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How do I avoid working overtime due to young people's lack of planning without harming them too badly?
A very bright undergraduate student asked me for a letter of recommendation less than a week ago that is due today. She is one of my favorite students and I want to write her a strong letter, however I really have been quite busy the last week, and I am a bit sleep deprived today. I want to do nothing but teach then go home and sleep but I must write a letter.
I really don't want to ruin her application, and I want her to do well because she really is quite a strong student and was a pleasure to have in my class.
I am just going to suffer through it today but how do I avoid this in the future?

If writing one letter of recommendation is pushing you past your limits, then I would look at everything else that is on your plate.

@JonCuster writing a letter with less than a week's notice when I had a tough week already is pushing me past my limits absolutely. I think most faculty would feel similarly.

I think Jon's advice is to focus less on the student's request and more on the tough week pushing you past your limits when thinking about what is making you work overtime.

In the time you wrote this post and checked for answers, you could have written half the letter.

Yes, as @BryanKrause mentioned, the point is you are clearly stretched way too thin already. That is the issue, not this one letter. Nobody can do good work being constantly on the edge of burnout and exhaustion. Write a great letter for the student and ignore a bunch of useless requests.

@JonCuster I agree with the general sentiment, but not all of us work in systems where we can "ignore a bunch of useless requests"...

@YemonChoi - one key principle to being effective is knowing what not to do, or at least not to do now. Let them nag you for a few weeks while you take care of important stuff.

I am surprised by all these responses; either all people here were extremely well organized as junior academics, lightning fast, or they they talk without having reached tenure-track level. As junior academic, even with tightly controlled intake, one is constantly under time pressure (esp. if one protects one's downtime, e.g. weekend). Not saying yes to various seemingly pointless things means that you won't get asked again, also not for things that advance your career. As for a LOR, see my response below.

@JonCuster I am sure you mean well but please look up what the lack of tenure in UKHE means for those of us who work here, as servants of the system. It is sadly the case that it is the useless requests which can often not be ignored without drawing the ire of the customers, or those claiming to represent the customers.

(Insert my usual grumble, as someone who did actually work for a while in a North American system with tenure, that not everywhere in the world is like a North American system with tenure, etc)

@WolfgangBangerth that's a bit harsh, as OP said they're "just going to suffer through it today", indicating that they're not blocked on this post and its responses for writing the letter.

For last minute requests, you can agree to write something but not guarantee to have it done by the deadline - often LoR deadlines are soft or later than the student's deadline.  Of course this depends on what the student needs the letter for.

I would suggest to change the title, it's unnecessary derogatory and presumptive. "Young people's lack of planing": Nothing to do with young people in my experience, requests can come on close notice in academia (how often did supervisors ask for a presentation in a few days/next day...). And nothing per se with "lack of planing". Sometimes, there are good reasons for "short" (it's still a week...) requests, especially in academia IMHO. Overnight e-mails to approve something to meet a deadline to go to a conference: sure, seen it many times. With seniors. So maybe formulate it more general?

Isn't this a general time management question? The task at hand just happens to be related to writing a letter

The time to have said no was when you were asked. As this involves someone's future, you're sort of on the hook to get it done. At least some of the poor planning falls on you.

This is an all-too-familiar situation. I have several pending requests for LORs sitting in my inbox right now, and I have mulled over this issue myself quite a bit over the years. My thoughts:

You can't entirely avoid this, it's simply an aspect of life for any conscientious, well-meaning person working in academia. (The non-conscientious people have it easier; they can simply make it a hard rule to say no to requests that transgress their work-life balance boundaries.)

The consequences for students of a refusal on your part to write a LOR are probably less severe than you imagine. (This is a special case of a general principle I have come to believe in: all of us are less irreplaceable than we imagine ourselves to be...)

You can minimize the effects of this issue on your life by adopting certain practices: first, do allow yourself to say no sometimes. E.g., if you've committed to writing N LORs and the (N+1)-th request pushes you into an uncomfortable personal situation, say no.

Second, when a student writes asking for an LOR and it's not a last-minute request, give them a clear list of your expectations of what they need to do and when they need to do it in order to give you time to perform the task. Keep a template email lying around where you list those expectations and can reuse when LOR requests come in. For example: "please send me a list of programs you're applying to and their application deadlines. Also include your CV, grade transcript [etc], and send me those materials no later than 3 weeks before the earliest application deadline."
Students may be disorganized, but having hard constraints and clear expectations can often motivate them to get their acts together.

Also, recognize that this issue only affects our lives for a short part of the year (October and November usually in North America). So, while it's a fact of life, being sub-optimally busy during certain parts of the year is something that academics generally get used to and accept; when you consider that academia also gives you other parts of the year during which you are relatively un-busy (in some cases also sub-optimally, but in a more fun way), it's not a bad deal overall...

Your fourth bullet is also good idea in that it teaches the student to be effective and organized in professional communications, already at the first contact.

I very much disagree with the wording of the first bullet point. Setting work-life balance boundaries is extremely healthy and important, and respecting those boundaries does not at all contradict conscientiousness.

@GregMartin I am describing precisely a scenario where conscientiousness and firm work-life boundaries stand in conflict with each other. Since you disagree, what’s your advice to OP (assuming they belong to the class of conscientious people) in this situation?

You won't avoid it in the future. You will always get that one extra request, if not by your student, then by your head of department who needs a last-minute input, your colleague that finds that one proposal deadline in two days, etc.
Many people suggest to just say no to taking things on. This is a common oversimplification and it needs to be considered judiciously. Saying no is particularly difficult for a junior academic.
You can deny the student, but you might deprive them of a vital career opportunity. You can may say no the head of department, but that's costing you political capital. You can say no to your colleague and, next time, they will ask someone else to join their project.
As consequence, you need to evaluate if that's a cost you are ready to bear. As you become more senior, this may be easier to do. However, as long as you are in a junior phase of your career, you may be reluctant to do so, since you still need to build up your reputation.
One part of the response is, partly, to keep a few buffers in your schedule, as other answers suggest. But, I'll be frank, that may simply not be possible. No matter how much the mantra of work/life balance is repeated today - the life of an academic, especially a junior one, has extremely busy stretches. Not all the time, and there also is a lot of flexibility; but, let's face it, over phases, you may be drastically oversubscribed. It's just the way it is.
Therefore, you need to look to alternative trade-offs, and the most important one is to learn to work to the available time slot and trade in quality for time.
Note that, with your researcher hat on, you want to ensure the highest degree of quality for your scientific work, especially the carrying out of the research and the write-up of the papers. These require (ideally) the highest degree of clean-up, consolidation and polishedness and can in general not be rushed. Here, you need to take your time and give every detail its due respect.
For non-scientific routine work, however, it is often well possible to accept an effective less-than-perfect approach.
For a LOR, for instance, you can hack one out by writing how you met the student, your experience with them, a general evaluation based on this evidence, and your conclusions about whether they are suitable for the job. A pithy and well-written 3-4 paragraphs LOR is, for a talented undergrad, a perfectly sufficient space to help them into a strong program. It's far easier to write a LOR for a very bright student than for a generally support-worthy, but not quite as strong one.
With a bit of experience, a strong LOR can be written well in 20-30 minutes (without AI!). But you need to accept that it will probably not be as powerful a LOR as you could devise if you had 2 or 3 hours. That's the price that the student needs to pay for coming in the last minute; not because you wish that price to be paid, but simply by force of the circumstances.
But at the same time, knowing you can trade this off gives you the elasticity that you need to add this one more thing into your packed plate.

There is nothing you can do to avoid this situation in the future, because the situation wasn't of your making. You can either refuse a last-minute request (likely harming the student's chances) or agree to it and take on extra work with a quick turnaround time. Either choice would have been understandable here.
Advice for today: don't stay up all night. Take an hour or two before bed and write the best letter you can in that time. It likely won't be as strong a letter as it would be if you had more time, but that's not your fault.

That second paragraph could also be a good advice for the future: instead of declining a "last-minute" request right away, they might tell the student they are willing to write a letter, but given the short timeframe and the fact that it's a busy week, it might not be as strong as it could possibly be if OP had more time. The student can then decide if they want this not-so-strong letter or rather keep asking other professors that might be less busy.

Probably you can't, completely. You could let your students in general know that you need, say, at least two weeks. You could ask them to give you an idea of what they might think it important to mention.
But, the student might even have valid reasons for a late ask.
Some people ask for a draft written by the student. I only mention, but don't recommend that.
The other way to do this in the future is to start early/immediately on such a request, just by jotting notes somewhere on what to include. It is harder if you start late, especially if you are overworked.

There are countries where a draft by the student (which is then edited by the prof) used to be accepted, e.g. Germany. In the Anglo-Saxon space, I have never seen it, so whether it is acceptable or not will heavily depend on location. In Germany, people used to undersell themselves, so the prof typically has to bump it up, maybe that's why it works. It's probably not working so well in this direction in the US ;-) My personal view is that the best references are the ones that are never seen and expected to be seen by the candidate.

