text:
Do UK faculty members have to obtain ATAS every year?
An international student or postdoc from a list of certain countries has to obtain an ATAS certificate before being able to applying for a UK visa, and that certificate has to be obtained again every year. In the link above, however, I could not find any information about new faculty members (lecturers). In particular, assume a new lecturer, with a permanent contract, who has obtained an ATAS certificate and, subsequently, a 5-year skilled worker visa. Does that individual have to apply for ATAS every year, or it is just a once-for-all experience?

"that certificate has to be obtained again every year." - please can you clarify which specific scenarios require renewing the ATAS certificate yearly? The linked guidance suggests this is generally not the case, though I can imagine postdocs on 1-year contracts (and hence requiring yearly Skilled Worker visas) would need a new ATAS certificate for their new visa application.

@B.Liu: I know a couple of Ph.D. students and postdoc fellows whose visa is multiple-year, but they have to apply for ATAS every year.

@User That's fairly unusual (for PhDs at least, postdocs generally experience more project scope changes that require new ATAS). There is no annual ATAS requirement. A new ATAS is needed if the scope or techniques of research changes beyond original approval, no matter how much time has passed since the last ATAS. Usually one should make the application as general as possible to avoid frequent ATAS applications.

If you are a faculty member you are not studying as a student or performing research as a contracted researcher the documentation the ATAS is not clear. However you should always ask the HR department of your employer for clarification.
The staff guidance at different universities (as shown on their web pages) is also contradictory or vague. However at least one major university does explicitly say that academic staff covered by the subjects of study and nationality clauses of ATAS must have an ATAS.
If you are in employment always be guided by your employer, but the UCU (Academic's Trade Union) can be an independent source of advice.

Short answer (Nov 2022): Assuming the individual has already obtained an ATAS certificate and subsequently a 5-year Skilled Worker visa, the individual is not required to reapply for an ATAS certificate every year. Some exceptions related to a change in employment circumstances apply.
Immigration rules are subject to frequent changes - future readers should verify whether the content within this answer remains up to date.

Long answer:
The individual in question is newly hired as a lecturer under a permanent contract. They obtained an ATAS certificate and used the certificate to secure a 5-year Skilled Worker visa. For the avoidance of doubt, we also assume the individual is already in the UK and performing their role when we reach the one-year mark (when the OP suggested a new ATAS certificate is required).
According to this GOV.UK guidance on whether one requires an ATAS certificate, they are considered as a researcher:

The UK government defines a researcher as an individual conducting an investigation into a problem or situation, where the intention is to identify facts and/or opinions that will assist in solving the problem or tackling the situation.
A researcher may be working independently or as part of team. You need to apply for an ATAS certificate if research is being conducted at PhD level or above. PhD students should apply through the student route, not researcher route.

The main ATAS guidance suggests the individual is not required to apply for a new ATAS certificate:

If you are a researcher already in the UK
You do not need to apply for an ATAS certificate if you:

are already conducting research in the UK

In fact, the guidance does not mention any requirement to apply for a new ATAS certificate simply because the year is up. Searching the entire page by the keyword 'year' yields two irrelevant results: one on how long your referee has known you, the other on studying in courses with an integrated masters year. Searching the entire page with '12' or 'twelve' yields no results.
There are several exceptions to the above as an academic. The most common reason that requires a fresh ATAS certificate is a change in employment circumstances - moving institutions, additional appointments, change in the research field and/or location, etc. The following sections in the main ATAS guidance provide further details. Another common reason is that the individual requires renewing or switching to a new visa.

If you are a researcher already in the UK
Researchers also undertaking a course of study
If your circumstances change after ATAS certificate is issued
Conducting research at more than 1 HEI/research institutes

What does that "change in the research field" exception exactly mean? A lecturer may have been involved in research topics associated with different research grants. Do they have to apply for a new ATAS every time they are supposed to participate in the (different) research of a new grant?

