text:
What to do when the professor does not stand up to cheating?
I was the teaching assistant (TA) for a very introductory physics course at a large state university. In the course of grading for this class, I came to learn that my university used the same course material as many other universities had for the equivalent course for more than twenty years. The answers to questions, in particular, were readily available online, through various forums. The syllabus explicitly forbade providing disingenuous answers, as well as any plagiarized responses. To be clear, this instructor was a fully tenured professor; not someone in any risk of losing their position.
After noticing patterns in homework assignments, I began to look for them in midterm and final exams as well. What I initially thought was a couple of bad students turned out to be more than 50% of the class regularly citing online sources word-for-word. Once I realized what was happening, I informed the professor, and I started assigning zeros to the offending students, in accordance with University policy, and the professor did not object to my assignment of zeros. However, all of this was still subject to the lead professor's review.
The professor asked for documentation of the offenses, and was in fact the undergraduate director of the department. I spent the better part of a week accumulating evidence, scouring Yahoo answers and other common homework repositories for the sources of the dirty students' answers. I found a veritable source for every single one. I printed copies of the students' responses, alongside their internet sources, and deposited the six-inch-tall stack of documents at the professor's door.
As far as I know, nothing happened to a single student, and word was never made public of the massive cheating scandal that was blatantly obvious in this course. Multiple athletes were in this (1A) course.
Is this just academia?

Some related questions

What percentage of the grade is the homework?

"As far as I know, nothing happened to a single student" So did they get 0s or was your marking overturned by the professors review?

It is entirely possible that things did happen but it would be improper to inform you of it for reasons of privacy, etc. You are probably considered to be a "third party" with whom it is improper to discuss the record of a student.

How do you not get (correct) answers to physics problems that are close to word for word (or perhaps I should say "equation for equation") identical?

I doubt very much that assigning zeros on homeworks that you think have cheating on them is "in accordance with university policy". Yes, most universities will have a policy that students can't get credit for work which they cheated on, but the mechanism is usually not for a TA, or even a prof, to assign a grade of zero. Such actions must usually occur through academic honesty mechanisms, which are tracked through students tenure at a university.

"Is this just academia" is not a real question.  Other than that, I can't tell what you're asking for here?  Affirmation?

It's pretty much publicly known in the US that many universities that are heavily dependent on athletics revenue seriously lower their academic standards for student athletes and give them all sorts of special treatment. The pragmatic answer is the amount of enforcement depends on what % of revenue the university earns from athletics, apparel etc. Your professor might have done nothing at all, and they might have gone to bat for you but been overruled by the university administration behind closed doors. I'd be far more concerned by cheating in the general (non-athlete) student body.

What is a disingenuous answer to a physics question?

@ScottSeidman that was very much the norm at my alma mater: if you were caught cheating on an assignment, it was given a 0 and referred for an academic integrity investigation. Some professors would also give an F for the entire course.

You make it sound as though the students are getting online answers for exam questions, not just homework. How are they doing this? Are these take-home exams? Are they using their phones during exams? Is the pool of exam questions known to them in advance and also very small?

@JustinLardinois  "and referred" is within many universities guidelines.  Many force you to handle it as an academic honesty issue, so you can't just give it a zero.

In other words, the only legit way to handle academic dishonesty is to call it academic dishonesty, and make it part of the students records, so further offenses will be handled more harshly.

At my school, unless you have access to the final official grade for the course (which my TAs don't have), the zero on the assignment is all you could see. That doesn't mean I haven't spoken with the students and filed an official report with the university, which takes action if the problem continues in a student's other classes.

@user21820 Your edit has made the question confusing.  The asker needs to fix this question.

Josh McK, I approved user21820's edit because it seemed to me that they integrated well in the question the relevant pieces of information contained in one of your comments. Please, review the edit and see if it still represent correctly the situation and, in case, feel free to amend the changes, also in view of @AnonymousPhysicist comment above.

In less developed countries it's much worse. For example, the dean demanding that professors (or professors demanding that TAs) explicitly allow children of businessmen/politicians to cheat, or even demanding that they help them cheat, threatening to fire them if they refuse.

Does anyone care? As a TA I would rubber stamp everything. The faster I get done grading the better.

Beer and Circus calls this the "student-faculty non-aggression pact":

Faculty provide an easy class and don't look too hard into cheating
Students happily take the easy grade and leave the professor free to do research

I wouldn't say this is "the rule"; plenty of faculty do an awesome job teaching. But, I'm not surprised to hear your report -- some faculty don't care about teaching generally, while others care about teaching but don't care about grades or catching cheaters. Many feel (for better or worse) that cheaters get what they deserve eventually, and don't want to be personally involved in punishing them.

What to do...

I would carefully check the department and university policies -- often, cheating cases are explicitly prosecuted "at the professor's discretion." I would also speak directly with the professor. Speaking of....

I started assigning zeros to the offending students...[collected evidence]...and deposited the six-inch-tall stack of documents at the professor's door.

I suspect this was not the best way to go about it. I would recommend first speaking with the professor, making them aware of the problem, and asking how to proceed. At a minimum, this could have saved you a week's worth of wasted effort. As it is, you assigned a bunch of zeros, and it sounds like your professor was okay with this -- that is some punishment, at least.

Is this just [the way of] academia?

Well, it's certainly a bit dysfunctional. And it's inevitable as long as prosecuting cheaters is a lot of work for the faculty while providing absolutely no "reward" when done successfully.

The 'reward' would be maintaining the credibility of the university, surely?

Yes, it's a wonderful service to the community and everyone should do their part. But it's not a metric that "counts" in the way publications or funding actions do. Even teaching / service awards don't generally consider "number of cheaters prosecuted" as a metric.

Doesn't it reflect poorly on universities when you see graduates of theirs make a fool of themselves? It's not just the graduate who "get what they deserve eventually". And by the Peter principle they can eventually rise to the highest levels so it's just others that find themselves working for incompetent cheaters. I think we can all relate to that on some level, but I'd be ashamed it reflected poorly on me through association (of having the same degree from the same institution).

Yeah, I don't think anyone here is going to disagree that it's terribly frustrating when faculty don't do their part in prosecuting cheaters....

With the updated question, the "speak with the professor" part doesn't really fit anymore

@David: Yes, but therein lies the principle-agent problem.

Edit:  question has changed.
You probably cannot do much now.

Once I realized what was happening, I started assigning zeros to the offending students, in accordance with University policy.

As a TA, you should have spoken to the professor about the situation before taking any action.  Student misconduct is squarely in the professor's area of responsibility.

I printed copies of the students' responses, alongside their internet sources, and deposited the six-inch-tall stack of documents at the professor's door.

This sounds like you are trying to provoke the professor, instead of helping.  I fear you have done serious damage to a relationship that should be collaborative.

Is this just academia?

Not really; all types of institutions are subject to occasional corruption.

I did inform the professor once I started recognizing it, and the professor did not object to my assignment of zeros. The professor asked for documentation of the offenses, and was in fact the undergraduate director of the department. I meant, "Is this just the way academia is?", not, "Is this phenomenon exclusive to academia."

