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Generally, can a recent PhD graduate have too many peer-reviewed academic journal articles?
Generally, can a recent PhD graduate have too many academic journal articles (peer-reviewed papers)? It was suggested to me by one gentleman in my field (theology) that more than 4 might be suspicious, though other professors disagreed with him. I saw an environmental scientist say something similar on LinkedIn recently, however, which piqued my curiosity.
I am not thinking of people who might publish in predatory or borderline journals, but respectable academic journals.
This question is general – across fields – though I am asking from the perspective of academic theology, where most papers are authored by one, maybe two people. In fact, a few journals in my field do not accept articles by non-PhDs, unless endorsed by a PhD.

A recurring theme on this site is that academia varies a lot more than one might expect.

It is hard to answer for every field, but I think what someone might be getting at making this statement is too many articles can seem implausible, and someone might:

Be publishing low-quality articles in predatory journals; or

Being given too much (inappropriate) credit for group-wide projects; or

For areas where the only one person writes a manuscript, seniors in the field know how long it takes on average to write a good manuscript. Being dramatically faster makes it seem as if you are writing bad articles (quick is easier than good).

What exactly that number is would need to be taken into context of the field, subfield, and the student's specialty. Someone who specializes in methods might end up on a lot of papers from their group. So an evaluator would have to read letters of rec and personal statements to understand why someone had so many papers.
You shouldn't omit anything from a CV, but it is easy to imagine someone taking a second look at a very long publications list.

True, though it takes so long for articles to go from submission to print that it seems difficult to have all that many articles from non-predatory journals.

@David_Ave Which is why there aren't many people with "too many" publications.

True. Then again, if the line of suspicion is only 3 or so articles when you're a PhD student for 4-6 years, it seems very possible to cross that line. Hence, my general question and personal concern.

@david you need to distinguish whether you mean first author or any author papers

Yes, sorry. I do not really know much about fields where it is common to have a large number of authors. In theology, it is less common to even have two! So I was thinking of sole authorship, first authorship, or authorship in fields where there are only a few collaborators working on any given project.

@David_Ave I don't really understand your questions here. The whole point of this answer is to explain that having "too many" (as defined by your field and the time it takes to publish in it) can be suspicious because it might suggest some sort of cheating. So by definition, if it seems "very possible to cross that line" then you have misunderstood where the line is. The point is that having more papers than seems reasonable for the time you spent is suspicious. If it is reasonable for the time spent, then it isn't suspicious. There's not much more to it.

@David_Ave Edited to address your clarification

@terdon I do not know if the two people in the OP were only thinking of academic dishonesty or predatory journals, as mentioned in the OP where I mention such journals.

For example, do "too many" publications indicate that the recent graduate is uninterested in teaching or other internal university engagements? Have publications expectations changed generationally so that new PhDs approach publishing in a different way than senior scholars would expect them too? Those are just some examples as to why what "seems reasonable" may be more opaque, given the two people mentioned in the OP who suggested this idea of "too many" publications.

@David_Ave No, I don't think so. Couldn't say for theology.

The answers here on Stack have been comforting and some of them I will share with my classmates. Thank you!

I think having an outlier number of publications at any point in your career will draw attention and possibly scrutiny. But as long as they are decent publications where you played a relevant enough role to warrant authorship, then that scrutiny is probably a good thing simply because it means more time is being spent looking at your application.
In addition to the other answers, here are some more perfectly legitimate reasons people might have an unusually high number of publications at the end of a PhD:

Some people get published before they even enter graduate school. Either because they had the opportunity to do research as an undergrad, or because they didn't go straight from undergrad to grad and had research positions in between. Faculty in my department generally try hard to involve undergrads in their research, and some of the undergrads even get to develop their own side project as part of that research.
Related to what others have mentioned about time spent in grad school, some people might get multiple publications from their master's degree, and some people do two (or more) master's degrees before doing a PhD. And again, some people don't go straight from a master's to a PhD and might be doing research in between.
Some people going into a PhD are doing it as an extension of their work. In other words, they're employees of a government agency, a nonprofit, a business, or some other organization. Or maybe they moved on from that employment but are using those connections as part of their PhD. These people often already have access to data and other resources, allowing them to sort of "kick start" their PhD. I've seen this a lot in fields related to natural resources.
Some fields and types of research are very collaborative. I'm an ecologist, and ecology is extremely interdisciplinary, which means people often have unique combinations of skills and expertise to bring to the table. For what I do it's actually kind of weird for me whenever I see a paper with only one or two authors. As a PhD student, I helped publish five papers across three projects unrelated to my research because I have some specialized skills that others found very useful. There were several other projects I helped people with where my skills were useful, but my involvement wasn't at the level to warrant authorship.

I'll add to the answer of Azor Ahai -him-, that it depends on a number of factors not just the number of publications. The linked answer gives two of those factors, but another might be the time spent in graduate study. If someone believes that the number of papers is because you dawdled through doctoral studies, taking a couple of unnecessary extra years, then they might wonder about it.
And, on the other hand, if you are a pioneer in a new aspect of your field and have some special insight into that aspect then it might be completely natural that you have a lot of papers if others are beginning to see the value of that sub-field.
It can also be the case that in some fields the review process is able to move much more quickly than in others. It is difficult (slow) in math and high energy physics, but in theology it is possible that it is easy (quick) to judge the value of a piece of work and the arguments made to support a hypothesis/statement.
So, the result is that it is extremely field (and sub-field) dependent as well as the current state of the art in that field. Breakthroughs, in particular, can possibly lead to quick publishing turnarounds.

It is difficult (slow) in math - To perhaps clarify, even in math, it's not so unusual to have 4-5 publications by the time you graduate.  However, if someone has 20, I will do a double take.

@Kimball, pure math, or applied? I'd believe it for applied but color me skeptical for pure math.

Pure (at least in number theory and combinatorics, and I also lump "accepted" with "published" for hiring purposes in my mind).  I think this a newer phenomenon coming from a trend of more joint projects (esp ones out of summer schools and undergrad REUs etc) and an effort to be competitive in current job markets.  That said, it's far from the norm.

Hmm, I'm a bit surprised that 4-5 papers (accepted or published) would make you skeptical. When I did my PhD from 2013-2016 several people in the same group (functional analysis) had around 4-5 publications when they defended their PhD. Same for a significant fraction of the people I know who recently got their PhD or are about to get it. I had a related online discussion recently (with Alexander Woo, I think) and I'm beginning to wonder whether this might be due to a cultural difference, maybe between the US and some places in Europe. (Comment might also be interesting for @Kimball.)

This is why I asked the question. I was surprised to hear from the two mentioned in the original post that they would consider that number of papers suspicious--presumably because it would seem to indicate poorer quality papers (even if they are professional enough to be published in non-predatory journals) or because the recent PhD was uninterested in any teaching duties or university engagements. But it seems like most people here agree that these two people I mentioned are the anomaly.

Environmental science recent graduate here with MRes and PhD from EU and UK universities.
I have one first author paper from MRes. 4 more first author papers in peer reviewed journals from my PhD and one more coauthored with other PhDs in our group. While I may have slightly more than average this is by no means unique or suspicious. At least not in my field and not in Europe. Never heard of such thing before actually. What does your "suspicious" imply? That I didn't write them myself?

It seemed like the suspicion would be over whether the papers were of poor quality, whether the journals were lesser ones (if not predatory), that collaborative authorship was being abused, that research was being emphasized too much at the expense of teaching experience, that truly deep understanding of subjects was being sacrificed for more surface level understanding, etc. Again, this is my impression of the criticisms from those 2 professors I heard this from.

You can easy check journals. A lot of those points can be addressed by checking where they published as no respectable journal would accept a mediocre paper. So if they published with a well established publisher that already tells you something about novelty and quality. Regarding co authorship, not sure if in your field it's the same but in mine it's common to specify who did what. So if you see that  the recent graduate helped with edits on 10 paper - yeah dodgy. But if they did all the work - what's there to question?

I believe that the LinkedIn post in question said in effect that more than 6 publications is suspicious after a PhD. I think it depends on the nature of the work. My PI was a brand new assistant professor so she was extremely motivated, as was I as her first student. I published 9 first author papers during my 5.5 year PhD program, a mix of original research and review papers. I also was co author on 2 original research papers and 2 book chapters, along with 3 first author papers during my Masters. I don't see how anyone can interpret this as bad. It was the greatest period of growth in terms of knowledge and skills that I ever experienced, and I'm grateful for it. As stated above by another commentor, numerous low quality papers is more of a red flag than the actual count itself.