I asked a somewhat similar question on Interpersonal SE five months ago and managed to find a workable solution. Applying it to your case, I would recommend the following:
(1) Inform your students in advance that if any of them wants a LoR from you in the future, they will need to ask you a certain amount of time in advance. This is especially important when you supervise a student working on a research project with you, as such students are very likely to ask for a LoR later on. This measure will reduce the number of last-minute requests and give you a good reason to decline them.
(2) Just say no to last-minute requests if you feel that the student isn’t particularly bright or can obtain a LoR from someone else without significantly affecting their application. Don’t argue or over-explain; simply say something like:

I'm sorry, but I absolutely can't. I'm extremely overburdened this
week. I really can't help you with your application this time, but I'm
happy to support future applications. Just remember, as I've warned
before, LoR requests need to be made at least three weeks in advance
so I can fit them into my schedule.

(3) Consider offering a compromise for bright students who make last-minute requests:

Look, I’m happy to support you, but you made your request very late.
Аs I've warned before, LoR requests need to be made at least three
weeks in advance so I can fit them into my schedule. I'm currently
very overburdened, so I can only manage a short LoR this time. If you
need a longer, more impressive LoR, you could help by providing a
draft. Include any details you think might strengthen your case, and
I'll use the draft to write a strong LoR within my time constraints.

Please note that while this last suggestion is common practice in some countries, it might be considered academic misconduct in others, so use it with caution.

Huh. Academic misconduct?  I (N American) find that very surprising, but would be happy to learn.  Can you flesh that part of the answer out a little bit?

@BenBolker I think that this refers to the fact that some cultures do not accept a pre-conceived draft of a LOR by the students that is later edited by the referee and consider this ethically questionable. Others, like Germany, do accept that as a model.

I see: it's the "providing a draft" part that's problematic.

I think you are approaching this the wrong way. Getting an unexpected student request isn’t the real problem, this is:

[…] I really have been quite busy the last week, and I am a bit sleep deprived today. I want to do nothing but teach then go home and sleep […]

It’s not this letter that makes your plate spill over because frankly it already has. If you have an entire week and can’t find the time to write one letter then the problem is the week, not the letter.
And taking a wild guess here: probably the week before, and the week before, and the week before, and …
Now there are a lot of self help books out there and I won’t repeat any of them, but realise that a day has only 24h, a week has only 7 days, and your life has only about 4000 weeks. You literally can’t do everything you want to do, let alone what you think you should do. So decide for yourself what you actually want to spend time on.
If that includes supporting good students (and I hope it does) then acknowledge, up front, that this takes time. If there is one thing you can expect from students it’s the unexpected, so block some time for that! This can be a few hours every week, or if you are better at predicting the unpredictable perhaps a few more hours during specific seasons.
And should you ever find that you have blocked more time than you need - well, go get some sleep!

Yes, prioritize. Eventually, you'll be receiving too many requests for your time, not all of which can be completed "by schedule". And, in my experience, students do very often procrastinate, and/or misjudge the time it takes to write a letter of recommendation, etc. Yes, I am always a bit stressed by last-minute requests, but I don't hold it against the students, any more than I hold grudges to young kids who do dubious things because they don't know any better... :)

"And taking a wild guess here: probably the week before, and the week before, and the week before" That's an ASSumption. It's crunch time in the US: midterm season, particularly for those on quarters (trimester), and it often rolls right into holidays (Thanksgiving), finals, and grad school deadlines. Further, the US Government's fiscal year starts October 1: there was a rush for funders to spend money before that, and now everything is gearing up with new money. In research, many facilities are effectively shut down after the first week of December-mid Jan for service, so it's a final push.

@user71659 Yes, it’s an assumption - that’s why I wrote "wild guess". Since the question isn’t just about the specific occurrence but the general behaviour of student requests being late, I feel it’s safe to assume this is also a general problem for the OP and not restricted to any one specific season. Regardless, it doesn’t change the advice: No matter if they need to set aside time tentatively the entire year, for a month, for a week or even for a day, they should set aside time if they expect unexpected requests that they want to handle.

I've had professors ask me to draft my own letter and send it to them. The first time it happened I was scandalized, but I later learned it's a common practice.
Not that you just sign what they wrote, but it gives you an idea of what needs to be covered, and a place to start. Also, it requires them to put forth a comparable level of effort to what they're asking from you--that will help you gauge how important it actually is to them.

+1 This is far and away the best solution. Letting the student prepare the initial draft is indeed a common and acceptable practice. It's also an opportunity for the student to gently remind the advisor of their accomplishments and to invest their own time into their own application process.

Short Term Solution: Cheat... I mean, Use Generative AI
Ask ChatGPT or a similar GAI to write it for you.  Instead of writing out a whole letter, just write a short prompt outlining the student's qualities you want highlighted. It should be something like this:
"I am <my-name>, a professor at <my-university>.  Write me a formal letter of recommendation for my student <their-name> who is applying to <their-grad-school>.
The students best qualities are: <strength-1>, <strength-2>, and <strength-3>."
Then you just need to proofread and send.  ALWAYS PROOFREAD This will give you a nice thought out sounding recommendation letter, but only take 2-5 minutes instead of however long you would normally spend having to choose each word carefully.  While I'm not the biggest fan of using Generative AI for most things, this is exactly the kind of formality writing that it excels at.  Plus, if you're truly back against a deadline and not of sound mind to make it work, I'm sure your student would prefer this to nothing at all, or something riddled with mistakes because you could not give it the focus it deserves.
The Long Term Solution: Still cheat, but make it more personal
GAIs are trainable.  If you have more than 5 sleep deprived minutes to dedicate to problem, you can start by uploading sample letters of recommendation that you have written in the past, and tell ChatGPT to use them as style guides.  Then when you prompt it to generate new letters of recommendation based on the previous letters. It will then mirror your tone and speech patterns as a guide for what sort of language choices it should be using when it writes future letters on your behalf so that they sound more like you.
While I know some people really hate GAIs on principle and find that they can be very impersonal when used without intention, when you train them on your own writing, you are eliminating all the mental load of doing the same thing over and over you do every time you write one and focus instead on just the things that make this one student exemplarily.


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How do I make sense of application files?
I'm at the stage of my career where people are asking my opinion on applications such as for PhD students etc.
I find it somewhat challenging to sift through everything. I got a stack of 150 or so applicants for a particular program and they come with transcripts, CVs, letters, etc. Many of the letters are filled with superlatives and many GPAs are decently high. It's pretty overwhelming to look at honestly. I know that this task is important so I don't want to do a bad job. But how do you assess applications? How do you deal with the overwhelm?

Do you  have any clerical help? Are you part of a committee on admissions?

@Buffy At this point I am not on a committee, people are just informally asking me. But I figure the answer for either case will be useful to me (and others browsing the site) for the future when I get put on committee.

Why do you have to examine them at all if it isn't part of the formal application process? Or are the "people" informally asking you the actual committee? Or are they from students themselves? I don't understand your situation.

@Buffy I am being purposefully vague about my situation because my question isn't really about my situation and I am not looking for advice about my exact situation.

@user479223 That vagueness seems to be making answering your question impossible. You're going to have to resolve the ambiguity a bit or pick a more useful cover story.

So, what are you asking? Based upon Buffy's clarification question, we cannot help you with your question in is current form. Or, we could just say: You don't seem to have a legit reason for keeping people's CV and application materials so shred them.

@BryanKrause Is this a question and answer site or an advice site? My question posted here isn't just for me or my situation but for future me when I am on search committees, or other users when they are on committees. Or just in general, how do people assess files in a coherent way.

If you don't make the situation clear there is no way to give advice. An answer for US, with committees making decisions, would be different from Germany where people apply directly to a PI. Make it clear, even if it is hypothetical. Otherwise it is hard to make an answer. Again, see my first comment/questions.

@user479223 You don't need to make it about your situation. You do need to provide enough context to make it answerable. The problem is that the way you are framing it is not how things usually work for a search committee, so it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Note that our help center states that you should "ask practical questions based on actual problems that you face." This is a good example of why -- by the time you actually face this problem, you will probably have different questions than you do now. And if you are actually facing a (different) problem now, then this way of asking about it isn't very productive. Anyway: glad that you found the below answer useful.