@User If the research goes beyond the scope of research statement approved by ATAS, it is a significant change that may require new ATAS.

@xngtng: Who is in charge to decide about that scope and its potential stretch?

@User it's between the university and the researcher, subject to ATAS approval.


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Can your academic and clinical career be affected by your nudes getting leaked?
So first off, let’s start by saying that I’m insanely stupid for letting this happen. I’m currently a doctor early in my career. I was on a dating app and I sent nudes (No face showing).
It turns out I was texting scammers which were making demands for money and they threatened to send the pics to everyone I know as they had my list on my instagram, LinkedIn and fb. (Screenshots of conversations with my display picture and chats showing). They have also uploaded screen recordings on a porn website but deleted it after I blocked them.
I have since blocked the scammer and secured my online identity. This happened 2 months ago and the scammer seems to have given up. I called the police today and they said that the nudes are unlikely to be leaked as these scammers scam 5-10 people a day. Also, they’re probably scamming from another country so it would be virtually impossible to catch them.
Will it affect my career moving forwards if my nudes get leaked?
The scammer knows my first and last name. I have middle names that the scammer doesn’t know of and I was wondering if I should use those names for research publications.
Can this hurt my career prospects? For example, getting kicked out of a residency program (Medical training necessary for doctors to progress into specialists)?
Would it be fine to use my first and middle names for work related reasons?

" I was on a dating app and I sent nudes " that is not stupid, it is your personal choice and we live in a free world (or at least we try to).
It is what they are doing to you that is beyond stupid: it is criminal.

I do not think the clinical aspects are on-topic here, and without that, this is a duplicate of edelweiss' comment.

Hmm I saw that comment. I just wanted to ask about the publication name. Can I use my first and father’s name for publication purposes?

The question about publishing all your papers under a different name has also been covered before, see for example: Can I use only one of my two last names for publishing? (that said, I think this would be an overreaction; as the police said, the odds that the scammers take further action after 2 months is negligible).

I think the answer will depend much upon where you work. In Iran, this might be a serious problem. In Sweden, not really. // If no face is showing, except in screenshots with a profile picture, you can simply deny it is you. Screenshots are easily Photoshopped, everyone knows that. Tell them you got a spam message from blackmailers but you paid it no attention, and now they have apparently sent around some random pictures from the Internet to spite you. By the way, your actual blackmailers will know they cannot achieve anything this way, except perhaps police attention.

My two cents: I have had some intimate webcam recordings of a contact of mine sent to me as (presumably) a form of revenge porn. That was weird, but they have gotten over it quickly without any significant impact on their career. In such situations, scammers always prey upon you being stressed and perceiving something relatively benign as a huge issue. Take a deep breath, do not let your brain run wild, assume this information is out to the public. The more mundane it seems, the fewer issues it will create; humans are terrible creatures and would only pry more if you are seen hiding something.

@Cerberus even if the face is showing you can deny that it is you. Deep fake is a reality. And even without deep fake these things can be photoshopped "manually".

@mathreadler: Yes, absolutely. It's just that not all recipients of their colleague's pictures might know this. So the first thing they will believe is that a profile pictures can be Photoshopped onto a random screenshot. The second thing, a face Photoshopped onto a different body without looking off. The third thing, a deepfake video.

There are five reasons this is unlikely to be of any consequence;

Having a personal life is not any kind of academic misconduct, no body is kicking you out over this. Everyone with a lick of sense realises that most other people have a personal life. At worst, it looks like you have poor judgement in who you chose to have a personal life with.
The world is a big place, even if the scammer sent the images to everyone you know (and how would they get that contact list?), the set of everyone you know probably contains almost no one who will make future hiring decisions about you.
The fact that they haven't sent them in the last 2 months makes me think they probably won't anyhow. They probably don't want to be arrested, revenge porn is a crime in most places.
Just posted on the web, they are also unlikely to be seen by anyone relevant to you. If anyone who does make a hiring decision about you looks further than the top 3 google results you are lucky. Keeping the first page of your google results clean is not difficult; make yourself a linkedin/orcidID/twitter and post work appropriate content. That's a good idea anyway, you should have a professional online presence.
In the age of deep fakes, nobody will even be confident these nudes are real. Google any famous name + nudes, and you will probably get images that look like that person, mostly, they aren't real. The better the tools get, the more likely that explanation becomes, so in the long run, no nudes are credible.