To be honest it is more about the field. I once received a CV from a fresh PHD that wanted to do a post doc in our group.
I counted more than 50 publications in a series of journals I have never heard off.
In fact, I tried to look at some and ended up in a non English website and with Google translate I managed to retrieve a few.
I didn't read any of those but from figures and length it looked like a lab report...
So basically this guy and his group were publishing like 20 papers a year in those unknown journals.

Ouch. That was the sort of thing I was thinking of when I mentioned "boarderline" journals alongside predatory ones in the original post. Those venues may not have been predatory, but they sound very...singular.

How many is too many?
I think we need to clarify this first.
Because at place where I take a PhD study (Taiwan), they increased the requirement for graduation from 1 publication to 2 publications. And not included publication to waive qualification examination which can be another 1 or 2 (for certain program).
Because most of the time student prefer to waive QE, they will graduate with minimum 3 papers, and usually have some more as second or third author.
Alas, it also extend their study period from "targeted 4 years" to at least 5 years up to max 7 years. So the speed their paper are published can also be considered before mark someone as suspicious.
If we only count by number, maybe at some place like Taiwan in the future, they will increase the publication requirements more to 3 or 4 for graduation in the name of competitiveness.

Well, I do agree about the oddity of the topic--but that was the main question from the get-go. How many publications is "too many" for a newly-minted PhD, granted field differences and presuming that predatory journals are avoided. Of course there are field-dependent expectations or even country-dependent expectations. Yet I still wonder if most fields seem to have many people who subscribe to this idea that there is a certain number of journal articles which are "too many" for a newly-minted PhD.

At the same time, anjama gave a very fair answer which probably best answers both my and your wondering.

@David_Ave If anjama's answer best answers your questions, and answers it satisfactorily, I encourage you to accept their answer.

It's varies from field to field, but I have a number in mind for my field which is >6, beyond that and they are either publishing drivel in predatory journals or are making up/recycling data. Having said that, one junior faculty in my postdoc department had 16 papers out of his phd that he got the same year as me. I found out he had worked as a lab tech for 8 years before becoming a PhD student in that lab, so essentially did a 12 year PhD.

Too many publications will draw suspicion.... and that is exactly what you want. That is the whole point. Your CV will make people stop, look, and examine. If those publications are strong, then congratulations, people will be wholly impressed and wish to engage with you further.
On the other hand there are a lot of mediocre faculty who are intimidated by high output researchers and will find any reason to put them down.
Focus on quality of work. If it leads to a large output, then that's fantastic.
My graduate cohort had about 15 people with double digit publications, up to 25+, in 4-6 year degrees (typical good degree is 4-6 papers in my field at the time). We all worked days nights, holidays, hung out together and encouraged each other. All of us are now faculty or high-level R&D. When I interviewed for my first faculty job, one of the senior professors pulled me aside and said "you expect me to believe you got all those papers in your graduate degree???". I was shocked, but it opened up a great conversation and at the end of it, he apologized.
So yes, it will raise eyebrows. But you want that! Because if the work is good, it will open up the door to discussion and allow you to showcase and explain your output.

There is a way where having to many published papers looks bad. My immediate reaction would be: Why did the student not finish its PhD earlier? There was obviously enough material! Did he set the priorities wrong? Did his advisor use him as a paper press?
I think it should not hurt an application. Be prepared for this kind of questions. And congrats on the achievement!


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Are Japanese professors responsible for their students' behavior outside the university?
The question How should I approach a Tokyo University professor to join their lab? has an answer by RoboKaren saying:

For professors in Japan, taking on students is a tremendous
responsibility and burden. Unlike in the United States or Europe,
professors are responsible for even the extracurricular activities of
students (i.e., getting arrested; showing up drunk and groping
someone; having an apartment so messy that the landlord complains,
etc.). They are also responsible for the student's career after they
graduate.

This sounds very interesting as I have never heard such things about any other country before.
So, I want to ask:

What happens/could happen to a Japanese professor if their student has e.g. a messy apartment?

Is there something similar for undergraduate students (who, I suppose, do not have a professor in the sense above)? Is the university somehow responsible for them?

Where is this responsibility stated? Is it e.g. in the law, or is it rather some non-official convention that everybody follows, or something in between?

Perhaps you should look at Japanese traditions regarding employment.  I do not think this is specific to academia.

@SSimon: I hope you read this here, your comment unfortunately got removed:( you said something that you don't believe this to be the case? Do you have experience with Japanese culture? Could you post it as an answer or comment?

@user111388 Yes. They don't care about students so much as people are incline to believe. Because of oppression during the high school and primary School, Japanese students know to be wild during University and college years.

@SSimon: Would you post it as an answer?

Are Japanese professors responsible for their students' behavior outside the university? Legally perhaps not (I'm no expert), but culturally, yes.

What happens/could happen to a Japanese professor if their student has e.g. a messy apartment?

The professor gets disgraced. It's like being the father of someone who later goes on to become a serial killer. Nothing directly happens to you, but it's still going to be very unpleasant. Did you fail as a father? Even if you think you didn't, perhaps your neighbours will think you did.

Is there something similar for undergraduate students (who, I suppose, do not have a professor in the sense above)? Is the university somehow responsible for them?

Yes, if they are being directly supervised by the professor.

Where is this responsibility stated? Is it e.g. in the law, or is it rather some non-official convention that everybody follows, or something in between?

It's a social expectation, similar to how in many societies children are expected to take care of their parents in their old age.
Check out what happened to stem cell scientist Yoshiki Sasai in 2014: his student faked data, leading to a scientific misconduct probe. Prof. Sasai was cleared of misconduct, but he felt deeply ashamed and later committed suicide. Granted, this was an academic issue, but it illustrates what Japan's expectations of their teachers are.
Edit: for a non-academic situations:

Probably the strangest tasks (in the eyes of Western teachers) are things like guarding the campus and ordering the fuel oil. They are also partly responsible for their students outside school. Japanese students have to follow several rules in their leisure time: they are not allowed to smoke and to drink alcohol, to go to discos or to have a job by the side. In case of disregarding these rules, the teacher is obliged to inform the parents or even to make home visits (cf. SCHÜMER 1999, p. 34). As one can see from all this, the tasks of a Japanese teacher go far beyond giving lessons.

Hello and thank you for your answer! Could you maybe provide references that this extends to non academic issues. I still have problems to understand this japanese way of thinking. I can understand the "father of serial killer"-example (father has not raised kid properly), but not "professor of messy tenent" (what does society expect here?)

@user111388 I put in a source.

@Allure Is that for high school or for university students?

@kate based on the source, it's for high school and younger students. I couldn't find anything for university students, I'm afraid.

@Allure. I see. Yeah, for high school I think the teachers are responsible for the students as well, but for university students, maybe not so much.. I've never notice about it even culturally, but every experience is somehow different so what you said might be true or might be not, for university students too. Thanks for sharing.

A lot of misinformation in such a short answer. Eg. you are citing a text that is clearly not about university students (may not be your fault, as the original text is pretty low quality and seems confused, too). Your other example, Yoshiki Sasai would have been an academic paria in any other country, too (other, even less involved Profs were forced to resign in the same incident), and his suicide is nothing about "his students' behavior outside of university".

@Greg you should write your own answer.

