text:
Can I ask to add a new result to a paper that has been accepted but not published yet?
My paper got accepted for publication last week, and I have not received the galley proof yet. I recently learned that one of my results implies another interesting result, and I want to mention that in my publication. Deriving the new result takes no more than three lines, and I do not think it can be published on its own. Can I ask the editor to add a new result to an already accepted paper?

"I recently learned that one of my results implies another interesting result" did you learn from someone else?

I strongly suggest not doing that.

If the correction will be accepted, it is a sign of "the editor is accepting non peer-reviewed results ---> paper is questionable", unless the editor is a proven expert in your field (and even then, it is obviously not a blind review and the editor has some interest in the accepted paper being finally published).
if the correction will be submitted to peer-review, the paper will go back to peer review.

What do you strongly suggest not doing; not adding it, or not asking the editor? The first sentence makes it all very unclear.

"Can I add a new result to a paper that has been accepted but not published yet?"
I strongly suggest not doing that

Both reasons don't stand much. The first honestly and realistically is not a problem of the author, especially as he is going to publish there nevertheless. The second one just exists if the answer of the editor says so.

I've seen concluding statements variously labeled as Added in Proof quite often in mathematics papers (example by my Ph.D. advisor is on bottom of p. 9 here), but I don't know how common it is in recent years or in other fields. However, it will probably require a double-check by referees, which might be problematic if a publication delay could cause problems for the author(s).

@Alchimista I admit I am a bit rigid and asymptotic in the two points I present, however I think your comment goes exactly in the opposite directions and "not a problem of the author" is a moral shortcut, exactly as "a phd works 60h per week is not a problem of his supervisor" which in turn makes academia the black hole of empathy that it is nowadays, where median people and also the median professor have to work 50/60 hours a week because otherwise they cannot keep up with teaching duties, research interests and supervising students.

There is nothing unethical in a editor accepting a straightforward paragraph in proof. If the editor would say "yes we can, but there will be a new round of reviews", then OP can decide. I am simply saying so. I am saying that he can surely ask.

@Alchimista "There is nothing unethical in a editor accepting a straightforward paragraph in proof."
Since we are discussing about adding a new result to the paper, I don't see the reason why we make so much noise about peer review, then.

@EarlGrey because it seems that OP wants to point out a result that is implicit in the actual paper, and doing that takes no more than three lines. This is the Q! If OP would like to add new section, or change of different sort, I would have answered "it is up to you, but basically it would be treated as a new submission or at least the paper will go through a full round of review".

@Alchimista implicit does not mean trivial. This is a long shot for an editor (I repeat myself: unless the editor is a proven expert). Additionally, the question explicitly says "I recently learned" which leaves the door open even to discussing the authorship (did the author learned this at a conference? a co-author teached him/her?).

@EarlGrey you like to touch points that are just potentially related to the question.

@Alchimista you like to take shortcuts. Have a good academic life!

@EarlGrey the plus is for your wishes. I suggest that after your papers got accepted, you do the same proposal, although fictitious, that OP ask if he can do. And in case of a positive answer, then you retract the paper. This is the logic you have followed above.

@Alchimista If you are implying that I am too rigid in my "do's and don't do's", that my publications and my work did not got cited as much as they could and therefore I did not get a tenure track and/or a professorship ... hey, you may be right, I double down my wishes to you about enjoy academic life to the fullest!

@EarlGrey your resentment was implicit in your text, although not trivial and I did not mean so. But your comment about what one would retroactively deduce about the paper if the editor agree is curious indeed.

@Alchimista It is not the fact that it is 3 lines, or 3 paragraphs, or 3 pages: results are results, even if implicit, results have to go through peer review. Possibly blind peer review. For this reason I mentioned the working hours. If they are 41, or 45, or 55, or 65 instead of the canonical 40 hours/week, where do you put your moral threshold?
I resent the flexibility you are showing, which will make you successful in academia https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/12/ca/c612ca1172b567ce209f0960c3f92110.jpg

You can certainly ask the editor. But, the most likely outcome is that the paper would need an additional review. I doubt that it would require starting the process over again, but the editor, unless they are already an expert in your subfield, would most likely ask advice of one or more of the original reviewers.
It would delay your paper's appearance, though perhaps not for long.
The alternative is to take the new results and incorporate it into some new paper with additional results, since you say it isn't enough to stand on its own. But others are fairly likely to notice the extension in the meantime, so you might get scooped on it.

Yes, you could certainly ask especially if implementing the new few lines is that quick and straightforward.
I would provide the actual addition in your enquiry letter, otherwise I suspect that the editor answer would be NOT by default. It must be something that s/he can evaluate on her/his own.


text:
I got admited to a PhD program without a master degree. Does it hurt when I apply for a postdoc?
I am a graduate student in Sweden, and will present my PhD thesis next semester, and have several articles accepted/published.
However, when I applied (and got admitted) I had only studied at the university for three years, and only written a bachelors thesis. Me being admitted was sort of an "error" from the department, (and I had no idea what really was the requirements, since my thesis advisor encouraged me to apply).
Might this look bad on my resumé when applying for a post-doc position?
(Or is young age an advantage, in my case, 25)?
Edit: To follow up, I am now 32 and not as young anymore. I had no big issues finding post-doc positions, and I am still in academia.

Related : Is there any disadvantage to having PhD skipping M.Sc.?,   What factors affect how long it would take to get a phd, either going via, or without, a masters?

I have a bachelor's degree and a Ph.D.  but no master's degree. No one has ever asked me why I don't have a master's degree, nor has anyone ever suggested to me that this situation is strange.

I doubt it was an error; I suspect if there even was a formal requirement that the university was happy to overlook it if a strong candidate with internal recommendation (you) came along. You may find strict written requirements turn out to be flexible in many areas of your career.

In most places I know (Europe mostly, France and UK in particular), a Master's degree is nothing more than a tiny blip on your CV by the time you have a successful PhD (diploma, publication, good recommendations, involved in your community, …). Your lack of a Master’s degree will not hurt one bit (but it probably will come up in an interview, so you want to have something decent or funny to say about it). I suspect the same will be true in most places: by the time you are a post-doc, Master's degree is not a good predictor of your future success.
Regarding age, it's a very good question, and should probably be separate. As a post-doc, it shouldn't hurt your chances (I defended my PhD at the same age you are, so I have given it some thought!). For a staff position, things are very different.

In the US it is also common, as @Aaron has mentioned, for students to not earn a masters on the way to their PhD. I did not, and I feel no worse for doing so.

In the US, nobody would even notice. It is common to enter a PhD program without a masters. A masters degree can be granted along the way to a PhD, but this is not universal, and it is not worth anything if you finish the PhD. In general, people look at your most advanced degree: if you have a good PhD, it would typically not matter if you did not have a Bachelors degree either.

Also, in the US, your age is irrelevant by law.

If the admission was "in error," then you should get some documentation of this fact from your department stating such a fact, just in case anyone asks.
Unlike what F'x says, there could potentially be an issue in some EU countries if you have a PhD degree but don't hold a master's—provided your bachelor's education was also done in an EU country. In Germany, the lack of a master's degree for a PhD holder can raise a red flag. It did in my case, even though all of my schooling was in the US, where it is not at all uncommon to do a bachelor's followed by a PhD without a master's in between.
This may or may not be a problem for you elsewhere, depending upon where exactly you want to be. But it could also be a disqualifying issue (in other words, cause for termination) if you try to hide what happened and it gets uncovered later.

Just pitching in with my opinion from Japan.
In Japan everything is very structured, and everyone assumes that you either have a masters or spent a very long time in your PhD (if you studied in America).
The average age for a PhD grad is 28 years with a razor thin variance (unless you are a foreigner).
If you apply for a postdoc here you will be getting a lot of questions on why you got a PhD without the masters, since here the requirement to get into a PhD is to have a Masters beforehand. It may not hurt you if you have a good explanation though.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
How to acknowledge lecture notes?
How can a lecture note be acknowledged in another lecture note? In other words, is it sufficient to express appreciation or does it have to be added as a reference?

Assuming the original was subject to copyright, have you sought permission or otherwise limited your use using fair-use principles? Limiting distribution can be a plus. Re-publishing has caveats.

@Buffy Why do you assume there is copyright infringement here? If OP is merely following the same approach as the other set of notes, without copying or paraphrasing directly their content, I think they are in the clear legally. And, in any case, normally we acknowledge previous literature to give credit where it is due and follow good scholarly ethics, not to follow copyright law. The two concepts are different.

@FedericoPoloni, I don't assume anything. I suggest the OP needs to consider the possibility.

@Buffy Then I suggest to use a sentence like "have you made sure you don't need to seek permission", not "have you sought permission". With your wording you give the impression that this is always a requirement, while in practice it rarely is.

@FedericoPoloni Isn't that covered by "...or otherwise limited your use"?

