text:
I used feedback from the code review SE for an assignment. Do I have to mark it?
I wrote source code for an assignment. After I was done and the program was functional, i uploaded a piece (a class) on the Code Review SE and people gave me advice, which I then implemented. Should i credit them, and if so, how?
For pieces of code I took from Stackoverflow, for example, I would write it in a comment next to the code, and include a link.
Should this be done in the same way for improvement suggestions?
In my concrete example, implemented suggestions were mostly about programming language intricacies and object orientation. Another option would be to inform the professor in advance and/or ask about this being allowed.
EDIT: The assignment ist not about the programming languages or object-oriented design.

When in doubt, cite.

@yes, and I think the TA will appreciate your honesty (I certainly woulda when I was a TA).

@JeffE says who?

ISWYDT @TasosPapastylianou

Yes, you should ask the professor in advance and make sure he/she understands what CodeReview actually is.
More generally, you should know (and the professor should effectively communicate) what the parameters are for seeking help. I have doubts that very many professors would permit it, but some would.
The reason for assignments isn't because the professor needs the result. It is to cause a change in your brain that won't happen if you take very many short cuts.
Seeking help from the professor or an assistant is different, since they know the actual purpose of the individual assignment (in your learning) and can give hints that won't impede your learning, but help you deepen it. The contributors to CodeReview don't have the context (or usually the background) to do that properly. So you may be sabotoging your learning in pursuit of a better grade. Long term that's a losing game.
Making it functional first was a good step, but there is a lot to good programming beyond functional.
And if you haven't done so, then yes, mark it and point to the source of help. If there weren't already rules around the behavior there should be no reason to punish you and you might get better advice about seeking help from the prof. In fact, you should make the note pretty visible so it just doesn't get lost. Program comments may not be read without some statement at the top pointing to them.

I don't see how soliciting help from the Code Review hurt the OPs learning. The OP had working source code, he got ideas for how to improve it, and he implemented the ideas. Thus, he had already performed the work that was required for the course. By sending the code to Code Review and implementing improvements, he learned ways to improve his code.

I can see that it might interfere with the assessment of his work. If his revised program gets an A, where his original program would have gotten a B, then the professor (and some of the other students) might consider this to be unfair.

@PeterShor My answer isn't about grading and it isn't about fairness. It is about learning. I hope you aren't suggesting that "getting a program working" is enough. Much of the learning about programming is getting it clean, readable, testable, etc etc etc. Learning doesn't stop the first time a program runs.

Once your students actually get a program working and write adequate comments for it, do they then sit down and spend hours trying to figure out how to improve it? Or do they just turn it in as is? From your answer, you must have amazing students!

@PeterShor, It's how I work, actually. Suppose you were teaching poetry. Is the first draft what you expect students to turn in? One way to get students to write better programs is to stop reading their work at the first line that you don't understand. Return it to them for improvement. But you also have to have a policy that you are willing to re-grade their work. I've discussed this quite a bit at CSEducators here.

The assignment is not primarily about programming, I have updated the question.

@JonasSchwarz, what was it about, then?

@Buffy: That sounds like a great way to teach advanced programming. So your answer clearly applies to students in your classes, but I suspect it has a fairly limited range of applicability.

@PeterShor it makes me sad that you are probably correct. But I'm not just talking about "advanced" programming. If bad habits are learned early they become ingrained. As the first hard issue students will fall back on their bad habits. Do it right - from the beginning. Otherwise, why bother?

@PeterShor It's not your place to decide whether CR has hurt someone's learning. When an instructor gives a grade, they are providing THEIR assessment of the student's learning, and that assessment should be given based on all relevant knowledge. It is not legitimate to withhold information from them based on your personal opinion that they shouldn't be making decisions on it in the first place. If a student disagrees with the instructor's teaching style, they should pursue options other than misrepresentating their work.

@Accumulation: if you had read my second comment, you would realize that you are completely misinterpreting my views. I was specifically disagreeing with the answer's sentences "So you may be sabotaging your learning in pursuit of a better grade. Long term that's a losing game." I totally agree that the student should inform the professor that he obtained help from CR.

@Accumulation: In my classes, if a student is willing to research a homework problem online, understand the material and use it in a good answer, I am totally in favor. I don't like it if they research a homework problem online, misinterpret the material, and write a totally incorrect solution or a plagiarized solution they don't understand. And I require that they say where they got help. What I was objecting to was the idea "if you use CR, you are sabotaging your professor's carefully thought-out designs to manage your learning experience optimally."

In the "real world", programmers constantly seek information online and rarely have time to write ideal code. The same elephant is always in the classroom: are you teaching an academic subject or a trade skill? Because the approaches will be radically different, to the point where there is almost zero intersection.

It would be interesting to have a course where assignments were to be done once without outside assistance, and then handed back to be revised with peer review (including other students). It would be interesting to see if the class/groups gravitated to a single solution/style.

@user3067860, That is pretty much how my courses go. Revision is valued, honored, and supported. However, my courses are (were - I'm retired) in Computer Science, so the quality of programs was important. But poor programs in the sciences and elsewhere produce poor results, so it may not be so different. If you don't have a well-tested, understandable, program you can hardly trust its results.  However, not every program is intended for use by other than its authors. So it is possible to cut some corners, say in the UI. But: tested, and understandable.

Other than taking a few seconds out of your life, the only reason to not mention it is if you think that your instructor would take points off for it. If you're withholding information that you think would affect your grade, that's dishonest. If you disclose it, the worst your instructor can do is mark off points. If you don't, and your instructor finds out about it, they could theoretically accuse you of plagiarism. Citing sources isn't, as many people seem to think, a protection against copyright claims, but it does immunize you against plagiarism claims. If your instructor hasn't given you instructions on citations, you don't need do to anything more than mention that you had your code reviewed on an online forum and that your instructor can ask you for more details if they wish.
Something labeled a take-home "exam" or "test" would be different from something merely labeled an "assignment"; an exam is designed to inform the instructor of your knowledge level, and there is much more of an implied honor system. If there is confusion as to what that honor system consists of, that should be clarified before working on the test. An assignment is an opportunity to practice and to expose to yourself any areas of not understanding before you're actually tested on it. Since the main beneficiary of it is intended to be you, not the instructor, there is less urgency in clarifying the rules prior to working on it.


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Does simple paper take less time for publishing?
Suppose a simple to understand paper is submitted to a peer-review journal and the length of paper is also small. Suppose it takes at most 10 hours for an expert to review the paper.
Then, is it true that the paper decision will come very quickly or are there any rules regarding minimum time for decision based on journal?

A too simple and too short paper gets probably desk-rejected, so yes that is often fast ;-)

Means the editor rejects the paper or referee?

But the papers like counter example to a conjecture, small novel theorem etc., are generally too short and experts can understand by seeing once.

In my field, 10 hours is a lot of time to review a single paper.

@hind Pick a venue that publishes short results. (See https://savageminds.org/2012/11/08/desk-reject/ regarding desk reject, or https://www.google.com/search?q=desk+reject.)

In general, no. Most of the time you wait for your paper to be accepted or rejected is waiting time and process time, not review time.
First, it sits in the editor's queue until they can review it. Then, they have to find and solicit reviewers and wait for their responses.
Then they send it out to the reviewers. Then it sits in their email or on their desk until they get around to it.
Finally, they review your paper! Then type up notes and send it back. A long or a short paper or quick or hard to understand will only change this time chunk here.
Then their response sits in the editor's inbox until they read it, make a decision based on it, and pass it on to you.
(Plus repeat for any additional rounds of revision.)
As you can see, most of the time is wait time, not affected by the length or the complexity of the paper.
I've had papers wait months on a reviewers' desk.

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Diverging coauthor opinions - publish anonymously or don't publish at all?
This question is a splinter of an earlier question, posted separately upon advice from commenters.
The background is:
(1) I audited a course at an institute I don't belong to. As part of the course, an essay is being written by two of us.
(2) There is a chance that this essay would be published either internally or externally (not necessarily peer-reviewed).
The problem:
My co-author and I differ (significantly) on certain areas we write about. In a sense, we represent opposite ends of the spectrum. My partner is keen to publish; I am ambivalent.
I'm bothered by questions of academic integrity, namely:
(1) Do I withdraw entirely, allowing a one-sided, uncontested opinion to be expressed? This is the easiest option.
(2) Do we submit normally, with our names and affiliations, knowing that some opinions expressed are contrary to my  own views, and may negatively impact my academic work at a later stage? While uncomfortable, this does seem fair.
(3) Do I remain anonymous, with the partner being the first author? This way we can address the divergence and bring out a contrast in perspectives, without me having to worry about long-term consequences. But I don't know if it is an accepted practice. I have come across questions on anonymity here and here, but these primarily discuss single-author work.

If you "audit" a course are you allowed to publish the results?  Is this an "essay" or more of a "report" based on your findings and / or analysis?

There isn't a restriction, to my knowledge. (If there is, my problem is solved already :) On report vs essay, I'm not sure I understand the distinction as you intend it - but this is intended to be an analysis of existing trends/practices, and evolution of some new insights.