I have not done admissions work, I only hire people into a range of job positions from student interns to very senior technical staff, so take with a grain of salt.
Experience helps, so it will get better as you do it more, so keep that in mind. Also realize that no selection system is perfect, mistakes of both kinds (accept and reject) will be made but should be fully expected to happen. Learn from them.
Evaluating applicants for a job is different than your situation (except for student interns), but the basic principles apply:

What is your role in the process? Review all of them for fit, or find a few that might fit in your area and leave others to find fits with their area?
Can you define what you are looking for with some specificity? But don't be so specific that there aren't going to be at least a few in the bunch who might fit. My job postings have Required elements and Desired elements in them - they are the criteria I use to evaluate against.
I take the stack of materials and go through quickly to check for the Required elements (often HR does this but I've learned to be light on Required stuff that is technical because, well, they are not in a position to evaluate technical details). This is where administrative folks can really help by passing on only packages that meet the Required stuff.
On the first, fast pass I'm also looking for elements that meet the Desired attributes, and put a check mark for each Desired attribute that might be met. Do not go into detail, this is still screening.
OK, I now have a spreadsheet. Don't meet Requireds? Out. Don't meet any Desireds? Out. Of the rest, break into 3 roughly equal groups, consider them High, Medium, and Low based on the number of Desired attributes checked off by you. Start with the High pile and review in greater detail, making notes on just what catches your eye about the candidate.
That step may already provide you enough folks to consider, but it is still a good idea to go through the Medium and Low groups looking at those Desireds to catch those with one (or more) exceptional characteristics.
Final downselect. For one job opening, I only need 2-4 people to interview. You are likely looking for a larger pool (which makes the winnowing down easier). But, I pull about 6 packages out, trying to include at least one person with the one (or few) exceptional attributes. I then dig into whatever else is in the packages to try to reduce to the 2-4 I want to interview.

The point is to iterate through, looking more carefully at fewer people with each iteration. But you first have to be clear just what you are looking for.
Does this take time? Well, yes, but consider that one of the most important things I can do is hire good people. If I do that the rest of my job is really easy. Same for you - get in good students who will do good work and your job is much easier. Time 'saved' on this task causes grief further down the road.

It's a lose-lose-lose proposition: the applicants hate to have to gather all the paperwork and spend time copy pasting word-salad answers from LLMs, those writing letters of reference run out of synonyms for 'outstanding', and nobody wants to go through the pile of applications.
Here's how I deal with it:

Randomly pick 5-10 applications and read through them slowly and carefully, making notes. You will immediately start noticing patterns in the applications, which will allow you to place them in separate buckets. For example, the suburban applicant who went to Costa Rica for a week, the ones asking to be selected on pity and not merit, the exaggerators (e.g. 5.2 GPA out of a max of 4.0), the incomplete applications, etc.  Once you get a feel for it, you will be able to place them into separate piles after 1-2 minutes each applicant.
Some buckets you can reject immediately, e.g. incomplete applications, word salad statements, too low GPA, etc.
Come up with short-list criteria. This should be based on the criteria posted on the call for applications, although many programs don't list any criteria at all. Absent objective criteria from the program itself, come up with your own: how would the ideal candidates look? Give the pile a second look based on that criteria. The goal is to shorten the stack to about 2X the size of the amount of spots available, e.g. if the goal is to admit 20 students, make a short list of 40.
Go through the short list, reading each application with care and taking notes.
Arrive at a your final list.
Destroy your notes.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Why has arXiv been posting articles later?
Typically arXiv updates around 9 PM EST. Recently I have noticed that it hasn't been updating until 11 or 11:30 PM EST. Does anyone know why the delay?

Is the 2-hour later posting of any significance to anything, or are you simply curious about the internal workings of the site.

@CrimsonDark Purely curious. Maybe slightly impatient, new arXiv posts is always a highlight to my day.

The releases have been often slow in the past few months, especially on Monday evenings, due to many submissions. This is confirmed by the occasional updates on the Twitter account of arXiv's scientific director ([1],[2]) which are often reposted on the official arXiv account.

On a more bitter note, I am disappointed that the arXiv seems to have spent the millions they receive in donations on developing HTML5 converters and hiring people to post memes on Twitter rather than upgrading their servers and getting a handle on their exceedingly long moderation times.

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


text:
Should I endorse someone on arXiv who emailed me randomly?
Someone emailed me randomly sharing a paper. The paper looks not crankish, familiar with the results in the field, but just someone who is not currently affiliated with any university. They have published in a reputable peer reviewed journal before, but have never posted anything to arXiv.
Should I endorse them? The paper looks professional (I have not verified that it is correct, but it looks like mathematics). Is there any risk?
They offered to chat with me about their work and it looks perhaps interesting.

https://info.arxiv.org/help/endorsement.html#what-are-my-responsibilities-as-an-endorser

It seems clear that you are not obligated to act in any particular way here.  But since the author has published other work in a reputable journal and since the current submission looks like professional mathematics, I think that it would be reasonable to endorse them on the arxiv.  If you are interested enough to read the paper carefully enough to ensure correctness then that would allow you to make a definitive endorsement, but...isn't that placing the bar too high? No one said that your paper needs to be correct to be posted on the arxiv -- it just needs to be a sincere, serious effort by someone with something like the amount of training of a professional researcher.
I don't think you are in danger of losing your own arxiv privileges by a bad endorsement or anything like that.  The worst outcome I can think of is that somehow the word gets out that you are someone who is willing to endorse nonacademic mathematicians on the arxiv and because of this you get a flood of endorsement requests, but...if that happens you can just say no as many times as you want.  So there doesn't seem to be much of a risk here.

I ended up endorsing them. Thanks for the advice.

If you are interested enough to read the paper carefully enough to ensure correctness then that would allow you to make a definitive endorsement - Not that you are implying this, but the arXiv endorsement page explicitly says this is not expected.

Great advice!!!

Great advice, because it implicitly means: don't trust any endorsements on ArXiv, they only mean that the endorsed entity "looks - on the first glance - like a scientific paper, perhaps like mathematics, written by somebody willing to chat about it".

@fdreger What do you even mean by "trust an endorsement on ArXiv"? Endorsements are not made public - you cannot see them on arXiv. And nothing implicit about it: endorsement is explicitly and intentionally not peer review of the paper - see https://info.arxiv.org/help/endorsement.html#what-are-my-responsibilities-as-an-endorser .  (But it's meant to be more than "looks on the first glance perhaps like mathematics" -  more like "would be plausible to be sent out for peer review by an appropriate journal".)

@fdreger Since anybody with an academic affiliation (including students) can get arxiv access without endorsement, "being on arxiv" is not considered a high standard. The endorsement process is only intended to be a bare minimum threshold to keep out some spam and cranks; it's not peer review, and arxiv is not a peer-reviewed journal.

@RichartRast : Did I say otherwise? I was hoping that a typical  ArXiv endorsement is based on something slightly deeper than "looks like mathematics" but I wasn't really betting on it. Upon the second reading of the question - I think it was just the specific wording that triggered me. The OP seems to have put quite some work to see if the text qualifies.


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How do I make reimbursements easier on my students?
In short, the reimbursement structure of academia sucks. I hated it as a grad student and I hate it now. I want my students to go to conferences but they struggle waiting for reimbursements as it can take months. Is there anything I can do to help them? I thought of just buying everything on my personal card then getting reimbursed from grants myself but this seems like an unsustainable solution, especially as the number of students grows. Is there any way of making this easier on my students?
Let me preempt some comments by saying I have talked to office people about this and they were not very helpful.

become better friends with the people in the office. Or, private loans to your grad students (also a possible bad idea). Pay your grad students enough they can wait 2-4 months to get paid back for travel?

Funding agencies have their rules, partly to prevent fraud. If you can't find a local solution, you are probably stuck. make sure the students know what is likely to occur.

@RichardErickson I wish my students got paid more but that is out of my hands.

Just to mention, you are quite lucky that people at your university get reimbursed for conferences. In other places, they don't (or at least, not for all expenses - only travel or only accomodation; only for conferences abroad, not same county).

Does the funding come from grants already received?

And, does reimbursement come from the university or an agency? Who signs the checks or whatever?

@bestmedstudentthatneverwas While I understand that's your experience, it's absolutely ridiculous and sometimes illegal for anyone to have to pay their own way for work travel.

@RichardErickson Attending a major conference can easily involve an intercontinental flight including a few shorter legs plus a conference fee upwards of 1000 €/$/£. Having to front the total of several thousand is going to noticeably cut into the reserves of even very well paid students/postdocs (at least by EU standards, perhaps it's different in the US). And both of those expenses typically have to be paid many months in advance, so they'll have to wait for half a year before it is repaid.

Maybe one could form a non-profit association that offers loans at low interest rates to students to go to academic conferences.

@TooTea,  I am aware meetings can cost thousands of dollars/Euros/Pounds. Sometimes mechanisms exist such as bonus scholarships or travel scholarships that professors can use to get extra funds to students. The University I attended also offered travel advances (and still appears to https://www.depts.ttu.edu/procurement/resources/training-and-work-aids/documents/travel-services/procurement-travel-tips.pdf).  The answer by yourfriendlyresearchadmin mentions many possible ideas.  Working with (rather than against) people like them can make your life much easier.

This is crazy to me. In the country I live in, this kind of thing is just illegal. It's required by law that you can get an advance in this kind of situation. You can't require the employee to use their own money to temporarily fund expenses in this way.

Unfortunately, as an academic you rarely have the power to make these sorts of changes, this is administration's remit and they typically don't like academics trying to circumvent their processes, even if said processes are rubbish and not fit for purpose. Best you can usually do is petition for change at your school/faculty meetings.