@BryanKrause Not in my view. Fair-use doctrine only applies if OP is copying text verbatim, or paraphrasizing it with minor changes (and only in some countries), if I understand correctly. Following the same general approach as another set of notes does not give copyright problems, no matter how extensive the usage is. This is no question of limiting usage, in my mind.

Lecture notes are normally not some one's original research. It is taken from already printed material. Expressing appreciation is sufficient.

Lecture notes might, however, have creative elements and be subject to copyright. For example, some contain insights beyond known facts. It can be more subtle than this suggests.

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


text:
about the number of recommendation letters
I submitted the required documents in order to apply for a postdoc position in Germany. In the application form they had asked for at least two referee's contact details. I put the details of two referees in the application. One of my referees has still not uploaded the letter in spite of my request. It seems that he is so busy. My mistake was that I just provided two referee's details. Now I just want to know whether my application will be ignored or if they will ask me to provide another referee's details. Is there any chance that they consider other materials?

Hi user40491. Did you apply to some structured postdoc program or the like? And...do we get from your statement that one of your referees has not yet uploaded their letter of reference that you know that the referees have actually been asked for a reference? The latter is certainly not universal for postdoc positions in Germany, hence my question.

Actually, I do not know what exactly you mean by "structured", but it was an open annual call from an institute. My referee has recieved an automatic email from institute for a letter.

Clearly, the absence of reference letters will not help your application. However, in my experience the absence of reference letters is generally not reason to not have a look at the rest of your application. If the rest of your application is sufficiently strong, some additional prodding of your referee may occur.
If your application is weak without reference letters than your chances would have been slim any way.


text:
Will it be beneficial to my research funding application if I try to explain the reasons of the relatively few citations of my works?
My papers have on average 4 citations despite having been presented at A-rated conferences or published at A-rated journals.
To give you a perspective the number of citations of the average paper on my field is probably not much higher.
Will it be beneficial to my research funding application if I try to explain the reasons of the relatively few citations of my works?

Do you know the reason?

And if this is the norm in the field, why bother explaining?

Why do you keep trying to find excuses for what you think is bad performance? Your applications should convince with good performance, I don’t think the strategy underlying your recent questions is useful. All you are doing is drawing attention to the fact you consider your own performance inadequate.

@Buffy I can't be completely certain but I can give some speculations.

@Sursula Because most of the people with that citation count probably don't get any funding.

@MisterMiyagi Since I haven't really written any research proposal before I am unsure as to what to include in it. By reading the responses of other academics and looking at the sentiment of their statements I get a better idea as to what to include and what not in it.

Why would anyone downvote this question?

No, I wouldn't do this. Citation counts are not the be-all-end-all, and you can make a good case for your work without mentioning them at all. This is a case where bringing up a potential criticism will actually draw unnecessary attention to it.
In fact, even if you had high citation counts, you generally wouldn't point that out explicitly in your proposal, as this would come across oddly.

It will be beneficial only if the reasons are both good and non-obvious.
Examples:

My papers have relatively few citations because they are new.

This is a good reason, but is obvious and not helpful to mention.

My papers have relatively few citations because the Lizardmen control academia and they have issued a secret boycott of my work.

This is a non-obvious reason, but isn’t a good one.
Examples of good, non-obvious reasons:

Can’t think of any (but I’m not ruling out the possibility that some such reasons may exist). If you want to tell us the reason we can comment on whether they belong to this category.

Edit: you clarified in a comment that the reason is that

My paper has a low citation count because it came out around the same time as a major survey paper on the subject and for some reason it wasn't included in it. Most of the subsequent papers and surveys seem to cite the works(that were published before the survey) based on what's included in that survey.

I don't think that's a good reason, and indeed it's not even clear that this is a "reason" at all. You're saying that the survey paper doesn't cite your paper "for some reason" and that the subsequent papers "seem to" have only cited "based on what's included in that survey". So, you're essentially admitting to not actually knowing the reason why the survey paper didn't cite your work; and to also not knowing the reason why the follow-up papers didn't cite it, except that you're speculating the reason might be because they're relying on the survey paper. This is a completely unconvincing explanation.
The bottom line is, I agree with what others have said. Your research proposal should focus on what's good about your (past and future) research, not on making excuses. No one cares about why you have relatively few citations. Moreover, if your research is actually impressive and you do a good job of explaining why, then likely no one would care even about the fact that it has relatively few citations, let alone about the reasons for this.
Conversely, if you fail to make a convincing case that your research is good, your discussion about the low citation count won't impress anyone. So the answer to your original question is no, it's not beneficial.

Here is a reason that might be deemed good: My paper has a low citation count because  it came out around the same time as a major survey paper on the subject and for some reason it wasn't included in it. Most of the subsequent papers and surveys seem to cite the works(that were published before the survey) based on what's included in that survey.

If it came out around the same time, how would the survey authors have known about your paper? Another excuse I guess…

@Kupp That's not a good reason. That's at best neutral if you go for the obvious case of your paper coming out after the survey paper looked for papers. Otherwise, you need something much better than "for some reason it wasn't included" because there the obvious reason is that it wasn't notable/good enough.

@JonCuster They may not have known about it. But this probably effected its citation count.

@MisterMiyagi They either saw the paper and decided they shouldn't change the survey to include it perhaps because it was my first paper and had zero citations back then or they didn't see the paper. Since they included works of similar scale and of similarly rated journals I doubt that it was the quality of the work the critical factor here.

@Kupp - you keep focusing on things outside your control. What is your proposed research and why is it new, novel, and impactful? That is what you focus on, not grasping at straws for excuses.

@Kupp "Since they included works of similar scale and of similarly rated journals I doubt that it was the quality of the work the critical factor here." Erm, seriously, I would not doubt that. No intention to dismiss your work specifically (since frankly I don’t know it) but if someone tells me the review authors went the extra mile to include similar papers but not theirs - yes, quality would be my absolute first guess then. The absolute best reading here would be that it’s not bad but also not significantly different from the others. None of that is a good message.

@MisterMiyagi The solution which I was improving was in a set of solutions which were considered roughly equally important by the survey. The type of improvement to that solution was the same as those of several other solutions of the same importance which were included. You could argue that my techniques to reach the improvement  were different and inferior that those of the other improvements but I doubt it.


text:
Should I list specific research questions and potential solutions for each professor in my SoP?
I have done some literature review on the target professors at each graduate school, and am considering whether or not to include a sentence such as the following, to hopefully demonstrate my genuine interest in their work:
"I am deeply interested in building upon Professor X's work to construct preconditioning methods for ridge regression with large parameters. In particular, I believe that methods A and B may be utilized in fashion C to tackle this unaddressed question in the literature... I am also fascinated by Professor Y's work..." and so on.
However,

Since students should be open to many topics, could this be interpreted as being too narrow?
Though I will try my best to avoid proposing a bad solution, is the risk worth it? I.e. is it often more likely that a student proposes a uneducated solution, than a good one?

For context: I am a prospective Statistics PhD student aiming for T20 programs in the US, with a math major at a T5 school in the US (good GPA, graduate math and statistics coursework, research experience, solid LOR). I have reached out to many of the professors at said schools, but none have replied.

What country is this for and are you a resident currently?

Sorry, should have clarified! US, resident.

The trick with expressing interest is to mean it. If you say you are "fascinated" by a professor's work but then cite random papers and say vague things about them, that will do more harm than good. Even spending a few hours on the professor's website and skimming their papers will likely lead to only superficial comments that don't impress anyone (and this will require significant effort from you). But it's totally possible that in the course of your undergrad work, your work was related to Prof. X's, and now working with Prof. X would be a natural next step -- that's certainly worth saying.
So: I recommend being honest. If you are actually familiar with a professor's work because of your experience in this domain, you should certainly say so. If you're not familiar with the professor's work, but you understand the problem and some of the tools they use, that is perfectly fine to say. And if you have no experience at all in a given domain but are willing to learn, then it is better to admit this than to try to fake it.

Since students should be open to many topics, could this be interpreted as being too narrow?

It really depends on how it's written. Certainly there is a motif of "once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." At this point you probably only know how to use one or two hammers, so you should at least acknowledge that there are additional hammers that you should learn about in grad school.

Is it often more likely that a student proposes a uneducated solution, than a good one?

Much, much, much more likely. Your professors are very smart and have been working in this area full-time for years. It is extremely unlikely that an undergraduate, after a few hours' thought, can come up with a useful solution to their problem. So, best case, you'll give a plausible solution that they've already considered. Worst case, you'll say something ridiculous. Thus, I would not speak of "solutions" but rather of tools and approaches and interests.


text:
How to thank others for referencing my paper? Will it seem unprofessional? Is it common practice?
There are groups who have referenced published papers of which I am a co-author. The groups who referenced are not collaborators. How can I acknowledge their intellectual input?

I don't think this is a duplicate.  That one was about whether it is ethical; this is about whether it is common or accepted.