Why are you concerned with publication? It isn't typical for school assignments to be published, and certainly not without approval by the authors. Submitting an assignment for a course is not the same as saying you approve it being published. Writing a paper for a course from a perspective that is not your own is not an unusual assignment.

Rather than knowing that some opinions expressed are contrary to my own views, you could present both views and clearly label them as such. For instance, you could open by explaining:

The authors opinions differ significantly and each author presents their own opinion below:

Followed by each opinion:

Author Name A: ...
Author Name B: ...

This is very interesting. Have you come across a precedent where this has been done?

@user153812 Scientist refers to this as "usually the case," I've certainly seen it, but not frequently (possibly because authors reach consensus).

I can confirm I've seen this a few times (in econ/finance), but on minor issues of interpretation of the results, rather than methodology.

For a concrete example, see page xiii of the preface in A Course in Game Theory (Osborne and Rubinstein). It's in some sense a silly debate --- orthogonal to the main point of the text --- but the authors express differing opinions regarding the use of pronouns in the text. They separately present their own sides, then the compromise that was reached.

Example (.pdf link) of a paper from parapsychology that does something similar.  Rather than divide the discussion into separate sections, it uses a "here are several possible interpretations of these results" format, but the "possible interpretations" include both "author A faked their data" and "author B faked their data", so it's certainly adversarial.

@user153812 See Can co-authors disagree in their own paper?

Thank you all, the examples are very useful, the link posted by Laurel.

You haven't specified your field of study.  I think the answer may depend heavily on whether you are in humanities vs. soft sciences vs. hard sciences.  I will give an answer from the "hard" end of the spectrum: I work in applied mathematics.
If I didn't agree with the contents of a paper in a substantial way, I would certainly not consent to be an author of the paper.  Authorship implies a belief in the correctness of what is written.  I would go with option #1.
If I disagreed with coauthors over minor, subjective points (and this happens) I would work with them to find a way of presenting things that we can both agree on.  In math, this often means simply leaving out speculative remarks.

I certainly see your point, being from the materials science/engineering community myself. This particular case is from a sociology-policy sort of field, so I'm all the more ignorant about the norms.
Your answer is useful regardless. Thanks!

At least in math, it isn't that abnormal for coauthors to express disagreement on likelihood of a conjecture. I don't have an example off the top of my head, but I've seen a few papers with something "Open Question is A. Author 1 believes A is likely to be true. Author B thinks it is likely false." or something similar.

If your coauthor is not willing to somehow present the two sides of this coin as suggested by @user2768 -- which is usually the case -- I suggest you go with option (2).
You can always go back to that point to re-discuss the matter on your own, and there's always the chance you will see things a bit differently later, especially once this conflict of interests cools down.
Your career is potentially long, you're probably still young by now and thus prone to overestimate the future influence of a single short publication. Likely not many peers will read it as keenly as you expect, and even fewer will judge you for its contents (unfortunately this is how modern academia is).
Back off now, come back to this later. Good luck!

After looking at your previous post, I can't help but see this a bit differently. Unless the assignment had additional parameters about coming together around a controversial idea, and or the "challenge" is to merge your individual authorships into a singular voice, it kind of sounds like your over thinking it. It's not coincidental that you were put in random pairs, with a divisive theme/assignment. It seems like your anxiety over authorship differences, is not only going to be expected, but, it's kind of the point, yeah?
Sorry if i'm misunderstanding something, I just see the assignment as an opportunity to embrace the divide and embrace your differences. As far as precedent, make a new one. You can use subtle differences or typographic changes to refer to different voices. A communicatory battle to show the divide, to persuade your case, or to come together around universal ideas, or drastically break apart for the benefit of the reader, and so on. Maybe it's written from a legal guise, 2 sided, jury/reader persuasion. Maybe it's presented as 2 friends having a casual conversation, and finding ways to unify and come together around drastically different viewpoints.
Whatever it is, it sounds like it was designed to be that way, so I would embrace that, use it, and design/format/present it, in a way that doesn't hide from the divide and adds clarity for the reader.

Interesting perspective. I don't think it is intentionally set up for confrontation, but it does work around collaboration, so there is some inevitable give and take. Your answer will remain in my mind for a while.

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Fellow student seems to be chasing rainbows. Should I step in?
I am currently writing my bachelor's thesis, and share advisors with a fellow student, who is also working in the same office as I am. We exchange daily about our progress.
I am under the impression that his work is going nowhere. He is working on a topic that has no previous work available, and according to him, direct verification on whether his research is useful is not possible. An indirect approach using yet another students' algorithm showed worse results in combination with the work of the student in question. To acquire this information, both students spent a large amount of time that could have been spent towards writing their theses.
He is somewhat backed up by his (our) supervisor, but I feel this is largely because the supervisor wants this research to end up in a peer-reviewed publication, even though there are no results that suggest the research is valid or useful in any way yet.
I have the impression that continuing this path will worsen the thesis outcome for my fellow student, as he is facing a deadline to turn in his thesis, but spends a lot of time trying things out and interpreting essentially bad results to show something positive.
Since I sympathize with him, I would like to intervene and talk bluntly about the issues written out above. I do understand, however, that it is not my place to correct him, as we are at the same stage of our careers, and I am about as inexperienced as he is. In addition, since our supervisor has a different opinion and more experience, it could very well be that I'll be wrong in the end.
What interaction, if any, is ethical and reasonable for me to engage in?
I imagine this sort of thing happens more often, even with more experienced academics, as confirmation bias seems to be a somewhat common issue.
How are similar problems usually handled in academia? Are people like my fellow student in question left alone to their own judgment, or do co-academics talk them out of seemingly bad ideas? Do people criticize each others' research a lot?

I do understand, however, that it is not my place to correct him, as we are at the same stage of our careers, and I am about as inexperienced as he is It is your place to correct him or, at least, discuss your concerns (which might be wrong), you don't need to be "above" someone to do that.

Offering unsolicited opinions about someone else's work is a violation of interpersonal boundaries. If you are asked for your opinion or guidance, then share your concerns honestly and openly but also tactfully. But, until you are asked for your opinion, it's not your place to share it.

I do see a huge difference between stating your concerns and trying to correct someone!

+1 for realizing that you may be wrong after all

@Matt I disagree.  If you have important knowledge that bears on someone's work, this is very valuable, and we shouldn't stifle communication out of politeness.  In this particular instance, however, the OP is a fellow student and not an expert, so the advice may not be helpful.

@Matt If I was working on a project and somebody else had a very good reason that my approach would fail, I would definitely want to know rather than waste years of my life.  But it can be a delicate issue, so of course it should be approached with tact.

"An indirect approach using yet another students' algorithm showed worse results in combination with the work of the student in question. To acquire this information, both students spent a large amount of time that could have been spent towards writing their theses." - that sounds like the perfect outcome for a research paper as well as the basis for a degree. Proving that a method doesn't work means that you've saved other researchers from making the same mistake

I guess you're not an atmospheric scientist ...

@JairTaylor: I agree with your second comment (that most people would want to know any good reason that their approach may be doomed), but not your first comment (that students are not experts so advice may not be helpful). That cannot be further from the truth. There are many students who are more capable and knowledgeable than their professors. Assuming otherwise would be foolish.

@JairTaylor If the problems with the line of inquiry are obvious enough that the OP can tell from afar (without being immersed in the details) that it’s not going to work out, I think it’s very unlikely that the student will waste years of their life (and the professor let them) researching in this direction without discovering its flaws. Sharing an unasked for opinion carries with it the message, “I do not trust you to be smart enough to figure this out on your own or wise enough to ask for help if you need it,” as subtext. Damage to the interpersonal relationship is the most likely outcome.

@user21820 Well, I agree.  I didn't mean to imply that a student could not be an expert and shouldn't give advice.  Just that it's less likely to be helpful.  I would tend to take a humble approach and assume that the other student has more knowledge about their project than I do, other things being equal.  But if other things are not equal - and I felt I had valuable insight that the student did not - then I should venture an opinion.

@Matt I disagree that it is so unlikely.  Someone with an outside perspective, and outside knowledge, is often precisely the one that can see what someone enmeshed in the fine details cannot.   Perhaps they would not waste years of their life, but certainly months are in the running.

@Matt I also think it is very possible to broach this topic with tact and not endanger a friendship or working relationship if the OP has a modicum of interpersonal skill and empathy.  Science would not progress if we were too afraid to frankly discuss the relative merits of ideas.

@JairTaylor: Indeed, so I think we actually have very similar opinion on this. In fact, every student should recognize that students and teachers all fall on a very wide spectrum of capability and experience, and that there will always be someone who is better at one's own area of specialization than oneself. So there is no shame in listening to anything others want to say about our project, since very likely a few of these people are better than us. This also implies that we shouldn't be afraid to frankly share ideas and feedback with others, as long as we do it with sincerity and kindness.

That said, I agree with one of the answers that a bachelor's thesis is not really something we should be concerned about, whether or not there is any concrete novel results, much less publishable. As long as the supervisor is happy with the work done, that's good enough. It's different for Master's or PhD students.