Do not pay and wait for getting it back from your students! What if the university denies the payment? Do you cover the cost? Do you ask the student to pay it back to you? Sounds like a bad idea once something unusual happens.

@AliceRyhl I guess in Germany you also cannot make employees pay for conferences from their own money in advance, but if you insist, the consequence would probably just be that they tell you not to go to conferences.

What country are you in? I have attended academic conferences as a PhD student enrolled in a Spanish university and as a post doc in a French one, and I have never ever had to pay out of pocket for anything other than the daily expenses I incurred while there (e.g. food). For those, I needed to keep the receipts and ask to be reimbursed, but nobody expected me to pay out of pocket for the hefty things like air fare or accommodation.

@terdon I am in the US and this is standard practice at every US university I know.

Wow. That's... just crazy! Please edit that into the question since it is very relevant. I only spent around 10-12 years in academia, as a PhD student and post doc (long post doc :P), so I don't claim to be an expert, but my limited experience, as well as common sense, suggests this is not standard in most places as this means that only the richest students would ever be able to travel.

@terdon I agree that this is crazy. I hate this system and it is deeply unfair to students who come from less well off backgrounds. Given the importance of travel to the career of students, changing the administration around this would be one very basic way to make math more accessible. In the mean time, I want to help my students not be too burdened by this stupid system.

In the absence of finding a way to make the whole process quicker, which seems like a tall order for anyone, could some of the expenses be charged to university accounts ahead of time to reduce the outstanding balances? Especially flights and registration fees are preferably paid months before a trip to get the lowest rates, but it's unreasonable to expect a student to front this money for many months. Where I am, such expenses can be charged to university credit cards at the time of payment if the travel will be paid for by the university (whether from grant money or otherwise). While I don't think students are typically eligible to have a card themselves, their flights and registration fees can be charged to cards held by departmental office staff (possibly also to cards held by faculty, but I haven't had reason to explore this). Of course, if the office people didn't mention this as an option, maybe it isn't available to you. Perhaps ask your faculty colleagues if they have developed some other strategy.

We have a setup like this where I work.  You can ask for a travel advance providing as collateral the appropriate travel and registration receipts paid ahead of time.  There is some probability that things go sideways and you have to cancel, and you have to fill out the reimbursement form twice, but on balance that's the way my students do it.

At least here (Germany) it’s possible for the university to directly pay some things (train and flight tickets, plus participation fees) and to get a general advance reimbursement based on estimated costs. It’s horrible paperwork, but that makes it suitable for supervisors to offer help their students with it.

@MisterMiyagi That should also be the correct way to handle Anyon's direct question (and what most larger companies do). There shouldn't be a need for much reimbursement for a business travel, because the organization is paying directly for virtually all of it. The core issue is that not all universities have actually gone that route yet (sometimes because of resistance of faculty, who want to continue getting personal benefits for business expenses).

I'm a PhD student (in the UK) and I'm required to book my travel through a specific provider the university uses. I provide a reference number for the grant or department it is being charged to and someone has to manually approve it. This means all the big upfront expenses never go anywhere near my personal card.

Research administrator here; I have been approving reimbursements for the last 15 years.  There are a few things to consider to make things easier.  This perspective is US-based.
The Rules
Reimbursement rules stem from IRS rules for reimbursement.  Many of the rules people dislike come from the IRS and not the institution.  E.g., the fact that a trip must be completed prior to being reimbursed is because you could book a refundable trip, get reimbursed, cancel the trip and make money off the reimbursement.  This is income, and the IRS would want that to be taxed.  Reimbursements are by definition non-taxable.  I always tell people, "you can't get something for nothing".
In addition to the IRS rules, there can be many additional layers of rules.  The most common layer relates to sponsored funding.  E.g., you may not be able to have a flight on a foreign air carrier for US federal funding.  There can be complicated rules for this requirement as well, which again stems from Federal law.  Some institutions require receipts for every charge; others do not.  There is some flexibility with certain rules, so institutions are required to make policies and enforce them consistently.
Advice

Some institutions have travel credit cards that allow for prepayment of expenses.  This process will vary by institution, but you should see what is allowed here.  At my institution, faculty cannot put lab member charges on their travel cards.  However, we have a separate department card that allows for us to do this.
Learn the rules on behalf of your lab and set up basic ways of doing business.  If you can work out the rules with an administrator, you can help set a lab norm.  E.g., if your institution allows receipts or per diem, pick one method and use it consistently for your lab.  Work with the administrator to find a "recipe" that they can follow every single time.  Often the problem is that there are too many choices.
Find out if your institution offers a travel agent service.  Not all do, but some pay for this specifically to ease the travel process for researchers.  The benefits include having someone who knows federal travel rules and someone who can help with rebooking in the event of a problem.  Some students want to have agency to book what they want, but this often leads to avoidable complications.  Travel agent receipts also meet the definition of receipt for institutions and are streamlined documentation. I see many folks providing confirmations and not receipts, and they don't realize that we need to see proof of payment.  Travel agent receipts have all the right information.
Avoid combining personal and business travel.  Many folks want to do this (and I totally get it), but it can delay reimbursement. When you do this, administrators have to separate out the personal travel.  This is time consuming, and often confusing.
There are apps that can help with collecting receipts.  They can also use the old-fashioned way of getting a document pouch and keeping all receipts in that pouch.  A surprising number of people provide unreadable receipts, missing receipts, and other non-compliant receipts.  This can lead to severe delays.
Overall, at the time of reimbursement, provide a very clear narrative about exactly what the trip consisted of, the reason for the trip (the business purpose), provide complete documentation, including a program from the conference with the person's name attached.

Reimbursements are really difficult because of all the rules attached and all the options available to travelers.  While it may not feel like the best choice, cutting down the options helps remove a lot of the burden.  Streamlined trips that require less explanation will always move faster.
That said, some administrators struggle with processing reimbursements, and if your administrator is not moving forward with a reimbursement within 30 days of receipts being provided, then you need to reach out to their supervisor to address the issue.  In my institution, there is a cut-off where after so many days the reimbursement becomes taxable to the traveler.
There have been many instances where administrators are the broken piece.  My colleagues are often overworked and backed up, but there are also some who just do not understand the complex work assigned to them.  Be gentle and thoughtful, but also make sure the system is working and do not wait too long to say something. So we recommend that travelers provide receipts within 30 days of the trip end, and the reimbursement should be paid out within 60 days to ensure all goes well.  It's very upsetting when we miss the deadline because no one was paying attention and ensuring it moved through the system.  We have the same problem with subawards -- they usually take so long to set up because administrators find them annoying, the work is distributed across multiple people, and there isn't one single person overseeing the whole process.  With a reimbursement, the traveler is the person who should be following up regularly to ensure they get their payment, but often, they do not realize it is their responsibility.

While using a travel agent does make a lot of the paperwork easier or shifts doing it to the travel agent it also tends to be considerably more expensive. Even if you get reimbursed, the money may still come out of a grant with a finite amount in it so people do care about that.

@quarague, this cost/benefit analysis will vary widely by institution.  My institution has 3 services, one costs $7 per booking, another is $30, and the third is $50.  We coach the PIs to go with the $7 or $30 option depending on the complexity of the travel.  At some point, good administration is worth paying for.  Some of our folks have complex or high-risk itineraries (e.g., doing fieldwork in an area known for hurricanes).  We need them to have support in the event that their flight is cancelled.  It's just an option to consider; for some it's great, others not so much.

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin Varies a lot. For awhile, my institution required use of a travel agency for booking airfare, which was always more expensive for us than purchasing the tickets directly would have been, and absolutely not any more convenient for anyone.

@BryanKrause, I appreciate what you're saying. However, I will say that I work at an institution that provides maximal freedom with travel, and the downside is folks travel as they want, and their choices often end up non-reimbursable--that's a really uncomfortable conversation, and it happens every day.  It's expensive to train hundreds of people on all the policies for all the funding, and many researchers do not prioritize the training that we offer. I can see why some institutions would go the way of requiring the use of a travel agency to lower risk. It's definitely tough to optimize for.

@quarague what’s “considerably more expensive”?  If you’re buying an airfare for $2k, what’s $50 of file fee for someone to do all the legwork of chasing airfares, possible connections etc?  Obviously not worth it if the airfare is $250, but at least for me the TA takes a burden away and provides support when things go sideways (which they often do these days).

@ZeroTheHero It depends a lot on how the travel agents works and how much they charge for their services. The example by yourfriendlyresearchadmin is on the cheap end. I had experiences more similar to Bryan Krause. They were mandatory to use and the surcharge was more in the range of $200. Additionally they where utterly incompetent and the only way to get a reasonable connection was to do all the research yourself and then tell them the specific connection you wanted. They would then book the connection you found for the price you found plus their fee. It varies, a lot.

@quarague yes I suppose that paying anything for incompetent service is too much…

Thank you for helpful information. I've always found working with administrative support people to be more helpful than working against/around them. Your posts always remind me of the helpful admis I've worked with past and present.