@JoshMcK Please edit your question.  When you have done so, I will probably delete this answer.

@J... The question changed.

I experienced a related situation when I was supervising a written exam as TA: I caught a student cheating who actually (though probably accidentally) admitted cheating ("I couldn't read anything" - yea but already trying to read other's answers is cheating).
When telling my prof, he decided to nevertheless have the exam graded regularly. His explanation:

In a legal sense, we'd be in a situation where my word would stand against the student's word - we did not have hard proof.  Our claim of the student cheating would therefore be very weak.
This is something I consider extremely important nowadays: given the difference in power between student and examiner and that even confessions of cheating are not reliable indication of actual cheating*, it is IMHO extremely important to accuse students on the basis of solid evidence only.
In his experience, students who cheated/were caught cheating had always anyways failed the exam due to lack of knowledge - which was actually the case.
The official penalty for cheating was failing the exam, so correcting the exam and failing the student on that basis was safer and just had the same outcome in terms of the need to redo the exam.
In terms of pedagogy, they had had the reprimand I gave them during the exam plus everyone else had seen someone being caught cheating.

* While marking each homework that is considered cheating 0 without any interaction with the student does not induce any bargaining problem, I gather that it is common to take a more strict view on students who do not admit cheating when accused. I'd argue from that that students may expect to minimize their losses by confession - which would be sufficient to put most interviews with students who are accused of cheating into the realm of that study.

I found a veritable source for every single one.

Your situation is similar to my catching the cheating student: there's a definitive smell, but not a solid proof: that would require you finding evidence that each student did actually access that web page (during the time of that homework) and maybe even proof of them copying the relevant part.
Without such proof, the professor may still deliver a lecture about cheating or depending on what is up to their discretion assign some more homework that is not found online, announce that homework grades do not enter the final grade, ...
As such proof is not realistically possible, the usual way out is to allow all kinds of sources but require proper citation. This is not only a good excercise of how academic writing works, but it also reverses the burden of proof: regardless of whether the thought was the student's own, it's up to them to check whether the thought has been published before and if so, cite it.
Thus, a lack of citation is far easier to proove than a student using forbidden study material.

Is this just academia?

Something went wrong here quite obviously. I'd say: on both sides, students cheating and the prof having dysfunctional rules (whatever is done: either  condemns without proper proof, or doesn't enforce rules).
OTOH, academia  is like the rest of the world.

There will be inexperienced profs (who may learn and do better in future)
There will not only be brilliant teachers but also mediocre ones, and finally
Students are usually comparatively inexperienced due to their age and
may actually cheat.

I may add some context: for us,

homework itself was rarely graded, it was mostly considered an offer for self-study.
Homework that was graded were either

reports on certain questions and I think the topics where handed out according to what was of interest for the teacher that year, i.e. new topics.
reports on experiments - here the whole labwork performance was graded
reports that were presented during a seminar, so the student was questioned on the topic.
And they all used the cite-properly strategy explained above.

Graded excercises (undergrad/introductory) had the excercise being done during excercise lessons with TAs being around who had an eye on cheating besides helping.  Some of these excercises were supposed to be group work, btw.
In general, noone cared how we acquired knowledge, the emphasis was on having the knowledge when examined. Failing exams, particularly during the first semesters, was very common (we had exams with pass rates at first try of ≈ 25 %).
Collecting exam questions and studying with such collections was usually encouraged.
Important exams were oral.

You can't do anything if the student is just looking at his/her classmate's paper. you can only warn him/her to pay attention to their jobs, but you can't give zeros to them. because just looking at another one's paper isn't a reliable reason. It may the student says I have a neckache! That's why I turn my head! (but in fact, he/she is cheating) and you can't prove the cheating.
you can only assign zeros to students who have cheating papers with them or who have their hands full of math formulas; because these are reliable and you can prove the cheating to higher university staff.
perhaps the professor you're talking about is aware of my statements.

There is an argument that cheating should be clearly and formally forbidden,
but it is not important to enforce that.
The reasoning is based on that the student does harm only to himself.
While enforcing it is not fundamentally important, it may still be desirable to enforce it, but with lower priority when short on resources.
The base assumption may or may not be valid, the student may in some context do harm to others, like gaining an objective competitive advantage. But note that, except for the final grades, an advantage in grading of exams or classes is not an objective advantage in the world outside the university. An objective advantage would be receiving a certificate or final grade that has a value independent of what was learned.
For example, this is a valid approach in the following context:
There are introductory lectures that are needed as base for a lecture later in the curriculum.
In studying physics at an university that includes a lecture on statistical mechanics, there will be an earlier lecture of thermodynamics. It is not important to have valid grades for thermodynamics, because a student does not need the grade, but only the knowledge to get a good grade in the lecture about statistical mechanics. A good grade in that implies understanding the underlying concepts used.
A student cheating in the thermodynamics lecture without gaining the knowledge just needs to learn it later. There is no way to understand why pressure and temperature interact the way they do without knowing how they interact.

Yes, but if hard working non-cheaters would have otherwise been sitting a full standard deviation above the crowd, now they're mired in the middle of the curve and their hard fought performance is not reflected in their grade with respect to the rest of the class - so I would challenge the notion that cheaters only harm themselves.  When it's 50% of a class cheating that seriously disadvantages the non-cheaters by debasing the value of their grade.

@J... I specifically argue that a grade does not have an inherent objective value. An university is a system to invest time and money, objectively, to gain knowledge objectively. Additionally, the gain may include certificates, but they are not fundamental, and may or may not be related to knowledge or of practical value. Grades are implementation details of the system. For an entrepreneur, a certificate does not have objective value, but gain in knowledge objectively does.

@J... One could argue that a certificate has inherent value, only weakly related to knowledge. For example, a PhD allows to a be accepted for specific job. But in principle, value is not inherent in the certificate, because being accepted is only of value if the knowledge is sufficient to be kept in the job. Strictly speaking, a perfect fake PhD combined with the knowledge has the same value.

Most graduates aren't going to be entrepreneurs.  They will seek employment.  Employers look at grades, so grade dilution therefore impacts the probabilities of a graduate to secure an interview.

In fact, even if seeking a postgraduate position, grades are also important when selecting between candidates for masters or PhD entry - again, distortions in these figures can certainly impact admissions.

@J... I agree, I'm basically saying it can be a valid assumption in some contexts, because one could feel it's purely theoretical. I have seen it in practice at Freie Universität Berlin, and I think it worked fine. It just gives the student more responsibility for his own actions.

@J... Regarding whether it debases the value of grades on non-cheaters: It does not change the meaning of the grades of the non-cheaters. If they know grades of others at all, they can easily recognize that some are based on cheating, and not care about it. Grades are not something based  on relative performance, except when they are explicitly normalized based on the average. But I see that it may be a psychological problem for the students.

except when they are explicitly normalized based on the average.  Which is almost always, from what I've seen.  Plenty of employers and postgrad admissions will interpret grades to show the relative strength of the student with respect to the class.

@J... I see no reason why internal grades of individual students should be in relation at all - a student does not (need to) know grades of others. Employers and admissions do need valid final grades, which are the grades of objective value.