@user21820 Yes, it is rather different for a bachelor's thesis.  It is unlikely that the student would run into this kind of difficulty as long as they are in good standing with their advisor.

It might depend on where you are, but in engineering in germany for example, where basically everyone does a masters degree anyways, you wouldn't expect people to get some great insights during their bachelor thesis. Spending hours and hours on something that doesn't work out and learning to stop earlier next time would be a very good result for a bachelor thesis. Because it actually prepares you for life. And if an approach doesn't work, your advisor can try the next approach with the next student. Another good result. More than most accomplish in their bachelor thesis.

Quote blocks are not good tools for emphasis. Consider bold instead.

@jpmc26 I agree, the original question used bullet points but it was edited by someone else.

Maybe it is useful but just over your head. It is not so rare in academia that a supervisor has for example three different PhD students at a time : one practical student who implements stuff, one theoretical student who pushes the theory frontier and one social student who is good at finding collaborations outside group (if we should do stereotyping).

Which kind of interaction, if any, is ethical and reasonable for me to engage in?

Discuss your concerns with your peer.

How are similar problems usually handled in academia?

Through discussion.

Are people like my fellow student...left alone to their own
  judgement,

Largely, yes, but...

or do co-academics talk them out of seemingly bad ideas?

...in an ideal world colleagues (who they've discussed their work with) will try to bring them back on track.

Do people criticize each others' research a lot?

Yes! Constructive criticism is central to the research process (unconstructive criticism is unfortunately common).

It seems your main concern about your colleague's research is that the results are not "useful". I'm not sure what it means to you that the results aren't "useful" - is your colleague doing something that hasn't been tried before? If so, the work may be "useful" even if only to rule out a particular approach, or to clarify problems with a particular approach.
For example: suppose I have an idea to use X to address problem Y. It turns out that the state of the art, Z, is a much more efficient and closer to optimal solution to Y than X. However, by trying out X, I at least am able to 1) rule out the approach, and 2) gain some insight into why X does not work as well as Z for problem Y, what features of problem Y suggest it is not amenable to solution by X, etc. These are "useful" results (especially in the context of a bachelor's thesis).
Now, suppose I have a colleague who is in this situation, but who is still trying to somehow make X into a good (or better than Z) solution for Y. I would probably (in the course of normal discussions about our research) say something to my colleague like, "I think the most interesting part of your research is what it teaches us about problem Y, why X initially seemed like a good solution, and why Z turns out to be much better than X. If I were in your position, I would focus on that aspect as my main contribution, especially with a thesis deadline coming up." Often, people are so close to their research (whether their results are promising or not) that they may not realize what parts of it could be most interesting to the broader research community. This kind of feedback (from anyone - supervisor or colleague!) can be helpful.

The canonical example of research that didn't seem useful was work in optics in the 1950s, on highly coherent light sources. At the time, it was very much in the category of "Well, that's probably theoretically interesting but what's the point?" Now, we call it a laser.

"It seems your main concern about your colleague's research is that the results are not 'useful.'" That is not at all the impression I get. The impression I get is that the asker's primary concern is that their colleague is torpedoing themselves by chasing a result that doesn't appear likely to pan out in the time available, maybe even to the point they won't be able to graduate as a result. The fact that there's no obvious application just means it's even harder to justifying continuing on that course.

Your follow up to that comment suggests that perhaps the best choice for the asker's colleague could potentially publish some kind of negative result. That does not seem to be what the colleague is doing, though. The colleague appears to be continuing to spend time looking for a positive result. Perhaps I've misunderstood, but if not, discussing that possibility with the colleague might be a reasonable answer for the asker here.

I would, gently, make your point known.  Make it clear your point is in sympathy for him, not in directing him or arguing with him.  Perhaps it will help the fellow.  Perhaps not.  If he doesn't want to listen, back off and just let the guy take his lesson.  But I would probably go ahead and give him the heads up.  At least he can consider the issue.
P.s.  I think your instincts are good here.  Project selection (reasonable scope, available resources, etc.) is a key to success in research.  Just "doing what the advisor suggests" is not independent.  You always have to decide if it is a good idea to work on a project someone suggests.  Time is finite.  Life is finite.

I'm in Germany (just as OP seems to be). In my experience, this level of independence would not be expected for a bachelor thesis (many supervisors and the time frame also wouldn't allow it). I'm going by the rule of thumb that the student has to do their own work, but a bachelor thesis is guided, a master thesis should not require guidance. Even for PhD theses, the leeway for the canditate selecting their project can be quite small in practice, depending on project funding/description (just as in real research life afterwards).

Yes and no, on the guidance.  There is a line between servile following and disregarding any input.  I would argue you can/should have a perspective (just as an intelligent, adult, human) on the likelihood of success of your project.  These things can be negotiated.  You can modify scope, push back, decide a different advisor, etc.  And in the end...it's your time.  Gotta look out for yourself.

Sure. Maybe most of our different perception of the situation here is that I'm not yet sure how good OP's judgement of their neighbour's likelihood of success is. I did get the impression that OP misunderstands thesis success as positive or useful (?) results whereas the thesis committee is to judge whether the student did sound science.

Oh...I had a German speaking relative who lived behind the Iron Curtain, for a few years.  He said..."well, they can't vote in elections so they vote with their feet".  Something to consider...

cbeleites, I just said he (OP) should bring up the issue.  "At least he (student) can consider the issue."  This is not an assertion of Euclidean surety.  Capisce?

Your co-ed seems to be passionate about his research, and according to you it is original. His supervisor seems to be satisfied with his work, so far. Positive results are not neccessary for a bachelor's thesis, and results are not usually expected to be published. I don't see a major problem here. Certainly no reason to "intervene"! So if you are interested in his work, ask about it, have him explain it to you, maybe bring up ideas, offer to proof-read whatever he has already. But don't add any pressure.

Not getting nice (positive) results during a thesis is, well, not as nice as getting positive results.
It often also means more work for the student: after all, no nice results could be due to either

the previously unknown reality just really not being that way*, or
the student not being up to their task.

As the thesis is part of an exam, the student has (or feels pressured) to make sure the lack of nice results is not ascribed to their inability. Hence the additional work to make sure no examiner gets the wrong idea.
But it is perfectly possible to demonstrate sound scientific working (which after all is the exam task) while showing how something does not work. There is IMHO nothing inherently scientifically bad in their thesis as you describe it.
BTW, I'm speaking as someone who got a perfectly fine Diplom on a thesis showing how the approach suggested by my supervisor did not work out. By now I can even tell, why ;-) - and it triggered the better part of my PhD thesis and is still a pet rearch topic of mine years later.
Bottomline is that in this part of your description I do not see anything that clearly indicates** a need for "correction".
There may be a need for encouragement and understanding that that thesis may be even more stressing than other theses are, though.

That being said, what kind of raises a standard red flag is the approaching thesis deadline. Most students I've seen got in trouble with this deadline and the writing up of the thesis.
Maybe a buddy system in your office could help? As you already update each other regularly, maybe you could bring up the idea whether it would be good for both of you to remind each other of actually writing your theses?
(Regardless of results, e.g. theory can usually be written up rather early.)

* It was quite an eye-opener to me when someone from a funding agency once told me that they would fund projects only if they estimated the probability of failure to achieve the proposed [whatever] at least 80 %. At the same time, I'd have said that the inner-academic view of just such projects was that they almost always succeed...
** Clearly as in I'm sure the problem is with your fellow student's thesis and not triggered by a misunderstanding of what a thesis should be and what the odds of doing sience are. This is partially triggered by your writing

"interpreting essentially bad results": the results may be negative or not be what is desired, but the only way they can be bad here is if they are wrong because of bad science.
"there are no results that suggest the research is valid or useful in any way yet". Usefulness is not a useful criterion to judge the value of the scientific work here. Results can of course be valid or invalid, but it's not the results that can suggest they are themselves valid (by being positive or nice) - validity has to be established independently of the outcome. The important question for validity and the exam is: does the student do sound science or not?

Of course, this could also be a bad thesis, just like a thesis with nice and "useful" results that is scientifically unsound.

I think the person from the funding agency who told you (*) was pulling your leg.

@user21820: I don't think so. They certainly expect that there will be proper research, so results and scientific knowledge gained. Including a bunch of theses. BTW: This was funding for applied projects, with rather specific final milestone. The idea here is trying to bridge the "valley of death" between reseach not being basic any more, but not yet sufficiently advanced so that industrial research can take over. So, also, tax money would be wasted on projects where the probability of success is sufficient so that industrial research can take care of it, which corresponds to the probability

I remain very skeptical. As you wrote it, since 100% > 80%, if they believed that a project was absolutely certain to fail, they would fund it. And if they believed that a project was certain to succeed, they would refuse to fund it. That's ridiculous to me.

... of success (or failure) threshold. The actual threshold may very well be field-specific. Antoher reason to not have the threshold too "easy" is that funding projects with high success probability would be a more-or-less hidden subvention of the involved industry partners which would be illegal due to market distortion. BTW, I did not say they'd fund every project they think will fail. E.g., they'd certainly refer projects they consider not sufficiently advanced back to basic research funding programs. If the project were certain to succeed, the industry partner(s) would do the R&D ...