It's a really frustrating experience, but it's really unlikely to have a material impact on your career.
The only thing you might want to do is decide how you will respond if a friend/colleague does tell you they were sent your nudes. That's more a matter of taste than anything else, but you might decide to tell them the truth and make a joke of it - "Someone I was exchanging nudes with tried to extort me, but my nudes are excellent, so I'm not ashamed. Sorry if you saw more than you wanted to, I hadn't meant them to be passed around like that.". Decent people will be sympathetic, and making a joke of it makes the conversation less awkward.
Finally, it may bring you some comfort to know you are in good company; similar misfortune befell a new york city councillor recently. The response was pretty sympathetic.

Thank you very much! It did bring me comfort indeed. I appreciate the detailed answer. Might use that response if a colleague does ask me about it!

The response was pretty sympathetic - Which response?  The article suggests to me this exposure didn't help his campaign (no endorsements).

(Not trying to be critical, just confused---I like the rest of your answer)

@Kimball good point. Adding response to twitter statement at the time (78.6k likes).

Point 3. is not applicable. This is a blackmail scam, not revenge porn. They've presumably already broken the law by blackmailing the OP.

@AdamPřenosil pretty sure they could be charged with both. The definition of revenge porn in the UK at least is "the distribution of a private sexual image of someone without their consent and with the intention of causing them distress".

I didn't say they couldn't. But if the motivation is extracting money and the offender has no personal connection whatsoever with the victim, it makes very little sense to call it revenge porn in normal speech, whatever the legal definition is. (In any case, the intention here is not to cause distress but to get money.)

@AdamPřenosil so the point actually is applicable.

No, it isn't, because they've presumably already commited a crime, so the imputed motivation that "they probably don't want to be arrested" doesn't make sense. It's a bit like explaining that a murderer didn't also rob their victim by hypothesizing that they probably didn't want to get arrested.

@AdamPřenosil actually sending the images would be committing a crime that's much easier to prove, for no clear benefit.

Ok, then we disagree about the semantics but agree that there is no benefit to it as well as a potentially stricter penalty.

"in the long run, no nudes are credible" -- Keynes would love it, for real though very interesting idea.

Oof I am so incredibly sorry. In terms of residency: I think it would be unreasonable for a residency director to kick you out of residency for this. You are the victim here, and honestly if a residency program were to kick you out for this, that really shows that they themselves are lacking empathy.
I am a PhD researcher, and have been in academia for awhile; I would be very surprised if anyone cared about your nudes, my perception is that researchers tend to be more forgiving and relaxed about these things. God knows many academics have history of harassment and no-one bats and eye, so I really don't think you should be worried.
I would continue to pursue a legal course of action through the police if possible. I think the scammers will probably give up; I don't get the feeling that these guys are going to try to stay organized with random nudes for years and years.
And also just in general, I am so so sorry for this happening to you. Also, I think it is a huge win that your face is not in the photos; you can always say it isn't you!

You can use whatever name for publication.
I would even suggest go ahead with using your middle names, even without all this terrible and unfortunate issue. It will help distinguish you from people with similar names.
The only potential problem is with linking different names (see similar problem for people getting married). But this depends on how big is your cv, and how much publications you are ready to loose in the (useless and shameful) metric computations (in the worst case, and thanks to all the data miner like google scholar that make their algorithm obscure and irresponsive to customers and content producers, aka scientists).
Overall, I think you are on the safe side, the scammers have some nudes and they can photoshop whatever name and portrait on top of the conversations screenshots. Are their efforts worthwhile? if you start to give in to their requests, yes, their efforts will be worthwhile and you will be their golden egg chicken.
I know it is a bold statement, but maybe you should go the Jaromir Jagr way (NHL ice-hockey star blackmailed to not publish pictures of him with a 18-yrs model ... his response "I don't care").

