuse, contact the ethical or disciplinary office of their university, if there is one, or the Head of Department.

Unless you are willing to make a formal complaint through the university or the journal, there is probably little you can do.
But don't work with this person in the future. That should be obvious.
If you are already clear of his influence and ability to sabotage you, then a formal complaint might be worth doing, but more for the benefit of future students. But if he still holds a thumb over your future, personal preservation might be the wise move.
But move on ASAP. Or faster.

Thankfully this advisor holds no real influence over my career. I work in a non-academia research career that is not contingent on him vouching for me. I am leaning towards filing a complaint with his new department just so as to prevent this from happening to future students. I think that a large part of why he has been allowed to get away with many of his prior antics is because no one has ever pushed back. He has perfected the art of academic manipulation by means of withholding publications and degrees.


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Is it possible to enroll in a college just to do a master's thesis?
So I graduated with a master's degree 5 years ago. Back then my priorities were different and I didn't opt for the thesis option. I kind of regret not doing a thesis.
Is it possible to apply to the master's program only for the thesis option? And use the grades from the master's program for the coursework component of the program?
I want to get a feel of what it's like to do research in an academic setting. If I like it, I might consider applying to Ph.D. programs after this.

What country?  If you can get into a PhD program, that is probably better for you financially.  They should pay you.

I am currently living in the US. But I don't mind doing this from another country too. The problem with applying to PhD programs is that my grades are not that great, I don't have any research experience. I am not even sure if I will like it if I enroll in the program.

Writing a masters thesis will not fix your grades.  You can start a PhD and then quit if you don't like it.

Research experience is not necessarily required to start a PhD in the US.

related, possible duplicate: Can a masters student apply for a second masters in the same field at another university?

Is it possible to apply to the master's program only for the thesis option? And use the grades from the master's program for the coursework component of the program?

The short answer is no. I would find it pretty unlikely the same program will let you back in just to do a thesis. You would be taking up a spot for someone who doesn't already have a master's in that field.
Another university will not admit someone who already has a master's to do another master's in the same field. Perhaps if you found something similar you could convince a program to take you.
However, people are suggesting in the comments you do a PhD because in the US, science PhDs are funded, which means they pay you (a tiny amount) instead of you paying tuition and then also having to work a job to survive (or taking out loans). It is common for programs to also grant you a master's partway through, mine does it at the end of your second year. In other places, this is only possible if you drop out.
So instead of paying for another master's, a PhD program is the next step, with the option to drop out if you don't like research with a master's. Although they may still not give you one if you already have the "same" master's.


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Abbreviating first names in the bibliography
In my bibliography I use the names of the authors as they are given in the publication. Usually this will be the last name, the first name not abbreviated and second names abbreviated. However, I now have the following problems:

For some authors I only have publications with their first name abbreviated.
Some authors have their first name abbreviated in some publications and in others not. This leads to the strange result that I have them in the bibliography with their first name abbreviated only sometimes.

Should I try to get/use the not abbreviated first names for consistency or leave the names as they are given in the publications?

@JoelReyesNoche: It is certainly related to, if not a special case of Should I cite author names as they appear in the journal or as I know them to be complete?

@O.R.Mapper I'm sorry I missed that one. However, the bottom line of the discussion in that post is a non consensus between "respect the authors choice", "be consistent in your own work" and "try to be as complete as possible". So I can decide now what's the best solution for me ;)

@O.R.Mapper, thanks.  It is related, but I don't think it is an exact duplicate.

The busy person solution to retain consistency is abbreviating everything. Figuring out the first name of everyone you cite in your thesis takes a lot of time, for a very limited benefit.

@FedericoPoloni, abbreviation vs full name might introduce ambiguities...

@vonbrand My bibliographies usually contain title, journal, issue, page numbers, author surnames and initials, and often a DOI. I don't think there is any room left for ambiguities.

At the end of the day this all boils down to opinion and you already gave the most important argument yourself: Usually, the only way to obtain consistency is to abbreviate all first names. If you try to use unabbreviated names even when the journal doesn’t, you will eventually run into a case where you cannot find out an author’s full first name by any reasonable means.
All journals that I am aware of adhere to such a citation style, so you would be in good company abbreviating first names. Moreover, such a citation style would not arise if it would lead to any practical problems. In fact, knowing an author’s full first name rarely accelerates finding a cited publication, and if then only by a little. I cannot imagine a situation where the first name would actually be necessary to find or identify a properly cited paper – you always have page numbers or similar to resolve potential ambiguities.