What do you mean by "their intellectual input" in this case? A citation isn't really an intellectual input, but you can of course compliment them on their paper.

@PeterFlom I see the argument that it's not a duplicate, but I'm not totally certain what's being asked either. "Acknowledge" has the unfortunate jargon-type property of having a kind of formal definition in our line of work, but I'm not sure if the asker means it that way.

Do not thank others for referencing your work. Citations/references should be based on scientific and technical merit. Either a work is relevant and should be cited or not; notably, a work should not be cited as a favour, thank-you, or general niceties.
While just thanking others for referencing your work isn’t misconduct yet, I recommend stay clear of it to avoid giving the wrong impression.
That said, if you find their work interesting and closely related to yours you might want to reach out and suggest a collaboration in the future.


text:
Teaching a class likely meant to inflate the GPA of student athletes
Premise
My department recently finalized the faculty teaching assignments for the Fall 2019 semester (starts at the end of August 2019). As these assignments were being discussed a few weeks ago, my department chair approached me and asked my "interest" (her word) in teaching an "explorations" (again her word) class that students could take to learn more about our department and our discipline.
She had a pre-written syllabus that she had composed. The proposed work load for the class essentially consisted of having 80% attendance at a weekly 50-minute class period and filling out a course review at the end of the semester (10% of the grade was to come from a nebulous "class participation" score). This class would be worth three (3) credits, which would be the typical credit given for a class that met for three 50-minute periods a week and had several exams, weekly homework, etc. Some examples of classes in my college (STEM) worth 3 credits:
All names and course numbers are effectively fake. These are all real classes at my university, but I have completely made up the numbers to mask the real classes.

Math 3340 Differential Equations.
Math 3870 Algebraic Number Theory.
Phys 2200 Electromagnetism.
CoSc 3130 Compilers and Interpreters.
Stat 4650 Bayesian Inference.
CoSc 3270 Intro to Machine Learning.
CoSc 4270 Advanced Machine Learning.
Chem 3510 Organic Chemistry I.
Chem 3520 Organic Chemistry II.

(CoSc is Computer Science. This is not what my university calls it. I did this literally just so that every class only had a 4 letter abbreviation).
I told the department chair that I was not interested in teaching the class and made the passing observation that it seemed like the class was rather simple for a three credit class. She told me that, yes, it is a rather simple class, but that this was okay, since it was "targeted at the athletes from our university." The class is open to any student at the university, but it requires departmental signature to add the class.
I feel that this may be treading a fine line that borders on academic fraud, such as this scandal at the University of North Carolina. This is exacerbated by the fact that I have now discovered that there is not only one version of this class, but three (XXXX 3910 Explorations I, XXXX 3920 Explorations II, XXXX 3930 Explorations III) versions of the class.
The classes meet concurrently (e.g. Tuesdays at 2 p.m.) in "different" rooms, however it is really just one big room that can be subdivided into three classrooms with accordion curtains. (Each section of the room has a separate door to the hallway and a separate room number). So the "Explorations" classes can effectively be taken all at once by signing up for all three classes and then just sitting in the big room and "participating."
The Issue
Despite my declining having any interest in teaching one of these classes, I have been named as the instructor of one of the classes. The department chair and a new adjunct hire have been listed as the professors over the other two classes. Students have registered for the class and it looks like out of 21 students on my class list, 19 are student athletes.
I spoke (informally) with our associate dean about this class soon after my department chair first approached me about the class. At that point I had not yet been assigned to teach the class.  He informed me that the dean had signed off on these classes in order to "engender interest in the college." Most student athletes at my school do not major in STEM fields.
I'm not sure how high this goes. I do not want to lose my job over being unwilling to get up in front of some student athletes and talk about interesting things in my field. If the class was worth fewer credits, I would feel better about participating. But as it is, I feel uncomfortable being associated with the course. If it were worth fewer credits, I might be more favorable to the thought of teaching the class.
Should I blow the whistle here?

Addendum
I do not have tenure. I am relatively new to the department. I think this is why the department chair is asking me and an adjunct professor (new hire) to cover these classes.
I mentioned that I had been assigned to teach this class to one of my senior faculty. His assessment was essentially "Oh yeah, sounds fishy. But if [Dept. Chair] got it approved, must be on the up and up, right? Ha ha ha...."
Grade break down for the class is as follows:

10% Participation (On an integer scale from 0-10).
10% Course Evaluation (Filled out = full marks, not completed = zero).
80% Attendance:

There are 10 total class meetings (we do not meet every week)
You get 1 point for each class period you attend up to and including your eighth class period attended. (Max score of 8/8).

The class is not pass fail. ABC grades are assigned.
So, if you participated at a level 9 (whatever that will mean), filled out the course evaluation, and attended 5 class periods total, your score would be:

9% + 10% + (5/8)*80% = 69% in the course.

If you participated at a level 3, did not fill out the course evaluation, and attended 7 class periods total, your score would be:

3% + 0% + (7/8)*80% = 73% in the course.

@darijgrinberg: OP was handed a pre-written syllabus, which specifies that the course is not to require any actual academic work at all. Sounds like a smoking gun to me.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Seriously, folks... take non-clarifying comments to chat. Unrelated discussion will be deleted.

"Should I blow the whistle here?" depends strongly on your personal circumstances and values. I've flagged this question for closure with that reason. "What should I do about this moral dilemma?" is off topic on all Stack Exchanges where such matters are likely to come up. The question could be made on topic by stating what you have decided you want to accomplish and asking how to best go about it, though.

@Vladhagen, you’re probably experiencing the same distress others feel about the broader dilution, perhaps degeneration, of “higher” education and the give-the-people-what-they-want strategy. Big business, lots on the line. Everyone from the regents to your department chair is aware of the situation and its complexity, including the specific moral issues you raise. Stay sane!

You wondered "how high does this go?"  At my university, the football coach's salary is 7 times the president's.  Who do you think answers to whom?  The chancellor, the president, the provost, the dean and your chair could all agree with you and nothing would be done.  (And if they were the sort of people who agreed with you, then they would not be the chair, dean, provost, president, or chancellor.)
You're new and adjunct, and so have a very weak position.  I'm pretty sure this is why you were assigned the course.  Options:

Refuse to teach the course and hope that the there's enough bad publicity when you are fired, that the school quietly removes the course.  You'll be unemployed, but will have done a service.
Teach the course in such a way that the students actually have to work and learn things.  Milk the "participation" for all it's worth.  If you do it right, you'll never get the course again. (E.g.  Lead a discussion each meeting on the topic of "Why major in STEM."  Point out that the very course they're in is robbing them of their opportunity to get a real education.  They're essentially slave labor for the billionaires who really own the athletic teams. They're playing pro-football for free and getting in return a worthless degree in "Undergraduate Studies" which won't qualify them to sell used cars.  Wouldn't a STEM degree be more valuable and satisfying?  That's on-topic for the course and should prevent you from having to teach it again.  OR perhaps, choose a nice, science-y book and require that "participation" means taking turns reading aloud from the book.  When this uncovers that half your students can't read....)

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

'slave labor for the billionaires who really own the athletic teams' this is would be very funny to hear from the person who holds an adjunct position (not really the most stable and well paid position in the academic cycle). Pro athletes have a chance to earn a lot of money and fame (the chance is low, but the reward is so high that for some it makes sense). But instead of it you suggest them to take a degree and then if you are lucky somewhere in your mid-thirties you might have a chance to have a decent salary. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

@SalvadorDali  No, I suggest that as long as they're going to sit in classrooms for 4 years, they might as well get a decent degree.  Then they have two options for their future.

@B.Goddard probably they will need way more that 'sit in classrooms for 4 years' to get a decent degree. There is a big difference between spending 2 hours yawning and checking FB and actually doing homework assignments in hard subjects. And you basically tell that a person who holds extremely shaky position in academic hierarchy to tell them that they need to throw away their prospects and spend many years studying to have a chance to get a similar very shaky position.

I half-disagree, rather strongly with the disagreed half, of this answer. In particular, it seems to me that this answer is basically consisting not only of objection to the possibly shady motivations of this class and faculty decisions, but also in getting on the boat of slamming and essentially invalidating the need or worth of entire fields of academic endeavor (basically, anything not "STEM") which, I'd say, is an assault not only on "billionaire athletic team owners" but on professors, scholars, and others who have made such fields their life's work and those who have actually

applied the knowledge from such fields. Calling them "not real" degrees is also to devalue that knowledge itself and, again, something I find a bit reprehensible. Moreover, it sounds very much like installing your political opinion into the class, again, a big no-no I'd say for any academic teaching (unless the class is specifically about a particular political philosophy or ideology, but even then the instructor's own personal opinions as to whether or not that ideology is/isn't valid or to what extent it is so, should not go in, as the point of an

instructor is fundamentally to teach, NOT to preach. The students should be able to form that by themselves). That said, I do greatly agree with two things: One of these is trying as best as possible to "subvert" the syllabus by trying to wriggle in as much actual academic work as possible (e.g. to actually define the ill-defined "participation" in your syllabus and, say, include something like 'scheduled in-class activities' that require some non-trivial preparation). The other is, I think, rousing their suspicions by pointing out in some fashion that there is something funny

going on with this, and whom it may serve. There is nothing wrong with doing sports or being an athlete in and of itself, but there is something wrong with this system. Of course, this also seems to diddle with that line of "preaching a political opinion", and one should thus exercise caution, but if there is legitimately corrupt activity going on here, that should be something that should always be targeted.