This is an outstanding answer and very much aligns with much of my experience as a faculty in a management position. It's easy to be upset about the silly things admins require us to do, but half the time those things come from legal requirements and the other half they come from the experience that, at scale, untrained faculty and students will sometimes do really problematic things.

Some universities (such as mine) are actually encouraging faculty and students to take annual leave before or after a conference trip as it looks good for environmental purposes, as it reduces the number of flights taken by their students or employees. Mine will even pay for the flights, as long any other expenses outside the conference dates are borne by the traveller. It's not terribly difficult to process the expenses as long as they are submitted in good faith.

I have a saying, "I mind bureaucracy less than I mind chaos."
When, at the end of my residency, I applied for hospital credentialing, the process was long and complicated, but the hospital provided me a well-designed packet that layed out all the steps I needed to take, in the order I needed to take them.  That was bureaucracy, but it wasn't aggravating because there was order to it. I just had to do the work of trudging through it.
On the other hand, where I work now, applying for something as straightforward as getting administrator privileges on my work laptop is chaotic. The rules are constantly changing, the rules aren't written down, different people give you different answers, and the web form is clearly designed from the perspective of the people approving or applying the privileges, not from the perspective of the person filling it out.  It has all sorts of cryptic fields that leave me scratching my head and asking "What does that mean?" or "How the hell would I know that?"
Since you are working for a university, the chance of actually simplifying or speeding the process is slim.  You are probably stuck with the bureaucracy. What you can do is try to reduce the chaos:

Document the process down to a tee. Make it as linear (step-by-step) and plain-spoken as possible. (Avoid nested links where the student needs to drill down into a sub-process, then come back up and re-orient themselves. That can give the instructions a maze-like feeling.) Include tips on common mistakes to avoid. If possible, explain the rationale behind some of the more esoteric steps so that they make sense and don't seem like some voodoo incantation. If there are forms to fill out, include examples that can be used as models to follow. Hopefully, the University process is a stable one and isn't constantly changing.  If it does change frequently, this will make it hard to maintain your documentation.  You may be able to find a well-documented process on a school website or policy. If so, point your students there so you don't have to maintain your parallel documentation.
Forewarn your students how long the process takes, or even how long individual steps will take.  This will at least allow students to plan ahead, to know what to expect, and to have a clue if something is taking longer than expected (indicating a possible problem). From my perspective, knowing when I can expect reimbursement, so I can plan for it, is more important than getting the payment quickly.

+1 for the last sentence. I remember as a student having a hefty reimbursement delayed, and it felt like someone saying "by the way, we've decided you're going to lend us a month's rent for an undetermined length of time". It can be difficult to manage that kind of thing when you don't have any savings to rely on, but it would have been much easier if I'd known in advance.

Don't make it easier, remove their necessity. Pay for large purchases (eg flights, accomodation, registration...) directly from your cost centre. Use your university-issued credit card. Get service providers to invoice you for payment through the university system directly from your grants.

That's unlikely to work at many universities, most academics do not have carte blanche to just use their grant money how they feel like it, the university still has to approve major purchases and it will be audited. It could even result in disciplinary action.

I'm just talking about payment, not approvals. You still need to go through all the appropriate channels to make sure you don't break other rules.

If you go through the appropriate channels, your payment will almost certainly be denied and you will be told to use the proper bureaucratic process.

Then I must have worked at a sane university.


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Refereeing papers by people you are very close to
I was recently asked to referee a paper. I opened the paper and it was one of my former postdoc mentor. I disclosed my relationship to the journal and they didn't mind. I had already read the paper so I wrote a report very quickly, which was used along with other reports to accept the paper. I asked around and it sounds relatively common. I've heard people refereeing papers for advisers, postdoc mentors, and even students. I really am an expert on the area that the paper was in, and I gave a lot of feedback on how to improve the paper.
Are conflicts of interest really not that big of a problem? How common is it to referee for your adviser or students?

You did the right think by informing the editor. At that point it became their call. Sometimes it may become necessary to review submissions of people you know very well (either academically, like a former collaborator, or personally). Obviously, the line should be drawn somewhere. It once happened that I was asked to referee a paper by a former grad student of mine. I was the logical choice. But I explained to the editor that not only is the first author my former grad student - he is also a close friend, and I'm the godfather of his second-born. The editor knew their duty :-)

Yes, this happens, especially in smaller subfields. As long as you disclose your conflict to the editors there is no issue. That said, I also recommend that when writing such a report one make sure to remove obvious language quirks that might cause them to recognize that you were the referee.

You don't mention how long ago you postdocced with the author, and this is relevant.
If the postdoc was recent, I'd be inclined to turn down the review, as there may still be papers you'll be authoring together, collaborations to wrap up, recommendations the author may write for you, ....
If the postdoc was not recent, and there are no active collaborations and/or papers in the hopper, and you're not particularly close, active friends, I'd be inclined to accept the review.
Thus, the devil is in the nuances -- how many available qualified  reviewers there are in your field, how "long ago" is long ago, whether the paper is likely to become central to some big battle in your field, ....
As to "how long ago", there is no right answer, but 5 years since the last collaboration seems to be a guideline I've seen before (possibly in NIH study section guidelines as to whether you need to declare a conflict or not, but I could be wrong), but I can certainly imagine situations where that's not long enough and other situations where that's not short enough.
As to how close your friendship is, only you can judge whether a friendship can impact the review or if the review can impact the friendship.  My own inclination would be to not review for close personal friends.  Of course, in small research communities, where all the authors travel the same conference circles, everyone knows everyone else, and if you're strict about this, nothing would ever get reviewed.

As long as I feel like I can give a relatively fair review (e.g., not a project I supervised), I just disclose potential conflicts to the editors (e.g., am currently collaborating with this person on a related project) and let them decide.  I've had editors say this latter situation is fine, since they'll hear other opinions also.

I do in fact think that editors should avoid this, and in my view it is a problem. However it may be difficult to find other reviewers. The paper may be very specialised with few real experts around, and the author may also be related in some way (supervisor, co-author...) to many people. Also there may be a lot of socialising in the field and everybody may have some personal connection to everybody else even if it isn't having worked together. There are also "intellectual conflicts of interest" where people review papers of others using an approach that the reviewer might want to promote or destroy; also reviewers may want to be cited, tend to accept papers that cite them and reject others. So it may be hard for an editor to avoid conflicts of interest when picking reviewers, and I can see where the editor is coming from. But still, as long as at all possible, I'd avoid such a situation, and I have declined review requests for this reason.


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Moving institutions, gap employment, and R21 funding
I am currently a research scientist with an R21. I was offered an assistant professor position, but the starting date is after my current appointment ends. What would happen to my funding if I have a gap of employment of a few months? Would I lose my funding?

Please be so kind to explain acronyms and give your location, as these highly influence the situation.

This is well beyond an "let's ask random people on the internet" type question. You need to contact your funding body and the financial coordinator of your current (and possible future) university to get an official answer that you can rely on and make appropriate plans.


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Using another professor's slides for my course
I teach economics at an Indian University and recently came across some good publicly available lecture slides by another professor (US R1 University). I would like to share the slides with my students (with slight modifications). To be clear, I do not want to use the slides during my lectures but only provide the slides as reference material (of course, with due credit to the original creator).
I have emailed the professor requesting permission to reuse their slides, but I haven't heard from them. The slides themselves do not carry any copyright notice, but are available on the professor's personal website.
Assuming the prof does not respond, is it appropriate/ethical to distribute the slides, and simply mention/link the original source? Ideally, I would have liked to add a note saying "Slides used with permission from Prof. X", but if Prof. X hasn't explicitly given permission, can I still add the note?

Is there a link to the slides on the professor's website? If not, how did you "come across" the slides?

Yes, it is a public link on a publicly available/searchable website. I was searching for material on a particular topic when I came across these slides.

Under American copyright law, the original creator of those slides holds the copyright (unless they've specifically relinquished it), and you are not really permitted to make copies, distribute copies, etc unless the creator has explicitly granted you that right.  There are some exceptions for fair use (you can use portions of the slides for educational purposes, for example), and it is unlikely that you would ever be caught and/or prosecuted for redistributing these slides, but doing so would (technically) put you on the wrong side of American copyright law.

If you're intending to use these lecture slides as lecture notes for your students, as opposed to using them as lecture slides during a lecture, then wouldn't it be better to find actual lecture notes? Lecture slides are intended to be shown during a lecture, and they are typically not suited at all to replace a well-written textbook or well-written lecture notes.

@Stef Is that a useful frame challenge? Presumably Acad has decided these slides are useful to share, no matter the format.

You can certainly share a publicly available link to the materials. The students could, themselves download them or use them online. Since they are copyrighted (most likely, as is true most everywhere) you are not allowed to distribute them yourself or modify them for use.  That is the strict view.
But it seems odd (foolish) for the professor to provide a link and then try to restrict use of what is available at that link. I think you could probably use a "good faith" argument that they are intended for public use.  And a "fair use" argument might apply if you show them unmodified to a class/lecture without, yourself, distributing them.
At worst you would get an order to "cease and desist", though that seems unlikely. You haven't reduced the value of the slides by using them unmodified in front of a group of students.
However, look for any specific license accompanying the link and limit use to what is described there.