The involvement of Japanese professors with the everyday life of students is excessive compared to eg European or North American universities. However, I feel a lot of exaggeration and see a lot of incorrect statements.
First of all, responsibility means a lot of things, not just legal responsibility. University groups in Japan are very tight, similar to other school-based groups, school clubs, or workplace environments. Since many university students are far from home, and they suppose to spend long hours in the university lab, the lab is their home in many ways. Because of these strong ties, if you have a problem, ideally others try to help. If you do stupid things, it also reflects badly on the others.
The positive side is that you often have more personal help than other places where dedicated offices are the ones who mainly take care of you. Since foreign students are generally pretty helpless, accepting a foreign student generally means a lot of extra pampering from the point of view of the host lab. This is from translating every single document for you to helping you to find apartments, doctor etc when you need and when your local knowledge is not enough to do so.
While these strong personal ties between lab members may be unique, the whole idea that any educational institution cares about its reputation when you do something stupid is far from unique. The difference is that if there is any problem, the Prof/head of the lab is your mediator between you and eg the university, and she/he can be in a hard place if he has the reputation to have problematic students in a country where reputation is everything. No one wants to be the professor who has to tell the university or the journalists why did you steal/rape/got into a drunken bar fight.
About specific statements:

No one cares if you have a messy apartment. That is your problem. The owner of the apparent may not even see the place ever, neither who was your boss. Most apartments are trashed, anyways, that is why you have deposits to cover it.
If you ask your professor as guarantor for something, then yes, she/he can have legal troubles related to the specific contract, but it is a less common scenario.
If you commit something illegal then police contacts the university, and your prof is most probably involved in the "what to do now?" discussion. She/he will be not responsible in terms of any punishment, but it is unpleasant work and guaranteed a bad reputation. But this should not be the main reason to not rape or grope imho. Note, other universities will also be upset if you do anything illegal and will kick you out.
Undergrad students belong to a lab from 4th year. Before that, you belong to a department, causing them the headache with your problems.
Research misconduct is a separate scenario, but if you hire and hype a talent who turns out to be fake all through her carrier, you will get burned, independent from the country.
About the COSMOCOMMUNICATION article: those statements are definitely not true to universities(the writer talks about high schools/middle school teachers) Campuses are guarded by security; above legal age, students can smoke, drink freely. In fact, campuses now have separate smoking corners (before you could smoke wherever), and students often drink in the lab together as it is the cheapest option. Official drinking parties are part of university life, often in excess. Drunk students may cause trouble, but Japanese society traditionally very tolerant of anything that happens under the alcoholic influence (it is recently changing). Note in other countries, too, your mid or high school will be upset if you turn up drunk or you smoke. "Discos" are packed with university students, and since scholarships are rare almost all university students work on the side ("baito"). Even foreign students with scholarships can have work permits (with restrictions).

From my little experience studying in Japan,
(1) No, the professor doesn't even go to your apartment room. Why would they? Unless you two are really close.
(2) If they are arrested, maybe the university will feel somewhat responsible too.
(3) Never heard of it. But they do have the culture of responsibility: don't burden other people.

I am sorry, maybe my question is unclear. I am not asking if professors go to rooms, but rather if they can be fined etc. under the argumentaion that they should have "raised" (?) their student better - just as in some countries, I believe, parents can be fined/held responsible for misdoings of their children.

What do you mean by (2)? Is someone at the university (or the university as such) going to face any action if a student gets arrested (apart from publicity which is also the case in other countries)?

@user111388 From my knowledge of Japanese culture, I wouldn't expect the consequences to be formal -- no fines if your student has a messy apartment. It's more that such situations might reflect badly on the supervisor, or the supervisor might be contacted and expected to somehow resolve the situation. You might be able to get good answers on a site devoted to Japanese culture (rather than academia).

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Given Post doc interview at IIT Bombay 4 months back but have yet not received any letter. What to do apart from talking to supervisor?
I have given interview for postdoc at IIT Bombay 4 months back and have still not got any formal letter. However, I asked and got news from multiple sources that I have been recommended for the position (and the sources are very legit). But then why have I not got any offer up till now.? General time they take is 2-4 weeks. Should I talk to Assistant Registrar who is responsible for sending offer letters?

You should ask someone responsible for this position, maybe a faculty member in the interview or maybe the administration on whether there are any updates they can share with you concerning the position.
Four months seems like a long time unless the start date is still far in the future. You can certainly ask for an update, though asking if you have been chosen might be too bold. You will probably learn something.

I have asked the faculty. He says it is with the Institute committee. I have asked him several times

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Statement of Purpose for math graduate schools
I am a recent mathematics graduate from the UK who will apply to math PhD programs in the United States.
I completed a master's in pure mathematics at a top program in the UK focusing on geometry. I am thinking about what to write in my statement of purpose. I want to write about my academic journey and include how I have thought about the subject more broadly. For example one of the paragraphs in the statement of purpose is: "I have seen an interesting phenomenon where for smooth manifolds its global geometry is related to its local geometry. For instance, in my third-year project, I wrote about the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet theorem. This theorem states that for even-dimensional manifolds the Euler class (a characteristic class calculated from the curvature of a connection on the tangent bundle) is related to the Euler characteristic (as defined by the Betti numbers). This is a fascinating result."
I am unsure if I am making a mistake talking about this.
There are other such paragraphs in there. There are also the usual statement of purpose paragraphs like explaining contextual information, what my plans are, why I want to do a PhD...
Thank you.

If you can relate these "thoughts" to publications, then certainly they are worth mentioning. Also, if you can say "this professor has also done research in this area, and I'm interested in working with them" then that could also be helpful (assuming they are interested in taking you on)

(Math professor here) In general, talking about the actual subject matter you want to study is probably a good idea. This could do with some rewriting though, as it reads somewhat like a rewriting of the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Instead of "This is a fascinating result", "I was fascinated by...", and convince the reader you genuinely learned something without getting bogged down in technicalities. Good luck!

It would depend on what else you say in the SoP. If you are intending (hoping, actually) to continue to follow those threads in your doctoral research then they are germane to your "purpose"; i.e. goals. Otherwise they are just artifacts from the past that might be mentioned in the CV as work in progress or similar.
Keep in mind that the SoP is about the future, your goals for doctoral study and thereafter. It isn't about the past, nor is it a place to brag. But if you use it to indicate that you are already prepared to move ahead on your goals then it is a positive, provided that you have room to say the most important things.
Also, don't phrase the SoP as if you intend to do one thing and one thing only in doctoral study. That will make it harder to get accepted and to find an advisor. You need to be somewhat flexible.
Your last paragraph seems to indicate that you have the right idea.


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Do PhD degrees in Germany require government accreditation?
I am an academic from China and I am currently studying the accreditation and quality assurance of German master's and doctoral degrees. However, the existing English literature does not clearly explain how German doctoral degrees are authorized.
My questions are as follow:
Do all comprehensive universities and universities of applied science and technology have the right to award doctoral degrees?
Can a doctoral program be opened after internal discussion within the university?
Does the government play any role in this?

@Roland You're sure this freedom includes the right to choose whether being able to award PhDs? AFAIK this about being free in choosing your research topics as an academic.

@Roland It gives them the freedom to decide how to award degrees, but not whether they can award degrees, which is the first part of the question (and in that regard, the government does play a role, cf. the discussion about the right of universities of applied science to award PhDs).

In general, education is federally organized in Germany and thus many decisions, laws and regulations are only valid for single Bundesländer (federal states). Although there are general rules and regulations that apply for the whole country, most educational decisions are decided only on a federal level.
All comprehensive universities have the right to award doctoral degrees, except for some art and music universities, for more info see here.
Concerning the universities of applied sciences, there are 8 federal states that allow for universities of applied sciences to award doctoral degrees to date (end of 2023), although there are differences, see here for more info. It is likely that in the future, the remaining 8 Bundesländer will also change the law accordingly.

Thank you so much for lending a helping hand!!

I would note that any public/state-run university of applied science in Germany would not dare.to offer a PhD track without approval from the relevant authorities.


text:
How do I save my group project and my mark?
I'm concerned about two members in my Marketing Simulation school group project this year. Let's call them Member A and Member B, respectively, in this. Besides me, there are 5 members in this group.
Member A:

Informed the group that he would be away for 10-12 days for personal reasons, but ended up being away for 3 whole weeks, and he didn't respond to any of my messages (or my groupmates' messages).

He wanted everyone to give each other 100% on the peer review regardless of what happened.

I noticed he used generative AI in his presentation, and he even admitted to using AI when I asked him. He claimed he edited the text but the editing history shows he didn't.

Member B:

Asked me if this project is about the marketing simulator or about the textbook (which, in short, the title of the assignment was "Marketing Simulator Presentation")
Apologized for not putting in enough work after I expressed my concerns, only to miss the rough draft deadline (that was agreed upon by all members) anyways.
Claimed that they put their part of their work in the document and slides, but no editing history of them doing so existed.
They ended up doing their work later but made a whole new ppt presentation even though a link dedicated to the ppt was sent to the whole group.
The teacher even said to them when he saw our slides and went to their section, "I don't know what the heck you're talking about."