(Also it is making some rather large assumptions about what majors they are choosing, esp. considering that this class is offered by the/a "STEM" department as suggested by OP and thus would seem like if anything it'd be part of that curriculum.)

@The_Sympathizer  Um, dude, first, the course is in the STEM school and specifically created to tempt students to those fields.  Second, the "other field" here isn't a field, it's "Undergrad Studies," which is a fake major.  No one dissed sociology or even cosmetology.  Your whole tirade is so off point, I can't even see it from here.

(I guess, that is, what I'm trying to say is that issues of fraud and integrity should not be conflated with issues regarding whether some majors or fields are/aren't "worth" pursuing. Fraud is fraud regardless of any such issues, and honest teaching/academe is honest teaching/academe regardless of any such issues. You should NOT put one into the other.)

@B. Goddard : I saw that part, though maybe I didn't quite catch that it was there to "tempt" them in, I thought it was like a low level for those already in. That said, slamming other fields in advocating for your department (i.e. doing the assigned job) would not be the way to go. You could point out the benefits of a STEM major without actually saying things like others are "not real" fields. Much less insinuating they've already firmly decided on a major when if, at the very least, it's a course to promote the department that would be offered to those who are trying to figure that out.

(Mentioned in my fifth part of the comment, I said " considering that this class is offered by the/a STEM department")

@The_Sympathizer  Again  you are so far off the point, I can't see it from here.  The ONLY "major" disparaged was "undergrad studies."  This simple fact makes your entire (idiotic) tirade moot.  I will not try to reason with someone whose reasoner is broken.

@B. Goddard : I had never heard of such a major, and it was not mentioned in the OP, and assumed (and perhaps that was in error) that it was meant as a made-up stand-in/proxy for various "soft", non-STEM, majors.

@Salvador Dali: academics typically have good reasons to opt for the relatively low pay and several years of job insecurity that you mention, but those reasons need not concern the students. With a good major in a STEM subject, it is typically easy to get a well-paid job that will be more secure than most jobs that don't require a STEM major. The person standing in front of these students is there because they want to be there, not because they couldn't get anything else. Anyway, I think it's safe to assume that the students in question are not heading for academia.

One possible option is to prepare a syllabus for the course which adds some legitimate graded work: homework, an exam, a paper or project, anything. Then, email it to your chair, mention that you want to evaluate the students' mastery of the material and hence devised your own grading rubric, and ask for her approval.
If she approves, or if she switches your teaching assignment, then problem solved. And if she says "please use the syllabus I gave you", then you have established a paper trail.
Finally, keep the following in mind: in my discipline, I've seen advanced graduate courses where the grading rubric is openly "everyone gets an A". The rationale is that graduate students have more important fish to fry, and should be able to set their own priorities. Whether athletes should be able to do the same is debatable -- but keeping this in mind might mitigate your distaste, if you end up having to use the syllabus you were given.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I'd bet pounds to pesos that this course is akin to the Geology 101 course my brother took (at a major football university) with most of the football team (he wasn't a student athlete, just took the course) that was commonly referred to as "Rocks for Jocks".
However, that doesn't mean (as Buffy mentioned) that the course can't benefit the students.  If I were in your shoes, and I would try to make the course give some benefit to the students.  If you are allowed to change the syllabus to include some assignments (be they tests, homework, or projects) that get graded and give the students feedback, the students could actually learn something.  When I was teaching (at the high school level), I taught a "Descriptive-level" Chemistry course; the basic concept was Chemistry without math.  My goal was to help the students learn concepts that would help them (e.g. why you need special coating on screws used in pressure-treated lumber.)
OTOH, this worries me:

...I have now discovered that there is
  not only one version of this class, but three (XXXX 3910 Explorations
  I, XXXX 3920 Explorations II, XXXX 3930 Explorations III) versions of
  the class.
The classes meet concurrently in "different" rooms, however it is
  really just one big room that can be subdivided into three classrooms
  with accordion curtains. (Each section of the room has a separate door
  to the hallway and a separate room number). So the "Explorations"
  classes can effectively be taken all at once by signing up for all
  three classes and then just sitting in the big room and
  "participating."

If this is true (a student can take three courses at the same time and earn credit for them), that would constitute fraud (at least in my book).  Given your non-tenured position, I leave it to you to determine if burning the bridge to this opportunity is worth it to you to report the fraud.  (I suspect that, should you report, your position with the university will be terminated, or made very uncomfortable.)
Lastly, the attendance policy is something I would examine in greater detail.  If your school is as sport-centric as you fear, I wonder if the athletes are considered exempt from attendance (or automatically get credit), should they be on the road.  (I.e. if they get automatic points for attendance when they are away, it is another very damning piece of evidence that this is a fraudulent class.)

I too took a "rocks for jocks" (topics in geology) in undergrad! I wasn't an athlete, I was doing it for my gen-ed credits. It was the most fun I had in a gen ed science class, ever; not because it was easy, but because it was so interesting. My "lab" partner (an actual athlete) actually declared a geology major because he enjoyed it so much. Of course this was more of a legitimate "explorations in..." or "introduction to..." type course than what OP has described which does, as you mention, sound much more like a scam.

Love this answer!  And to be honest, I think it gives OP the freedom to do some really freaking awesome things.  Imagine getting to teach a college course where you get to do demonstrations of Planning Fallacy, do a game show of Causation vs Correlation vs Coincidence, and do a "Here's something weird: everyone write down a reason it might be that way, and a way you could test out whether you're right."  You have the chance to teach the most important class that they might take, all because you don't have a rigid set of goals to achieve!

This is a very good point. I took a few similar classes in subjects very remote from mine (economics for dummies when getting my PhD in physics for instance) and they were fantastic. The teacher knew that there would be 90% of people who would slack and 10% of completely unrelated students with whom he can do great things. The course ROCKED and was a huge success among these students for a few years.

If it were me, I would try hard to get reassigned to another course, but take no other actions.  Hindsight is 20/20, but it sounds like you may have pushed back less than other people the chair asked.  I think if you say something like “I’m deeply uncomfortable with how this course is structured and graded and if I were to teach it, I would assign regular homework and give an exam” and you’ll find yourself reassigned.  Obviously it’s not great to run the risk of offending the chair, but this is less bad for you than appealing above the chair’s grad.
Alternatively, look at some of the syllabi of courses outside the college of arts and sciences.  I think you’ll find that in a lot of majors the standards for a 3 credit course are much lower than you think they are.  I doubt that this course is fraudulent or as extreme an outlier as you think it is.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable teaching it myself, but I’m skeptical that it’s actually illegal, fraudulent, or against university policies.

My personal view is that I would willingly teach such a course only if I could be assured that the parameters overall were such that I could give value to the students. I can't judge the situation here with the information given, but it seems worrisome based on some of the edits and comments. The original post seemed to leave enough room to do a decent enough job. The edits, not so much.
However, I have two concerns. The first is that if you want to "step away", as is likely your best option, do so very carefully and with a smile. As an untenured faculty member you will have little chance to make changes if heads and deans, etc. are on board with this. I think it would be unwise to flatly refuse, but, with decent personal relationships, it might be possible to express your discomfort with the situation and your reluctance to get involved with it. But carefully. Carefully.
The second is more serious. If you agree to do it, or get trapped into it, you are unlikely to be able to find an escape before you achieve tenure. You will become the "go to person" for such courses and will likely be saddled with them for a while. If, indeed, it is a scam, then it would also be a mind-killer.
If, indeed, it is a scam, then you are being asked to do this because, being untenured, you find it harder to refuse.
On the other hand, if doing this provides a better path to tenure (say in a place heavily influenced by administration) then you have to think about the long term. Hard choice.

And, for the record, not all athletes are dumb. Bill Bradley of Knicks fame, comes to mind. He earned an MA from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Regarding Bill Bradley, this (career overview) is an example of a fairly well known mathematician who many are not aware that he once had a fair amount of success as a (U.S.) college football player. I know several other sports examples also, but they tend to be in sports like tennis and track & field, which are not nearly as notable for their rarity of scholar athletes as is the case with football (or basketball).