Thank you for your comment. The only thing which is a bit more difficult when abbreviating first names is to search for the author lets say because you would like to find her/his academic website for further information. However, as the bibliography is not intended to be used in that way in the first place it's not an argument against abbreviation.

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Correct abbrevation of academic titles, e.g., “B.Sc.” vs “BS”
I am interested to know which of the following abbrevations of academic titles are correct:

B.Sc. or BS
M.Sc or MS
Ph.D or PhD

It depends on the degree and the context.  Different institutions sometimes have different conventions for abbreviating their degree names.  For example, Harvard writes A.B. while Yale writes B.A.  It's conventional to use the abbreviation suggested by the university that awarded the degree.
Issues such as the use of periods are a matter of style.  If you are writing for publication, you should follow the publisher's house style.  Otherwise, you can decide whether you prefer to use periods.  However, you should keep in mind what other people are doing (for example, including periods is more common in the U.S. than other English-speaking countries).


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First publication – author list better alone or with supervisor?
Some context: applied/pure mathematics. My supervisor is known and respected in their field. We are writing a paper together, however for various reasons, by the time of submission, I will probably have written 80-100% of it myself. In this case, my supervisor wishes not to be listed as an author, specifically because they don't wish to claim credit for work that isn't theirs. (i.e. the quality of the work is not in question)
Question: as a first publication, would it have greater impact if I were to list my supervisor as an author regardless?
My thinking is that a publication whose only author is a no-name (me) will likely not be read, whereas my supervisor's name might attract readers who are familiar with his/her work. On the other hand, while it might suffer from lower impact to omit my supervisor's name from the author list, including my supervisor's name does detract credit from the work I have done, and I have to consider how it looks when applying to graduate and PhD positions.

Related, though no duplicate: Does one really have to consider having a co-author to avoid being considered as a nerd?

I think that your supervisor is very honest. Actually it sounds even uncommon to me as for contributing (say) 20 percent surely assures authorship. So go ahead and don't think much. I am from a different field where supervisor usually at least provide lots of equipment. ....).

@NajibIdrissi - That's difficult to answer. It's at a nexus between. My supervisor is an applied mathematician, however the work I have done has drifted from his expertise into pure mathematics. The results do have relevance to his work, however they also have significance in their own right to pure mathematicians. I really don't know the answer. I graduated from an undergrad degree last year. At my university, it is typical to go straight from my degree to a PhD.

Unless there are more people despising your supervisor than respecting them, adding him to the publication will inevitably increase its visibility by some amount, even though this should not be the case in an ideal world. There is a positive chance that somebody will only read your paper because they know the author. How large this effect is depends on your particular subfields culture and the popularity of your supervisor. Moreover, note that your supervisor can also advertise your work to their peers irrespective of authorship and this effect may be more relevant to the impact than authorship.
That being said, for your imminent career, it is mostly irrelevant how many people actually read your paper, but only how relevant or good the paper is considered by those who decide upon your applications. However, those people will also know that you worked with your current supervisor and will also likely have a recommendation letter from them praising your work in the paper. So adding your supervisor as an author shouldn’t matter in this respect. On the contrary: It’s certainly more impressive that you single-authored a paper.
Now, for your later academic career, you have to weigh between the two effects, but since you will hopefully have written several papers then (otherwise you will probably not have a later academic career) and securing a good PhD position may help for this, my bets are on opting for being a single author.
A sidenote: Going from your description, I assume that it is borderline whether your supervisor qualifies for authorship and thus ethical considerations of authorship are inconclusive.


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How to narrow down focus in humanities/social sciences?
I’m looking to enroll in a social studies/humanities undergraduate course, but I’m unsure of which subjects to focus on in my studies. I have ambitions to progress on to postgraduate study, research and academia; industry and financial gain aren’t on my radar.
Philosophy, politics, history and international relations all seem good fits, that could open up lots of opportunities, but how would you decide which subjects are most aligned with your interests, and crucially which combinations would be feasible and most facilitate further study/research?