Thank you for the reply. Do you think using two names for publications would cause any problems down the line?

@Patrick I am not sure what are the conventions in your field, but ORCID is an attempt of providing every researcher with an unique digital id (with all due diligence with respect to privacy, safety, openness of the code&co.). Check their guidelines automated recognition and "merging" of different names. I expect it not to be a problem. Worst case you have one line to add in the cover letter, to clarify why you have different names in your publication lists (for example if you mark with bold your name).

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text:
Humor in a personal statement
As I write personal statements for graduate school, I want to highlight my hard work through humor and also just show my personality. As someone who works full time (in order to fund my education) as a carpenter and does research/studies in their free time while working towards a masters degree, I had made a joke in one of my personal statements that goes something like this.

As a full-time masters student, I've had to support myself as a student, requiring me to seek a full-time job in addition to going to school at night and spending my free time doing research and studying. I'm kind of like Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting but just better-looking and much smarter.

The final statement will have the joke stated more elegantly but that's the general idea. Although I am being sarcastic, I realize that this might not be evident for everyone that is reading it or might come off as arrogant or trying too hard. Additionally, I'm afraid that the joke might be inappropriate.
My Question
What is the general consensus on humor in a personal statement. Additionally, any comments on my specific joke are appreciated. (This question specifically pertains to personal statements, not statements of purpose or statements of intent.)
This school has a separate writing sample for statement of purpose and asks that the personal statement satisfies the following "We are interested in learning more about you as a person and how your background and experiences motivate you to make positive contributions to your community. There are no requirements for what to include;"

Discussion on this particular joke and how to improve it has been moved to chat. Please avoid writing answers in comments.

I hope you’re not planning to apply to this guy’s department.

It's less an issue that a personal statement can't be humorous and more that humor in a written context is very hard to get right. Timing and tone of voice are easily lost in written media, and self-deprecation in particular depends heavily on timing and tone - those aspects are the difference between funny and... sad or uncomfortable. Sarcasm is hardest.
For people that you know, or for someone you are familiar with through their other work - say, someone who you've seen perform as a comedian, or even a social media account that you follow regularly - you start to build a mental scaffolding of their tone and personality, and you can fill that in around even a brief statement. Maybe you've even experienced this when you tried to share a joke with a friend that someone else said that they don't know - often, they just won't get it, because they're missing that other context.
Your joke might be funny, but it certainly didn't land with me, a stranger. It's not clear from it whether you're trying to convey sarcasm, insecurity, or egotism.
I'd recommend using other opportunities to showcase that part of your personality, like interviews (especially during less formal contexts, like a dinner or similar social event). In that context, it's more about "fit" - you don't really want to work in a group with people who you won't get along with, and vice-versa. For sharing "who you are" in a personal statement, I'd stick to description and perhaps short narrative. It's not clear to me how having a sense of humor relates to "how your background and experiences motivate you to make positive contributions to your community" in the area of graduate studies.

I have to admit that what I saw first was the editing errors. Then, since I haven't seen the movie, my reaction to the punchline was not particularly positive. Stick with the facts; humor is too darned subjective. You can be funny in the dedication of your thesis.

@keshlam: You can watch the movie if you have time. Would not be a complete waste of 90 mins. And if you want to watch an "isotope" of Good Will Hunting, I'd recommend Whiplash.

@keshlam: You can be funny in the dedication of your thesis. -- Or . . . Bruce Kitchens' 1979 Masters thesis at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill; supervisor) has the title Tori! Tori! Tori!, which is a word play on the 1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!. I don't believe a copy of his thesis exists online, but it's reference #9 in this paper.