One issue to be aware of is that material on the web can change or disappear. I suggest that if you are able to make contact with the author that you ask for permission to archive and distribute them to your class, or try to get some assurance that they won't change in the near term. I've had things that I've linked to disappear.

Look specifically for a reference to Creative Commons, either on the professor's web site or on the slides themselves.  If it's there, read the relevant CC license.  Other copyright marks might be bad news.

By 'distributing', I meant sharing the link (not giving out printed copies). So, I guess I will go ahead with that. I tried searching for a license note but couldn't find it: the slides are simply listed on the "teaching" page of the website.

If you can see the link, so can your students. There doesn't seem to be any issue.

See my edit for an additional suggestion.

@BobBrown: Already checked, no CC license.

@Buffy Noted, that's a good point. Thank you! I will try nudging the prof. again after the holiday season.

@AcadEconInd You don't need anyone's permission to link to someone's slides, so if that's the only thing you want to do, I wouldn't press the issue with the professor. But I don't understand how "I meant sharing the link" is consistent with "slight modifications" to the slides.

I was planning to indicate to the students to ignore slides A and B (say), but I see how it might not have been clear.

There are no issues about ignoring some of the slides.

Assuming the prof does not respond, is it appropriate/ethical to
distribute the slides, and simply mention/link the original source?
Ideally, I would have liked to add a note saying "Slides used with
permission from Prof. X", but if Prof. X hasn't explicitly given
permission, can I still add the note?

Under no circumstances can you add a note saying that Prof. X said it was OK if they did not do that.
In modern US law you do not need to claim or renew copyright to have copyright. If you wrote it then you own it, and nobody else can use it without permissions. Every single web site comment area (like this) will have terms & conditions that make you transfer the copyright to the site before being able to comment.


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To provide lecture notes or not?
I teach Intermediate Microeconomics to a large class (150 students) in a University.
I use a graphics tablet to write the explanations and project it on the screen. I am mostly open to pausing and giving extra time if the students are copying down the notes. Information about the textbook (by Varian) and chapters to use is given clearly in the course outline.
However, the students have an expectation that I should share the handwritten notes with them. I recently took anonymous feedback in the class and most of the comments in the "scope to improve" section were about having access to lecture notes.
I closely follow the textbook material but have also clarified to the class that lectures and textbook are complements and not substitutes. According to them, it takes a "lot of time to read the chapters" hence they want access to lecture notes. The average chapter length in the required textbook is 5-6 pages.
If there is a required reading mentioned in the course outline and the book is easily available, is it still compulsory for me to provide the lecture notes? My lecture notes are full of arrows and highlighting as I emphasise certain portions while teaching so I doubt how helpful will these notes be to students.  My personal preference is not to share the lecture notes because 1. it is better for students to make their own notes 2. Handing out notes could incentivise not attending lecture or being inattentive.
Some other information I would like to share:

I have students doing economics as a major and a minor in my class.
At least 75% attendance is compulsory to write the end term exam--this is a University wide rule.
I have TAs to help with section meetings, evaluation and course preparation. However till now I have not made it compulsory for them to attend my lectures or help with making slides etc.

Is this a question on strategy or methodology? Because regarding the teaching methodology, you can find many resources on the Internet. If you fear losing the students or a subject by not easing their learning process, that's something else.

Does this answer your question? Is it common to provide digital notes (slides or handwritten) for students?

@JackRed Not really.  My question is whether I need to provide the notes.  It is also common to teach through slides,  which I usually don't do.

@AcadEconInd I may miss the nuance in your question then, because the answers on the question I linked seem for me to touch on whether it is needed or not. And better what are the pros and cons. Additionally, the cons you mention such as "students not attending or inattentive" or "student won't take notes" (albeit with a different reasoning this one) are both written in the question

Your explanation sounds like what we used to do in the old chalk-board days and develop the lecture's key ideas in real time by writing them on the board. Modern slide shows with prepared slides is quite different.
But, back in the day, it was common for the professor to pause a bit before erasing what had already been written so as to continue if there wasn't enough space for the entire lecture. In a huge class this is difficult to manage as you can't get 100% assurance that everyone has captured what they need.
When using slides, I found it useful to, in some cases, provide the slides a day or two ahead, hoping (and suggesting) that students print them out and use them in class to make their own annotations as class proceeded. It doesn't seem like you can do that here.
I would experiment, however, with making a day's notes immediately available (end of class) and suggesting that students take a few moments to integrate what they think they've learned with those notes. It might be that only the better students bother. Too many students think that having heard the lecture the "know and understand" it. That, of course, isn't how the mind works. My suggestion of an immediate review is a reinforcement mechanism that makes learning possible.
I once had a class that had folks that thought once was enough. I had to explicitly teach them that it wasn't and gave them tasks that required both reinforcement and the preparation for it. The problem, at base, was that they hadn't been sufficiently challenged with material that truly required this reinforcement and so had lazy habits.
I've never had to deal with the scale you suggest, however, and would find it daunting, requiring many new techniques. But, I think that providing a way for students to integrate their immediate, but poor, understanding with your notes would be a good thing. In particular, being able to add questions by writing on the notes can be very helpful so that they don't forget to find (or ask for) answers later.
In my smaller scale classes I asked the class, at the very end, to tell me the most important idea (or the three most important ideas) in that lecture. This was done to make them focus during the lecture and to prompt the thinking of other students when someone answered my query (in public). Since I knew the students (scale, again),and they were comfortable with me and each other, I could call on random students to tell me/us what they thought was the key idea and confirm or deny it. "Jenny, tell me one key idea from this lecture." Or ask for a volunteer to respond.
In a large class with TAs, the TA could ask for such ideas and they can be a powerful source of discussion in breakout sections. If they report back to you on results, you can catch misunderstandings quickly and respond to them as needed.

My concern is that the real time notes distributed after the class might not make much sense to the students (without the contextual explanation), and to their disadvantage, actually lull them into a false sense of security that "they can miss class and study from notes".  I'm unable to weigh the pros and cons.

Another concern is that students might end up using the notes to cheat on exams. Sadly in my country,  students are commonly found cheating on exams.  And despite repeated reminders about academic ethics and (reasonably) strict proctoring,  students find a way to cheat (keeping notes/phone in washrooms and accessing them) etc.

Tell them why they are being given the notes and how to use them effectively. Don't assume they will understand it. Also, let them know that not every nuance is captured in the notes and make your lectures meaningful enough that they want to attend. You already have a partial solution to the attendance problem in any case. But scale is not your friend here, since it is hard to ask and answer questions with so many students.

If they want to cheat, they don't need your notes to do so.


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How to correct citation count of a given paper in Google Scholar?
Two of my works have been recently cited by the same paper. The citation count of one of them was updated properly in Google Scholar, but not for the other one. What is weirder is that the references of this citing paper provide a working link to the Google Scholar entry of both works. So, I can open this citing paper, click on this reference entry, be redirected to the correct Google Scholar page, and see that the citing paper is not listed under "Cited by #".
Does anyone know how to fix it?

Are the two papers cited with their DOI? AFAIK, Google Scholar uses an 'automated system' for 'inputing' the citation count. At times, it takes time.

Well, none of the references of their paper is listed with their DOI in the PDF. Perhaps it is done under the hood, but I don't know.

Is the publication you are talking about very recent? If so, this could be due to a data updating delay.

Yes, it is. That makes sense, I will wait to see if it gets fixed!


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Approaching supervisor for master's thesis when I have ideas but nothing concrete?
So I have to write my master's thesis, and I need to contact a potential supervisor. The field is statistics.
I am slightly confused by how these things work: on one hand, you often hear that you should have your own ideas and proposals for what you want to write about. On the other hand, your supervisor also needs to be able to supervise you, hence your ideas need to fall to his liking and be within his area of expertise and interest.
With that in mind, how do I approach a potential supervisor? I intend to first write an e-mail. In this e-mail, do I

merely introduce myself and my interests/coursework and then ask for the possibility of writing a master's thesis under their guidance, without getting into any specifics of what the topic should be, and then wait for their response?
or do I specifically go into details with the ideas that I have in mind?
or do I mention my ideas vaguely but stress that I am open to any suggestions that he might have for a related topic?

I am learning towards option 3) as option 2) seems a bit too much for an initial contact and option 1) seems a bit lackluster.

You should talk to you advisor - you surely have one while on a master's

Is this supervisor someone you know/in your department? This makes a  difference in your approach.
If this supervisor is from another school, and you REALLY want to work with them, go see who he has supervised in the past and reach out to them to get a feel for how that professor might respond.

2a. An alternative to this is to call the departments graduate studies unit, convey your interest, and ask them how you might go about talking with a particular professor. Every university tends to have a prospective students section where you'll find an email for your questions to go to.