Ultimately it's up to you to decide what you are most interested in. No one can answer that for you. That said, it's very important that you get an idea of what research is like in all of these fields, as it is often very different from what popular conception or even undergraduate coursework is like.
Assuming that you are relatively early in your undergraduate studies:

Take a variety of classes in the fields you are most interested in. Go farther than just what the class requires: go to office hours, talk to your professors, think about and discuss other questions of extensions related to the coursework, dig into any references that are mentioned in lecture, etc.
Find a faculty mentor(s) to talk about these issues with. This might first take some narrowing down of your interests, but a faculty member should be able to give you some guidance on how your interests fit into academia and an idea of what academic work in that field is actually like. This will often be a professor from a class, but many departments also have a designated faculty member that handles the undergraduate program who may be available to talk to. In my experience, most academics will be excited to talk to you if you express interest in further graduate study.
Try to get some actual research experience. This is heavily field-dependent and I am not very familiar with research opportunities in the humanities, but hopefully you will have some faculty members that you can talk to about this. If you are in a field that doesn't often use research assistants, see if you can do a faculty-directed independent study.
Start familiarizing yourself with some of the academic customs in the fields you're most interested in and start reading some actual research. A good place to start is often the webpages of the faculty at your school that you are most interested in. Read up on their latest publications/books/etc. and use that as a starting point to get at least a small idea of what kind of work is being done and what research looks like.
Find some current graduate students at your school and talk to them about what kind of research they are working on, how they go about doing it, and why they chose that field.


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How do I judge the novelty of my paper in the area of algorithms and system design?
I have been working on a research project and have submitted the paper to two different venues(not simultaneously), and both times I have gotten reviews which criticize the paper for a lack of novelty. What exactly makes an algorithm or system design novel? How can I judge the novelty of my solution?

Don't overlook the possibility that your approach is novel, but your paper simply wasn't clear enough about the innovations you made and how your approach differs from what others have done.

The novelty of a scientific result is defined in terms of its relationship to previously published results.  In order to perform such a comparison you need:

to have a good idea of what related works have been published by the community, typically obtained by some combination of reading papers and attending conferences, and
to compare your your system against the most similar prior systems and demonstrate its quantitative or qualitative superiority (e.g. "my system is three times faster" or "my system can process widgets AND frobs, and all previous systems could only do one or the other").

The "amount" of novelty is then how much better you are, relative to the interests of the community, and is very community dependent: a 2% improvement in the cost of manufacturing concrete is worth billions of dollars, while a 2% improvement in the speed of a personal computer program is generally unnoticeably tiny.

The threshold for exceeding prior work also depends on the community. For example, a system that merely reproduces the results of other existing systems, even if it does so faster or simpler or more accurately, would not be considered novel in some fields, unless it also generalizes to a situation that no other model can handle.

Try to answer these questions and write your answers down in the "Related Work" section:

What are the related algorithms?
Is there any problem that they have not solve but your algorithm has?
If yes, it's easy for you.
If no, why is your algorithm different?
Is it more efficient in terms of time or space?

If you have answered these questions, I think you are off to a good start to judge the novelty of you algorithm.

What if my algorithm is able to solve something that related work hasn't been able to solve. But, solving the same problem with their algorithm can be done by making some tweaks to it? In past reviews I have gotten feedback saying "one has to wonder if making X and U changes to Related work Z will not be sufficient enough to solve the problem"

@AndroidDev93 it depends on the "tweaks" you need to solve the problem. Try do write up why your algorithm is different. Better efficiency? Ease to use? Totally new way to solve the problem (greedy vs dynamic programming vs brute force vs random, just for an example)? What are the tweaks needed by the others to solve the special problem? When writing up the answers, it become clear to you if your algorithm is novel or not.

I would tweak the second point to "Is there any problem that your algorithm can solve that previous algorithms can't, even after minor modification?"

It is very difficult to commensurate novelty. To make sure you score well at this topic you have to provide a good and fair comparison with what has been already developed in the field. You have to be well aware of the state of the art.
Similar to a mathematical theorem, novelty is demonstrated, and not implied. Don't expect the reviewer to do your work and compare your methods with other methods.
Also, try to see if the conclusions of any paper, that also contains a set of challenging problems, not solved yet, can be be addressed by your work. Also, try to get some position papers where the problem you solve is being acknowledged.
There are different orthogonal aspects you have to care about, novelty is one. Importance of the work is another, third is how to disseminate it easily to the public. History of science is full of people who made breakthrough discoveries and remained anonymous, while the scientist doing the mass dissemination actually got the credit.

I think you should know the answer more than the rest of us. It is novel if no one else has thought of it or implemented it. You must show this sufficiently in your literature survey (background section) to satisfy your reviewers.
As long as you can differentiate your work from others in the same field, then it is novel. I would think it is easy to show that an algorithm is novel, can't you test your algorithm against others that attempt to do the same thing, and test it using the same benchmark? Focus on computation expense and storage?
Feel free to send a rebuttal asking which paper(s) they think talk about the same thing, thereby making your paper not novel. Chances are, they have something to substantiate their claims.