One was "Proteus: The Thesis Project". Dedication included thanking the States of Alaska and Confusion. Neither of which had a thing to do with the project except for my never having been in one and often having been there n the other. (These days I'm not sure there's much difference, though one does have better scenery.)

Here's a general rule: If you have to think about whether something is appropriate, it's probably wise to just not do it. I believe this rule applies to contexts far beyond just application documents.

I'm not sure.  We have plenty of questions on this stack from people stressing out about "can I email a professor with question X", where the answer is "of course, they're human, don't worry".

Your advice is to self-censor everytime you have the slightest doubt about anything? That sounds a bit extreme.

@gerrit Perhaps the advice hinges on nuances of the word "appropriate". If the question is mostly "will this thing I'm saying be interpreted as offensive or rude", then the rule of thumb of "if you have to spend time/effort thinking about it to figure that out, don't bother" may apply, as the reader/listener isn't going to give it the same amount of thought, and in their haste may misinterpret. That contrasts with "do arbitrary unwritten rules prohibit me from doing this?" questions, where it may be worth thinking about whether the hypothesized rule even exists at all.

@R.M. got the message I wanted to convey. "not appropriate" = "this thing I'm saying may be interpreted as offensive or rude".

Terry Tao: tempting to just ignore all these “failed” lines of inquiry, actually they turn out to be essential to one’s deeper understanding (...) finally zeroing in on the correct way to proceed. So one should be unafraid to ask “stupid” questions, challenging conventional wisdom on a subject; the answers to these questions will occasionally lead to a surprising conclusion, but more often will simply tell you why the conventional wisdom is there in the first place, which is well worth knowing.

I would advise caution.   The particular example phrasing you suggest sounds off to me. A humorous way to connect your carpentry to your studies (other than that the one finances the other) might work.
Ask one of the professors writing you a letter of recommendation to comment on a draft.
I can report one instance where humor was acceptable. When I was department chair a friend and colleague coming up for tenure asked me to check his personal statement. He introduced his draft with this paraphrase of the personal ads common at the time:

Assistant Professor, 40, seeks permanent relationship with urban
university.

The department was small, the case was straightforward, and we decided it would be fine and fun to leave it. He was awarded tenure.

To me, that personal statement smacks of arrogance and rubs me the wrong way. There is no way to know how serious you are being, and I've known and interacted with many people who would say and mean such things quite seriously.

The answer is that humor at academic level should be philosophical. Anything else will be seen as at best immature and at worst dangerous to relations within the department.
You should be quietly proud of what you achieved through your self-supported studies to date. Not boastful, not embarrassed. So just state what needs to be said on how you supported yourself during study. You don't want people to see you as inferior - or willing to accept an inferior status in the new department.
I'm kind of like Matt Damon from good will hunting but just better looking and much smarter.
This is a real stupid sentence.

Never compare yourself with someone else - enough people will try to do that anyway without any prompting from you. Just present your study/work to date clearly and concisely.

Never EVER claim to be "smarter" than anyone else. We are all smart and stupid in some ways or others. Besides there's no agreed measures of what really constitutes intelligence in general as opposed to specific (rational, spatial, conceptual, emotional, social, etc) types of intelligence.

Never EVER EVER claim to be better-looking than anyone else. If you write like you don't yet realize that looks are largely a gift from nature and not something we can really cultivate beyond making the best of what we've got, then NO ONE will want you in ANY department.

I think your humor isn't yet mature enough for you to include it in an important letter of application.
And if it was perhaps you might be seen as someone who was trying to humorize/socialize his way into a new milieu: these people seldom do hard work and are lousy at supporting struggling colleagues.
Leave it out, man.
Better to show some courtesy, understanding and respect in the way that you phrase your letter. That opens a lot more doors than humor.

"Humor at the academic level should be philosophical" I think we've interacted with very different people in academia if you think that...

"humor at academic level should be philosophical. Anything else will be seen as at best immature". From genes named after Sonic the Hedgehog to the (completely intentional) innuendo of "black holes have no hair"; Academia is full of immature humour.