I'm mainly worried because a group project because this is worth at least 20%, and if one member gets caught using AI, the whole group may get a 0. It's just a bit stressful because it's too late to kick the members out of this project, and I have not one but two members to worry about. The majority of the grade will be marked as a group, not individually. I'm also scared that if I were to tell the teacher, my group mates would give me a bad mark on the peer review. What should I do?

https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/, and I wish you best of luck!

Talk to a teaching assistant or the lecturer, and explain the situation to them. Make sure to include that you are worried about your group mates giving you a punitive mark on the peer review, and that one group member used genAI without the agreement of the group. I would focus on the situation with A, who seems like they are actively breaking the rules of the assessment. B sounds like a fairly standard group project situation, there will always be someone who doesn't pull their weight. If someone in your group is cheating on a group assignment, your safest option is to come clean as soon as possible so you're not implicated in academic misconduct.

Group dynamics are always hard to deal with.
It sounds like these two teammates are not pulling their weight or producing quality work. Using GenAI is usually fine (check your institution's policy) as long as the final work is good and citations properly given. It also sounds like you are being graded on a group effort -- a harder situation. I would personally (1) tell these two people your concerns on their lack of quality contribution in a polite way (I personally use NVC. You don't know what other people might be going through, so a "polite" phrasing is good), and (2) if they are still like not contributing quality work, seek advice from either a TA or a professor (use your hunch to decide who will be more helpful) and ask their opinion on this situation -- feel free to leave out sensitive parts1 and just phrase it as the fact that these two people are not contributing as they should and you are rightfully worried about your grades.
The other things I can't personally be too helpful. Colluding in giving perfect score might be a bit too "fake" but giving everyone a 90% score might work well grade-wise, depending on how compromised the process is. Moralistically, you should give the score as agreed upon by the grading criterion, but the world is not black-and-white. Similarly, if you know members A and B's personalities on a deeper level there might be other angles of attack. Heck, the "right" thing to do might be to just bite the bullet and do your part in the group project as best as you could and hope for grade inflation to still give you an A.

1: Of course, if at any point your teammate is using GenAI against policy (e.g., it is plagiarism) and you must report them... Well, report them to the TA or professor. Some institutions just say that if you use GenAI you are responsible for its output.

Informed the group that he would be away for 10-12 days for personal reasons, but ended up being away for 3 whole weeks, and he didn't respond to any of my messages (or my groupmates' messages).

This can be excused under extenuating circumstances, like a death in the family for example (although the broader context makes me seriously doubt this).

He wanted everyone to give each other 100% on the peer review regardless of what happened.

This isn't a healthy attitude but unfortunately more common than you think, especially in undergrad. People tend to be quite tribalistic.

I noticed he used generative AI in his presentation, and he even admitted to using AI when I asked him. He claimed he edited the text but the editing history shows he didn't.

This is just inexcusable. Not because he used GenAI, but the fact that he deliberately lied about it to (presumably) cover his ass. This shows that A does not have your best interest in mind.

Asked me if this project is about the marketing simulator or about the textbook (which, in short, the title of the assignment was "Marketing Simulator Presentation")

Is honestly not that big of an issue. People sometimes have brain farts and B might not be a native english speaker.

Apologized for not putting in enough work after I expressed my concerns, only to miss the rough draft deadline (that was agreed upon by all members) anyways.

Again, could be excused by certain extenuating circumstances.

Claimed that they put their part of their work in the document and slides, but no editing history of them doing so existed.

This is very much getting into the "suspicious" territory. I would clarify what they meant by "putting their part of the work" in.

They ended up doing their work later but made a whole new ppt presentation even though a link dedicated to the ppt was sent to the whole group.

I feel like this shows that they have some intention to genuinely help out with the project, at the very bare minimum.

The teacher even said to them when he saw our slides and went to their section, "I don't know what the heck you're talking about."

No comment for this
Conclusion:
Member A is maliciously (a better phrasing might be deliberately) trying to fail your group, most likely out of pure selfishness and laziness. I would definitely report his behaviour to the teaching team privately.
Member B is a classic case of "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". It seems to me that he/she is at least somewhat genuinely trying to help out with the project, but falls short out of sheer incompetence. Unfortunately incompetence is something that you'd have to deal with, whether it is in Academia or in the industry. However, my personal stance is that I can excuse incompetence as long as it isn't deliberate. This is more of a gray area but personally I wouldn't take any punitive action towards B (although obviously you have much more context around B, maybe he/she is also just pretending to help but secretly slacking off). Although like I said, given what you've written, I don't think B is being malicious.


text:
Apparent accusation of plagiarism in peer review
I recently received a peer review report from a journal. They rejected my paper for several reasons, the umbrella explanation is that my work is not suited for that journal. However, there was a comment in the peer reviewers' reports that effectively accuses me of plagiarism:
"It appears some of the formulas and cost method information is taken from a text that is not cited."
This is the only sentence in any of the peer review comments that mentions this. This reviewer does not seem to be accusing me of malicious intent, but likely thinks I forgot to add a citation. I do not think I did. I have looked through my paper to determine if they are correct. There are things I have not cited, but they seem to be common mathematical knowledge (an application of the definition of the expected value of a random variable, for example) or my own work with justifying arguments. I have requested more info from the editor to no avail. Is this something that should worry me? Should I be pushing for more details? Do I just ignore this and move on to the next submission?

This is not an accusation of plagiarism, but one of incompleteness. With other words, in the opinion of the reviewer you might have not sufficiently explained something by referring to an un-cited general principle. One possibility is that what appears to you as the author to be trivial is not so for the reader.

Even as an accusation of incompleteness it is still devoid of actual content. How is one supposed to make the appropriate changes without being informed what the specific problem is?
Nonetheless, thank you for your comment.

I understand your frustration. Apparently, the reviewer is wrong in suggesting a single source, but maybe you can cite a few sources in your next submission. Reviewers are volunteers, have limited time, and can make mistakes. If you are sure that this reviewer is wrong on this point, then just do not do anything. But in general, treat reviewers as canary birds in a coal mine. If they have a problem, others might have a similar problem with your text. (Editors are mainly volunteers and will not go chasing a reviewer for you for clarification if the paper is rejected.)


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What foreign carriers can I use under the open skies agreement?
I'm currently trying to book an academic international flight that I'm planning to get reimbursed by a US government-funded institution. The minimal rate with a US carrier is almost $1000, whereas the rate with certain foreign companies is about $600.
I looked at this link and it has a provision that flight on foreign carriers is allowed if either there are no domestic options available (which is not the case for me) or (clause b) if it is allowed under the "open skies agreement", which seems to be a mess of conditions and exceptions which I don't completely understand.
Is there a clear way or a clear heuristic to decide whether a given itinerary is allowed for reimbursed travel?

I do not really know a definitive answer to this question, but I'd wager that you're stuck with the more expensive U.S. carrier option. I hope otherwise, for you, but it is exactly such disparities (like a tariff or other tax) that most U.S. federal funding agencies have been commanded to defer to, for the understandable if dubious nationalistic reasons. I'd be interested to hear if anyone can truly show that this is not entirely so...

I read the upshot of the Open Skies paragraph as being "you can fly on an EU, Australian, Swiss, or Japanese airline".  If your desired airline isn't based in one of those countries, I think you're out of luck.

Might want to ask on http://travel.stackexchange.com/  I've seen some awfully sharp folks answer some very esoteric questions over there.

Have you confirmed that the Fly America Act actually applies to your trip?  It's not applicable to all trips reimbursed by a federally-funded institution, only to those reimbursed directly by federal funds.  For instance, my university, like essentially all US universities, receives federal funds. But I'm not required to use US airlines on all university-funded flights, only those charged directly to a federal grant.

As a data point,  an organization that administers an NSF grant just told me that a Lufthansa flight was compliant.

There's a nice flowchart on page 4 here

The best way to check this is to clarify with your institution's travel office (the one where you will submit the reimbursement).
However, my general understanding of the situation (From the days when I worked for the government) was that if there's a code-share between a US airline and the foreign airline you wish to use, they will generally be OK with that. The problem is if it's purely international, and there's no American airline that partners with them. Then you may run into some difficulty.