Differentiation isn't enough for novelty. Suppose that A has designed an algorithm that determines what colour a cat is, B has designed one that rates the cuteness of photos of black cats and C has designed one that rates orange cats. Combining these to give an algorithm that rates the cuteness of black and orange cats is clearly differentiated but not at all novel: it's a completely obvious application of existing knowledge.


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Some authors can use variants of their last names in two different publications. How does one write their last name when citing both inline?
When citing two articles from the same author using different initials, one should cite each article with the relevant initials, even if they are different. This is answered here.
But what about differences in the last name of the same author when referencing inline? Russian authors, for instance, must transliterate their names and there are sometimes inconsistencies in the way this is done. For example, E. Mashchenko writes his or her name E. Maschenko here (published 2015), but E. Mashchenko here (published 2013). Basic knowledge of Russian transliteration suggests that Мащенко is to be transliterated as Mashchenko, and that is indeed the spelling the author uses on Research Gate, suggesting that the Maschenko spelling is an error.
Yet, because the point of referencing is to make it easy for other researchers to find the sourced material, the literal spelling Maschenko should be preferred when citing Maschenko (2015). When citing both articles inline, which of the following would one write?

(Mashchenko, 2013; Maschenko, 2015)

which would be correct, but misleading and strange because this is the same person.

(Mashchenko, 2013, 2015)

which doesn’t adhere to the above standard.

Possible duplicate of How to Cite With Inconsistent Use of Initials

@Matteo Removed part that is indeed a duplicate

The APA style blog addresses this and has some suggested wording: "Smith-Hartman (publishing as Smith, 2010)" blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/05/… That may be not quite the right wording for a transliteration issue, though.
You could write "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015) found that..." This might be the simplest way to quickly address the confusion, while allowing the citations to match the bibliography and published record. (Other answers have nicely explained the importance of this.)

Inline citations should match what appears in bibliographies, and bibliographies should match what appears in the publication record. You can augment what’s listed—for instance, you could provide the original Cyrillic rendering in the bibliography to indicate the authors are in fact the same person—but I would leave the citation uncorrected.

I like adding the original spelling but bibliographical systems are generally reluctant about adding this information where it belongs, i.e. with the author name (rather than at the end) — the exception being BibLaTex.

@KonradRudolph: I would just do this at the final pre-submission step after everything else has been finalized.

Right, in file manuscript_FINAL_3.5_DRAFT.docx.

Even with LaTeX, I’d still likely wait until near the end of the process to mess around with the BibTeX entries. But your joke still stands. :-j

In the one case where I’ve previously needed this, I had a script that exported and patched various parts of the references that I managed with Paperpile (my go-to reference manager). No manual work required. Of course this won’t work for many people.

@KonradRudolph Why is this non-standard? It seems compatible with bibtex?

@user2768 I didn’t say that it was non-standard.

@KonradRudolph You didn't, but you did say "bibliographical systems are generally reluctant about adding this information where it belongs." Then again, you also said BibLaTeX is an exception, so perhaps bibtex is an exception too.

@user2768 Ah, possible. I’ve stopped using pure BibTeX ~ a decade ago. The old implementations are essentially all made obsolete by BibLaTeX.

There is at least one author in my field who occasionally has the initial of her second name on her papers, and occasionally not. I would look extremely odd to have those papers show up under different authors in the bibliography, and not sorted chronologically, don't you think? I've never so far encountered a paper where she is actually listed as two authors in the references.

@sgf: Initials are a different animal than spelling of the last name, and normally don’t appear in an inline citation.

@aeismail Ha, you are right of course.

You can use the correct (Mashchenko, 2013; Maschenko, 2015) version and address the issue that it might be misleading by explicitly stating that Mashchenko and Maschenko are the same author and perhaps by explaining why the issue has arisen.

Could you write, for instance, (Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015, [same person])? This would be in the same vein as writing "no relation" between two people with the same last name.

@Pertinax "[same person]" could be "[both refer to Мащенко]"

The APA style blog addresses this and has some wording: "Smith-Hartman (publishing as Smith, 2010)"  http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/05/whats-in-a-name-inconsistent-formats-and-name-changes.html  That may be not quite the right wording for a transliteration issue, though. Perhaps "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015) found that..."

@cactus_pardner I think you should make your comment into an answer

@cactus_pardner That link is useful, thank you. It does not address, however, how to simultaneously cite two spelling variants inline side by side. I like your proposal of using "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015)". If you make this into an answer, I will accept it.