@Davidmh  Sadly, yes - that tendency is there in a free-thinking and tenured  environment. But should (or ought) it be so - I mean from the point of view of good faculty or faculty-student relations ? That's the perspective of a PI of a large group or a Head of Department. How much of this stuff is tolerable and when does it become a free-for-all ? This sort of thing breaking out in a letter of application or interview is a bad sign for things to come.

@Carl-Frederik  It looks like you interpret the words "should be" as meaning "likely to be". Colloquially this is a common connotation. But the primary meaning - and the one applied in my post - is "ought to be". Yes, lower forms of humor are more often observed in academia. And too often tolerated perhaps although it is often hard to change the habits of adults and impossible to get a dismissal on such grounds.

Whenever I deal with applications, I do my very best to ignore such stuff. It should really neither give an applicant an advantage nor a disadvantage. Where I currently am there is a points system where points are allocated to various features of an application. Humor is not one of them, and neither is "personality".
It may be that the process is different in some places, but I'd be very wary of making admission decisions in any way dependent on this kind of thing. It should be well known that all kinds of stuff is written in personal statements because applicants were advised that XXX makes a good impression (or they believe it without being advised) regardless of whether it has any relevant informative value, which it normally hasn't.
Ultimately I can't tell whether this kind of thing is ignored everywhere, but for sure it is in many places (and in my opinion it should).

I wasn't going to write an answer, but unusual that there are six answers that I mostly disagree with.
I would make two points:

I thought your joke was funny. Perhaps I am in the minority -- but maybe not, hard to tell from a handful of datapoints on one website.
While it's a little risky to use humor (people might not get it, and a few might even say "this is a real stupid sentence"), it's also risky to write a thoroughly boring, forgettable personal statement.

Overall, I would have to see the rest of the essay before I could confidently make a recommendation either way. And certainly you should work hard to get the phrasing and everything right. But personally, I find the negative reaction here a little extreme. While it's unlikely to have a significant effect in either direction, I would in general encourage writing an interesting, memorable essay -- if you find that humor is the best way you can do so, then fine.

It seems that you have watched Good Will Hunting. For those like me who have not, then the joke flies completely over my head and it comes across as annoying in a personal statement. The problem is not humour; the problem is that the humour has a high chance of not coming across as funny to whomever happens to read it, and so it would work against itself.

I think it's reasonably clear that OP is comparing themselves to a famous Hollywood actor, and someone who claims to be "much better looking" than a famous Hollywood actor is probably joking. Though I agree it's important to phrase the joke very carefully; awkward, confusing attempts at humor are regrettable.

I like the fact that you bring up the opposite risk of writing a boring/forgettable personal statement. The risks have extremely asymmetric consequences though! A forgettable personal statement is the norm and will not sink an application. But a personal statement that comes across as clueless or arrogant can definitely sink an application.

@cag51, yes, the general idea of the joke is clear, but for someone who has not watched the movie, the joke is simply not funny. An attempt at humour that does not come across as funny is not appreciated. On the contrary, it can be somewhat annoying to those who have not watched Good Will Hunting that the candidate expects us to have watched it to fully appreciate their personal statement. So, while some readers might appreciate the humour, it is likely that some might not. I don't think it is worth the risk.

I think it depends on what is your mental image of the person when you read that sentence. I know people that, if they were to write that, I am sure they would be joking; I know others that would be dead serious. The second group are really not fun to work with, and lacking any other indications, I don't know if I would risk it.

A lot of schools have a word limit on their SOPs. There is no way I'd personally use up space with quips like that but it's really up to you.
And while grad committees aren't supposed to evaluate with biases, if I were on that committee reading such a statement, I would question whether the applicant was taking themself and the situation seriously enough. You can show off your charm once you enter a program, but I don't necessarily think the joke shows a distinctive personality. Maybe that's because I'm from Boston where I hear quips like that far too often.
That said, I do think there are ways to inject personality into your statement. For me, that would be demonstrating passion and thought in your statement, and illustrating why anyone besides yourself should care about your pursuit of this degree.