TL;DR: get the department riled up about this - this is not just your problem, but a matter of department image and prestige.
This is a really tough situation to be in, but it would be much tougher if you try to handle it by yourself. If I were in your position I would probably go ahead with taking the course (anything else would be outright rebellion, and may seriously hurt your chances of promotion). I would however

Garner support from others in the department - the existence of these classes is detrimental to the department as a whole: it lowers departmental prestige, hurts it in the rankings, makes it more difficult to attract undergrad and grad students, etc.. Moreover, if you are going to make enough noise, this class will be passed on to someone else, who'll face the same problem. This is not just affecting you.
Try and assess the department's attitude towards this class. If everyone is on board with this and you're the only one seeing the problem, then you will have a much tougher time moving forward. If there is a significant number of people who do not like this class, then you may be able to make your case (significant here may be one person with a lot of influence, or a lot of people with less). It may not be a bad idea to openly discuss this with your department chair: they can offer you an interesting perspective of departmental politics and the requirements handed down to them (and very well convince you of the unfortunate reality of these classes). If you have a good amount of backing, then perhaps you can generate enough momentum to change something.
If all else fails, and you feel like this is seriously affecting you, then this may be a good reason to consider your prospects elsewhere - not being given a choice in teaching a class, or control over its syllabus/grading method, is not reasonable in my opinion.

Good luck!

Your comments to my answer say clearly that blow a whistle means to make an outcry about a case of fraud. You have however no expertise to make the judgement of fraud. This judgement is made at a higher level, such as an accreditation board. So, the answer is no, you should not and indeed cannot blow a whistle in this way.
How should you proceed?
Perhaps you are asking whether you should blow a whistle to lead a charge about the integrity of the course. As an untenured faculty, this is not a battle for you to lead or to engage fully. In essence, it is a rabbit hole that could suck away your success in your career. It is a battle for tenured faculty members to address. Engage someone at a higher level in the department to blow a whistle in this manner.
For the immediate term (summer), contact a trusted, tenured faculty member in your department. Discuss their views on whether the course is worthy as a case to raise for improvement or potential Academic Fraud. Your Faculty Senator may also have insights. Use this time to gather information about what other faculty in the department feel about the course. You may also learn about your allies and enemies for future worthy battles that you would want to fight to improve the integrity of courses in the department.
For the Fall term, teach the course. Establish what it requires and strive to meet its standards to the fullest degree possible. As you desire and as the course description permits, allow yourself the liberty to inject some degree of your own academic integrity. However, be clear at the outset about what this means in your grading rubrics, especially when they differ from your colleagues who are teaching EXACTLY the same course. Finally, when you do make changes, be prepared that you will have students who will either jump ship right away or who will complain loudly about you during and after the course, and they will likely do so to the highest level possible. In other words, tread lightly about this path.
Also, during the Fall term, grant yourself the liberty of having an easy course to teach and do something productive entirely for you.
After the Fall term, write a course assessment report. When this would be an engineering course in an accredited college, this report would be called an ABET course assessment report. Document the course requirements, what you did during the course to meet them, and what the outcomes were from your efforts. Bind these documents in a folder and post them to the department. This is your record of the level of integrity that you held under the constraints that you had to meet.
Looking ahead from that point ... Keep yourself productive in your own way and trust that, as the case may require, you have done what was demanded of you with the fullest integrity allowed. As the saying goes, you cannot be blamed after that point for anything falsely done by those above your pay grade (or tenure level in this case) and for something that you are in a position only to seek to correct by seeking further advice.
Finally, your background discussion adds information on other factors that have no bearing on the question of blowing a whistle for fraud. specifically, you raise an issue of not being willing to teach the course. I will address some aspects of it here as well.
Your teaching load is most likely assigned to you by the department Chair in consultation with you. Your Faculty Handbook sets the policy. You can ask your Chair again for the due respect to not have to teach the course. Your reasons that the credit hours are too high or that you are unwilling to "stand up in front of some student athletes" will likely fall on deaf ears. Some might consider you raising such alarms as reasons to brand you as a complainer. A senior faculty member might give you further guidance for a better reason to decline the course. One that comes to mind is to ask how teaching this course will or will not strengthen your teaching credentials for your tenure dossier. Again, your Faculty Handbook sets the guidelines to make this call.
To be fair, no one appreciates being assigned to teach a course that seems to be beneath their dignity. The proper reflection may be to define the standards that you can live with to teach the course to the best level permitted, to present your standards clearly to the students, and to hold to them as you teach. You might by inverse consider this case as a challenge in your own learning process -- how well can you learn to teach something worthy about your field to students who are not at a level that you normally would want to teach and who are likely not at all interested in learning the material in the first place.
You also say that you are unwilling to teach a course that is potentially a case of Academic Fraud because it may make you complicit in such fraud.
You did not generate or approve the initial form to create the course, you did not dictate the requirements for the course for this coming Fall, and finally you are not able at this moment in time to determine whether the course is truly a case of Academic Fraud.
Teaching what you are assigned is an obligation of your appointment as a faculty member. You must do what is assigned to you. Failing to do this is a cause to fire you. With due notice to a colleague about your concerns of the integrity of the course, you do the best that you can in your position to give notice that you want to know whether the course should be investigated even as you go forward teaching it.
In summary, raise your concerns about the integrity of the course privately to trusted senior faculty. When you mean this as your statement to blow a whistle, then yes. When by blow a whistle you mean to lead a charge on a case of fraud, no. This is not a battle for an untenured faculty to engage. When you want to consider to improve the integrity of the course, continue by gaining insights about the course, by teaching the course in the immediate future to your best standards within the bounds of its requirements, and by consulting to find allies to improve or change (remove) it.

"I want to blow a whistle on a case of being assigned to teach a course that is outside of my area of expertise." That seems wildly speculative as to why I do not want to teach the course. Nothing I have said indicates that I just think this class is "beneath me" from a pure subject matter stand point or outside my area of expertise. It is a straight forward matter of suspecting fraud. You are arguing against a straw man.

Why assume she wants to 'blow the whistle' for any reason other than disgust at the blatantly unethical nature of the class?

@Vladhagen I revised to note why I will keep the case in point. It is an argument that I have heard from other faculty as a reason to complain about why they should not teach or do not want to teach a certain course. I have also been on the receiving end of being assigned to teach a course outside my area of expertise. So, this is not a straw man, even though it is not germane to your case (as now acknowledged)

This answer does not address the issues of financial aid fraud, visa fraud, and NCAA penalties.  Could it be that the asker would be personally liable for fraud?

To me, as an outsider, it would seem that OPs ethical duty would be to immediately report this to the accreditation board, and I'd expect the uni to lose theirs over it.

@Magisch I suspect if it were that simple, many universities would either have already lost their accreditation or would have stopped offering such courses. Since many universities offer such courses while retaining accreditation, my guess is there are other forces at work.

FWIW, the NCAA declined to sanction UNC because the worthless classes were open to all students and not "extra benefits". Whether it was "academic fraud" was legally controversial, the UNC's lawyered up position was that it was a case of "lack of oversight".

@JeffreyJWeimer, Perhaps things are different on this site, but SE typically requires an answer to the question as asked or to offer a frame challenge. The section on teaching a class 'beneath their dignity' is neither.

As @pboss3010 notes in detail, the OP is not positioned to judge a case for fraud (let alone blatant fraud or worthlessness). The OP is in position to seek further insight and guidance as well as to frame concerns to those immediately above.

@JeffreyJWeimer, I understand your interpretation. Mine was that they were unwilling because it would be willingly participating in the perceived fraud.

you have no stand to make this specific judgement -> Everyone has a stand to speak against fraud. One could argue that everyone has a moral obligation to speak up. This answer is plainly wrong. It promotes a "not my job" attitude towards academic integrity, which is completely against everything an academic should do.

The OP should blow the hypothetical whistle because courses like these completely undermine the value of a degree that this university would bestow. That means the other, non-athlete students are paying for an expensive piece of paper that won't even get them a job.

Even with the amendments, I'm not sure that the guesses about the OP's motivations are useful.  But the idea to write an ABET report for the course is a really good one that could help the administration see that there are financial risks involved in having such a fraudulent course, even if they don't care about the ethical ones.

@CramerTV Luckily we're not that strict here ;-)

You know, I think I'm going to take a different stance on this than most of the answers: you should dive in!
This class sounds like it has pretty much no expectation for quality.  I mean, it's just a way for athletes to get their credits, right?  But that actually gives you a freedom you don't have with a regular class.  If you're teaching "Data Structures in OOP", well, guess what: you're not going to be able to discuss much that isn't a Data Structure in OOP.  But you're being asked to literally teach an exploration class about science (which honestly sounds pretty freaking sweet to me!)
So ask yourself this: if you could take an average everyday person and have them be smarter about one or two science things, what would they be?