Well, first you do what the publishing guidelines say.
If they say nothing, one feasible option is, in my opinion, to use both spellings this way:

(Mashchenko [Maschenko], 2013, 2015)

This goes with the policy that such a bibliographic entry should allow one to search for the paper. Sure it is not optimal that people may have to search for two different spellings, on the other hand, this makes it clear that it is the same author. Another option is this:

(Mashchenko, 2013, 2015 [published as Maschenko])

Because I think that you personally should refer to the author using one name, and keep the alternative spelling only for the bibliographic entry.


text:
Second Masters in maths after master's in physics: how does it help getting into PhD in Europe?
How does it help doing a second master's in mathematics after doing first master's in Physics for getting a PhD in theoretical Physics in Europe?
Will it be helpful to compensate for a low GPA in Masters in Physics?
Does the reputation of the university (master's degree) really matters for the PhD admissions if one has got enough project experiences in the field from top institutions?

Do you have specific country in Europe where you would like to go to PhD? Not every country or even university in same country has same requirements for PhD.

@Nissser True, but the requirements almost always consider GPA in the masters among other things. I think the OP is concerned on that.

I think now that i understand what the author of original post means to do,so please comment if i understood you correctly.
Plan is to enter masters in math,try to get better GPA and then submit using only his new master diploma for PhD. If that is your intention,yes,that could work. As far as i know,masters program in USA lasts for one year. If you have time,will and funds to do it,sure,go ahead. You can get higher GPA and MSc in mathematics while learning something new in process.
Other advice is to get your current GPA transcribed to european grade standard. Go to the websites of the universities where you intend to apply for PhD program and see if you meet minimum grade needed. Since there isn't universal grade minimum, you may find out that you qualify in one of them with your current GPA. Remember,GPA is not be all end all criteria. Personal experience,minimum grade average was 3.5 (very good). When i applied they checked my grade average to see if i meet their minimum and they never looked at it again. It was mostly administrative criteria. Interviews had much more weight in their decision to admit me to PhD program.
Hope it helps

Thank u. Yes u are right.I'm planning to do second masters in maths and try to get a good GPA and and i can probably also do one more master thesis work in the same field and use it for the PhD admissions.But, I don't think hiding my first masters is a good idea because i have done special courses related to my area of interest in the course work and the master's thesis too is in the same field.Is that correct?.Will it be helpful to use a good GPA in masters in maths+first masters in Physics(low GPA)+Research experiences (Top Institutions) to get into a PhD program?

Will it (second masters in Maths with good GPA) be helpful to overcome the minimum GPA requirements in PhD admissions (Theoretical Physics) ? If so, Does it matters which University/College(even if it is not that highly reputed) I do my second Masters too much, if can get a good GPA ?

Don't hide anything. Why should you? You earned your masters. You usually submit only one masters diploma with aplication. If your new math msc has good enough gpa it will meet admission requirements. With all that you wont have much of a problem getting into phd. I honestly don't know how much University reputation has weight in their decission to admit you,but if you meet all criteria,that shouldn't be a issue. Where I live,most important part is interviews. All else is administrative criteria,formality of sort.

Thank you.I just hv one more query-How does it affect if one does the second masters in general physics instead of maths, if the first masters is in a more specialized field in physics such as Optics etc.Will it possibly help in the same way or will it be suspicious to the admission committee since both syllabus might have common subjects?

Nothing compensates your low GPA in Physics. I think you have to learn to live with that. But there are several ways to improve your competency for the PhD application in theoretical physics. First let me share my experience with the application procedure in Europe.
In France, from my experience, there is a well structured process for PhD intake. Your application will undergo an initial screening using various criteria, one among them is the GPA, other is the masters thesis. Next step is the interview(expect several rounds). I had a completely different experience in Germany. I was offered a project associate position for 6 months as an entrance to the PhD, predominantly on the basis of my current work(master thesis) and the recommendation from my adviser. I know several others who had similar experience. I recommend you the following.

Find a shot term internship in the field of your liking. If you do really well such that you may get a publication or at least if the supervisor could give a good recommendation for your application, then you have good chances of getting admitted.
Have you considered the US? A great deal of research is going on there. Appear for GRE if your GPA meets the minimum requirements. I cannot say for sure a good GRE score alone can get you a position, guess someone from US could say more about that.
If the above options seem impractical, try applying for a MS in theoretical physics. There are some specialized MS offerings like astrophysics, photonics etc.
Do an independent research in the field of your taste. There is always a possibility for collaboration with others in the field if you could convince them you have the potential to be a researcher.