This fits my understanding as well.  I recently bought tickets from the US that were issued by Japan Airlines and was told this was okay because they partnered with American (and indeed my reimbursement, from a US state university, came through without trouble).

My impression was that (on the contrary) this only applied if the tickets were BOOKED on the US airline, even if the flight is operated via codeshare by a foreign airline. For example, if Air Canada operates a flight (say Air Canada flight 101) that is codeshared as United 302, then it would only be reimbursable if booked as United 302, but not if booked as Air Canada 101. I could be wrong, though.

@TomChurch I was worried about too that before I bought the tickets, but at least my university thought it was okay.  Maybe it varies from state to state, or at least is open to institutional interpretation.

My experience agrees with Tom's, though there are some loopholes here that may have meant that this issue didn't apply in your setting.

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


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How to deal with a supervisor who engages in micro-management and does not give their PhD student any autonomy?
What should a PhD student do, when his supervisor actually give directions on each and every thing to do (forced spoon feeding) instead of letting the student do his research and come back with some ideas and discuss the pros and cons and then move accordingly? Which will actually groom the student research skills?
Also if at some point a student disagrees then the student feels the change in the supervisor behaviour (on the negative side).
What should be the best practice to keep the balance in working environment and work as well?

From which standpoint are you asking this question? The student, a colleague of the supervisor, the dean or department head?

as a student as i already mentioned in the question, please let me know if its not clear from any aspect

If the student wishes to be self-sufficient in PhD research, then she/he ought to express that the student is competent to do so.
There are supervisors who tend to give sufficient freedom for the student to do their research in their own accord. There are some others who feel much more procedural in their approach to build and shape their scholars to their view. Both are actually fine as long as they confirm to the type of their respective students. There are some who require more attention that others, and some others less so. If the student feels that she/he does not require to be spoon fed, then it would be up to the student to show that she/he is capable of producing valuable result by him/herself.
The student ought to exhibit active involvement in the research and request for suggestions to the advisor. Here are a few examples.

There is this new problem I've just came across while doing this work. It's about .... May I look further into this?

or

There is an idea I would like to discuss regarding .... Shall I try this one out?

The point is to show how eager you are to be able to do research with lesser support. Of course this might not work all the time (depending on your advisor). This would, however, show how capable you are and is certainly worth a try.

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


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Two potential ways of presenting results, is there a preference?
In a short paper I am writing, I have developed a fairly complex model. To express it in a highly watered down fashion, the purpose of the paper is to study the variation of a Variable Y with an independent Variable M.
My current way of presenting the results section is as follows:

Show the most important result upfront: plot M vs Y. However its difficult to understand the variation just from this plot, because of the complex nature of the underlying physics. Hence..
Describe the fundamental physics in the domain as a function of time and space c(x,t,M). Plot c(x,t,M) as a function of x and t. Describe why c(x,t,M) makes sense from a fundamental physics perspective. x=space, t=time.
Plot C1(t,M). C1(t,M)=F(c(x,t,M)), and explain why C1(t,M) makes sense
Y(M)=F1(C1(t,M)). So Tie #1 and #3 together, and describe why it makes sense and its implications.

The reason why I chose the above logic structure is because I thought I should present the most important result (plot M vs Y) first. I also learnt about this method of presenting results in a management consulting competitions, and I thought it makes sense at that time.
However, I am starting to feel that maybe this is making it more complicated and is not the way academic journals work. I tried looking at some results, but I am not able to directly relate their work to mine.
I am thinking of an alternate structure

Describe the fundamental physics in the domain as a function of time and space c(x,t,M). Plot c(x,t,M) as a function of x and t. Describe why c(x,t,M) makes sense from a fundamental physics perspective.
Plot C1(t,M)=F(c(x,t,M)), and explain why C1(t,M) makes sense
plot M vs Y. Explain why it makes sense and the implications of the trend.

Do you think that the second logic structure is better?
Hope this make sense, or I can explain more..

I would prefer second way of demonstration.

I'm inclined for the second, but having a clear explanation of your goal in the abstract, so the reader knows what you are getting at.
Your want your readers to know you are taking the path to Oz, but not necessarily how the sightseeing are until you get there.


text:
Acknowledgements in a bachelor thesis: Is it etiquette conform to thank for non thesis related things?
As I'm about to finish my bachelor thesis, I'm at writing the acknowledgement section.
How far can I go here in terms of non-thesis-related stuff?
Is there room for humorous acknowledgements (like thanking my coworker for his great taste in music or bad puns), or is that rather something to be left out?

The usual rule is to say what you want in the acknowledgement (with some reasonable boundary conditions), but it would help to look at other bachelors' acknowledgement sections as well. I haven't actually seen bachelor theses with acknowledgement sections, but i'm not sure what is standard in your country :)

Lots of PhD theses (including some of the best) are doing that, so, yes. (Bachelor theses are supposed to imitate PhD theses in style at least.)

This ground has been covered, e.g. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/77180/can-an-acknowledgement-section-of-a-thesis-contain-names-of-music-bands, http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38509/whether-and-how-to-thank-a-girlfriend-or-boyfriend-in-the-acknowledgements-of-th

The acknowledgment part is your own part, write what ever you want in humour, fun etc but don't cross the boundaries that might hurt some people feeling. here is a sample from MIT, you can give a read.
http://www.mit.edu/~alvarso/thesis-phd/Acknowledgements.pdf


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I am an international PhD student and I want to do a visiting research VISA, Which type of visa should I do ? ( I want finance myself )
I am a Tunisian PhD student, at my last year of PhD, I found a lab from UK and I want to do a visiting research PhD with them (during 7 months), PS: I will finance myself. I don't have a big background about the visa. Thus, I have a question Which type of visa I should applied for ?

The UK university is likely to have an "Office for International Scholars", or something similar, and you should pose your question to them. (Assuming that someone from the lab has agreed to host you.)

@Noober Before you apply for a visa, you definitely ought to consult with someone who knows this stuff and can tell you what your chances are. Not that I know anything about obtaining a UK visa, but I strongly suspect that "I will finance myself" may be a major red flag for UK Visas and Immigration that will place a significant burden proof on you. If your visa is refused, this may make it substantially more difficult for you to obtain a UK visa in the future. Travel.stackexchange is probably a better place for such questions.

Because you are registered for your PhD program abroad, you likely can likely visit UK research institutions on a Standard Visitor Visa. You may need to complete ATAS before applying for a visa. Depending on your exact situation, a work visa may be more appropriate.
Applying for a UK visa is an expensive and long process. It may be wise to ask your host organisation for help before you apply.

My understanding is that being registeed for the PhD programme is unsufficient. The visit needs to be an integral part of the visitor's PhD studies at their home institution.

The page linked also says that for visits over 6 months you would normally need a PhD already, so if OP wants to visit for 7 months as a PhD student that might not work. I agree with the answer though that it would be best to work with the host organisation.

I think this would fall under the study purpose of the visitor rules rather than the academic one. "You can visit the UK for up to 6 months to: ...do a short piece of research that’s relevant to your course overseas". And as Pieter points out, 6 months is going to be the limit for someone at PhD student level.


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How to support students whom other faculty abuse?
Some of the students in my class take a class with another member of faculty.  That other, tenured, member of faculty has taken to abusing individual students in front of the whole class. This abuse takes the form of calling them "dumb" and "racist", and threatening to "report" them (whatever that means).
From my perspective, in my class the students are polite, diligent, and get on well with their peers. I'm happy to have them in my class.
Is there something I should / could be doing more than being as objective and supporting of them as possible for my own course?
The students have already started walking their complaints about the tenured faculty member up the university hierarchy. Each successive rung (department head, dean of school, provost so far) seems intent on fobbing them off.
If it makes a difference, the students involved are women of color and I am an older, white male.
Added: Apparently this behavior is not new. That's how the faculty member started out pre-tenure. The behavior modified. They were granted tenure last year, so the previous behavior has returned.

Are you tenured?

@user111388 No, I am not.

Hm, that's not good.. you might want to state what you would be willing to risk for justice and if students are taken seriously by poeple in power.

Are the students fairly united that this is bad behavior, or only those directly affected?

Have you witnessed this abuse yourself, or are you basing the question on what students have reported to you?