"I wish people could understand the difference between Correlation and Causation!"  Great!  Then do a few sessions on that.  Make a
gameshow, where the contestants have to take a factoid like "Cancer
rates have increased proportionally to cell phone use" and hold up
one of three cards: "Causation", "Correlation", or "Coincidence".
"I wish people understood planning fallacy."  Then go ahead and actually do a mockup of one of the famous studies in your class.  Ask
them how long it'd take you to drive to the football stadium and lay
on the 50 yard line.  How long for 90% certainty?  For 99% certainty?
... and how long did it actually take you?
"I wish people understood the scientific method better."  Awesome!  Break out a bottle of supercooled pop, and show them how it
freezes over when you open the lid.  Ask them to come up with an
explanation why - and then, come up with a way of testing that
explanation.  And go ahead of do some of those tests in front of
them.  Show them a scientific phenomena each session, and not only
make them come up with a guess why, but a test that would give
evidence whether their guess is right/wrong.

There's the possibility that this class could give you a lot of freedom to teach some really important things.

So, I would +1 you if it weren't for the fact that OP needs to introduce a number of subjects rather than spend his/her time teaching whatever they feel like...

I think this is a great answer.  OP: teach the class, and make it the best possible class working within the guidelines that were handed down.  You beat the system by being awesome, and get the students to "Stand and Deliver".

The only sound advice on this entire thread. Jeez, everyone seriously opposes the idea of an exploratory course that introduces students to a new subject which they have no background in? Such a course should be accessible and easy if it is truly going to be a good introduction. I'm not saying I approve of the pandering to student athletes, but I don't see what's wrong with the course.

Call a journalist and make him/her do the dirty job for you. Simple as that. Maybe some alumn from your department ended up writing about it. If so, that would be a good choice.

Reading through the answers, I was thinking exactly this, that tipping off the media anonymously might be the safest way to blow the whistle. If they don't seem interested, then that probably indicates that it's common practice in the US, as some answers suggest.

When I was a TA, there was a rumor that [Very Famous Athlete] wanted to be a math major at a rival school and had to be talked into studying basket weaving instead so that he wouldn't be distracted by homework from [Big Money Sport].
If you feel like making big waves, the mass media (journalists) are your only hope, and you should probably figure your future job choices will be limited to smaller institutions without semi-professional athletic teams. You could also try the NCAA Enforcement Division, but they seem to be most interested in safeguarding the financial profitability of athletics; e.g., looking for hidden cash benefits to athletes. Academic Fraud is unlikely to matter.
By the way, the Explorations Structure is probably so that this course can be taken three times in different quarters.

As an adjunct, I LOVED situations like this.  (I didn't have something exactly like it, but I got paid for 4 credits for what was (on my end) a 3-credit class, and the students had other teachers for the 4th "credit" and they taught study-skills and such.  My only extra obligation was a few lunches with the other instructors.)  Getting one of those was like a "prize" and meant the department head liked you, I felt.
But back to yours -- can you add useful content, both inside and outside your discipline?  For example: study skills! Resources on campus (include the counseling center and that there's no shame in it --I always pointed out the "happy" things there, like the Zen room or massages, so people could feel like they had a "plausible excuse" for entering that building.)  What your options are when personal stuff (death, divorce, illness) means completing a semester is tough.  (We had a rule students had to ASK for Incompletes -- officially we couldn't suggest them.)  Balancing schoolwork, personal life, and student-athlete obligations (at my university they had a mandatory study hall, mandatory "general gym" time, plus whatever specific practices they had).
Another option is to partner with graduate programs on campus (if relevant), and if the students need a student-teach experience or to practice a lecture before a conference, they can use your class for practice.  (I had a teaching college composition course -- classmates had a hard time finding classes to guest-lecture in, but they could do something for any major -- so for a chemistry course, we would be able to talk up how to clearly write lab instructions (tech writing type guidelines), "rocks for jocks" we could do something about organizing observations and how looking deeper can result in better writing.)
Do know any former student-athletes from other classes? Maybe ask them about the Explorations classes? Or what they wish they had learned earlier about coping with college?

I just saw the all-3-explorations at once thing -- yep, fraud.   But I taught at an online college where they KNEW the homework answers and such were all online, and they didn't care if I busted them for plagiarism (100% word-for-word copy-paste all semester) or not.  Sigh.

I have to ask whether you're a recent immigrant to the US, because I don't understand how else you could avoid knowing that this is absolutely the norm at pretty much every US university that has a significant sports program.  There is no whistle to blow: it is a widely known practice - searching on "fake college courses for athletes" returns ~64 million hits - that is, as you've seen, tolerated & encouraged by the multitude of college sports fans that only want "their team" to win.
So the answer, unpalatable as it may seem - is just to teach the course (enjoying the benefits of not having to grade assignments &c) and hand out As and Bs to the athletes.

The fact that multiple people and universities are participating in this sort of fraud does not make it any less unethical for the OP to do the same.

@Ray: But as a practical matter, I assume that the OP is not independently wealthy, and so needs a job in order to put a roof over his head and food in his stomach.  So it would seem that his alternative is to find a job in industry.

I'd say, start off by offering your objections to teaching the class up front -- knowing that you probably May as low-man-on-the-totem pole get ultimately stuck teaching the class.
Now, it seems like the 'participation' grading is up for debate -- you can decide what and how to grade it as you'd like.  I mean you could divide the class into Presentation groups and have each group present a mini-lecture on a topic that's interesting.
Or everybody has to chime in during a group discussion
Or some kind of written evaluation based on something they're required to have read.
Or, a final project/exam/essay at the end.
I'd define participation by a standardized rubric that makes some sense...
e.g. attendance = x% of the grade, final = x% of the grade,  participation is x% of the grade and defined by y tasks
The course doesn't need to be super-easy (e.g. Everybody gets an A for showing up 8 times),though it should be fair...not necessarily too hard as it seems like it's more of an intro-level course.  As people said, like "rocks for jocks" or whatever for non-majors, where you don't preconceive that anybody knows anything about the topics.
I'd have no problem with saying everybody starts with an A and drops it as they go through...and can improve a bad grade by doing extra work (and/or showing interest).  Give them a reason to Want to learn about whatever you're teaching.
And, hopefully make it a non-fraud class...
Or, go in, and if you find you can't legitimately give students a quality class based on what you're given (e.g. your fair rubric is shot down) and you think it's fraud...then find legit but fair ways to give lower grades - e.g. not all A's...and become the hard ass professor who nobody wants and make it so they don't want you teaching it anymore.

Course content doesn't have much to do with the credit count, but more about the level of the course (i.e., schools usually offer a code by which courses below some number are introductory, and courses above some other number are advanced).  Credit count is more related to contact hours and the amount of hours a student must put into the course outside the classroom.
It's perfectly acceptable to offer a low-numbered course that requires the appropriate amount of student hours.  It's less acceptable to offer students credit for work that isn't done.
Different schools may offer different auditing requirements for course credits, but a good rule of thumb is to divide a 40-hour full time work load by the normal credit load per semester.  Thus, if the "normal" credit load is 15 credits, a 3 credit course should involve 40*3/15 hours per week, some of it inside and some of outside the classroom.  If you don't think the course meets a standard like this that is university-appropriate, you have a valid complaint.  Similarly, if you think the course is numbered at a higher level than it effectively is (e.g., and advanced number for an intro course) then you have another valid complaint.  If the course is listed at the intro level, and the appropriate number of hours are required by the student, proudly teach it knowing that you are probably doing a valuable service, perhaps introducing students to a field.
The next level of "protection" for the value of a degree is the requirements to achieve the degree.  This a a matter for the faculty, the department, the university leadership, and any accrediting bodies that apply.  If it's possible to take only low-level courses to get a degree, I suspect that situation won't last very long.


text:
Re-write paper to make it truly double blind
When I was a PhD student, I wrote a collection of papers that comprised a large portion of my dissertation. These papers were written using grant money from one of my advisors. (I had two advisors. The "second" advisor funded me for two semesters).
After I had graduated, this professor expressed a desire to collaborate with me on publishing the papers I had written as part of my dissertation. However, he wants me to entirely re-write each paper in "new" language in order to make the publication truly double blind. He fears that if someone were to Google phrases from my paper, that my dissertation would appear and that the authorship would be known (thus destroying the double-blind process). Because this professor is only topically familiar with my research (enough to be on my committee, not enough to actually write the papers), I am extremely hesitant to even suggest that he do any re-writes himself. (In fact, he attempted to re-write a new draft of the paper and it contained numerous errors in terminology and theory).
I am currently employed in a private research setting (i.e. non-academia) where publication is still important, but I am not free to devote significant amounts of time to my own research. (I have specific, employer directed, research I need to perform). As such, I am not able to allocate numerous hours to re-writing a paper that I already wrote and that I feel is currently in "submission-ready" form.
The ultimate reality is that Google is a powerful tool that could locate my research no matter how hard I tried to obscure it. I cannot take down my LinkedIn, arXiv, and ResearchGate accounts (plus a website) just in case someone wants to devote hours tracing research back to me. Besides, the whole point is to connect myself to my research and make it easier for people to find my research.
Several of the potential journals I am looking at submitting to require double-blindness.
I have two main questions:

Is it usual practice for journals/referees to Google sentences from papers and attempt to determine authorship?
Should I feel inclined to re-write each paper in "new" language in order to avoid anyone from being able to trace my work back to my dissertation?