Whether you see a reason or not is irrelevant.  The difference here is between what, in theory, or ideally, we expect should be the case and what, in practice, actually happens.

@J... Sure, but I have seen it in practice actually happen and work out just fine.

It is the nature of such a phenomenon that it will sometimes have no effect, sometimes be a minor consideration, and can sometimes be game changing.  The point is that negatively impacts the statistics of success for the non-cheaters.  Whether this manifests in a specific case in a negative outcome does not change the fact that it is detrimental (ie: "my granddad smoked and drank for 50 years and was fine" is not evidence that smoking and drinking are not detrimental).

@J... In the practical case I have personally participated in, it did not negatively impact the statistics of success of the non-cheaters. I think it was in math for physicists. Weekly exercises were graded, simply by giving points for answering individual exercise questions. There is no interaction of individual grades at all. A grade objectively represented a level of competence, which may be valid or not. Nobody else needs or wants to know. Being surprised seeing a ∇ in an exercise is not a good strategy, no need to enforce learning it. It worked perfectly fine.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Lecturer yelled at me after class and refused to answer my question
During one of my lectures today, I had a question with something he did and raised my hand to ask the question. The lecturer didn’t see me, so my classmate asked me what my question was so I whispered to her what the confusion was.
My lecturer doesn’t like this, and asked me not to do this and to raise my hand if I have a question instead of making noise and being disrupting. I raised my hand but he told me to ask it after class.
When I did so, he told me to stop and informed me that he considered my behavior very rude and would not answer my question. I tried to tell him that I’m sorry and this was how I typically would react when I’m confused with something during lectures and my other professors didn’t mind, but I was very shocked and I’m not sure how well what I was saying came across and the lecturer got more angry, saying “You think this isn’t rude behavior?” And I apologized. Lecturer said he expected me to just apologize and leave and that I should do that, so I did.
I was shaken, and very upset. I didn’t intend to be rude. I’ll admit he had to ask me not to speak with other classmates in the past, sometimes due to me just whispering to a classmate about something unrelated, but often when I have a genuine question with what is going on. So I think he believes I’ve continually been acting rude and he has been trying to politely ask me to stop and it’s getting to be too much. I do admit that I shouldn’t be whispering to my friend if it’s not lecture-related and not at all if my lecturer wishes, but I also struggle understanding the material since it’s really hard to get a question answered.
Previously, he had been mad at me once when I was confused with a result derived in the lecture and said something along the lines of “I didn’t get it what you got but I’ll take it as true.” which offended him, perhaps believing I’m doubting them or something. I feel like that’s insecure, if I’m honest.
I had no idea that whispering at a low volume to a classmate who was trying to answer my question was considered rude, (also considering I’ve never been told this before by any lecturer in the past and I’m in my final year of university) especially when it is very hard to ask my lecturer a question because he doesn’t often look at the students when giving the lecture and only asks if there are any questions once or twice a lecture.
My friend suggested I make a complaint or talk to someone about it, but I’m genuinely scared my lecturer is going to kick me off the module or something, especially if I make him more angry with me. Is he allowed to do this, and if so, would he be justified in doing this? Would I have a strong appeal if so?
I’m not sure how rude I’ve been, is the main thing. How should I act moving forward? The idea of being kicked off the module for this is very scary to me. I’m still quite hurt and shaken at the time of writing this.

Culture plays probably a role here. Can you indicate in which country or region you are? When I was a student and the lecturer did not see me raising my hand, I'd call an "Excuse me?!" during an appropriate pause in their talking. However, whispering among students is very annoying during a lecture. The lecturer was right to address this. How they addressed this might not have been ideal, though.

I’m in the UK. I acknowledge it can be considered rude, but I felt the reaction wasn’t justified.

Can you write a note to your neighbor instead?

Either your lecturer is unreasonable, or you have a blind-spot to your own behaviour (which I suspect since you are surprised they didn't like you saying “I didn’t get it what you got but I’ll take it as true.”, at best that's irritating, sorry).  I would just keep my head down from now on.

I am a lecturer in the UK. In my School, if a lecturer yelled at a student instead of answering their question (for whatever reason), I am very certain that the lecturer would be asked to leave very soon.

Would reporting his/her behavior to the director of teaching be an appropriate move?

I don't suppose you'll like this answer much, but yes, if you have done this repeatedly and been called on it before and have continued to do it, then (a) you are being rude and (b) she can probably remove you without any consequence to herself. She may, actually, be angry with you beyond reason, but you seem to me to be poking the tiger, which is a bit dangerous.
I'd suggest that you need to behave differently. I hope you will like this part of the answer a bit more. I'm not so happy that the professor isn't more receptive to questions (once or twice a lecture). I can find better ways to teach, but you probably can't change that.
One simple thing you can do, other than keeping quiet in lecture is to sit where your raised hand will be obvious when she does ask for questions.
But, on a deeper level, I'd suggest that you adopt a note taking style that is effective and that, in particular, captures questions you have in the lecture to be able to get answers later, either from the professor or from other students. One simple way to do that is to carry a few note cards with you at all times, but especially during lecture. Write down any question you have on a fresh card. This permits you to annotate the question and write an answer. It also provides a means of later study. You can carry those annotated cards around and review them whenever you have a moment, say waiting in line to buy coffee.
But, in order to "smooth the waters" with this prof it may be enough to just assure that you behave according to her standards, even if they aren't entirely rational. If you offer an apology, don't end it with "but...". However, I think a cooling-off period would probably serve you well.

I’m really, really scared of getting in trouble for it - despite how unfair I think that may be. Should I offer an apology via email or just forget it and don’t annoy her moving forward?

I don't know the personalities, but would think that just a cooling off period would be appropriate. Think mouse v tiger. Don't think about the possible injustice, but about how to avoid further confrontation. If it settles down over a period of weeks an apology might (might) help.

My mother thinks an apology email today or tomorrow is best. Would you personally think that’s a good idea? Or an apology at all (you think it might, might help after some time)? Should I be worried about him marking me intentionally unfavorably on things I hand in?

You, and maybe your mom, have a better knowledge of the personalities. I can't really judge from a distance. But, an apology needs to be just exactly that and no more. "I'm sorry for my behavior and will strive to do better." If you also try to explain yourself, it will probably fail and make it worse. Oh. And buy those note cards.

Would informing my director of teaching about his/her behavior be a good idea? I still think the lecturer overreacted hugely.

I can't really judge that. It could help. It could hurt.

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sort: votes


text:
How do European PhD interviews work when a candidate is not local?
How do European PhD interviews work when a candidate is not local? Are virtual interviews common?
Edit: In particular, I am interested in interviewing for a German CS position when I am in Slovenia.

So can you explain your reasons for not asking them?

it would be a side question i don't want the formal process to be disturbed

You might want to write this reason (which I do not understand) into your question and explain how this would disturb the process.

i asked in general here to compare, they have their policy they would tell me to check their policy if i would ask them btw.