... on their own. After all, they can just hire scientists or fund a PhD or pay a Fraunhofer institute to research for them. That is done all the time, and sufficiently certain may very well be 1 out of 3 or 4 such projects.

Alright; you wrote "only if", which I somehow misread as "if and only if".

Other answers have done a pretty good job of explaining that everything you've described is actually valid and useful research (and you've said nothing to suggest that confirmation bias is actually a factor).  So I just want to point out another problem you seem to be overlooking in your idea to "step in".
The problem is that if your fellow student abandons his project at this point, how is he supposed to complete a bachelor's thesis at all?  At this point in the year, I guess he's used up significantly more than half of the time he has to actually do the research for this thesis.  Starting a new one now would not just waste the valid work he's done so far, it would also leave him in a terrible position to complete a different thesis.  That result would surely be worse than this one.
So step back and consider what the real objectives are here.  Ultimately, the bachelor's thesis is not expected to change the world.  There are two primary objectives: (1) to give the student an opportunity to try his hand at open-ended research where the answer is not already known; and (2) to give the advisor a chance to see how the student does given the project he's working on.  This project is all that is needed to achieve those objectives.  Trying to change horses midstream would only confuse things, and would not be helpful to those objectives.
By all means, discuss his research with your friend, try to understand it for what it is, and try to come up with ideas to make the research even more useful.  But don't suggest that it's not useful.  You wouldn't be "correcting" him by saying that; you would be misleading him.  And certainly don't try to find ways to spin it so that it sounds good; the research will be valid and useful if and only if he is honest about everything he has found.  Understanding why this algorithm isn't as good as some other one could lead to deeper understanding and more insight to tweak one of the algorithms so that it's even better — if not by him, then possibly by others who read his results.  Or at the very least, his research could let others who are wondering about this approach avoid wasting their time.  That's entirely valid and useful.

You shouldn't interfere.  Getting trapped into rabbit holes is part of the research process.  Learning how to get of one on your own is part of the experience.  It's a bit like trying learning to walk without falling; or walking only on a perfect surface.
Sure, someone could hold your hand all the time; point you the obstacles on your way etc. The point of research is to gain autonomy in your thought process.
Your supervisor probably knows what's going on but won't step until it's absolutely necessary.  If you are asked for help, do share your views.
In academia this is handled by the researcher requesting feedback from his/her supervisor, from his peers, presenting at workshops and conferences etc.
For now your best help would be just to listen to him, and ask questions about his research without judgment of the results.

This seems like an awfully wasteful stance...

@user2768 counter question, how do you know you have gone deep enough in exploring a possibility?   The truth is you never know.  In the OP's question it can be probably very easily clarified, but the further you go into a research career the less you know if a given path is right or not (e.g. the less people would be able to tell you if you're right or not).  You need to rely in your own instincts as to weather to go deeper or not; and these instincts are only developed through experience.  Thus why rely on others, when you can develop your skills?

I have not suggested any reliance on others and I don't understand how going deep enough relates to my comment.

@user2768 in that case I don't understand what do you mean by wasteful?  I assumed you meant wasting too much time going too deep.

By not "interfering," a researcher is potential going down a rabbit hole. This might be avoided through discussion. (The down vote wasn't mine, neither was the up vote. I haven't voted on your answer.)

@user2768 I argue that going down rabbit holes is useful, you may discover useful things.  A lot of useful research has come out of rabbit holes.    Non-euclidian geometry comes to mind.

I don't think it's wasteful. Rabbit holes can be an important part of the learning experience. Allow the adviser to be the guide. Don't assume just because you don't see value that there isn't any.

@scrappedcola (and Koenig Lear) I'm not assuming because you don't see value that there isn't any, I'm suggesting that if the OP doesn't see value, then they should raise their concerns. Following the disclosure, the researcher might discover whether they are going down a rabbit hole, which has significant value.

+1 for asking questions without judgment of their results.

@user2768 Don't forget one basic fact: if you know in advance how what you are doing will turn out, then you are not doing research.

@alephzero Right, but if someone else can tell you how it will turn out...


text:
The lecturer supposed to grade my presentation fell asleep while I held it. Should I complain?
TLDR:
I am attenting a seminar where the grade is based entirely on a talk I hold. The responsible lecturer fell asleep during the talk multiple times, and I am worried about my grade, feel insulted and am unsure how to communicate these issues.

For a seminar, I was required to hold a 45 minute-talk about current department research in front of the course. The corresponding researcher attends this talk as well.
Together with the lecturer (the instructor for this seminar), they grade my talk, which amounts for the entire seminar grade. The researcher can make comments about how accurate the presentation was, but the ultimate choice of grading is with the lecturer.
During my talk (actually not too far in), the lecturer fell asleep for a bit for the first time, for only a brief period. Now this happened on multiple occasions during my presentation, and it has happened during someone elses' past talk on an earlier date as well.
I find this highly insulting, since I have spent a lot of time reading up on the topic and practicing to hold the talk.
Since the lecturer did not hear or see my entire talk, I am worried that grading may be affected in addition.
The lecturer is notoriously busy (which I assume to be quite common) and stressed, but both issues should not affect me or my grade in my opinion.
Also, he may have had stress-related health problems in the past, which could be a reason for him to pass on caffeine consumption. I see that this may be a reason for his tiredness, but again I cannot possibly account for it and I should not be graded differently because of it.

I want to communicate the following two issues, how can I approach this situation?

I feel insulted by the lecturer falling asleep through my graded talk
I am worried about him falling asleep could influence my grade

On a side note, I really like the lecturer otherwise, but I am afraid that making a comment like "please reconsider your sleep schedule" whould be considered highly inappropriate (and rightly so). Recommendations on this matter will be appreciated as well.

Update: Grades are out as of today, and I am not satisfied with the grade. I don't have any pointers on what I could have done better or how to improve future talks. I will probably not pursue this any further.
I don't know if I wrote this in a comment already, but in another seminar I attended, a similar thing occured for another student.

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Not sure if this applies here, but in some countries, like Japan, closing eyes during someone’s talk is actually a sign of deep concentration on the talk/sound.

Let me say that I am sorry and this is a shame (the prof and the outcome).

This is probably too late for you, but if someone else finds themselves in this situation: in a personal talk ideally before the feedback/grading you could carefully try to touch the topic by something like: "You seemed a bit tired during the presentation, do you want me to summarize the key points for you?" If yes in writing or oral? What is their reaction? Maybe another take? This takes away the focus from them falling asleep, avoids them feeling attacked, and at the same time gets them into a problem solving state of mind: how can I obtain enough information to grade you properly.

The first thing to note here is that sleeping in such situations is often not a voluntary action, but a physiologically unavoidable response to the situation the body is in - many people die every year after falling asleep at the wheel of a car. I don't think you'd describe the results of that on other people in the car as "rude". In general, if you are in this state of involuntary somnulence, then no amount of caffeine will change anything.
You do not know the circumstances in which this lecturer is in: casual lecturers or adjuncts may be working several other jobs, or may have insufficient income to afford rent and therefore a proper place to sleep. Permanent folks may have so much work that they literally don't have time to sleep and complete everything they are required to do. Or they might have a young child or as you say, mental health problems. My point is these things may not be voluntary choices for the person concerned.
If i had a dollar for every student that fell asleep in a lecture that I had spent days preparing...
But....
None of this is your problem. You deserve not just to get the correct mark for your work, but also the feedback that will help you improve - after all, you are there to learn, not to get grades. As others have said, wait and see what the feedback is (and really you want proper feedback, not just a grade). If it's fine, then I'd wait and see, but even if it is - if this becomes a pattern then it might be in everyone's interest, including the faculty member's (depending on how understanding the Chair is), for people to know what is going on.

Professors are supposed to be role models in academia. If you're insulted by students falling asleep in your lectures, which has no professional consequences for you, then how can you say the OP shouldn't be insulted in the reverse situation, which could have far greater consequences for them?

It was a light-hearted (probably ill-advised comment). I'm not insulted students falling asleep. Disappointed perhaps, but not insulted. And I absolutely agree the student needs to not be disadvantaged by the professor's behavoir. But I'm sure taking it as an insult, when no one would "choose" to fall asleep on the job is the a productive approach. We wouldn't be insulted if someone broken their leg.

I don't like the example of falling asleep whilst driving - the proper response to being too tired to drive should be not to drive in order to avoid putting others in danger IMO.

I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Of course once someone is so tired that they can’t help fall asleep it’s not a voluntary thing. However, getting in that state in the first place when you still have responsibilities is entirely their own fault. Everyone is busy sometimes. Quite frankly I’m flabbergasted you wouldn’t consider someone falling asleep behind the wheel ‘rude’. Rude is the least word I’d start to describe them with. How many other people have died because someone crashed into them after falling asleep?

@SebastiaanvandenBroek sometimes you can't choose to be perfectly awake, nor to get time off. While my father was dying from cancer, for a month, I almost couldn't sleep and all my weekends were spent with him with almost no sleep. Of course I was dead tired, even falling sleep sometimes, at work. After some weeks I managed to get paid leave by visiting a doctor, but it was by no means immediate. In the weeks waiting for that leave, I had no choice but to continue going to work and having my coworkers cover for my mistakes. If I was a lecturer, that wouldn't have been possible.