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text:
How to submit an abstract for a conference?
I have recently composed an abstract for an upcoming conference. But, as this is my first time participating in an academic activity like this, I am not sure how to submit it.
Do I just write a cover letter and attach the abstract in the doc file?

Why not just email the organisers of the conference?

Each conference will have its own submission portal, likely some buggy piece of crap. Follow the instructions for the conference you are submitting to.
Likely, you will input your abstract into a text box (not submit a file), and you most likely will not have a cover letter. Conferences have to review a lot of abstracts and cover letters are just noise.


text:
How to shape your PhD under an incompetent supervisor?
I joined a PhD program in Germany 6 months ago. I have two supervisors here - one is a clinician and the other is from natural sciences background. I am really unhappy with the way I am being guided because really there is no guidance. The guy from the natural sciences background is my immediate supervisor. I have never seen him read any scientific papers. He also almost never participates in any scientific talks or conferences and even if he does his scientific work and presentation skills are sub-par. He never asks any scientific questions. The only inputs that I have received from him so far are regarding font size and margins.
Whenever I go to him with an idea, he says, 'Bravo! I was waiting for you to come up with this. I am really happy with your performance. Keep it up!' Initially, I thought that I am really a bright student but over time I realized that he says this for every idea of mine. I also tested him with absolutely rubbish ideas but his reaction remained the same.
Unfortunately, he has also hired other staff in the lab just as incompetent as him. All they want to do is finish their working hours and go home. Never have I received any scientific input from any of the post-docs or other lab members.
Now when I see presentations of other students, I get really worried because they are light years ahead of me. After asking them about how they manage to do such stellar work, they tell me that supervisor guides them to do so and also they also have lots of support from other members of the lab. As for improving their presentations, they often give mock seminars to their lab mates and receive a lot of valuable input from there.
Now, I do not want to be spoon-fed but nevertheless I need some guidance. I need someone to tell me if my line of thinking is right or wrong. I need someone who will point out flaws in my techniques. Neither my supervisor nor my lab mates can provide me this support. I got even more worried recently when a professor from another department clearly told me that I should continue in that lab only if my aim is to get a C grade PhD.
The thing is that I cannot change my current lab because I have already changed my lab once. The only way for me to get out of this mess is to make this work. Can someone suggest me on how to do good PhD given the above-mentioned circumstances? Thanks in advance.

Do you ever talk to your second supervisor? Can you try to work more closely with them and their lab?

Unfortunately, my other supervisor is a clinician and he hardly has any time to visit the lab. I have written to him several times but he never replies. He has delegated all the lab-related stuff to my immediate supervisor.

"I need someone to tell me if my line of thinking is right or wrong. I need someone who will point out flaws in my techniques. "
You just realized you are solely responsible for your ideas. You are lucky. It took years to other people, even not realizing that famous name being co-author on idea X does not mean that idea X is flawless or even significant.
On the other hand, you are in Germany. Are you employed in an university or research centre? if the second: look as soon as possible for a different academic advisor. You are free to pick them.

First, please realize that your position is not that bad. Your advisor is incompetent, but he also seems good-natured and supportive. That goes a long way. I used to work for a very incompetent professor, but this guy was the insecure type who would hide his mediocrity by pushing everybody down. His ideas were garbage and his advice always worse than useless.
The obvious answer is to change labs. You can change labs more than once. It's stressful, but the stress of working with an incompetent advisor will be much worse.
But assuming you really can't change labs: get someone to co-advise. In the experience I mentioned above, I soon realized that every other grad student in that lab was being "co-advised" by someone else, that is, someone else had taken the task of advising while the original professor kept the student as part of his lab (many reasons, including ego and funding.) The co-advisor can also be form another university. It's not a bad deal for them: they get to coauthor with you while someone else pays your stipend. They might even invite you to do mock presentations with them, etc. This is very common. In every research group I've belonged, there were always people (students/postdocs/visiting researchers) hanging around, socializing with our students and postocs and getting informal advice.
In my case, I did the co-advising thing, then never again spoke with my old advisor -- he was really useless. A semester later, I asked the new advisor if he could be my primary and the old one secondary, as that allowed the first one to save face. The next semester I fully changed research groups. Best decision of my life.
Another alternative is to make friends with postdocs. In my experience, they are all ready to start the role of advisor, and will welcome the interaction.
But again, keep in mind that your position is not ideal, but also not terrible.