Then check their policy.

i want to know how it is usually done to compare their process with other universities

@cag51 i don't like the way you edit questions, it's my question not yours, and what you wrote is NOT what i am looking for to know

You may want to check out our tour -- editing unclear questions is very much encouraged here. If
you don't think my edit did you justice, you can edit it yourself. But, please note that unclear questions may be closed and deleted -- you may want to check our help center to review what is allowed and disallowed here.

In particular, we do not allow rude or abusive comments; that can lead to a suspension. Your comment to me probably isn't over the line, but I have deleted your response to Heutl above.

Interviews through teleconferencing (e.g. Skype) are pretty common if it is not feasible to invite all shortlisted candidates for an in person interview.
However, since we are talking about Slovenia to Germany, it is very well possible they would would invite you to come over if they wanted to interview you. In such a situation it would be standard practice to reimburse your travel costs.

Your question is too wide.
But in general, if you have a particular university in mind you should check their website, else you can start your search for a field and title in particular by looking at universities that provide PHD's (there can be national databases about the registered PHDs and universities in the national department of education or equivalent of the country), and then go into their sites to see their requirements and applications processes.
But first, you need to figure out if you want a particular country or a particular program, and why.

Even with your edit, the core of this advice stands. Contact the university and ask. Even within a university, the process will be different for different phd positions depending on subject, funding, etc.

I once had an interview for a PhD position online and we used Skype. I think it depends entirely on the university and the department. My tip would be to check with the department that you're interested in. They might also do a phone/video call first, and then invite you for an in-house meeting depending on how well the call went.

By the comments, it seems the questioner knows already about their university but is interested in a general statistics.

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text:
How does copyright work on questionnaires with similar items?
I have seen in certain types of questionnaires that the content is very similar, and that, possibly by coincidence, certain phrases are the same.
Let me give you an example: the organizational culture measurement questionnaires.
If one compares different questionnaires, you normally will find similarities in certain items and some may be exactly the same. This is not because a copy has been made, but because human resources has a general consensus on what things should be measured. For example, because everyone agrees that the leadership of the bosses should be measured, therefore we commonly find items such as:
My boss is a good leader
or with respect to the company:
I feel happy in this company
My question arises from this: Could an author who created a questionnaire claim copyright infringement by other questionnaires with similar or identical items, even if this happened by pure chance?

Depending on the purpose of the survey, I’d imagine many of them would be covered by Fair Use.

I'm answering from my perspective as a health services researcher. I am not a lawyer. If you know that there are a number of proprietary copyrighted surveys in your field and you think you might run into issues with them, then you are arguably on the wrong Stack Exchange (maybe try the Law Stack Exchange site), and you may also need your own legal advice.

Peer-reviewed literature vs. proprietary
First, is the survey proprietary or is it in the public domain? For example, the RAND Short Form-36 (SF-36) survey was an early measure of health (specifically, we'd say health-related quality of life, or HRQoL). I think the original survey is in the public domain. I think that the researcher involved in its development later collaborated with Optum, a company owned by the US health insurer United Healthcare, to develop the proprietary SF-36v2. RAND is a non-profit corporation which explicitly licenses the RAND SF-36 for public use. For the SF-36v2, you have to pay to use it.
If you clearly copy question wording from a proprietary survey, then I imagine that there's a legal cause of action. If you copy wording without attribution from a survey published in peer-reviewed literature that isn't proprietary, then this seems to be plagiarism. The offended party would have to seek resolution with the publisher of the journal where the offending survey got published. I don't know what legal recourse you have if a for-profit firm buys the journal article and then reverse-engineers your survey.
Actually, my late mentors did have a US state take their survey and allow a for-profit survey firm to administer it and refine the items, but that was with their full knowledge and consent of all parties. That survey firm isn't raking in money from this - they are not rent seeking, in economics terms.
Similar concepts being measured and similar question wording
Many times, different authors try to measure constructs, like physical function, depression symptoms, or cognitive impairment, that are well-established in the literature. For some constructs, there may be enough surveys that many or all of the questions you could use have already been used by some other researcher. Perhaps you should ask if you actually need to publish a new survey trying to measure the constructs - the answer may be yes, but you may be duplicating effort.
If you did your own work, funded by some government body or other generous donor, and you independently came up with similarly-worded questions as others have used, then it still seems to me that you are arguably in the clear. I would probably cite if my wording was very close to someone else's. Anyway, in evolution and engineering, and probably elsewhere, it's a known phenomenon that given similar goals, world conditions, or physical constraints, you can have people independently come up with similar solutions or animals evolve similarly.
Moreover, depending on what field you're in, you might have independently generated the questions from expert consensus or patient focus groups.
If I am a peer reviewer, and I realize that a lot of your content and/or questions overlap with an existing survey, I would want to assess if there's a good rationale to develop a new one. In health services research we often have established and widely used surveys for some concepts. If you tried to develop your own depression survey and your wording overlaps a lot with the PHQ-9 or the PROMIS depression scale, then I would be skeptical; the former is very widely used. If it's a less-commonly studied construct, then there's less likelihood of overlap, and the field should continue to refine ways to measure that construct.
In sum, it's not literally pure chance (I interpret this as randomness), but yes, there is a good chance that you might independently develop similar questions as another instrument if the field is well-studied.

I have a PhD in health services research, and my dissertation focused on some mathematical models used in measurement of psychosocial constructs. I have a fairly good knowledge of the field of psychosocial measurement. But as I mentioned, I am not a lawyer.

Copyright law varies from place to place, so a valid answer might depend on where you are. But in general, it is a good idea to assume that copyright law applies to everything. Basically if you write something (or create in another medium) you own rights to it. Some places you may have to register the copyright as was true in the past in the US. Most places copyright is a matter of civil, not criminal, law. But I think there are exceptions.
There are some caveats, however. Copyright doesn't prevent you from using something, only from copying it or obtaining a copy illicitly. There are a few exceptions to the general prohibition against copying, but they are a bit subtle.
The first is fair use, but that is a subtle thing. While there are fair use exceptions for some uses, including research, they aren't unlimited exceptions and depend on a "proportional" standard that can only be adjudicated by agreement between parties or by a court in a lawsuit. (Note, this is a US view, things vary around the world).
So, since you are doing research, you can depend on fair use up to a point, but that point isn't very clear. A few items out of a hundred is probably not an issue. How few? No-one can say in general. If the copyright holder objects, then you have a problem that will be expensive to solve.
However, another caveat may be more important here. You can't really copyright things for which there is only one basic way to say or write. So lots of things in mathematics can't be copyrighted because the "expression" is more or less immutable. Copyright doesn't "protect" ideas, only the expression of ideas. So, if "The boss is kind and gentle" is the idea, then there are only a few ways that that can be said in a questionnaire, so it is unlikely anyone would have a basis for a copyright complaint.
Unless you copy a lot of those kinds of things from a single source. Then the source is more likely to start to question your intent and might want to raise it in a lawsuit. My guess is that is pretty unlikely, but don't discount it altogether. You can get a bad reputation as a researcher for things that don't break any legal rules.
But you also need to consider the question of plagiarism. If you copy a bit and don't cite the source then you have a different issue, though it, too, may be covered by the "one reasonable form of expression" idea.
A claim of copyright can always be made. Courts, however, won't be supportive of frivolous claims, where only a small part was copied or the reasonable ways to express an idea are very limited. Therefore it is unlikely that a claim is likely to be made if things happen "by chance". A valid claim would need to depend on fairly clear evidence, especially given the research (partial) exception as stated in the law.
See especially the section on the four considerations used to evaluate fair use claims in the link above. I think the third one is what you need to be most concerned with:

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

But, of course, if you need to repeat a questionnaire in its entirety, say for reproducing the research, you can always ask the authors for permission.
Moreover, if you reuse a questionnaire that you find in a copyrighted work that you have valid access to, there should be no issue as long as you don't reproduce that questionnaire in your own work. You just refer to the published questionnaire in your methodology section.