@SebastiaanvandenBroek of course, if this happens every two weeks for a couple years, then something needs to be done. But saying that getting in a state where you can involuntarily fall asleep while having responsibilities is entirely your own fault is quite an excessive absolute statement. Everyone has their circumstances, and there can be exceptional moments when you have no choice but to put up with difficult circumstances while going on with your life as if nothing was happening.

@LordHieros but if you would have killed someone on the road because you fell asleep at the time, would you have not considered that a fault of your own?

@SebastiaanvandenBroek for that duration I only used public transportation or had someone else drive for me. Among other changes to my routine to minimize the chances of thing going awry for that time, like dropping out of every appointment that wasn't needed for me to eat and pay rent or getting pre-made food to minimize the time spent cooking or doing dishes. Still, I fell asleep at work many times.

"If i had a dollar for every student that fell asleep in a lecture that I had spent days preparing..." You do -- it's called a salary. ;-)

@DavidRicherby, I don't get paid that much! ;)

@SebastiaanvandenBroek - There are many words you could use: irresponsible, negligent, dangerous, criminal,  but not "rude". "irresponsible"/"negligent" isn't just a worst version of the same thing as "rude", its a quantitatively different thing.

@SebastiaanvandenBroek "getting in that state in the first place when you still have responsibilities is entirely their own fault". Not neccesarily. I've just finished a month when I've had to work 8am to 1am  to keep on top of all the classes I'm supposed to be teaching. Plus fighting to keep a phd student funded so they arn't deported, get two master's students started on their dissertation research and get the departments semester 1 exams organised. None of these things are things I had a choice over. If i'd been requierd to keep awake for a whole class of 45min talks, I'd have struggled.

@SebastiaanvandenBroek Likewise, we cannot believe your comment. My first child was a colicky, screaming baby refused to sleep until it was involuntarily, but that keeps me up too. When she finally slept, I did not have the luxury of deciding to skip work and sleep too; I had to support my family, so I had to go to work, and in fact I worked 2 minimum wage jobs to support my family. I also had to take care of a grandmother. I also attended college during this same time. Lots of responsibilities, but sometimes I could not stay awake precisely because of them. Was this entirely my own fault?

I think that the main issue here is the double standard. I think most of us are on the same page that falling asleep is not a choice someone makes, but a biological response to a severe lack of sleep. However, most of us remember being lectured about being awake and lively as students, and find it unfair that the professor now gets a pass. In a perfect world, no one would be criticized for falling asleep when they need to. Sleep is not optional.

"You do not deserve not just to get the correct mark for your work, but also the feedback that will help you improve": could you fix the double negative there please? I can't really parse that.

I'm quite aware that many of my students have difficult lives, and that some of them have to work night shifts to afford to study, so I would never have a go at them for being tired (however much I might joke about it with other staff in the pub afterwards)

+1. Let me add that many lecture halls in universities have some properties (lack of natural light, bad air) that make it much harder to resist sleep (which already is not a very widespread skill in academia).

@LordHieros but at least you took public transport while the op explicitly came with the example of falling asleep behind the wheel.

@IanSudbery I know rude is not just a smaller step of the other words you mentioned, but for the sake of keeping the comment short they were close enough. As far as it not being your fault you were tired, it seems your entire faculty was at fault there. But surely you wouldn’t drive in such a state if you were responsible.

Oh, its its definitely the faculty's (as in the universities management structure's) fault.  And no, I probably wouldn't drive in that situation unless it were a life or death situation - the point of that analogy was that. But I would give a class, because giving a class tired is not going to kill anyone, and not giving it would be a sackable offence.

Why the lecturer fell asleep is irrelevant, a red herring, and rabbit hole for comments and debate. Feeling insulted is a normal reaction - but the OP needs to let it go. No one is perfect. I'd suggest removing most of what you've said about the sleeping part and focus the answer on how to approach the lecturer. (my $0.02)

I would advise patience, wait until the grades are out.
If the lecturer was actually asleep then that may or may not be something to deal with.
However, if the lecturer was not asleep but not looking at you and perhaps reading the papers on the desk or similar you may be starting something you should not.
Again, patience and see how it goes.

Thank you for your response! I am rather certain he was at least nodding off, and other students confirmed this as well.

I would add that researcher was present for the presentation, and it could be that the lecturer defers to the subject matter expert with regards to grading.

Excellent advise. Patience is a virtue.

I disagree; waiting until grades are out risks looking like you are motivated by getting a poor grade, rather than getting a potentially unfair grade. If you wait then people will question why you didn't say anything at the time.

@dbmag9 So why not ask this of the other answers that also say wait? Perhaps you should post this as an answer yourself and see what the opinion is of the community...

@SolarMike I posted the comment while at work, and hadn't scrolled further down than your answer. I don't mean to suggest that your recommendation of waiting is any worse than anyone else's recommendation of waiting.

@dbmag9 You also risk retaliation when otherwise your grade would have been fine, however.  I'm not sure I would take that risk up front over waiting to see whether I need to take a different risk.  And fear of retaliation is not the worst rebuttal to "why didn't you say anything at the time?".

I understand your frustration with a part of your audience sleeping through (some part) of your talk. As many other answers mention, this is unfortunately not an unusual experience for anyone presenting in academia. Members of the audience have different lifestyles and indeed different situations and sometimes the sleep deprivation takes the best of us. It is alright to be frustrated about it but please try not to feel insulted - there is really no evidence that this fact was in any way a response to the quality of your presentation and research.
As for your second question, why do you think the grade will be adversely impacted? If I were the lecturer in this situation, I would feel terrible about it and I would probably be inclined to "make it right" for the student, so I would consciously or subconsciously  raise the grade.

In addition, often the lower-level researchers are the one's that in practice provide the feedback that counts and the lecturer may largely rely on that fellow researcher's assessment anyway.

The issue is not that "a part of the audience" fell asleep. The issue is that the part of the audience who was specifically responsible for assigning the student's grade fell asleep.

@FrankHopkins: Seeing that the OP is located in Germany, this remark might be a crucial point that is worthy of being made into an answer of its own. My impression is that in parts of German academia, in particular when it comes to teaching, there is a very pronounced culture of having one person (usually a professor) be formally solely responsible for a certain task, but someone else (usually a doctoral candidate or a postdoc) doing the entirety of the actual work, including being entrusted by said professor with making the actual decision (or at least being the only one who has all the ...

... information and therefore is the only one who can immediately suggest a meaningful course of action, even if the professor has to officially sign off on it).

@DavidRicherby The grade issue is addressed in my second paragraph.

@O.R.Mapper I agree with your observation --- There's a general culture where the prof is the superstar and the rest minions. Which doesn't lead to a good managerial culture, as a few minions get inevitably promoted eventually with no managerial experience; on the plus side, they find they have minions that follow their orders.

@user3445853: Actually, I was trying to express that the professor is often the only superstar only on paper. Behind the scenes, those who are just minions on paper actually all act as "superstars" of some kind, if you will. This includes opportunities to gather lots of managerial experience early on precisely because they are entrusted with responsibilities that are formally the prof's and the prof's alone.

"there is really no evidence that this fact was in any way a response to the quality of your presentation and research.": this, exactly this! I remember being in a conference once and listening to a talk I honestly found fascinating. I really wanted to hear it, it was excellent. And yet, I was falling asleep. This had nothing to do with the talk and everything to do with the fact that it was late, I was tired and there wasn't much oxygen in the hall.

@DmitrySavostyanov RIght, but I was addressing your first paragraph, which is basically irrelevant. The question isn't asking about some random person falling asleep in a talk; all parts of the question are about the person responsible for grading falling asleep. The first part is whether the asker should feel insulted by that specific person falling asleep; the second part is about whether it will affect the grade.

If I were in that professor’s position, as soon as I realized I was having trouble, I would have suggested a rescheduling.

About your grade
Granted, you are likely not getting the best assessment of what a fair grade for you would be. But in any decent place, the professor knows he is at fault and won't let his fault put you in trouble. If you are expecting to graduate with some kind of special honors, I'd have a friend put in the word about this to this teacher. If you are afraid of failing this class (which from my experience, is very rare in presentation-only grading systems) then unless you made very crappy slides and handed them for evaluation, you should have nothing to worry about.
About feeling insulted
Vent to some friends, as you have every right to be be insulted. But what do you actually expect that should happen? Have you ever seen a student apologize to a teacher because he slept during his class? Well, it happens, but I've never seen the other way around, even though teachers have struggled to keep awake during presentations of mine.
If the teacher does come to apologize to you, what would you respond? "It's okay"? From what you've told us, I think it's not. "Take better care of your sleep schedule?", he should know what to do in this regard and what he can't do, and better than you know. "I appreciate the apology"? Still leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. The only good response I could think of, would be in the case where you could suspect him having some rare/uncommon disease that might have been undiagnosed (some people for instance have dark marks on their necks, which are often dismissed for poor hygiene, but they're actually a sign of diabetes, quite dangerous if nobody ever points it out to them). But that is not the case, is it?
My point is, with regards to feeling insulted, leave it alone.
Another thing to consider
There are several presentation techniques that help preventing a sleepy audience. Have you used any of them? You could have:

Moved from side-to-side of the class every now and them, forcing the audience to move their necks.
Modulated your voice tone, so it changes every now and then and during sentences (thus achieving the opposite of a mono-tone/monotonous voice).
Fake coughed, stomped your feet or made any other annoying noise (poor tactics, but work when someone is nearly falling asleep).
Prepared a few jokes (don't tell them unless you really need to re-engage the audience, but have them up your sleeve), a laughing classroom wakes up the sleepy ones very well.