What country are you in?

Many schools have an Ombudsperson whose goal is to provide an anonymous and impartial advice. Since this person is more likely to know the culture of your institution than anyone here, they might be a good resource.

@BrianBorchers No, I have not. However, I have talked with other students uninvolved in the altercation, but in the same class, and they corroborate the complainants claims.  Another indicator is that the class enrollment has halved since the start of semester, even though class is a required class for the program. Dropping the class will extend student graduation time by a semester or a year.

@KevinMcKenzie The USA.

I was fired for raising complaints about discrimination. It was one of the best things that happened to me, as it eliminated from my life people who implicitly support discrimination, and reinforced my relationships with people who stand up to it. It turns out the latter are better company all round. And there is other work.

Depending on how your department works there might be something you can do. People don't like their foibles and sins brought to light. Bad things happen in the dark.
See the caveat, below, but if you have regular faculty meetings, you could raise the issue without naming anyone. "Students are complaining to me of racist/sexist behavior by some faculty member. I think we need to discuss it and whether we need policies to prevent it going forward. It is affecting their learning. It is affecting our reputation." This isn't a formal complaint about a person but it could bring about some discussion and possibly a change in behavior, if the person thinks they get no support from colleagues.
I can't guarantee that, of course. Some jerks will just be jerks.
But the caveat is that if you are a new faculty member (within, a couple of years of hire) this could be extremely dangerous for you to mention. Some places have a culture and they don't want newcomers to rock the boat in any way. All you will get, in some places, is "shut up shut up shut up". You will need to analyze how faculty generally treat one another before stepping forward. If they are willing to accept bad treatment of students, perhaps they are willing to do so generally.
In the worst case, start looking for an exit. There are some things over which you have no power and no control as a newcomer. You can find a place where faculty respect one another and the students as well.

A second option, if you don't feel safe in coming forward in public, is to feed ideas to students to make the issue a public one. Nailing theses to the cathedral door has a clear historical precedent. But this would need to come from students and they may not have thought of the possibility. Having a list of grievances posted on office doors is pretty dramatic.
But this would depend on some solidarity among students themselves. Some actions can be anonymous. Some can be through a spokesperson. And they can get a conversation going amongst faculty that is necessary.

Thanks for the wise, calm words.  I've taken to being supportive of the students, and suggesting other ways things can be reported. For example, there are various external accreditations that are due soon. I suggested that the students report the problems there (or at least tell the hierarchy that they intend to if nothing is done).

Talk to someone in Dean of Students to help. Although the department head, dean, provost, etc. are supposed to help, the Dean of Students are the ones who can probably help you the most in this case. It’s their job to protect students from any form of harassment.

How to support students who are/were being abused:

Ask students how they are feeling and what they need.
Tell them you care.
Thank students for telling you about their problems.  Just telling someone is scary.
Tell students that abuse is wrong and should not happen at universities, but that sometimes it does happen.
Tell students about resources available to them.  Do you have a counseling office?  A diversity office?  An omsbudsperson?
Ask students if they want you to keep what they tell you private.  Tell them that if they are in danger or if you receive a court order, you may not be able to keep a secret.
Tell students that if they have experienced trauma, they may need help from a mental health professional, especially if they feel bad after four weeks.

Taken in part from "Standard Mental Health First Aid."


text:
How is student feedback dealt with for poorly teaching faculty?
I teach at a teaching university. Research is not a priority. I'm new to the university and am teaching full-time.  I believe I've developed a rapport with the current cohort of senior students.
During one our classes, the discussion moved to the teaching of other faculty. This is a group of seniors who are likely to graduate at the end of the semester.
The students made several very concerning things about other faculty:

They download labs from other universities and these labs cannot be run on the equipment we have. When asked about it, they state ... I'm  retiring soon, let's just do it..
They publicly abuse individual students for stupidity.
They make assessment available through the content management system without mentioning its existence to the students during class.

Apart from end-of-semester student feedback, there doesn't seem to be any way to address such poor teaching (or even investigate whether the student views are correct).
What do other places do? Is it at a department level? Dean level? Is it a separate organization?
I can't do anything directly for the current cohort of students, but it would be good to try to move towards clear mechanisms for improving faculty teaching.

They make assessment available through the content management system without mentioning its existence to the students during class. --- Don't your CMS inform students automatically about new content?

The new thing in this situation is that you just arrived to hear about it.  Likely, the answer is that the situation has not been handled effectively for a while.

@DmitrySavostyanov Yes, it does. However issuing it after knock-off time on a Friday, and making it due before class on a Monday is a little ... unconventional. Especially if the students aren't expecting it, as it wasn't mentioned in class.

You have to be really careful when getting feedback from students, and avoiding it turning into a gripe session. There's two sides to the story in every one of those complaints and a little detail the student omitted (because it made the story more impressive) might defuse the whole things. For example they might have been given the assessment verbally and in writing far in advance, and the students forgot all the prior warnings they got. I have had this exact problem with students in fact.

@ASimpleAlgorithm Understood.  I tilted this more towards believing the students, because (in the situation I find myself) the outwardly observable behavior of the academics aligns with what the students tell me based on asides they make in staff meetings and in less formal interactions. However, I agree that the pendulum can go to far one way or the other. I'm just of the opinion that it's not currently in favor of the students at all when the issue is poor teaching.

@ActonBell well then, regarding the question in your title, the feedback is handled by reporting it to the faculty member. In your case, mention it to the chair and let them pass it along if they see fit. Beyond that perhaps you are asking what kind of pressure can be brought to make people change? Not much if they're tenured. The faculty handbook lists their responsibilities. Generally they're pretty limited. It is not clear which would be clearly violated here. Maybe the "abuse" angle would get some attention. Certainly not the others.

There are several mechanisms we have that in theroy should deal with this sort of thing:
All academics must have their teaching observed by another member of staff at least once a year, but ideally once a module. All academics must observe someone else teaching once a year. When this happens a form must be filled in that says what the observed could improve and what the observer learnt that they will implement in their own teaching.
We have a pretty good staff-student committee where concerns by students can and are raised. We also have student representatives on our departmental teaching committee (see this answer).
How effective these are is varied. Student surveys make up a big part of who a department is ranked in national rankings, which determines how many students we can recruit. Management in the UK can exert quite a lot of pressure on offenders because there is no such thing as tenure in the UK (although all workers are protected from sacking to a greater extent than in the US).
But this can be ineffective if: A staff member is important to the department/university for another reason (e.g. very high research income), or the staff member is just so over worked and stressed, that they give up the will to do well irrespective of the consequences - this is increasingly common as enrollments fall and management tries to force more work out of fewer people with less resources. If a staff member were protected by the fact you are leaving soon anyway (it takes up to a year to get rid of someone), I'd say there is not much to be done.

Its common, but indeed, you will get profs saying everything is fine, when it isn't. Although the observer is supposed to identify at least one thing the observed could change.

In this context, what's a "module"? To me, a module is a unit within a single class, which would be far too often to be observed.

Sorry, Brit speak. A "module" is roughly equivalent to a "class" in the US system. A year is made up of 120 credits. Each student selects modules that might represent 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 credits (depending on the program, more or less of these might be compulsory - in our first year 100 credits are compulsory for example)

No worries, just clarifying.

Some universities hold "Faculty Development" seminars and even full day workshops. Sometimes these are required, especially of new faculty. It is harder to influence bad actors among the tenured faculty as long as their actions aren't egregious.
But even tenured faculty can be influenced by a dean who makes attendance at a workshop part of the required goals of an offending faculty member. Ignoring such "encouragement" can result in negative consequences to pay and perks.
Some universities have faculty members visit the classrooms of other faculty and make recommendations to them or to the head.
And some just depend on student complaints to higher ups and try to keep the uproar within bounds. Deans, especially, tend to be unhappy when the students are storming the gates. University presidents tend to be unhappy when things overflow into the news.
And, at some universities, teaching by top researchers is bad and the administration looks the other way. Sad, but true. And seniors may, at some places, be expected to just put up with it for the chance to work with a top researcher who is a terrible teacher.
On the other hand, some universities try to avoid the problem by having faculty who are primarily teachers not researchers. These folks seem to self-police and support the development of one another. Duke, Stanford, and Carnegie-Mellon are among top universities who do this. But it is primarily for lower level, not senior level, courses for the most part.
And in general, the long probationary period prior to tenure should, in principle, weed out most of the bad actors.
But some university departments also hold annual or semi-annual all-hands meetings where the entire faculty is expected to attend. Mostly these are for top-down communication of initiatives and such. But, if a faculty member is secure enough they can raise an issue. "Some of our students don't seem to be happy..." Not a place to blame others, but just to raise the issue of keeping students satisfied with their treatment. If you are new at this place, I'd suggest you don't do this, but perhaps you can find an ally with more seniority who would be willing to. The goal of raising the issue would be to generate a faculty-development project. Even good faculty can benefit from seeing new pedagogical ideas they might not have considered.