Bottom line
IMO, doing a masters in mathematics for the sole purpose to be a potential candidate for PhD in theoretical physics because you think you can't be one due to your low GPA is not a good idea. There are other options to consider. If you are really motivated to do math, nothing stops you.

Thank you for ur advice and I understand ur point. But will it do something good in for the PhD admission, i mean doing masters in maths, if one can got good gpa in the same ?

Usually, crucial point for applying to PhD in europe is to find appropriate and willing advisor to take you as a student. Second Master will not give you any significant chance over others students ( and applicants) however, knowing research interest of professor,lab, department, program where you want to apply and having strong motivation for that field can be advantageous,
Unfortunately, if you want me to be more specific I guess you should share name of your program and uni ( according to SE rules not allowed)
but I am guessing that you are applying for PhD that are free and financially covered, in most of these application, good communication with advisor and program coordinator is crucial.


text:
Advice needed – I can't reach my collaborator, but there's a short deadline for revising our journal article submission
My collaborator and I submitted an article to a special issue of a journal.
He did most of the writing of the article,
while I did the technical work such as running simulations, generating plots,
and typesetting the article in LaTeX.
After two revisions, the article has been accepted with major (one reviewer) and minor (the other reviewer) revisions needed.
We were given a relatively short (3 weeks) deadline to make the revisions,
due to the deadline for making up the special issue of the journal.
Unfortunately, my collaborator has suddenly become unreachable by email for the last 5 days.
As we're living in different cities,
I have no idea if he experienced a medical or family emergency,
or if he suddenly is no longer interested in the article,
or is no longer alive?
(He's probably alive, touch wood,
my point is just that I feel quite confused with the situation,
and my imagination is running a bit wild at this point.)
Question:
How should I proceed with a short deadline for revising our journal article submission,
if I am unable to reach my collaborator?
I could try to do the rewriting completely by myself,
I believe this is do-able.
However, is it "kosher" for me to submit the article revision,
if I don't hear from him before the submission deadline?
I could also do nothing, and wait, hoping that he becomes reachable again,
but the longer I wait, the greater the risk that we'll miss the deadline
and have to go through the entire journal article acceptance process again.
I'd really appreciate some advice as this is quite confusing,
and it feels strange to be so close, yet so far,
in getting this journal article finally accepted and published.

Update:
A few days after I posted this question,
my collaborator finally responded to my email.
He didn't explain exactly why he was out of communication,
but I am inferring that he was really busy with things on his end.
We'll be working this week to get the paper submitted on time,
it will be a bit tight but I think it's manageable.
Thank you to everyone for your suggestions,
fortunately I didn't have to use them this time,
but hopefully someone else who encounters this situation in the future
can use these really helpful suggestions.

Is email the only option? Can you call or text? How many times did you email in 5 days? Maybe he/she just missed the email

Is it possible he is just on vacation? A call to his institution would help to clarify what's going on anyway.

"in getting this journal article finally accepted and published." you are not that close: there is a major revision.
However, you have to call/email the editor now, explaining the situation, so he is prepared when, the day before the deadline, you say you cannot provide the ok from all co-authors. You may be able to get even 2/3 weeks extension. And in the meanwhile, start the revision as it was to be done for the deadline. It may be that you reach your co-author on the same day of the deadline.

When I'm faced with this sort of situation with other professionals, I usually do the re-write myself, and then send them that for approval (and an apology, if it's likely to appear like over-stepping boundaries). Most often, the other party is only too happy that someone else has done the leg-work.

Given the current COVID situation, I think the first thing is to ask for an extension of the deadline, as this has a good chance of being granted.

(Promoted from a comment.)
As well as agreeing with other posters that you might as well start working on revisions yourself, I would strongly suggest that you contact the editor now rather than waiting for closer to the deadline. You can indicate your uncertainty, i.e. that everything might be OK (co-author responds to your queries, revisions get made, everything is submitted before the deadline), but it is best if everyone knows what's going on earlier rather than later. In addition to explaining the situation, you might ask:

how strict the deadline is
what editorial policies would apply if you end up needing to resubmit without being able to contact the co-author for approval (i.e., would the editor let you resubmit without having been able to formally receive consent from all of the co-authors? This could be a "don't ask don't tell" sort of thing, but transparency is best if you can manage it ...)

It won't take the editor long to respond to a short, clear, query, and there's no harm done if it turns out to have been unnecessary.