As someone who teaches survey methods, I don’t think this analysis emphasizes the right things. It is best practice to use validated measures and to use identical wording that can be compared across surveys. I specifically discourage students from developing their own questions whenever possible. Citation is, of course, required.

@Dawn, you are then using the "only one way to express it" exception to copyright law. If it can't be validly said another way then it can't be copyrighted. It is an "idea" not an "expression". I don't think there is a conflict here.

Answering from more of a scientific perspective... wording is everything in questionnaires.
The specific language is critically important, even if the general concept is the same. When you validate a survey or questionnaire-based scale, you are validating that specific language. Developing a copycat scale, or translating it to another language, removes the ability to compare to existing normative data and you lose all the benefits of past work towards validating the scale.
Therefore, I would think that most scales that are available for purchase or under a particular license would be most concerned with preserving the specific scale items: that's where the value is.


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Working on the arXiv version of a published paper, how should I cite?
As part of a research project, I use results from this paper. It seems to have been published at least 3 times:

as an arXiv preprint from January 2012
in a Springer book from 2012
in another Springer book from 2014

Google also found a version hosted on PSU's website, which I guess is a copy of one of the published versions.
For each of these versions, there is a different .bib file containing the "right" way to cite the paper.
I don't know which one I should use.
Since I don't have either of the Springer books, I work with the arXiv version, but it seems weird to me to cite the arXiv preprint (I assume it's a preprint) if there are versions already published elsewhere.
I am relatively new to research (not a PhD student) and have encountered this situation several times.
I usually don't have access to the peer-reviewed version, and work on preprints published by the authors.
How do I choose which version to cite? Should I always cite the exact one I have been reading, even if it is not the final peer-reviewed publication?

The 2012 Springer "book" is a conference proceedings.  The 2014 Springer "book" is a journal issue.

Also, the most recent arXiv version is actually dated October 2013, after the conference proceedings version was published.  (The first arXiv version was submitted in January 2012, but that's not the one you should cite.)

If at all possible you should cite the most recent official (published, peer reviewed) version.
You could consider contacting the author to ask if the arXiv  version differs in any way that might matter in your context. A librarian might be able to help with that too.
You can note in your bibliography that a version of article is also available on arXiv.

Assuming that I can't verify that the two versions are similar, should I still cite the most recently published version, taking the risk of referring to a slightly different one in my article? I ask in general, in this case it probably won't be a problem.

I agree that in this case the difference is likely not to matter. In general, cite both and note the one you are relying on or quoting directly. The guiding principle is to use and credit the source accurately and make life easiest for the reader.

Isn't citing a version you have never seen slightly dishonest?

@Heutl I'd call it suboptimal, not dishonest. It's a judgment call - be upfront about what you are doing. In this case I wouldn't require the OP to buy a Springer book.

Wouldn't citing the arxiv version and mentioing that there is also a book version be more upfront?

@Heutl I suggested citing both. I don't think the precise wording of the citation matters much.

@EthanBolker: Hmm, interesting. To me, citing the book and stating "there is also a arxiv version" sounds more like "I'm using the book version" while citing the arxiv version and stating "there exists also a book version" sounds more like using the arxiv version. But maybe I have this impression because I'm not a native speaker.

This is a known tricky situation, which I've often seen addressed incorrectly (people citing the published version, but actually meaning the arXiv version).
My personal way of solving this is: I cite the published version in the bibliography, but when I actually reference it, I add a footnote saying that I'm referring to the arXiv version. This is honest and helps the reader (who likely has the same troubles finding the published version as you do). Some editors might not like such citations, but keep in mind that, just as you do, the readers of your paper will probably be reading its arXiv version, so whatever mess the editors make of your references will have a limited effect (and won't be your fault anyway).
Of course, you should handle arXiv preprints with the usual care: if at all possible, check their work and point out any errors that may significantly impede their use. Also, as @EthanBolker pointed out, it's a good idea to contact the author asking for the precise relation between the arXiv version and the published one (and subtly hinting to update the former).

In fields where arxiv usage is standard (e.g. high energy physics or astronomy), standard practice is to cite the arxiv identifier of the article along with any journal reference. (Journals tend to remove them upon publication, but that is very much their problem.) Some of the most commonly used abstract indexing services in those fields (e.g. inSPIRE or NASA ADS) in fact automatically merge the records of the arxiv and the journal version. Consequently, if you use the bibtex entries exported from those services, you will typically get bibliography entries that refer to both the journal version and the Bibtex version.
This, of course, only applies if you are reasonably sure the article on arxiv and in the journal are actually the same article (same title and authors may not always be enough to guarantee this). In many cases this is easy to tell because the arxiv entry will have a link to the published version (Many publishers in fact require this link as a condition for authors being allowed to also post the pre/post-print to arxiv.) The presence of a link to the journal version does not guarantee that the arxiv version is identical (contentwise) to the published version (although an increasing number of funding agencies now require this in order to satisfy their open access requirements).
In the specific case presented by the OP there is no link to the journal version in the arxiv version. Hence we cannot be exactly sure they are the same article (although identical abstracts and similar length make this extremely likely). Moreover, the arxiv version was updated after the journal version was published online, making it highly likely that it was updated to match the journal version.

I'm familiar with this particular paper.  The October 2013 arXiv revision does match the journal version, at least up to copy-editing.


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What order should authors be on arXiv.org for equal contribution authorships?
If everyone made an equal contribution in effort to write the paper, but no on the team but myself decided to post the paper on arXiv and no one opposed my decision to arXiv post, should I myself, the poster, or the corresponding author be the first author, or should the authors be listed alphabetically? At this point there's not yet any monetary or power incentive to be first or last and I don't expect there to be any in the future.

arXiv isn't relevant here. Just ask yourself "in which order should the authors be in this paper". It doesn't matter whether you are posting it on arXiv, or putting a manuscript on your own home page, or submitting it for publication to a journal.

@JukkaSuomela, your comment might be better as a formal answer.

What is the subject area of the paper?

Why does it matter?

@Heutl The subject area matters because different subject areas use different conventions for determining the order of authors. For instance, most of math uses alphabetical order (irrespective of the contribution), and in some disciplines, the last position carries a special significance.

@Uwe: I did not mean the subject area, but the order of authors in arxiv.

@Heutl Why should the importance of the order of authors be different for arxiv and for other publications?