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What power do student councils typically hold? And what role do they have?
So, awhile back I wrote this answer suggesting that the student council would be ideal to handle the issue, but got told that student councils have no influence/role in such matters. In general I am used to the idea that a student council and student representatives do anything where students have to be represented at a higher level (from specific studies, to the faculty level, to the university level, up to even international politics). This does not only mean being a part of the rule making process, but also making sure students aren't disadvantaged because of professors not following those rules. Now, today I came across this question and a comment (+22) on the highest voted answer warns the OP against escalation, because of retaliations against him as a student. For me that's exactly the kind of thing where I would expect the student representative to step in, he would first approach the professor in his role as student representative (not revealing the names of individual students). If the professor doesn't resolve the issue at once the student representative would know - unlike a typical students - exactly who best to approach within the institution and is best aware of all the rules and systems that are in place (and importantly if a dean for example were to ignore student complains too many times a student council is able to escalate this easily to upper university levels).
Now, it's becoming clear to me that that's not how it works in a lot of institutions as a lot of answers which I would expect to be "go to your student representative" are instead complex diplomatic answers or just "live with it" answers, so what I am trying to understand is where this model does apply (is it typical of just some western countries? Europe in general? Only our institution?). And how a student councils activities and responsibilities broadly look in different systems.

Austria is in a rather interesting situation regarding this. Traditionally, Austrian universities were mandated to maintain what was called (roughly translated) "university democracy", meaning that all members of the university (students, non-faculty scientific employees, non-scientific employees, faculty) need to be able strongly influence all decisions that directly impact them. In practice, this led to (for instance) student representatives with quite real powers, such as vetoing certain decisions.
After 2002, a new legisation was put in place to "americanize" the system, which (interestingly) was also understood to mean that decision power should be centralized more or less purely in the faculty (in Austria that's basically only full professors). Since then, the role of student representatives has shrunk perpetually. They are still in most meetings, but if they disagree, the only consequence is a note in the meeting protocol. This has certainly led to some developments that were quite frankly not in the student's best interests.
That being said, in Austria, student representatives are still your best bet when you have some "systemic" problem with a lecture or a professor. Not necessarily because they have any power to change things, but at least they are on first-name basis with the people that do (the dean of studies, the responsible department head, etc.) due to sitting on many meetings with them. Even if they can't force anything, they should know who to talk to, who might be able to remedy the situation.

The answer to this will vary a lot from one country to another and (at least within the US) between one university and another.  I don't believe that there is any universal answer to this question.
My experience within the US system is that "student government" typically has its most significant role in the area of extracurricular activities (clubs, student professional organizations, social events, concerts, intramural athletics, etc.)  Student government can also play a significant role in the management of housing (dormitories) and food service.
At some universities student representatives may have the opportunity to express their concerns to top level administrators at board meetings and in other settings.  For example, my university's board of regents includes a student representative and the president regularly holds meetings with the students to hear their concerns.
When it comes to degree requirements, academic rules and regulations, disputes over grades, and incidents of academic dishonesty (cheating), students typically have much less real power.  In these areas, decisions are typically made by the faculty through some institution of faculty governance (e.g. a "Faculty Senate") that works with the administration.  Although students may have some involvement in decision making in these areas, I've seldom seen a situation in which students actually held any meaningful voting power that could overcome the wishes of the faculty and administration.
One interesting exception is that some schools have "honor code" policies in which students caught cheating are judged by fellow students.

This agrees with my experience as a student, in which the student government was widely regarded (rightly or wrongly) as a device used by the administration to whitewash its dictates.  I believe there are other institutions, however, especially primarily undergraduate institutions, where student government is taken much more seriously and has real power.

I don't know to what extent this holds for student councils, but I've noticed that at smaller schools students tend to have more input into decision-making processes (e.g., hiring, curricula).


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High school students publishing math papers
I am a high school student who has recently established a few theorems regarding geodesic convexity in metric spaces. Most of the proofs are accessible to undergraduate students. I don’t want to publish in “top” journals, nor do I think my paper would be accepted for that matter. What are some quality journals aimed at undergraduate math I should consider publishing in?

Is your work "new"? Have you done a literature search?

Thoroughly, I have included some known results but referenced all of them. Actually, in the abstract, I warn that the purpose of the paper is to clearly present known results, but to also include new results.

Take a look at https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/617787/how-can-a-high-schooler-get-more-involved-in-mathematics for general advice on math research for high school students.  There's a useful list of possible journals at https://libguides.citytech.cuny.edu/c.php?g=988990&p=7153843.

Good advice. Thank you!

So in general, a paper that "clearly present[s] known results" is not something that would be published. But if you have developed something truly novel, then you can certainly try to find a journal.
I don't have any specific recommendations (that would require a detailed understanding of your paper) but I can give you some tips on finding decent journals that might consider your work.
Right off the bat, I would suggest talking to someone with some experience in publishing. If you are working with a teacher (or university professor) ask them. If you are not, it might be good to find someone willing to give you some guidance. This will help with the logistics of publication as well as help you polish up your paper.
The next step would be to search on Google Scholar for similar papers to get a sense of where others are publishing. There are also some tools like Scimago that list/rank journals. I would take everything on that site with a grain of salt, but it is a good start. You could also try a simple search for "student journals" or something similar. Again, this is basic but a good start.
Once you have found a handful of journals take a look at their "Aims and Scopes" page. This will contain a description of the types of papers they are looking for. This can help you further narrow down your search.
By the end of this process, you should have a few target journals and you can pick one to submit to.
Some general tips:

Journals may be ranked using "Impact Factors". Higher is better here but don't worry too much about this.
Avoid "predatory" journals. Anybody promising to publish your paper quickly for a nominal fee is not running a legitimate journal. There is a lot of subtlety to this but, in general, any journal that has as old/outdated website, promises fast review, feels off, etc... should be avoided.
Your best bet is student focused journals. You can find these by looking up university websites and/or searching "student journals".
Don't take it personally if you submit to a journal and are rejected. It happens to everyone. Just try to improve the paper and then move on the next journal on your list.

Good luck!

First put it up as a preprint on arxiv.org.
You must learn LaTeX in order to publish math. If you're talented enough to cook up new math, you can learn LaTeX (too many 'amateur' mathematician do not bother with LaTeX. Not using LaTeX is a huge red flag, and won't be taken serious by anyone in the math community).

Although I fully agree with the sentiment, I think that we can promote LaTeX better by focusing on its advantages (i.e best software for typesetting maths, excellent typography, completely free, etc) rather than scare-mongering young colleagues that they won't be taken seriously. LaTeX is not a gatekeeping tool, it's a wonderful software for creating beautiful maths.

@DmitrySavostyanov I totally agree with this. However, I also think typing up math is underestimated. It requires more skills than one usually learns in high-school (or university, for that matter).

Of course, I wrote the paper in LaTeX.

I plan on submitting the paper to the https://scholar.rose-hulman.edu/rhumj/ which prohibits preprints.

@user227351 well, it does not allow publication elsewhere, but DO allow you to put stuff on peronal web page. Arxiv is somewhere between - it is not really considered to be 'more' published if it is on arxiv, compared to your personal web page. But yeah, looks like a perfect journal to submit your work.

Glad to hear that!

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has a journal aimed at college teachers that might be appropriate, depending on the nature of your paper. https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/college-mathematics-journal/the-college-mathematics-journal.
I thought they also had a journal for students, but can't find it now. You might search around. You might look at: https://www.maa.org/member-communities/students/meetings-and-conferences-for-students.