I am wondering if a call is not an option.
You can also call the reception at his/her institute, one of the students, etc. The fact that the deadline for a paper you both wanted out is approaching gives you the right to try every way to contact him, in my opinion. This would also let you know if that person has problems of a sort, though their nature might be or not revealed. Actually, in most cases that would be my primary concern as for coauthors are often kind of friends.
If the lack of answer is on purpose, well, you must ascertain it anyway.
Once all ways to contact your coauthor failed, again is my opinion that you could proceed alone and submit.
Edit after comment.
I've considered it somehow implicit, but on resubmitting you should inform the editor about the situation. This would move the responsibility to the Journal. A possible outcome is that the article will appear in a standard issue of the journal.
Further - when the revision is straightforward - it is standard for the submitting author to contact all coauthors and pose a very short deadline for them to answers. Then s/he proceeds anyway. There is no much ethic involved. All of them worked for and wanted the paper out. Even in the case that one coauthor changed opinion, then it is his/her duty to communicate with the others.
Not revising, although has no public impact, is a sort of retraction and should motivated based on the paper content. Any other option is disrespectful of the editors and referees work, to add a point missed by other answers and comments.

As I commented to the other answer, proceeding to submit without having reached your co-author (and obtained their approval), is bad advice. At the very least your technically advising them to commit fraud (since any submission procedure will ask (explicitly or implicitly) whether the submission has the approval of all authors. On a simply ethical level, by (re)-submitting you are choosing to speak with the voice of your co-authors, and anything your write in either the resubmission or the response to the referees will reflect on them as much as it does on you.

You are taking revising the ms as first submission of it. I did not want to give example here, at first. The main ethic concern if I am coauthor is not to spoil and waste the work of others. There is no acceptable way that an author disappears in the middle of revision if not for health or personal trouble. A case for which the author concerned would be thankful. Virtually, one can have its opinion. But if you work with me you MUST let me know. If you end up in a ICU (I hope it is not the case) I do submit. @mmeent

Of course, editor can be informed and an arrangement can be found. But that wasn't the main message of my answer. I think I've mentioned in a comment that, if there is a valid reason, the paper would be likely moved to the standard issue. But for doing this, one has to know the "status" of that coauthor.

Whether what the co-author is (isn't) doing is OK is irrelevant. Two wrongs do not make a right. If you (re)submit without consent of your co-author, and they do object to it, things could end very badly for you. (Whether that is likely depends on the co-author and the relation you have to them, which is certainly you cannot judge for a stranger on the internet.)

@mmeent: Much of this depends on how close OP’s relationship with the collaborator is.  I have some long-standing collaborators whom I know and trust very well; I’d be completely happy for them to revise+resubmit on my behalf if I was incommunicado around a deadline, and I’d feel confident they’d be happy for me to do the same.

@mmeent so don't judge for a stranger in the net, too. I don't get what are you insisting of/for. This is not mathematics and there is a degree of opinion bias in all answers. If you adhere to rules as formulated, then every steps should see all coauthors informed and have agreed. The actual case is different. An author cannot disappear. That is the point. I can also say forget the manuscript and the coauthor unless s/he ill. A case which would result in something like "oh pity you could have submit it..." from his/her side.

I could have mention that if the coauthor is not well known to OP, forgetting the whole story is certainly the last possible scenario. But certainly not for ethic concern.

@mmeent but as strange it could sound, I agree with you. Potentially a crazy coauthor can later lead the submitting one into troubles, like being banned. I am just trying to be realistic. Ie that coauthor has communication problems right now, or something dramatically important to do.

Certainly you can start on revising yourself while you continue to try to reach the other person. If you reach them you can give them what you have done and continue from there.
Perhaps you can reach them through a third party if you know of someone, perhaps someone they work with.
Doing nothing seems like the worst option.
But if you have to send in your own revision without help, let the editor know of the problem, Perhaps they can extend the deadline a bit.

@BenBolker, good idea to contact the editor immediately.

Is your collaborator employed somewhere, at university or in industry? If so, he surely has co-workers, and their e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be found somewhere in the internet.
Try to get in touch with one of them. Call or e-mail his secretary, a postdoc, some other co-worker. At least one of them certainly knows why he does not answer and might have more possibilities to get in touch with him. A secretary, for example, usually knows the private phone number of her boss. They would not give it to you, but they can call him and ask him to respond.

I personally would start to write the revision. Maybe the person is just on vacation?
If your co-author did most of the wrting (as you said), I think it is in his/her interest to get this article published.
Basically you have these two outcomes:

Your collaborator answers before the deadline
Your collaborator doesn't answer before the deadline

So think about it, in both cases it would be highly beneficial if you start the revision already. If you are on good terms with your co-author there is a very low chance that the person doesn't answer because there is no longer interest in the article.
In the worst case, your co-author doesnt answer. Then you should just revise the article as necessary for the major revision and submit it.
Since this is a journal article and not a conference article, I guess the deadline should be extendable if you really need it.