If everyone made an equal contribution, you can put that information in the footnote.
In a very famous (in the AI-related research) paper ADAM: a method for stochastic optimisation you can encounter the following line:

∗Equal contribution. Author ordering determined by coin flip over a Google Hangout.

I'd say randomisation is a fair way to go.
If you want to be more specific, here you can check examples for contribution statements.
There's a whole taxonomy for that: CRediT author contribution statements.
You can place these contributions e.g. just before the references section in the paper.
As Jukka already mentioned in the comment, arXiv does not matter in this case.
I think the order should always reflect the real contribution (if possible).
All in all, it's good that you care about such things - good luck with your research.

I would advise to avoid Google Hangout (if possible) so that you do not have to mention it. In a scientific paper, there should not be advertisments for for-profit-companies unless mentioning them is really necessary.

My impression is that randomization, while it has some benefits, is not very common; alphabetical is still the more common practice when authors contributed equally.  So if you randomize the ordering, people who just see the citation are likely to think "it's not alphabetical, therefore the ordering must be significant, and the first-named author must have made the most important contributions".  They would only see your note if they actually started to read the paper.

Presumably the authors will have all agreed to an author list, and this should be the one used on arXiv, irrespective of who is posting on arXiv or who is the corresponding author.


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Awards in which gender identity is a requirement
A friend of mine is considered a minority in her research field, for being female.  Recently, her advisor wanted to nominate her paper for an award sponsored by a kind of Women's Engineering Society.  (Not actually the WES; I don't want to give away field-specific information for her sake.)  To qualify for the award, the student must identify as female.  She therefore asked her advisor not to nominate her, saying that she does not want to compete for an award where identifying as female is a prerequisite.
Her rationale is essentially that while she does identify as (mostly) female, she does not think it's fair to restrict award eligibility based on attributes outside of someone's control, such as gender.  (There are also subissues, with the award eligibity requirements treating gender in a binary fashion, and my friend viewing gender as a spectrum.)  She said she would be happy to participate in an award program sponsored by a women's society if the gender prerequisite weren't there.
After much debate, we further boiled down the issue to the following question:
Do awards with gender identity requirements help or hurt the minorities they intend to support?
We are looking for studies and statistics to answer this question; not just anecdotes.
(A side question is whether her individual refusal to participate could hurt the community she is a part of.  For example, a snowball effect: if a large number of people refuse to participate in the very programs designed for them, perhaps the programs lose funding and then cease to exist for other members of the minority group who do wish to participate. Or perhaps the reputation of the award just goes down.  I would be curious to know if there are documented cases of this happening.)
Note: my friend gave permission to post and update this question.

I'm surprised so many people think this is opinion-based... I genuinely thought there existed some objective studies on the effects of gender-based awards.  If I reward the question to solicit studies specifically, could we re-open it?

Yes, I think that soliciting studies and adding the tag [tag:reference-request] could help. Probably also limit the question to point 1.

It should be a problem for those organizing those awards. It is a delicate issue. Perhaps it is easy to switch from necessary things of rupture to over use of the concept. It would also depend on culture, country and so on.

Is your friend also opposed to donating to breast cancer research because research in all diseases deserves funding equally? Or opposed to nonprofit organizations delivering aid to underprivileged families in third world countries because all poor people need help regardless of where they live?

@Heutl I think your comment doesn't make sense. I would expect that as a male you would refuse a trophy given to you that you ineligible for.

@artificial_moonlet (1) If there were, I would be highly skeptical of their results based on methodological grounds ... there would be no randomization or control and people selected for (any) award are by definition superior to their peers. (2) I'm curious by what mechanism you would propose anyone be hurt by receiving such an award?

@AzorAhai: maybe an award that handed only to a specific group is comparatively harmless. Until the point where there's a question which proportion of the awards in her CV she received for being a protected minority (of approximately 50 % in this case) instead of for academic achievements. Things get IMHO worse where the professional standing of someone is undermined by the suspicion that their recent promotion may be based more on belonging to the right minority than professional achievement. (Anecdote: director announcing more females are needed in upper management and whom to promote?...

Some SHE gets promoted. Are you really surprised that people (of diverse genders and sexes) wonder whether she was really the best one for the job?). I may add: I've heard an anti-discrimination person "celebrate" that they handed out sholarships in 3:1 ratio to females:males where the pool of eligible people was roughly 1:1 (I don't know about the applicants. But there was no indiation that the 3:1 wasn't lopsided in some respect) - at least with me this doesn't create trust that the measures taken are in a good relation to the size of the problem (Disclaimer: I was among those 75% females).

@cbeleitessupportsMonica Hmm, I'm not sure "being a protected minority ... instead of for academic achievements" is a correct characterization here, but I take your points

@AzorAhai: sorry, that expression was a bit sarcastic, but the suspicion is one I've met. The bad thing is that IMHO these suspicions (that I do find I cannot always dismiss as clearly unfounded (!)) may contribute to keep or even strengthen some particular problems of discrimination: namely, that "women have to be twice as good as men to get the position" becomes now: "the [easiest] way for a women to establish that she got the position for professional achievements and not for being a woman is to be twice as good as any male competitor"...

@artificial_moonlet: maybe your friend could ask her supervisor to propose her paper for a general award in her field instead.

@AzorAhai I'm not in social sciences, but I can still imagine plenty of ways to objectively study the effects of such awards.  For example, examining the post-award productivity of the recipients (as in this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51173/are-awards-in-academia-useful?rq=1), or studying how many people are nominated per year relative to the size of the minority in the field and how that changes.

@cbeleitessupportsMonica I'm a bit confused as to your earlier points, but regarding your last suggestion: my friend actually did ask her advisor to submit to a general contest, and he said it wasn't good enough.  Perhaps that particular general contest truly is more competitive; perhaps the gender-based award's prestige is somehow already "diluted" because of its narrower scope.

I think there is a conceptual problem in this Q: the problem is not whether one has or does not have control over one's gender status; the problem is that gender status is not an academic property/attribute. Academic awards do and should require some properties that we cannot control (e.g., the property of having been born), and shouldn't require other properties that we cannot control (e.g., our 'race'). They also should not require some that we can control (e.g., the property of buying chocolate). The point is whether one thinks that they should only require academically relevant properties.

I applaud your friend for refusal to participate on ethical grounds. I think your second question can be answered in the negative. But not making a public statement leaves the (unfortunate) status quo intact.
The first question however is, at this time, pretty opinion based and some research might actually help settle the question. It isn't my field, so it is possible that something has been researched and reported.
But we are in a time of change. The past was bad. We hope the future will be better. But there is still observable discrimination against women and many others, especially gender fluid individuals. Hopefully this will sort itself out if enough people get enlightened. But there are observable disparities in treatment even when it is (largely) unintended. And those things won't just dissipate without pushback. Individuals of "good will" need to be part of the pushback even (especially) when they aren't part of people and groups who are discriminated against.
But (opinion), if such awards tend to highlight the underlying problems, then they might be useful. And I hope that such things can go away in the future. A future in which individuals are judged only for their own accomplishments and not, at least in part, for things over which no one has any control.
I believe that more than one Nobel Prize has been given to a male whose female student actually did the work and had the breakthrough.
Fifty years ago, in the US, we thought, through the civil rights movement, that we were approaching a better future. Sadly progress has been slow, at best. Maybe stalled.
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Attributed to several people, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

I've updated the question... hoping it gets re-opened

As an aside: More generally, how many Nobel Prizes have been given to supervisors for the work of their students?