If you are sending an email, prior to you getting into a bunch of details, it would probably save you some time to ask them if they are considering accepting graduate students for the 20xx-20yy year, and if they say yes, express your interest.
Really make sure that you contact previous students to see how that professor is as a supervisor. This isn't done enough but it is so important to know what you're getting into.

This is hard to answer, and from the comments, the best advice would be to talk to your advisor.
This is something that each institution would have different policies on.
That being said, you should always try and write about something that you are interested in.
If you are doing statistics and get put with a statistics Professor, I am sure they will have a broad array of knowledge to be able to advise you.
You also have to take ownership of your work.
When writing an email I would mention that you are interested in this specific subject area, i.e. "currency forecasting". But I probably wouldn't give specific details. You could even mention you are interested in these papers which fit well to your topic. This way if nothing at least that potential advisor might pass you on to one of their colleagues which have an interest in your area of the literature.
This is also where your advisor will come in, a good department at the University will mean the professors have a good idea about what the other professors in their department resarch.
Finally, enjoy it. It was the best 3 months of education for myself writing the masters dissertation!


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Transferring NSF grant to Canadian University
I am a postdoc (Canadian citizen) working at a USA university. Me and my postdoc supervisor are planning to apply for a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (computer science), where I will be the PI.
I am also applying for tenure track (TT) faculty jobs in both USA and Canada. If the NSF grant is awarded to us, and if I get a TT offer from a Canadian university, and decide to join there, can I transfer my cut of the NSF grant to that Canadian institution?
Thanks.

As the NSF grant overseer.

Seems unlikely, but ask the NSF or your university's grants office.

It's the National Science Foundation of the United States. It generally only funds research in the US unless specific reasons are provided in the rationale of the proposal for why some money should go abroad.
You can always ask the NSF program manager, but you should probably expect them to say no -- because there is really no particular good reason why the NSF should be using American taxpayer money to pay for computer science research in another country.

"no particular good reason why the NSF should be using American taxpayer money to pay for […] research in another country". I'd like to reply "for the greater good of humankind", but unfortunately their mission statement contains the word "nation" twice: "To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense; and for other purposes."

@Clément From a philosophical point, one can of course take this stance. In practice, this is asking too much of the taxpayers of countries, certainly with regard to a destination like Canada: A country that is undoubtedly rich enough to support research on its own territory. (That aside, the United Nations, OECD, NATO, many private foundations, and many other national and international organizations do support research regardless of location.)

@wolfgangBangerth thanks. NSERC and NSF have a MoU, under which both agencies fund researchers working in US and Canada on collaborative projects. With the Alliance grant, Canadian researchers receive funds from NSERC, and their US counterpart from NSF. May be this is an option for us, if I move back to Canada. (https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Innovate-Innover/NSERC-NSF-CRSNG_eng.asp)


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Baffled by online professor's response to my weekly reflections journal
I'm attending university 100% online. I have the same professor for three classes, which are all structured the same way. Every week there is assigned reading, videos, and a discussion board post with a prompt written by her. We have to make an original post, reply to any comments and comment on other's posts a minimum of 6 times spread over 3 days. And we also must submit a weekly journal reflection after all assignments and posts are complete. I'm in week 10 of doing this, times 3. The instructions say to summarize what we've learned this week and to tell her if we are struggling, and it's okay to occasionally vent. She's commented on my submissions several times and given me positive feedback. I never really vent, but I have told her when I've been struggling with certain parts of the class. This last week I wrote a short reflection, first saying what we were focusing on this week, then commenting that I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the new terms because there are so many. I said, "but I am trusting the process and will continue to go through the lessons one at a time." she graded me 7 out of 10 points, which was really surprising. Then she sent a comment that began fine, just saying she's sorry I'm struggling. But then this :

P. S. It isn't necessary to waste your time reiterating the content of each lesson--your takeaways are what's important if you have any.
Are you okay? One week you are kind and appear happy and the next week you act as though you want to tear my head off. Is there anything I can do to help?

I'm very confused by this. I replied saying this :

I'm super confused by this question! I have no desire to tear your head off! If I've said anything to give that impression, I am very sorry. Please let me know where I may have misstepped.

She has not responded at all, though she did comment on my post in the discussion board last night. I don't know what to think. I've been racking my brain trying to see where my reflections sounded angry or anything and I have nothing.
Should I just try and forget about it? Or should I request a zoom meeting to discuss the misunderstanding?

You say you're in week 10, so I assume you're nearing the end. Will you have this professor again, in future classes? Or are you reaching the end of your time with her?

Yes we have six more weeks. And I have at least one more semester where she could possibly be the instructor.

Imagined or wildly misinterpreted emotional content is almost certain to come up when so much communication is done via text only with no tone of voice or non-verbal cues. Seems like the teacher is unaware of how much she really cannot tell about your emotional state when everything is text, and she is most likely inventing and/or projecting non-verbal content into your verbal content and thinks she’s seeing emotions that just aren’t there.

Try giving her the zoom call, it's much easier to resolve such things by talking than by textual messages.

Are you and your professor from the same country/culture? This sort of thing can often be exacerbated by cultural differences. For example, as a Greek studying in the UK, I was once told I had gotten into "a fight" with a friend of mine. I had no idea, I thought we were having a very pleasant and interesting political discussion. What seemed "animated" to me, came across as "angry and aggressive" to them.

My attention is focused on this comment, which I see very often in different guises: "I've been racking my brain trying to see where my reflections sounded angry or anything and I have nothing."  This might not be the right thing to check. This may be privileged on my behalf, but it seems stressful to review all your communication for nuances that may be inaccurate or inadvertent - especially if you are trying to hide real feelings.  Please recognize you send nonverbal cues that are likely beyond your control, unless you are a professional actor or salesperson.  I would consider evaluating the content of your own feelings (which will get expressed one way or another) rather than your messages for nuance that may simply not exist. Are you stressed? Or mad at the professor? If so, that's allowed - some of my favorite students are mad at me (the last test had a too-hard essay).
Professors generally can tell if you are struggling - or at least, they think they can.  I also get the sense you are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.  These feelings are okay - there are resources for you at your school usually available through councilors. I consider stress a practical matter that must be attended to, much like food, shelter, and water.  Some people do not get the help they need (whatever form that might be) and they also fail to thrive as a result. Please take care of yourself.
In your particular case, I believe the professor is offering you an olive branch by allowing you to lower your workload - "You don't need to summarize each of these."  It doesn't appear to be a criticism of your existing work.  I see your response is apologetic - this is a valid response, but reminds me that you are probably under a lot of stress.

This answer is partially confusing to me. If someone said to me "one week you are kind and the next week you want to tear my head off" (implying I am unkind), I'd have to assume it's a lot more than nuance, and I would be confused as well if someone is implying I feel a way about them that I do not. I can agree about the importance of caring for stress and the olive branch, but the key confusion to me remains. If a professor says to a student "you act as though you want to tear my head off", it seems to me that either the professor or the student (or both) have acted inappropriately.

Perhaps - and I have been at institutions where the implication of aggressive feelings would indeed be inappropriate. Some might even feel it is inappropriate to imply my students might be mad at me. But - it might also be that they are at an institution with very high levels of candor.

Thanks for your response. Maybe "inappropriate" is not the best word to use. But I think even in a situation with high candor, we can do better. For example, if you feel someone is angry at you, you can say "I feel that you might be upset at me" (unquestionably true, since it refers to your internal state) rather than "you are acting upset," (subjective and judgmental) especially over written communication. You are definitely in every right to say your students are mad at you, if they have informed you so. But I'd argue it would be better not to make assumptions.

Just to clarify, I am saying the professor referred to in the question can do better than "you act as though you want to tear my head off," and not making any statements about you in particular. And originally I am pointing out that to me, this seems to go further than just nuance. A person in a position of power making a statement like that to a student is a big deal, IMO.

I've read your comment a few times, I think I understand better now.  Some problems with the teachers' statement: 1) imagery is rough, possibly inappropriate depending on context, 2) best to always use "I feel" statements when engaging with emotions and the emotions of other people.

Certainly true--thank you for reading and understanding my comment. Though I am not trying to critique the teacher, but that I felt the overtness and pointedness of her statement would be disproportionate if OP was just sending subtle nonverbal cues. The confusion I feel with your answer is not exactly caused by your answer per se, but unresolved residual confusion from the situation--trying to understand what directly caused the teacher to communicate that way.

"it seems stressful to review all your communication for nuances that may be inaccurate or inadvertent" - This seems to be a very all-or-nothing mindset. It is certainly possible to review SOME of your communication, given a clear signal of offence caused, without reviewing ALL your communication. And it's also certainly possible to reflect on how others might be interpreting what you say without stressing about it. If you focus purely on intent and disregard delivery ... that's a good way to inadvertently cause offence when people interpret what you say differently from how you meant it.

@NotThatGuy, also true. I agree it's important to think about how you speak - but I read this student is already stressed, there are several indicators in this passage already that seem to suggest that (enumerating the course load, for example). I don't think it's plausible or helpful to ask this student to somehow bury those signals. Especially when we as teachers depend on them to determine how a student is doing in a class, and the teacher is verbatim inviting them to provide such cues.  But in general people should be thoughtful about their communication and review errors.