Special issue deadlines are much more firm, actually.

Under no circumstance should the OP resubmit without having reached the co-author. That would be misconduct. A (re-)submission always needs the approval of all co-authors.

Basically I could have avoid answering. Plus 1, especially to mention that for real trouble the paper can get an extension. It could perhaps be published even in a standard issue of the same journal.

@mmeent -- It is not misconduct of any sort to submit if the co-author cannot be located. By agreeing to co-author, there is an implicit agreement to be reasonably available and to respond to anything significant. If the co-author cannot be located bcs he/she is ill, injured, missing or worse, that is most unfortunate, but should not hold up your joint project.

@Neithea Yes it is. You always need permission of your co-authors to submit, with the only possible exception in the unfortunate situation that the co-author is no longer with us, but that is a separate complicated issue.


text:
Who do I email about a question on a paper?
I want to ask the authors of a paper if they have thoughts on an application of their work. I'm not sure who to email.
The first author is a grad student, who is supervised by the last author - however, the authors are in alphabetical order so I'm not sure if there is any meaning to the ordering. The paper is in economics, which traditionally goes alphabetically, I believe.
Should I email all the authors in one bulk message? Just the professors? Choose one of the authors at random and email them?

please let us know if any of them answer ,, out of 4 times I emailed authors of papers i read, i received only one reply.

Papers usually have one (or more) designated corresponding author, or “contact author”, or “author to whom correspondance should be addressed”. That's whom you should contact.
Sometimes it's indicated by a footnote, an asterisk, or at the end of the paper. Sometimes, it's indicated by the fact that only corresponding authors have their email address listed.
If there is no corresponding author, then email either the first author or senior author, depending on the nature of your question and how confident you feel in communicating with them. I would refrain from copying the email to all authors (except maybe if there are only two): if he wants to, the author you will write to can forward your query to others.

to add some context: the risk with emailing all authors is that everyone assumes someone else will reply.

While this involves a little more work, it might be possible to do some digging to see who's the prime mover on the paper. For example, if one of the authors has a series of papers on the topic, or if it's part of an author's thesis, and so on. If you're able to find such a person, then it might help to email them directly. If not, then @F'x's solution is fine.

In fields like pure mathematics, where authors are given equal credit, I'd recommend e-mailing all the authors unless there are an awfully large number of them or special circumstances apply (you know an author personally, you happen to know that your question is most relevant to a specific author, etc.).  The reason is that if you single out a specific author, then the other authors may try to guess why.  Is it because the author you chose is the most famous?  Because you mistakenly think they deserve most of the credit?  Because you are ignoring a woman in favor of her male coauthor?  Of course nobody will know why you made your choice, so they won't get too upset about their speculations, but this is not a great start for your interactions with the other coauthors.
If you e-mail several people about a paper at the same time, it's best to send a single e-mail.  Every so often someone will send the same message separately to me and to a coauthor, which just increases the chances that we will waste time by both replying without ccing the other.

I agree with this (coming from theoretical physics, where we also give equal credit and use alphabetical order). Occasionally if I know one author much better than their coauthors I would just write to them, but usually for the reasons you suggest it seems best to avoid offending anyone by CCing all authors.

This applies to the case where there is no corresponding author.
Talking about my field (applied CS), where many experiments depends on experiments which are not always easily repeated, and code are usually not available*:
I think it is more effective to go directly to the supervisor (or supervisors) - [last and second to last authors - since this is the order usually followed in applied CS]. These authors usually takes higher care of their reputation in the field. Because of that, they will force their students (i.e. first author and/or second) to give explanation. (example: This happened when my supervisor received a question about a paper of his with another post-doc. I am sure that my supervisor did not work much on the details of the paper, but his name must be included - that s an engineering tradition I believe. The supervisor made sure to call the post-doc and asked for explanation. The supervisor forced the  the post-doc to send an email back to the question sender).
If you send a question directly to a PhD/Msc student, he would ignore you most likely - from my experience. Because many PhD students hide their mistakes intentionally - just to have their thesis accepted later. (example: I heard a PhD student that he made some mistakes in his MSc thesis and he hid them intentionally. He said "this is to make whoever work on my work find trouble matching the paper results and the new experiments results".
But honestly, at the end, we cannot generalize.
(*)This one of the biggest mistakes in applied CS.