I believe you meant "things" in your third para [too short to edit]

@AzorAhai, thanks, indeed.

"But (opinion), if such awards tend to highlight the underlying problems, then they might be useful": I'm sorry, personally, I'm not willing to be useful to that extent if the award may hurt me professionally (and I do see a number of mechanisms how that can happen). I thus feel a need to push back a bit: if we want to judge accomplishments instead of gender or the like, IMHO we had better start being crystal-clear transparently judging accomplishments rather than mixing (intransparently) accomplishment with gender. And think how to treat people equally regardless of ... (+1, btw)

@Buffy I'm kind of confused why you applaud my friend on "ethical grounds." Because she stuck to her ethical grounds, or yours?

Hers. She had a standard and acted on it.

Still anti-female discrimination in academia? Are you sure about that? https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-004-x/2008001/article/10561-eng.htm https://www.prb.org/gender-gap-in-education/  Maybe the discrimination is that were forcing too many of them to get university degrees.

@puppetsock hmmm. "forced". Are you sure about that? And you might want to think about undergrad admissions a bit differently than the overall situation in academia. Professorships, grants, etc.

Key here is that awards with identity requirements, gender or otherwise, may hurt the level of accomplishment assessed by the individual, and others, even as they have positive effects on the status and abilities of the aggregate minority group they support.
Often, there is some lessening of achievement associated with being awarded in a subcategory. The fact that no one suggests gender segregating Nobel prizes (right?) is as telling as the struggle to unite men's and women's football, or the rarity of academic awards with a male gender identity requirement (they do exist, but arguably server a very different purpose).
Certainly, gender quotas in faculty hire processes are a related mechanism that have this undesired effect. I have counseled more than one friend who was indirectly or (in one unfortunate case) directly informed the department 'needed a minority hire'. I have also heard colleagues disparage new hires as 'only because they are' whatever they are. The concerns of the hired and the disparaging align: did the person really deserve the job. I personally support quota mechanisms, regardless of these negative consequences, and for a selfish reason: I prefer working in diverse departments.
In the end, the unfortunate ends have been determined by society to justify the noble means. It is an individual choice whether to join in this structure. I applaud your friend for assessing that she would not be happy doing so, and supporting this gender-driven approach.
Related, devilishly difficult question: How might awards with a minority (gender or otherwise) requirement be made to reflect the same level of accomplishment, to individuals and the general population, as equivalent unrestricted awards?
Potentially, there is no answer.

I don't really understand the reference to football.  In many sports (certainly not all), there is gender segregation to actually give women a chance to compete.  In running, elite female runners are slower than elite male runners.  The gap is essentially physiological with few exceptions.  I don't think it makes sense to mention that here.
Also, the original question is asking for studies...

Do awards with gender identity requirements help or hurt the minorities they intend to support?
In general they seem to help an individual of "minority" status, while giving the stigma of all "minorities" in certain fields or with certain funding being due to that status rather than their work standing on their own. It also gives a lot of "minorities" imposter syndrome where they feel they may not have earned their way the way someone not offered many scholarships have. But that's on the individual, certainly many never experience this.
Does her individual refusal to participate hurt the minority community she is a part a part of
If your friend is exemplary, then why not be a success story.  I personally disagree with restricting rewards based on any immutable characteristic but if I felt my exemplary work could shift opinion of my "group" in the positive then I would accept the award and attention it might bring in that field or space.
NOTE: Psychology is all generalities about behavior and there are lots of people outside of the norm on both sides of "minority" and "majority" so both these answers contain generalizations about how individuals and groups of individuals within certain groups might feel.  There will be outliers.

Hi, your answer is a little vague... I've also updated the question to appease the overlords.


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How to tell my mentor to be careful when discussing my work in progress around people I do not trust?
I had a very bad experience with a colleague and just do not like/trust him. (Eavesdropping, lying, ...) I am working on a project with my mentor, and know they shared information with the colleague I do not trust. How can I politely point that out to them?

Are you a grad student? Is the colleague a fellow grad student, a professor at a different institution, or....?

Once the situation is "X should not know", that means there is no good and evil side, there is equal reason for everyone to mistrust everyone.

If you can trust your mentor, just tell them. Say it as it is. But not in an email. This requires personal communication.
But, if you cannot trust your mentor then you have a bigger problem than you state and need to find better guidance.

I like the "personal communication" part. However, I do not think that OP distrusts the professor - the problem is that the professor may think the OP is oversensitive ("nothing bad will happen, don't worry") and does not take OP seriously. This is not a matter of trust, but of misaligned expectations. Also, the person in question may be well known or a student of the prof, and OP may not want to be explicit about it for diplomatic reasons. More care is advised, but not in terms of prof distrust.

As a meta comment, sharing your research is on average the best way to progress in my opinion. Sure, there are some bad apples out there, but overall I feel it’s wise to err on the side of collaboration and communication.
I suggest that my students prepare human readable manuscripts that they can share with others. No one stole their work yet (though it did happen to me once).
Again, on average this is better I think.
To your question: I think directly and politely asking is the best way. “Hi, I feel like the work is not quite ready to be discussed as it’s too preliminary, would it be ok if we develop it more before we present it? I feel it would have more impact this way”
Don’t mention distrust or plagiarism. If your professor is not completely dense they’d understand that this is part of it.
Good luck!

You are in a safer position than the student who is more vulnerable. OP sees a concrete rather than vague threat and I think one should take such an immediate threat serious. Your idea of requesting to not mention preliminary work is ok, but what if the prof does not take it seriously? OP needs some way of conveying their message without looking paranoid. (Not sure I have a good suggestion, it would depend on the prof).

This is exactly what I’m suggesting: a diplomatic solution. Most reasonable professors would agree, but if not: probably a short clarification discussion would work.

Also, I suggest my students share their work, as did I as a student. How is this different?

I also suggest my students share their work (you say for "others", not "other students of the same group"; so I had to assume you are happy to share more widely). But were I to discover that someone in my group claims work of others for themselves, they would find themselves having to answer disciplinary action. I am aware that stealing work/ideas does not happen often, but if it happens it is very painful for the victim and can affect the culture for a long time after. I have witnessed a blatant attempt to do so (it was nipped in the bud, but it left lasting impression on everybody involved).

This situation will require you to go see your mentor in person, be friendly and straight forward. Just let him know how you feel.