Added: There have been some questions about authorship on this paper. I am the first author on this paper. The professor in question here contributed what I would consider the bare minimum to be granted recognition as an author. I have already gone through a protracted dispute with my former university over the matter of authorship and they decided that since it was my professor's word against mine as to exactly how much he contributed, they would rule in favor of the professor. (It's much easier to tell a student no than a professor). I was instructed to include this professor as an author on the paper by university administration. I am not directly concerned here with who should be named author on the paper. At this point, dropping the professor from the paper is not an option.

What field are you in?

@AzorAhai Math and Statistics.

There are very few journals in math that even use double-blind review; single-blind is much more common (the referee knows who the author is, but not vice versa).  Are you sure that your journals of interest actually use this process?

@NateEldredge A few journals I am familiar with in statistics use double-blinding, namely Annals of Statistics and Journal of the American Statistical Association.

@Vladhagen That doesn't answer Nate's question: do the journals you're actually interested in publishing in use double-blind review? Do they use it exclusively, or do they allow authors to choose single- vs double-blind for their manuscripts? And, if you're allowed to choose, do you (and your co-author) really assess that you will benefit from the double-blinding? It can indeed be beneficial, but plenty of fields get along just fine with single-blinded reviews.

@E.P. I guess I should be clear on my implications: Annals and JASA are two of the journals I plan on submitting to. (One at a time of course). They both require double-blindness.

@Vladhagen Then I would strongly encourage you to make that explicitly clear in the text of the question itself - make the situation readable in one comprehensive go instead of requiring future visitors to parse through this back-and-forth.

@Vladhagen This doesn't change the conclusions ("Several of the potential journals I am looking at submitting to require double-blindness") but I'm having trouble locating the Annals of Statistics policy that requires double-blind manuscripts (this points to a single-blind process). If there is such a policy, it will likely have further details.

@E.P. Based on what you have shared, it seems that I was maybe incorrect. Annals of Statistics seems to only be single blind. They have updated their website since I last visited it about a year ago. Maybe they've also updated their blinding policies. Thanks for the heads up.

@Vladhagen Frankly, if there is a journal of suitable calibre that allows single-blind submissions, then that is the obvious choice to completely sidestep this problem. If your dissertation is already available, I don't think a proper double-blinding (which is actually honest, and doesn't open the door for an accusation of plagiarism from reviewers) is even possible.

Check out double-blind peer review policies from the venue you'll be publishing in. Here's an example from Elsevier. In a nutshell, you want to prevent any reader from immediately connecting the paper to your identity by e.g. not listing your affiliation, anonymizing self-references, removing funding sources, and so on; but you're not aiming to "beat Google".

This sounds sensible to me. If the journal has double blind reviewing then remove any obvious identifiers. But I think re-writing the whole paper is unnecessary, and too much work - I don't imagine many reviewers would bother googling phrases from the manuscript to try and identify you.

I would actually treat it as foolish to rewrite a paper just to obscure authorship for review. Hopefully you used the best and clearest phrasing when you originally wrote it. Re writing for obscurity can only make it worse, I think. It is the responsibility of the reviewers to keep the process valid without extreme measures from authors.

I would think that this would be an unusual practice, at least in the field of mathematics. Almost all journals would allow for publication of results previously presented by an author in his/her dissertation. There may need to be appropriate attributions made, and you likely could not place the published version of the paper in your dissertation, but if your dissertation is already completed it would seem this would not be an issue.
I published two papers based on my dissertation in abstract algebra and character theory. The topic was such that someone could Google the titles of the papers and usually find my dissertation as well. The two texts are not identical, but they are certainly similar enough that an alert human could quickly determine the authorship of the papers given my dissertation, even without definitively knowing I wrote both papers.
Some questions I have:
If the co-collaborator does not know enough to re-write the paper in "new language," why is he even being given authorship?
Is the topic specific enough that the paper could not be somewhat feasibly re-written in places in order to make it slightly different?
Based on the fact that this paper is in your dissertation, I assume you are the principal/first author?

This collaborator is willing to pay the publication fee. And I also am just trying to avoid getting drawn into a dispute about authorship. Otherwise I would just tell the former advisor I do not wish to piggy-back him along on this publication.

"Paying the publication fee" is not a valid reason for co-authorship, just like "paying for your holiday" wouldn't be. Most respected journals will actually make the authors confirm, upon submission, that they have intellectually contributed to the paper; and even if this is not explicit in the agreement, it is certainly an implicit expectation. Both you and your "collaborator" will be in breach of community norms, and possibly of journal policies, by submitting such "co-authored" papers.

@AlexB. His contribution is more than just paying the publication fee. (Although......I do still believe there would be an argument that he does not warrant authorship). Because I was his graduate student, I will have a hard time showing definitively to my former university that he does not deserve authorship. He came to many meetings on the paper. He just gave no feedback and doesn't know the details of the paper. It becomes my word against his in an authorship dispute.

It is not uncommon for collaborators to not be able to defend an entire paper, especially if they became collaborators to fill in each other's weaknesses. For instance, programmers and statisticians often consult and provide meaningful contributions to papers in fields they are not experts in.

@TimothyAWiseman Such is not the case here. He is being given authorship because he has available money and sat through some meetings on the paper. That being said, the issues of who should be named an author are not my direct concern here.

A low-quality answer, but: in mathematics, my field, spending time to obscure the authorship of a paper is misguided and un-necessary: established people have a viewpoint and style that would be unmistake-able, for example.
More generally, the goal of work/research is not anonymity, but progress in our collective understanding. Notably, this involves people, not anonymous entities. Referees can barely be anonymous, and it's even harder for authors to be anonymous. This cannot possibly be a high priority...

A short answer, but not a low quality one.

It sounds like you're having a relationship with your co-author that's not very far from the border of turning into adversarial, and I don't think you'll gain much from shying away from that aspect. You have enough high cards on your hand that I think you can get things to a situation where your co-author has little choice but do what you say. And, ultimately, it's your dissertation, and he's frankly pushing things with the amount of undue work that he's demanding of you.
One of the high cards that you have is that at least one of the journals you're considering has an explicit set of criteria of what it considers necessary in a double-blinded manuscript (specifically, this policy for JASA). As such, I would propose as a course of action:

double-blinding to the explicit standards set by the journal
emailing your coauthor to tell them that the manuscript's current form satisfies the explicit journal standards, and that it is therefore ready to be submitted
opening the door to their suggesting edits and re-wordings, but in doing so

making it clear that you would have to give full approval to the text
making it clear that you would consider suggestions that included technical inaccuracies along the lines of their previous draft to be a waste of everyone's time, and
making it clear that you have a pressing need for this paper to be submitted

and then making that last point explicit by directly setting a short deadline (two weeks? three weeks? read: short enough to be infeasible from him) for that re-write. This course of action puts the ball on your co-author's court, and it puts it on them to rise up to the bar that they're setting, so that if they are unable to do that, then it's because they set the bar too high. And if the coauthor decides to raise a stink with your university administration, then you can simply say that he's being intentionally difficult, making requests that fall outside of what the journal requires, and failing to live up to the expectations that he sets.
And also: the 'negative outcome' from your coauthor's perspective is that a paper is submitted in a form that is less perfect than it could be. This is simply something that happens, all the time, when life intervenes into research. It is not a reason to stop a publication from being submitted.

As an alternative to the above, you should also consider taking JASA up on their word:

For answers to specific problems not addressed in these guidelines, please contact the ASA Journals Department, journals@amstat.org.

Explain the paper's situation to them (specifically, where and how your dissertation has been published, and what the relationship is between your paper and your dissertation), and ask them to make a determination of how much blinding is required. (You could even send them a preliminary manuscript, or a sample of it, and ask whether they feel the text is too close.) If they say that your text is fine, then you have extremely strong textual evidence to force your co-author to do what you say, or to convince your university that he's acting unreasonably.
If they say that the text requires re-writing, then it may be that that journal is not for you (i.e. that their policies are such that they don't in fact support dissertation-based papers, or that you should have set a publication embargo on your thesis when you submitted it). In that case, either own up to the re-writing, or move to another journal that considers your non-re-written blinding to be sufficient, or which allows for single-blinded reviews.
And in that process, of course, you have the high card that your co-author's say on where and how that paper gets submitted is frankly very limited. You seem to be forced by circumstance to include them, but if you say "we're submitting to X journal in Y weeks at the maximum", what's the worst thing that your coauthor can do?