I think you're focusing on the wrong part of the message. Let's look at what she wrote:

"It isn't necessary to waste your time reiterating the content of each lesson--your takeaways are what's important if you have any."
"Are you okay? One week you are kind and appear happy and the next week you act as though you want to tear my head off. Is there anything I can do to help?"

The first part is useful feedback, take it to heart. It means less work for you, less work for her, making you both happier.
The second part is not criticism, it's an offer for help! "To tear someone's head of" is a hyperbolic figure of speech, nothing more, nothing less. If she had known how much her choice of words distressed you, she would have likely used a different (weaker) metaphor. If it helps, imagine her smiling playfully while saying this, or imagine that she said (more boringly) "...and the next week you appear unhappy and struggling". Be generous and cut her some slack: Getting non-verbal communication right is hard, and professors are just as human and fallible as we are.
Thus, my advice is to ignore that ill-chosen phrase and focus on the real content of the message: "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help?" So... are you okay? And is there anything she can do to help?

This is the most likely explanation, but still, I think the OP should go to their (virtual) office hours, or schedule a one-on-one zoom meeting with them. This kind of discussion needs to be done over zoom, or over the phone, not over email.  Also, the OP should let the Professor talk before getting too defensive.  Perhaps, the Professor made a mistake in using the language they used, or perhaps they confused them with another student, but also perhaps, they've picked up on some stress coming from the student.

In my experience, it has always been fruitful to clarify misunderstandings in a meeting, and moreover it develops your relationship with your professor. In short, try not to worry/overthink too much about it (stop racking your brain!), since that will not be fruitful, but I do think it's a good idea to request a Zoom meeting to have a discussion.
You'll have the chance to clarify your comments and emphasize that you trust the process even if you are struggling. You'll also have a chance to jointly figure out if there is anything your professor can do to help you, or anything you can do differently (your professor may give you useful learning advice!) As one example, I do not personally know if this is an outstanding question for you, but you can also clarify the difference between reiterating content and takeaways, and ask for examples of the desired summary format. Or you can clarify what you could have done better next time to improve your score from a 7/10.
Professors are people too, and they are generally particularly time-crunched and stressed as well. Your professor may not have had the time to really take in all your words and perhaps only the negative ones stuck (there are a plethora of human negativity biases). Your professor may even have been hungry at the time! Thus, taking the chance to clarify things will be helpful for your professor as well, in the case that your professor has accidentally developed an incorrect assessment of the situation or misread you.
Since your professor has already kindly asked if there is any way to help, I am sure a Zoom meeting will be welcome.
Edit: I think it may even be possible that the professor was making a dry joke or being hyperbolic and it landed poorly. Nevertheless, you will probably benefit from a meeting. Office hours are a highlight of both a student's and an educator's experience.


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Masters programs in UK: question regarding accepting more than one offer
I am an international student who is applying for a masters in the UK and has received one unconditional offer. That offer is not from not my first choice, however. I am still waiting for news other applications. My current offer would start in less than two months, so I need to respond soon. If I accept that offer now, is it okay for me to accept other offers (if they are successful) later? Most importantly: will this have any impact on my visa?

Many, many students accept places on Master's degrees that they never turn up to. We never count our student numbers until they have actaully registered.
However, I don't know how this will affect your visa. I'm pretty sure you need to specify what university your are studying at on a student visa, and so you will need to have made a decision before last point at which you could apply for a visa and start on time.


text:
My main contribution as a first author eventually diminished over multiple rejection cycles. Can I still state it in my research statement?
A paper I lead from inception contained two major components. Unfortunately, the reviewers insisted that we focus on just one of them, and a decision was made to focus less on the component that I worked on.
Eventually, due to page limitations and overall coherence of the paper, the component was dropped from the final revision. Since I've been involved in the writing throughout, I am still the first co-author. However, I do not own the main component of the paper, which has been accepted for publication.
Currently I am in the process of applying to grad schools and was wondering if I can include details of that component in my research statement.
Additionally, should I also describe the story of why it doesn't exist in the final version?

You probably have an opportunity for another paper, actually.

@Buffy that's true, but I can't it done before the application cycle! :-)

The way I know it is that in your research statement you are meant to focus on what you are planning to do in the future or currently doing, not what your contribution to past papers is, but this may be different in some places I don't know.
Regarding writing down what you did in the past, you can honestly mention the paper and what you actually worked on. I don't think you need to explicitly say that this didn't find the way into the final version; people will not normally read your research statement against the actual paper, and even if they do and somebody raises an issue (which I think is unlikely), you can clarify in an interview what happened. If you don't have to explicitly mention what you worked on there, don't do it. You could let the reference speak for itself (even though it does so maybe in a slightly misleading manner;-).

The first paragraph is key here. The paper belongs in the CV, not the research statement (or the SoP if required). Write about your research trajectory, not the past.


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Is it appropriate to use professors’s phone numbers?
11 days ago I wrote an email to a professor of a famous university in the US to ask about potential open positions in their laboratory to carry out my Master’s Thesis.
He responded immediately, CC’ing the group administrator to figure out the mechanism to make the thing work out. He also suggested that we had to have a chat in about a week.
After 5 days (last Friday) I tried to contact the professor again to schedule the meeting but he didn’t answer my email. I waited until Tuesday in the afternoon to send another email specifying that I have a deadline to apply for my scholarship (which is essential because I would not be paid) and that I need to schedule the meeting as soon as possible, according to their preferences. He didn’t answer for the second time, so after 2 days I directly contacted the group administrator, who just forwarded my email to the professor. I’m now waiting for an answer but I feel like the emails are just getting lost among the many others he receives.
In the very first (and only) email I received from them, they included their office and mobile phone number, in the contact information section under their signature.
I was wondering if it would be inappropriate to send a message or try to call them on their mobile phone number, because I live in Europe and it is totally impossible for me to reach out to them if not by email or by phone.

If he's handing out his mobile phone number to anyone he sends an e-mail to, he should expect to be called on that number. Also, it's probably not his private phone number but rather one provided by the university. I think you can try calling him.

Do you think a message is better than an unannounced call? Or it’s just the same?

This is more or less re-writing hm1912's comment as an answer, but if the professor included the phone number in the email, it should be appropriate to call, especially since repeated attempts to contact by email have not reached him.
It might be a good idea to call the office phone number first (during working hours in his local time) and then try his mobile number later if that does not work. Good luck!


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Among IELTS and TOEFL test, which is more suitable for applying in US for PhD programme?
I have completed by masters  with good grades from University of Calcutta, India. I wish to pursue doctoral research in USA in the subject of Geography. But, I am in a state of uncertainty as to which exam will be more suitable for me to give, IELTS or TOEFL. Which test do most of US universities gives weightage to while going through CV of shortlisted and/or interested candidates.
And also, if I do give IELTS, will it give me an edge if I do wish to apply for universities in Europe, Canada and/or Australia?

Please read the requirements for the programs you are interested in applying. I know a few universities used to strictly require applicants to take TOEFL IBT in the past. However, nowadays, IELTS, TOEFL IBT or other popular English proficiency tests are accepted at almost any university in the world. As long as you pass a certain threshold that they require for the English test you choose, you meet the English requirement. For some universities, this threshold will be high (e.g. 7.5 with no skill below 7.0). Furthermore, the test you take will not give you any advantage/disadvantage.
I personally chose the easiest one to take just because I was confident with my English skills, and I did not want to spend any minute on preparing for the test. Furthermore, your ability to communicate in English matters much more than the score you get in a proficiency test as it will be shown during PhD interview (if there is any).


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Will a paper retraction be the end of my academic career?
It looks like I am about to have a paper retracted. It was due to a misunderstanding about data use permissions, not misconduct or plagiarism. How badly will this impact my career?

Probably not much.  It might not even be noticed when you're applying for jobs - you're not usually asked to point it out, and it's unlikely someone would search for it.  If you're a grad student and made this mistake relying on your advisor, it doesn't really say anything about you.  But most academic job markets are highly competitive, and it's usually best to always assume that your chances at an academic career are slim in the first place.

The answer depends entirely on the details of specific your situation, which, for perfectly understandable reasons, you might not be able or willing to share.

Retractions can (and should!) happen even without misconduct and plagiarism. If you make a paper, make a mistake, and the admit to your mistake, that is ok. No one assumes academics are a rare breed of humans that can't make mistakes.

@AnderBiguri In general, yes. But I can certainly introduce you to a few that are certain they can't :-)

No
Here's an example of a retracted paper. The lead author is Barbara Yankey, who is currently a clinical assistant professor at Georgia State University (webpage).
Misconduct or plagiarism will do major damage to your career, but simple mistakes happen. You move on.

Her current position (like many titled 'clinical assistant professor') is non-tenure-track and focused on teaching.  I think it's an important job which merits more status (and pay) than she is probably getting, but the OP might not consider it an academic career of the kind they are interested in.