Upvoting for including techniques that engage the audience, skills that should be mandatory for every presenter.

@Chad: To be fair, there are much better methods to engage the audience, the examples I've mentioned are just the ones I believe to excel at waking up the audience.

Wait. Yes, it is insulting or at the very least rude, but ultimately as long as you pass there is no problem... But I do hope you have recorded evidence of your presentation and of the public in case you dont pass. In which case you can demand a revision of your grade based on the lecturer falling asleep multiple times.
You mention that the lecturer seemed very busy, that is not a problem, you dont need your eyes to hear and he/she could have been listening to you, which isnt necessarily rude, it could have been that the lecturer was was fact-checking stuff or taking notes on your presentation. Falling asleep however is rude even if the person was super tired and make an effort to arrive to your presentation. You don't know and we don't know how interesting your topic was either, but sleeping it out is a lack of respect for the speaker.
Yet, as long as it does not affect your passing grade then swallow your pride and move on. Your main objective for the lecture was to get a passing grade. Just that.
In usm, wait til you see your grade. If you pass decently 'good work, well done, move on' , if you dont pass, then thats when you act, but be sure to have lots of evidence.

as long as you pass there is no problem --- The OP is concerned with the grade, not just with passing or failing.

@Dave L Renfro The grade determines if OP passes or not. Passing could mean an 8 or it could need a 10. That is up to OP.

This appears to be one of those situations that depends on information the OP has not provided. What you said might be the case, but not always. For example, in many graduate programs I've been involved with (in the U.S.), you will be dismissed (or perhaps put on academic probation) if you get too many C grades --- A degree student who receives three “C” (i.e., “C+”, “C”, or “C-“) or lower level grades (i.e., “F”) will be dismissed from the program.

@Dave L Renfro It seems to be the case. In other countries the general grade is an average of all grading with a minimum (normally 8 for masters and up levels of education. USA is the only country I know to use letters for grading). It might also depend on the institution. Op said it was a seminar and that the whole grade
depends on only that presentation though. So it would most likely depend on the universities policies if OP does not pass.

@Heutl Yes, most presentations are recorded in camera and/or in  the cellphone and various people normally do so. more so if it's an important talk.  It can be the school that then adds the talk/conference to their youtube channel, the students showing it to their family or for memories, or even for paranoid reasons like catching on record any problem that may happen, which then serves as evidence.

Additional info: I have not recorded the talk, and the grade will probably be above the pass/fail-range.

@Jonas Schwarz Well, do you have witnesses or did the school recorded?  It's still just a backup plan as it seems you will pass with a nice grade. Just in case you could check what is the process of asking for a revision of grade, but it seems it wont be necessary.

@Heutl It has become very common to records talks; even normal classes are recorded because that way students can later revise the lecture for anything they missed (and prove that the teacher did/didn't teach something). I've seen too that the recordings are uploaded to a Google classroom/drive folder or shared via whatsapp.

@Heutl Why would it be a shame? Its practical. A whatsapp group is a great form of instant collaboration platform for a group of students, and google has so many tools for students and teacher that it can even be replicated and improved for future groups of students (During an MBA a teacher even forced us to make a facebook profile). Google docs is awesome because it allows many users to edit a doc simultaneously too and the videos can be linked to a google sites. However Ive seen many teacher hating that the students are fact-checking them and 'interrupting the class' .

@Heutl I would trust Google more than the average university site (most are terrible in every aspect that is not marketing). Plus is more convenient due to the amount of data and the accessibility. The cautious thing is to create a profile specific for class and share only class stuff. And yes, the facebook thing was bad, but that profile was never linked to any other data (basic cautions: disposable emails, incognito mode, safe browser, VPN,etc) and was used only to send HW or share class stuff.

The poor guy has to listen to dozens of presentations like yours, and most of them are going to be boring. When you go into real life and give presentations to your managers or your customers, they are going to fall asleep if your presentations are boring. When it comes to grading or assessing you, it will come down to "this presentation was so boring, I fell asleep".
It's your job to make it sufficiently interesting that your audience stays awake. Work on your presentation technique.

Him falling asleep as an indicator for a bad grade is what i'd like to avoid, as this has happened to other students (some of which did great talks).

I don't know from the question to what extent they are assessing you on content and to what extent on presentation technique. I'm just telling you that in the real world, if you're pitching for a contract and your customer falls asleep, you've failed.

It may be uncomfortable to hear but this answer is ultimately correct. It may not absolve the lecturer but the reason people fall asleep in some lectures and not others isnʼt predominantly tiredness, itʼs boredom and failure to be engaged. And thatʼs on the one giving the lecture, Iʼm afraid.

@KonradRudolph: As someone who’s fallen asleep in plenty of conference talks, I find it’s much more affected by the time of day, proximity to meals or coffee breaks, ambient heat/humidity, how much/well I slept the night before, and other incidental factors.  The quality of the speaker is in there somewhere, but it’s far from the dominant factor.

@MichaelKay if this were true then the evaluator should have stopped them well before the point of sleep.  "This presentation is too boring."  That would be both useful feedback and save the others in the audience from being bored to death.

@PLL: I would add the way in which the conference is organised as regards regular enough breaks to that. Sometimes you get 3-4 fairly long talks back to back, and I wouldn't blame anybody who fell asleep during one of the later talks in a session. People need coffee, even (/especially) if the talks are actually interesting. Sitting still and listening passively for long periods can be surprisingly tiring in practice.

@PLL From one professional sleeper to another, I have to disagree. In fact, I’m confident that you are wrong. I think you are misled because you vastly overestimate the quality of most conference talks and seminars: most are objectively atrocious, and the vast majority are at least somewhat bad. We as a profession have simply gotten used to it and don’t perceive it as such (and are too nice, or to self-conscious of our own bad talks). Show me a substantial number of people falling asleep in the few genuinely good talks and you might have an argument.

The best way to keep the audience awake is to interact with them and demand a response. Ask them questions. Ask them if they agree with you. Make a mistake on the whiteboard and ask them to point it out. Walk to the back of the room and force them to turn in their chairs to look at you. Ask someone to open the windows. Ask them to stand up and stretch their legs. Anything, other than carrying on and ignoring the fact that they aren't listening.

If the presentation is boring, that should be reflecte by the grade. IMHO it doesn't excuse the professor sleeping.

I'm shocked this answer even has a single upvote, it is based entirely on completely unsupported supposition.  Even if we somehow knew it was a boring presentation it would be a bad answer though.

I'm surprised it got upvoted too. Answers that challenge the OP's interpretation of events and suggest that they may need to take some responsibility themselves usually get downvoted.

If I am to grade a student, it is my responsibility to stay awake. In the service we were often told to stand up in the back of the room (we were somewhat deprived of sleep in boot camp.) I still use that technique in the business world.

This answer makes no sense - by this logic, it would be perfectly acceptable for the professor to judge the entirety of your presentation based on the first 5 minutes and then walk out of the room while you continued to speak. They're there to evaluate the whole presentation, not to evaluate part of it and then determine the rest isn't even worth seeing (if that's even what's happening, which is unlikely).

@CramerTV: technique not guaranteed.  Standing in line in boot camp, I fell asleep and knocked over a rack of cereal.

My suggestion: Go talk to him. He is probably pretty embarrassed about having fallen asleep, and would be appreciative of you not drawing wide attention to this incident.
So, arrange a meeting - now, not after the grades are published. In that meeting, tell him what you told us, and how you feel about it. Let him offer an apology and a solution regarding how you should be graded. Don't rush to agree or disagree immediately, tell him you need to think about it. And - do think about.
Now, if he gets angry, denies it, yells at you or threatens you - talk to your student union and then lodge a formal complaint.
Also, if you can coordinate your actions with the other student during whose presentation the lecturer slept, that would be great. It would strengthen both of your positions and credibility.