Much depends on HOW you say something like this.
Of course this must be expressed in person, but if you tell your mentor directly, as in "sir, can I ask you to do one thing, ... etc." then there is a likelihood that it won't be taken too seriously. Why? Because, indirectly, you are telling your mentor that you understand things better than him/her -- that you understand this other person is untrustworthy, something the mentor didn't realize by himself. Human nature is that nobody likes to be corrected.
So, in my opinion, a better approach would be in the form of asking the mentor for advice.
Instead of just telling him what to do -- "please don't talk about this in front of others", ask him advice on how to handle the situation. "Sir, can I ask you one thing?" (sure...) "Maybe you will feel I am a bit silly..." (no, don't worry, what is it?) "Thanks... well, the fact is that I noticed that after our collective discussions, person X is doing A and B and C and this is a problem for me because D and E, etc." (um, I see...) "So how should I handle a situation like this?" -- at this point, if you made your case convincingly, your mentor may "spontaneously" come to the right conclusion: (well, you know what, maybe next time you should talk to me when they are not around).
(By the way, do not badmouth this other person unnecessarily. Be fair and balanced while making your case)
Bottom line: if you can make the mentor feel that he made the decision, and at the same time let him save face (for not noticing the problem themselves) then there are good chances that things will go the way you want, and not just temporarily but permanently, especially if the way you want is also a good way which in the end benefits everyone.
Cheers...


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Do US REU programs sponsor the student visas (J1 or F1) for international candidates?
US REU programs sometimes accept "self-funded" international students. However, do they also sponsor the student visa (J1 or F1) for the selected international candidates? Or do the students have to use a tourist visa? (From what I read so far, using a tourist visa for that purpose would not be legal as REU programs fall in the "internship" or "training" category.)
Edit:
I noticed that the J1 requires that 51% of funding come from either the hosting institute or some external source. So I suppose the J1 wouldn't be applicable for international students. However, as far as I understand, the F1 is only applicable for students enrolled in a degree course in the US. So is there no visa that would be applicable for international students willing to participate in a US REU program? That seems contradictory as many REU programs clearly mention that they are open to international applicants. [Source]

Do you have any example programs that are open to international applicants?

@Richard Yes.

It looks like the best answer is to contact the specific program(s) your are applying to. The answer is specific to them.

The short answer is that it depends. Some will support your visa application others will accept international students only if they already hold a visa (sometimes a specific type of visa).

All official participants in NSF REU programs must be US citizens or permanent residents per the NSF REU homepage:

Undergraduate students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions.

A self-funded student or non-NSF REU funded student would simply be an intern or student at the host institution.


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Can I turn down a postdoc offer after I have received the official offer letter but haven't sign it
I have got two postdoc offers, one with the official offer letter in hand and the other still pending for the letter.  I am considering to turn down the first one. Since during previous emails with the PI who sent the offer letter to me, I have indicated to accept the offer, although I haven't put my name on the letter yet.
At this point, is it appropriate for me turn down that offer?

Why the big rush?

The appropriate time is after you get the other (better) offer in writing.  You don't want to turn something known down for something else that hasn't come yet, formally.
Yes, it is unfortunate to have said you will take the position and turn it down, but these things happen.  Certainly in business, there are lots of times when agreed to deals still fail when the time comes to put pen to paper.  It is not the end of the world. Just be matter of fact (not penitent, not rebellious) and move forward with whatever is the best fit for you.
P.s.  This is why I emphasize to interview widely and job search arduously, all the way up to having gotten a written offer and accepted it.  You're not off the market until then.  The same thing applies in reverse as verbal offers may not always materialize (check out lots of questions/complaints about this on this site).  I'm not advocating being deceptive or fickle.  But you certainly want to look for your best situation and control the options as much and as long as you can.  Employers do the same in reverse.  It is a bit of a mating dance.


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Can I delay a while signing an official postdoc offer letter
I have got an official postdoc offer letter. The HR now is requesting my signature and then return the letter back asap. But I haven't made a final decision to sign it or not, because there may be another offer coming very soon, which seems better to me. I wonder if it is appropriate to delay the received offer a little bit. After that accept or turn it down.

Sitting on an offer (e.g. ignoring emails from HR, taking forever to answer or other delay tactics) is generally not appropriate in my opinion. I would suggest honesty and transparency.
Let your prospective postdoc advisor that you'd like a bit of time to consider your options (they will likely get the hint that you're considering other positions, no need to be too blunt). In addition, talk to your alternative option ASAP and let them know the situation. It is absolutely acceptable to tell them that you have another offer who's waiting for your reply, and you'd appreciate an answer from them soon.
Whether either party would agree really depends on them. I would be careful of losing both options: if you wait for too long then your potential host might get annoyed and just rescind the offer. They could be holding off on other good applicants thinking that you are about to sign, and you waffling might result in them going ahead with other applicants.
Your other option might not be getting back to you because they actually don't have an open position right now, or they themselves are waiting for some other applicant's final answer (if they say yes, you're out).
These are all considerations that you should weigh out for yourself, and I cannot offer any concrete advice on. Just to reiterate - lying/misrepresenting your status/using delay tactics is probably a bad idea.

I would definitely delay in this case.   (If you truly might have another, better written offer soon.)  HR is in the business of getting selected candidates hired.  You need to look out for yourself when comparing competing offers (or about to) as your interests are not 100% aligned.  There is nothing odious about this.  It's a normal part of hiring and recruiting.  The same applies if you are negotiating salary, after a formal offer (the only time you should negotiate or discuss salary).
The actual mechanics of how you delay (ignore the letter, say "I'm looking at it, request more time, etc.) depend on the situation.  For example, did the letter have an offer time period?  How long has it already been?  Etc.  Without knowing more, I would say ignoring an email from HR (not the principal) for a handful of days is not completely off the table as an option.  But again I don't know the specifics and that is not your only option to delay.
Things are a little delicate now, but you really don't want to commit to one if about to get another, formal offer.  And of course you don't want to blow what you have, now.  But you will never have as much power as you do now (or shortly).  With two offers in hand, you can pick the best or negotiate terms (with some power).  It should be the normal objective of any job searcher to get competing offers.  Employers know this and try to push after the offer or have short consideration periods.  You need to to try to get that second offer though.
Reach out to the other possibility (email AND phone) and let them know you have a formal offer and need their letter ASAP.  Give a hard date for how long you can delay the other offer, during discussions--if you don't know, estimate, but not more than 1 week.  Of course, make it 100% clear you need a fornal offer letter with terms (salaray, etc.) of the new offer.  Knowing you are in demand and will be off the market makes you look good.  If they are leaning to you, it will often shift the balance AND make them hurry up their red tape and send you a letter.  If they don't, then they weren't a serious possibility.  (You may not have been top of their list.  Or even if so, if they don't care enough to walk an offer through, then they don't love you that much.)

P.s.  You don't need to share any details (place or salary) of the letter on hand with the place that you are pushing to send a letter.  Probably better for you if you don't "put a price on your head" and just see what they offer.  Once you have two offers, some light negotiation is normal (and informed by comparing the terms).  You want to seem graceful, but at the same time, you really do want to create an auction. You won't have any power to negotiate later.
P.s.s.  Read What Color is Your Parachute. You should know more about how to manage the mating dance of job searching.

I suggest the OP not take this advice. Seems a bit dangerous.

Thank you for the detailed comments and suggestions, which are very helpful to me!!