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Advice - Entering/completing MS program to increase competitiveness for PhD programs?
This fall, I am planning on applying to PhD programs as a graduated student. However, I’m having to make up for an abysmal undergrad - 3.23 GPA, very very intro research experience, and not too many reasonably advanced classes.
In order to increase the competitiveness of my application, I am taking 3 graduate courses this fall, with the intent of proving my ability to excel in a graduate setting and getting recommendation letters from those professors (I only have one professor from undergrad that I’m close enough to to write me a letter - he’s also the advisor of the aforementioned research).
I’m also considering taking the continuation of these 3 courses in the spring in order to lighten my overall course load when I enter a PhD program. If I do this, I will be just shy of the requirements for receiving my master’s degree.
Would attempting to upgrade my status from Non-Degree Graduate Student to Master’s Student, and completing the accompanying Master’s thesis be worth the much-added effort? Namely, would it increase my competitiveness at all in the application process?
EDIT: I received my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from a university in the US and am applying for PhD programs in Mathematics and am mostly considering US institutions.

Whether it is worth it is very much a personal decision. If the thesis includes a research component, that can be a plus, see How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X?

Is this for the US? How is your GPA in major subjects only, especially upper division subjects?

this all depends upon your field of study. Some fields and programs require an MS to get into a PhD. Others would frown upon an MS.

I would suggest doing that only as a backup plan and just make applications to doctoral programs, perhaps in parallel. The decisions for admission in US aren't made on the basis of GPA alone, and for a US undergraduate program the GPA for major courses is probably more important than the overall score; especially the upper division courses. If you did well in advanced courses a somewhat (not abysmal) overall GPA might not be much of a factor.
More important than GPA, however, is what letter writers say about you and what sorts of positive predictions they make about your future success. For many programs, writing a good Statement of Purpose that is well focused on your plans an how to achieve them can also be a positive factor.
You don't need a masters to enter a US doctoral program in math. Getting one will probably lengthen your time of study, since you still need to pass comprehensive/qualifying examinations and may need to take some coursework specific to that end.
But don't make assumptions about your chances. The only way to be sure whether you are already qualified is to make (several) applications to a range of R1 universities. You will need a couple more letter writers, though. Cultivate people who might speak for you.
Also, see this question and its answers. How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X?.


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Are there any standards for course prefixes?
In various universities I've looked at, there are some course prefixes that seem common, e.g.:

CSC: Computer Science
BIO: Biology
MTH and MAT: Mathematics

I have also seen four-character prefixes, and there have been times when a prefix is wildly different than what I would expect. I would imagine this would make it hard to read transcripts from universities you are unfamiliar with.
Is there a standard, or suggested standard, that exists for these abbreviations? Or are they ad-hoc decided by each university, and their consistency is a coincidence?
For comparison, there are some widespread classification systems (for libraries, not courses), both originating in the US:

The Dewey Decimal Classification system, which has problematic facets in history and is entirely composed of the digits 0-9.
The Library of Congress Classification system, which uses 26 distinct classes each named after a capital letter in the Latin Alphabet, and includes abstract classes like "General Works".

Edit 4: Taking the advice from @AzorAhai-him- (thank You for the edits, they were quite illustrative) I'll mention I am currently in and have grown up in the USA, but I am more than open to suggestions/comments from other nations (including those with other national languages), as education is a fully human practice and I think there is value in hearing from diverse sources on this issue. In short: Surely every country with a system for higher education needs to refer to its courses in some way, and I for one would like to know if there's a standard out there I'm unfamiliar with.

A lengthy meta discussion about the question, and some other chatter, has been moved to chat. The discussion can continue in chat, but please see this FAQ before posting a comment below this one.

In the US at least, there is no hierarchical governance or oversight of academic institutions, so that means every institution pretty much does their own thing, with the exceptions being small groups that act as one body at some level (e.g., multiple campuses of a state university/college system).
I don't think it's necessary to invoke "coincidence", though; there are fairly standard common ways to abbreviate things (beginnings of words, acronyms, omitting vowels, keeping together consonants that make a single sound), as well as the possibility that someone that needs to use a label might look to their neighbors and see what they have used or might have simply encountered some abbreviation before that they may not even realize they are copying.
In my experience, these labels usually relate to other organizational levels of an institution, such as departments. That is, they do not represent an attempt to systematically classify areas of learning, but rather that someone needs to be responsible for a class, therefore the names indicate the responsible department and only indirectly label the course content. Departments are clumsy to reorganize, so it's very likely that the departmental organization of an institution is reflective of history rather than an ideal arrangement for the present. As an example, when I started as a graduate student, my institution had a "department of anatomy" that was something like 80-90% professors who worked in neuroscience and many of which would probably not be well described with the label "anatomist". Eventually a reorganization occurred and this department was absorbed with others into a new Department of Neuroscience.

Interesting. I wonder if there is any benefit to such a clumsy system of reorganization. I look forward to experiencing this kind of departmental system as a graduate student.
As someone who grew up in the USA, the only well-defined systems that spring to mind are the DDC and LCC, both of which don't have entries relate syntactically to their subject at all, and both of which have limitations or problems which discourage my acceptance of them as a "standard".
Are You aware of any others?

@ChristopherRodriguez I think that the system is built organically and dynamically, and the academic world is not static. While you might expect departments like Math will always exist, think about the development of say, computers. These went from being niche curiosities to world-changing in a couple decades. When should you build a Computer Science department? If many of the related courses are about engineering electrical components, why not house those courses in an electrical engineering department in the meantime? How many professors is a critical mass to make a new department?

This makes sense to me. I guess I hadn't really considered the human side of it.
I guess it's just hard for me to accept that we keep doing the same decision-making in each university, over and over, and never coming to any consensus as an academic community.
It seems like a waste of otherwise well-spent time, at first glance. I might need to actually experience it to fully understand.

@ChristopherRodriguez "I guess it's just hard for me to accept that we keep doing the same decision-making in each university, over and over" ... gotta keep those admins busy

@ChristopherRodriguez also, deciding prefix is mostly one-time deal, so it doesn't take much time anyway :)

At least at my undergraduate institution, the prefix was determined more by the department offering the course: there was a single math/computer-science department, so all courses  had the same MCS prefix, regardless of their content.

As Bryan Krause's answer states, there is no US-wide system of numbering courses. However, at a more granular level, there is at least one state (Texas) that has created a standard set of course numberings and a mapping from that set of numberings to each of 134 universities and two-year colleges.

The Texas Common Course Numbering System (TCCNS) is a voluntary, co-operative effort among 134 Texas community colleges and universities to facilitate transfer of freshman and sophomore level general academic coursework. TCCNS provides a shared, uniform set of course designations for students and their advisors to use in determining both course equivalency and degree applicability of transfer credit on a statewide basis. When students transfer between two participating TCCNS institutions, a course taken at the sending institution transfers as the course carrying the same TCCNS designation at the receiving institution.

https://www.tccns.org/
For example, the TCCNS designation for the calculus I course is MATH 2413, which is also MATH 2413 at most participating institutions in the state, but it's MATH 185 at Abilene Christian University, MTH 1321 at Baylor University, M 408K at The University of Texas at Austin, and so on.
This system facilitates transferring coursework credits from a two-year college to a four-year university within the state, allowing students to get many of the first two years of credits out of the way at a much less expensive community (two-year) college.
For example, a 15-hour semester at Houston Community College costs $1270.50 for an in-state student, while the same 15-hour semester at the University of Houston costs $5934.90. Both of these numbers are for tuition and fees only and do not include room and board or books.


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Where did the old Editors' Suggestion sign of Physical Review journals come from?
Physical Review journals used to indicate Editors' Suggestions with this sign:

In an editorial announcement they state that:

The icon contains the printer’s mark that at one time appeared on the covers of all sections of the Physical Review.

I'm wondering: where did this sign come from? Does it have any meaning?

It looks just like, well, a printer's mark, in this case, a fleuron: ❦ . I don't think there is any particular meaning besides aesthetics.

It is indeed a fleuron, specifically a floral heart bullet. I can't find the Unicode for an 'upright' version, but ignoring rotation these seem closer matches: ☙ ❧

A quick search found:
Printing single vine leaves originated around 1505.  It does not mean anything.  Around 1530 they were extremely popular with printers.  Printing a single vine leaf in 1530 was like printing a cat picture in 2010.