(I'm German as the questions author is too, and studied computer science at FU Berlin.)
The situation is less complex than your intuition tells you:
It is, on an abstract level, very simple. Much of what happens is nice for various reasons, but not actually relevant.
The sole purpose of the presentation is that you, personally, learn to give a good lecture. How good you do is usually documented in terms of a grade, but that fact is not relevant for you during the process. The final grade is relevant, but you do not need to know how it was derived. To illustrate that, the grading person may always give a good grade, for whatever reason. That can happen after he listened your presentation with great attention, even posing good questions during the presentation. Or he may sleep during the whole presentation. Or, for this example, even sleep behind a half transparent mirror so you do not even know whether he is there. You would make some assumption how the grade was derived, but that is irrelevant for the result. All that is perfectly fine.
If there are other students in the seminar, it is perfectly normal that they are your audience. You do not need to worry about the grade, because he knows if he is missing information that is useful for grading, and has tho assume the positive wherever he is missing information. It's not your responsibility. For example, you may hold a presentation, with the lecturer being awake in the beginning and at the end. While he is awake, you give a good presentation to the audience you prefer. But while he is asleep, you mess up a couple of times. In this situation, it is legitimate to let him grade based on beginning and end. Except if you feel it is not legitimate, and explain to him what happened.
Note that in all this, it is not actually relevant what the lecturer does. Theoretically, the audience could be a single mannequin, which only exists to make it easier to imagine the presence of an audience. (No audience at all would be pretty hard to handle).
You see that you can fulfill the purpose of the presentation without an audience.
I can absolutely understand that you are not comfortable to have a practical experience like above. That is perfectly fine. But if you take the above into account, you can just disregard anything that does not feel right in the process.
And if you feel the presentation should be graded, you are perfectly  competent to just do that yourself.
Now on your actual experience: There is no reason to feel insulted. Because no insult does exist. That he sleeps is unrelated to you, and you even know the very valid reason for it. He has the option to either listen to your presentation, while he already knows most of the content. Or sleep, and spend an hour actively discussing with and supporting a student. That student could be you. At least in the later case, you may agree that the second option is far better for you, and potentially for him too. I assume this may be a proof that there is no disrespect in the situation, because it is clearly the right thing to do.
Your case is actually much simpler, as your audience actually includes

a person responsible for grading

He will practically just decide for the other person where he is missing information
a negative influence on your grade could only happen if the person not sleeping tends to give lower grades, and the sleeping one does not object, even based on a single second being awake.

an audience that is sincerely interested in and gains objective advantages from listening to you.

I would call that an outright luxurious situation

Finally, I want to emphasize that there is nothing insulting whatsoever. There is n malice involved at all. And that, if in doubt, you even have the information to conclude that yourself. That conclusion would be perfectly valid in a strict mathematical sense.

... You could always ask the presentation to be remarked by a different lecturer?
Being a former student myself, this option has always been common knowledge across the entire class if one is unsatisfied with the assessor.
Best act sooner than later, I recall remarking of work after being formally marked only able to reach a certain percentage (60% - or a 1:2).

In the UK, typically the assessor takes notes and/or generally asks questions to gauge knowledge of the subject. Then after, between a week and a fortnight the formal mark is given back.
If what you are saying is correct then I feel sorry for those studying at German universities that they cannot get a second opinion. In my personal opinion, asking it to be remarked by another assessor should not be considered beyond capability.


text:
Can I keep my PhD thesis chapter intro as is when publishing it as an article if another article was published in the meantime that paraphrases it?
I graduated from my PhD in 2019 and published my thesis online. Just before COVID I submitted an article based on a thesis chapter, but because of life getting in the way I was unable to finish it and it was taken out of the review process with encouragements to submit it again.
I am almost done with the new version, but I discovered that an article about the same topic has been published last year by another team to another journal, with an introduction that paraphrases my own introduction to a large extent. The rest of the paper is actually interesting, and they do cite my thesis.
The question is, can I still submit my own article whose introduction is very close to my thesis chapter? Or should I rewrite the intro from a completely new angle because otherwise this would count as plagiarizing the paper that was published by the other group?

Can you clarify: the paraphrasing article was written by you in a fit of absence of mind or by someone else using your thesis?

Are you suspecting that one of the reviewers kept a copy of your manuscript and just paraphrased what you said? Or are you saying that the newly published paper pretty much addresses the same issues as you had done in your intro, without ever seeing your intro? In other words, are we talking about plagiarism or about independent production of similar text?

The article with the paraphrasing introduction was written by another research group. In their intro they do cite results from my thesis (which is already available online) but the structure and flow of ideas is similar to the chapter I want to publish. The rest of their article is novel and interesting.

Then 'paraphrasing' is not the word. You should edit your question.

What do you mean by "can" here? Are you, as the tags indicate, worried about plagiarism? Clearly if text A was written (and even published in the form of a thesis) before text B, then text A cannot possibly plagiarize text B.

@cheery.beach7701 I'm not sure I understand, could you please clarify?

@adam-přenosil I agree. What I want is to publish a text (say C) based on A after B was published by someone else. Does that make more sense?

"Paraphrasing" means taking something already written/said and modifying it. What you are saying, if I understand it well, is that they said what you were going to say before you said it. That's not paraphrasing.

@cheery.beach7701 thanks for clarifying. They did paraphrase my introduction as you defined it, but the rest of the article was novel

I don't know if your question can be answered without reading the exact text, eg how much of it is common knowledge, etc. My gut feeling is that there's no problem with what you are proposing. Still seems like a judgement call.

I see, thank you for the feedback so far. I will discuss this with my co-authors. If someone wants to add to the conversation please feel free to do so. I will leave this question open for some time just in case

Were you cited in that other paper?

@user195539 I understand that. What I am saying is that publishing your thesis chapter as (part of) a paper cannot possibly be considered plagiarism of the other article, since your chapter was written before the other article. Of course, there may be other reasons to edit your thesis chapter before publishing it as (part of) a paper, which is why you should clarify whether or not you are specifically asking about plagiarism (as your tags seem to suggest) or not.

You have a point, I will edit my question to mention plagiarism specifically

I would add a footnote to your chapter pointing out that "The material here appeared previously in a paper (citation...) that cited this thesis as the source." Or similar wording.
That makes it clear to a reader, which is what you need.
Since this is a thesis, discuss it with your advisor.

Like you said, ideally the end goal should be to help readers :)


text:
How should I approach job materials for a lateral move entirely for two-body reasons?
I am a tenure track assistant professor at a liberal arts college. I Iike my job quite a bit, but it is located in an impoverished, rural area. My partner works in the nearest large city, 2.5 hours away. I live there as well; the commute and the 2 nights a week I spend away from home are wearing on me.
This year there is a job at a very similar (on paper) instituion less than an hour from my house and accessible by public transportation. It is the same size, in the same region, serves a similar student population, and the departments are of similar size and composition. Adding a small amount of complication is the fact that my current institution is (slightly) higher ranked. I don't put much stock in such lists, but I could see it rasing eyebrows. If it matters, both institutions are top 30. At the very least, my current administration cares a lot about such things.
To be clear, I am unconcerned about my tenure case; I am an outlier in terms of grant funding and publications, I have solid teaching reviews, and my school has an 80% tenure rate. I also work in a field where transitioning to industry would nearly certainly lead to higher salaries; my field has abundant job opportunities in my city. I don't think getting denied tenure is likely, and if it happened, I would be ok with that.
My question is simply how do I pitch my application, particularly the cover letter? It is hard to come up with a compelling narrative for why I would leave my current job for this one aside from the simple fact that I would love to be closer to home and continue my work in a similar institution. I am not certain if addressing 2 body issues directly is a good idea. My partner is happily employed; they are not looking for work from this school.
Edited to add: I worry that by mentioning my personal issues, the committee will be disfavorably inclined, as @strongbad has indicated below. That is, they get hundreds of applications from qualified people, they do not care about my personal life. However, excluding that detail might make them think there is some difficulty that doesn't appear in my materials.

Maybe you want to add why you think explicitly calling out your 2-body problem is a bad idea, because that's not obvious to me. Seems like a better / more relatable reason than most.

You might want to clarify what a 2 body problem is. I have never heard this term.

@SeriousBri A two-body problem is academic slang for a couple that needs suitable appointments within reasonable commuting distance for both individuals

@NicoleHamilton Are two-body problems considered only academic appointments? I've seen it used here to refer to any partner-job related issues.

@AzorAhai  Sure.  I expect anyone who knows the term might use it to describe any couple needing to find jobs within commuting distance of each other.

@SeriousBri: To add to Nicole Hamiton's comment, the slang term originates from the two-body problem in classical physics.

I'd think an urban location over a rural one, plus a raise, would be so obvious as your goals that they would go without saying. And you can just devote your cover letter to the usual about how awesome you are and you think they are. Mentioning their location and how you know it well and think it's great would certainly help any application.

In the criminal underworld, a two-body problem means something entirely different.

I would tell it like it is:  You have a two-body problem and a 2.5-hour commute that you need to solve.  As soon as you say those words, everyone will understand.

I've seen application cover letters in which the applicant states something like this.   It's not a particularly positive thing in itself, but it shows a reason why the applicant would be genuinely interested in the position.  It certainly won't hurt and might help a little.

One potential downside would be if the hiring committee believed that you would insist on them hiring your spouse as well.  However, it sounds in this case as though your spouse is happier in their current position.

Agreeing with Brian’s first comment. I would not lead with this statement, because it is not a reason to hire you in itself. You should also draw attention to all the other things you like about working at a liberal arts institution and your specific points of interest in the posted position before mentioning your special circumstance.