This is a great answer! I'm surprised it isn't the top upvoted one.


text:
Publishing extension work for a previous research (in Chemical physics)
I did a project a while back, publishing molecular properties in lengthy tables (paper A). A few years down the line, others used the data in new constructive ways, to obtain insights which were unknown to me.
In some of those works, they extrapolated data to get numbers outside the physical range included in my work. Their extrapolation was excellent though, and they drew correct interpretations.
Recently, I performed a newer analysis for a broader range of physical parameters and this new data is even more extensive. However, no change is observed with the numbers published in my previous work (paper A). I am now able to provide a new set of numbers, although in a different physical space, which is about 20% of my previous dataset in terms of size.
How should I go on to communicate/publish this work? On the one hand, the work is not new (in theory) and only extends the physical parameters and provides tables of numbers. On the other hand, the new dataset is of use to scientists (proved by the recent work in this direction). Another option I am considering is to put in on the institutional website in a compiled pdf (while referring to my earlier work).

My suggestion (as a condensed matter physicist, not a chemical physicist) would be that you start by writing this up as a paper covering the new parameters/tables and providing concrete support for the conclusions of the works that extrapolated the data in your original paper. You say the new dataset is relevant to others. As a consequence, making it available in the primary literature and findable in citation databases is helpful. (A PDF on your website covering both the old and new parameter ranges could also be helpful to some, but is unlikely to have the same discoverability or permanence.) Note that it is certainly OK to sometimes publish new results even if there is no interesting methodological development. We can be blind to how difficult others find applying methods we are very familiar with - after all, if it was that easy, the other group might have done the calculation themselves instead of extrapolating your data.
However, such a paper, even one extending into a clearly relevant parameter range, might be more suitable for journal in a lower tier or different focus than wherever your original paper was published. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you can also consider extending your new work in various ways: Could you expand the new parameter range further, perhaps by tweaking the method? Are there specific systems your new data can be applied to, or new insights that can be gained in this new physical space? If so, it can be appropriate to write a paper focusing on that new direction, and to add the new tables in a section or appendix.

And, if you get rejected, you can publish privately, as you suggest.

There are numerous options for these types of publications. None are high end, but that is OK. Something like Elsevier's Chemical Physics may be a suitable venue, as long as you can provide a good rationale as to why this parameter space is worthy of being revisited or extended.

There is more interest these days in making datasets available electronically as well. I would think one of the chemical thermodynamics journals would be happy to host an expanded dataset, particularly if the original is being used and cited. Adding more molecules and broader ranges of applicability (and a discussion of how you are doing it) would seem of interest to some journal. Which one is outside my area...

@JonCuster That's true, and there are a couple of options out there. The other thing I would suggest is a general open access journal like RSC Advances or ACS Omega, where the criteria is less about novelty but rather if the work is done well. Being open access they will be broadly available, and being ACS and RSC society journals makes them generally better thought of than some other options. There is a cost but it is not too high and can be completely eliminated based on geographical region/exemptions.


text:
Is it unethical to not disclose relationship when applying to same group
My girlfriend and I are applying to the same PhD program and are interested in the same group. The group is quite small and it is likely that we will be working together a lot, I am unsure if mentioning the relationship is the right thing to do.
In my country it is illegal to be discriminated against because of a relationship within the workplace (If one doesn't let it affect the working relationship).
The code of conduct of the institution states that they do not discriminate against existing relations, and only that relationships between supervisors and their employees need to be disclosed.
Given the size of the group it feels wrong to me, not to mention the relationship to the potential supervisor. Yet, given that only a few people are admitted I fear that this would lessen the chances of both being accepted as it is just more potential for conflict.

This seems like the sort of question that would be difficult to answer without knowing the country, or at least the part of the world.

@cag51 This. And also the institution. Some institutions have very strict rules, others, not so. Unfortunately, legal wants to protect from all vagaries of life, squashing life itself in the process.

On the risk side for you (and your girlfriend): what happens if you split up?

@cag51 It is in europe and the only rules I am aware of are the ones I pointed out

@JonCuster I guess that is why it seems unethical to me not to disclose. As that might have an impact on the work relation

Anyway, you need a plan for the situation where the two of you don’t get into the same program.

Unless you are putting conditions on the hiring, I see no ethical need to inform the institution. There is no conflict of interest in the hiring process, though it might arise later.
If you won't accept an offer unless both are accepted or if you won't accept an offer unless both are placed in the same group, then you should inform them. But if you are flexible about it then you are just two people applying for positions.
Working together isn't a conflict unless there is some competition involved.
If you are both accepted to the program then you can both apply to the group, at which point disclosure would seem necessary.
This is the classic two-body problem. It is sometimes helpful, however, to disclose a relationship when it is necessary for both to be "hired". Useful because if one of you is very highly desired then the other's qualifications might not be quite the same issue as otherwise. That is a judgement call for you and ultimately a judgement call for them.
Note that I've assumed that applying to the program and applying to the group are distinct. If it is the same, then earlier disclosure might be required and whether it works for or against you depends on a lot of judgements. But if you won't accept an offer from one but not the other, then you should say so to avoid forcing people to waste time unproductively in the process. In a small group, I'd guess it works against you unless the group is expanding (or willing to expand).
And, advice not asked for: the two-body problem can often be solved by applying to places that have a lot of nearby universities. That often means large metropolitan areas, of course, which can be expensive or involve a lot of commuting effort. And, working at nearby universities doesn't foreclose the possibility of working together, necessarily, though that is more true for faculty than doctoral students.

Thanks for the detailed answer. I don't necessarily agree that it is the two body problem. We are just both applying, we do not put any condition on the hiring, nor do we noth apply there so that we can work/be together. We just both like the work that group is doing, and we'll see what happens. Although the application is for "grad school" one picks an advisor upfront.


text:
Will a presentation at a conference with no proceedings or publication help my CV for grad school application?
Ahmedabad University is going to organize an annual economic conference. I have completed my graduation this year. A few conferences which were held at my university published the accepted papers in a booklet (made specially for the conference held). So I was under the impression that if I get my paper accepted at this conference, I might get published which would help me in getting admission to good graduate schools. But when I contacted the Ahmedabad University regarding the publication of papers, this was their reply:

We do not publish papers in any conference proceedings. However, there is a best paper award.

Suppose that my paper doesn't win the best paper award, my question is: if they won't publish my paper in any of their proceedings or booklets, how would I be able mention it in my CV and how would the recruiting team of my target graduate schools be able to access it to evaluate the level of my work?
How would a recruiter of a Graduate School regard the student who had submitted a paper in such a conference, but didn't win the best paper award?

I edited you post a bit to only have one questions, otherwise it might get closed for being too broad.

Literally, it doesn't hurt and may help. Listing it might lead to productive conversations during the application process. Be prepared.
For such things that leave little public record you can point to in a CV, I suggest you talk with those professors who are writing letters of recommendation for you and, supposing they know about the work and the conference, mention it in their letters.
It is one thing for you to say something unverifiable about yourself in an application or a CV, and quite another if a respected academic says those same things.
And, in any case, you should use letter writers with whom you have a good enough relationship that such a conversation is possible.
However, you should list it as you would if there were a proceedings published. Name, date, location, etc. And name the sponsor if it is a professional organization.
Let me add, also, if you are really asking whether you should bother doing this in the first place, that yes, it is worth it. Conferences give the opportunity to network with people in your field and to give yourself and your work visibility. Don't be a "wall flower" at conferences. Use "coffee time" and such to meet people and talk about ideas - give and take. Over time you want to build a circle of collaboration. Conferences are a good place to do that.

"Let me add, also, if you are really asking whether you should bother doing this in the first place, that yes, it is worth it"
Thank you for adding that explicitly. My main aim is to get into a good graduate school and then get into research field, because this conference accepts paper from graduates, PhD scholars and professionals only, undergrads can only be co-authors. I might be co-authoring on a topic with my HOD of Economics. Will it help me?

Collaboration with established scholars is helpful. They are excellent letter writers in many cases. Copacetic.

Even if conferences do not publish proceedings, the conference program is normally published on their website and can be accessed even after the conference is finished. So you have proof that you actually gave a talk at the conference.
If you want recruiters to be able to access your presentation, you can always upload it to an online repository afterwards (check copyright policies of the conference) and add the link to that in your CV.

Even if conferences do not publish proceedings, the conference program is normally published on their website and can be accessed...

I asked them to provide me access to previous year conference's papers, and they replied thus,

I am sorry, but access to previous years' papers cannot be provided. You can check the website again for previous years' conferences however.

This is all that I can find on their site regarding the previous conference.

@ConGovDeIn That is exactly what I wrote, it is the program with the speakers and their topics. It is not much but will proove that you have attended the conference as a speaker.

I have never been to a conference in my field (Biology) that publishes conference proceedings. All you get is a booklet with the conference program, which lists the presentations, sometimes with an abstract. This is what you use as evidence that you presented, for your CV, reimbursement (if any) from your own institution, etc.
As @Sursula says in their answer, most conferences will post their programs online. That the particular conference you want to attend does not have its act together is concerning. But still, you should get a conference program which can then photocopy and use as evidence.