I would never want to hire someone simply because we make their commute easier. In fact, I don't really care that much about personal situations at all when looking at candidates until we begin discussing strategies about making offers.

@StrongBad Well, of course you wouldn't hire them to just make their commute easier.  Who said anything about that?  But it's a pretty good explanation why talent you'd like to hire for other reasons might be available.

I can't give real advice on this but would point out a couple of things. You don't say how far you are from a tenure decision, but if it is close consider that it would normally be easier to move if you already hold tenure. Moving before tenure could reset the tenure clock back to zero. Getting a job that comes with tenure is rare, but usually comes with a short clock for an already tenured person.
On the other hand, moving after being denied tenure can be much harder. However, some people are denied tenure for strictly financial reasons. When this occurs they are wise to get whatever documentation of positive action by tenure committees and the statement that the only reason was financial.
It is impossible to predict what the academic economy will be for more than a couple of years, so be a bit cautious.

It's interesting that you say that it is easier to move once you hold tenure. In previous questions many (other) senior people here have commented that it will be harder to move after tenure because open tenured positions are so rare in the US. FWIW, in Europe it is most definitely easier to move once you received tenure.

@xLeitix, I'm not sure what you mean by "open tenured". I doubt that very many people other than well known superstars can take their tenure with them. You normally need to prove yourself at the new place. But the conditions may be different including both time and expectations. Perhaps the other answers were about moving and being immediately tenured. If you are recruited by the new institution, probably you are offered tenure. Otherwise, I doubt it.

Not sure I understand. In Europe it's fairly normal to hire people onto tenured positions if they have already proven themselves elsewhere. Or at least they are given special positions where they, for instance, hold a full professorship which is initially time-limited to 5 years with a lightweight review at the end to convert into a regular position. If a person who is tenured elsewhere is expected to downgrade to an Assistant Professor again I can understand why many people assume that it is hard to move after tenure.

@xLeitix don't conflate tenure with position. The last time I moved, I remained full professor, but had a two year "probationary" period. Tenure was granted at the end of the two years in the usual way after review. The varies from place to place, of course.

I suggest you be very careful about this. On face value, the question you are trying to answer is why do you want to work with/for us and an answer of the commute will be better or the pay/benefits will be better is not going to make the committee want to hire you. Search committees are generally looking for colleagues who want to work there for an academic reason.
Given the schools seem very similar on paper (similar rank, size and student demographics) your current department has probably spent considerable time thinking about what makes your department better then their department. Similarly, their department probably has a sales pitch for students about why they are better. This can probably lead you to a host of reasons to justify your desire to switch that the new department will probably weight considerably. Once you convince them that there are academic reasons, explaining that there are also personal reasons that will make your recruitment very easy and that you are nearly a sure thing and wanting to stay for the long haul, will be icing on the cake.
It is also worth explaining early on that you want to move not because you are worried about tenure, but rather that you have established yourself and they can really see your value.
Once you convince the search committee that there is an academic reason you want to work there (maybe there are some nuances in the curriculum or a different philosphy about teaching/research

There's a fair chance that a committee will see right through this.  I recommend just going with "my lifestyle will be much better if I work here, and conveniently enough, your department is strong".  A wise department might well see the fortunate synergy, and run with it!

I agree with your sentiment, but I want to note that these are both undergraduate only institutions. We do not recruit students directly. We really never think about other departments at all, except to chat about best practices in teaching from time to time. Given that I am in STEM, there aren't really any ways in which my department thinks of itself as unique. We are trying to align with the collegewide ideals of inclusion, but those are the same at both schools. I am really at a loss as to how to distinguish the departments from afar.

I don't think OP (or anyone else) is suggesting describing his two-body problem as the only reason he's interested in the new position, which is what you seem to be arguing against.

@JeffE the titular question says entirely and the body says It is hard to come up with a compelling narrative for why I would leave my current job for this one aside from the simple fact that I would love to be closer to home both of which threw up red flags for me.

@StrongBad There is a difference between "Why do you want to leave your current position?" and "Why are you interested in a new position here?"  OP says the former is entirely due to two-body issues, but that doesn't imply that the latter is also.

To be clear, I am interested in this job because of what it is, and I can talk at length about why. I like doing research with undergrads, I like being in the classroom and being available to students. But the point of a cover letter, at least as it has been explained to me, is to talk up why exactly this school. I have written a lot of cover letters, and I've always been able to say in them that this job is where I want to be, and my current job is not as well aligned with my career because it was a postdoc; or it is a liberal arts school and this is an R1, or something.

I think you have to be up front about the reason for wanting to move. But of course it's not why they should hire you. Perhaps you can frame your cover letter as giving this new institution the chance to hire someone (you) who has proved him/herself of great value to a similar institution.
You can say at some point that you are open to any tenure clock reset, but probably not in the first cover letter.
If you know or can find a good referral to someone at the new institution you can talk to you might be able to get a sense of the lay of the land. It need not be someone in authority, or even necessarily in the same department.
If your existing institution knows about your job search a letter from them saying they are really sorry to lose you but understand why you want to move would be a plus in your application.
Small benefit you need not make explicit: the new place can add you to the list of finalists to interview without incurring travel and lodging cost.
I've served on lots of hiring committees. I tend to be sympathetic to problems like yours, and view them as an opportunity to get someone better than we might otherwise attract.
Good luck. Come back here and tell us what happened.


text:
As first author, what should be included in the first formal communication [email] with other coathours
I am in the process of writing a paper ( public health/ policy) for submission collaborating with two professors. Both are supportive and interested in my project.
separate meeting with both were held and now I would like to send a formal email to both of them. what should such email include at this stage? giving that we have an  agreement on a general deadline and the targeted journal.
Thanks!

Can you add a field? This doesn't make sense in mine, where you would have oodles of data and already discussed interpretations with them.

the general field is public health

Sorry, I don't understand the actual purpose of the email. What are you trying to achieve?

i am trying to formally lunch the project

I'm also confused. How much of the project is done? I would imagine most of it, if you're discussing journals

Just don't sweat it.  They are colleagues just be friendly and share the info you want to share.
I get the sense that you are not a professor.  Maybe you're still a grad student.  I remember feeling like this but the professors are (hopefully) looking at you as kind of colleague in the making not an undergrad who needs to make some show of respecting their authority and position.  Just be friendly and make sure you communicate everything they need to know and, if you are unsure if something is ok say so and ask, e.g., don't try and dictate the author order.
Of course, I'm a mathematician so I'm not in public health but if you are talking about United States academic culture and you're a genuine part of that (e.g. grad student) don't sweat the formality so much.  Of course, cultures differ so your mileage may vary if you are working with foreign professors who weren't educated in the US.


text:
How to merge citations from two different google scholar accounts?
I have two gmail accounts. Each has its own Scholar account. I want to merge them both so that my citations are unified. As I have different citations on both accounts.
Can someone help?

It looks like there is no direct way. You could choose the account with the most citations and then manually cite the other publications from the account with less citations.
Also, you could try to export the citations from the smaller account to your hard drive and deactivate that account. Then rebuild the other scholar account over time.
A person over researchgate asked the same question but there was no definitive answer.


text:
What are good platforms for collaborative writing with multiple senior authors with limited technical background?
I am taking part in a project that involves several authors with so many back and forth in writing. I am curious to know what usually are digital platforms or role of thumbs in term of managing writing, edits, and comments by several authors who do not have a vast technical background and do not have time to learn new things such as GIT or LateX?
Do you prefer google documents for example or what?

I am not sure if 'the best' tool can be given as an objective answer, maybe the question needs to be rephrased?

Actually, you don't need the "best" platform. You need one that everyone finds useful.

Consider, within the solution space, if old school method works better than joint writing.  Have a first author who compiles the different sections of work, manually, deals with conflicting edits, and makes final decisions.

I use the following myself:
Non-technical: Google docs. Low threshold, can do basic stuff, cannot view history. Main drawback: No version control. (Also my university in principle does not allow it, but if you promise not to tell anybody...)
Technical, many collaborators: Overleaf. Can do full latex, not straightforward to go to commit history, but can be done since it is git based. I am not too fond of their interface, find it a bit clunky, but many of my collaborators really like it, so I use it anyway.
Technical, few collaborators: latex documents on private gitlab instance. This is for me the best. Commit history easily accessible, anything you want to do, can be done. Gitlab even has a builtin IDE, so you can do small edits directly in the browser. Drawback: high threshold.
This, for me, covers all use cases.

You can view history on Google docs. Office 365 now has a similar feature (online collaborative), so that's another option and most universities have one of the two (we actually have both, so we're at least AOK using Docs).

Google Docs does have some form of version control. You can view edit history, see who made what change when, and save named versions, and can revert to any recorded change if needed.

Thanks, then I also learned something today :-).

If you are in a hurry, you might want to try an online TeX editor such as Overleaf.
Another solution if you are using TeX would be to work alongside a version control system, e.g. git. Keep in mind that it takes some time to get used to it, though.
I do not know about non-TeX-solutions but i feel that a plain-text format has a couple of advantages for this kind of application.
I am looking forward to read other responses to learn about other options.