He sounds like he has a permanent position and has given up any intellectual work.
If you are early in your PhD I would suggest to change positions, and find an advisor that is actively engaged in research (both in terms of keeping up with papers, but also participating in conferences and generating ideas).
Otherwise you will end up struggling to generate new research ideas and direction yourself, which even if it works will be sub-optimal compared to other colleagues that have a supportive supervisor that guides them and are also working themselves.
You need a supervisor who will both support your ideas like your current, but who will also provide you sufficient intellectual challenge to push you further. By simply telling you bravo, without asking any further questions (either on-spot or after some days after some thought) your advisor is not pulling their weight to properly guide your research.
I would say for your sanity and your future mental health, either try to see whether the 2nd advisor can be more actively engaged in guiding you, otherwise RUN. Or try to find some 3rd external advisor that might be more tricky to make the other 2 accept them and their ideas.

What does age have to do with it? I'm old. I can still think. I can still write.

You are right! It is only more common to find older professors closer to retirement to be already intellectually retired. But I didn't want to imply that EVERY older prof. provides poor supervision.

"Is he old? He sounds like he has a permanent position and has given up any intellectual work." The important part is the last sentence of this excerpt. The question is even offensive.
Plus, if start straight with the question "Has he given up any intellectual work?" the meaning of your answer would be exactly the same.

There are at least two strategies that (may) work. I know successful examples of both (same incompetent advisor!). A caveat: I am a mathematician and things might/will be different in other fields.

A graduate student X arrived with a well-formed research plan. The student was fairly independent, and wrote a strong thesis (which eventually became a book) without any help from his advisor, found a postdoctoral position after PhD, now is a full professor in a top-50 university in the US.

A student Y published a couple of papers in rather obscure math journals while with the same advisor, from who he did not learn anything. (The advisor contributed nothing to the papers except for putting his name in the list of authors.) By the 4th year of studies, Y realized that he will finish with a thesis but his prospects afterwards will be very bleak since math they are learning is very shallow. Then Y applied to other PhD programs, got admitted to one in my department (I was on the admissions committee and understood student's situation quite well). The student then switched to a different (but somewhat related) research area. After his thesis defense, the student got a tenure-track position, now is a full professor...

In both cases students were strong enough to self-evaluate the quality of their papers.


text:
Do admissions committees consider financial aspects of the candidate?
Recently, I posted a question about including humor in a personal statement for PhD school applications. In this question, I mentioned that I work full-time as a carpenter, in addition to working towards a master's degree. A comment expressed that one possible concern of the admissions committees' may be my ability to successfully live on the stipend offered and not attempt to seek jobs outside of my TA duties (which I understand is not allowed).
Some background information:

My master's is not funded nor do I receive any financial support from the school or my PI
I work full time to cover the costs of tuition in order to avoid taking out loans in addition to the costs of commuting or other costs associated with attendance

Questions

Does my choice to work full-time, in addition to the fact that I work in a field far removed from my field of study, raise any red flags or make admissions committees question my ability to be a successful graduate student?

If the above is true, do I leave out this information about working in my personal statement/CV?

Currently, my statement mentions "I work since my education is self-funded" (not the exact wording). Does this statement suffice or is a more explicit explanation needed?

I don't think a US university can restrict outside employment unless you're on a visa or it's a conflict of interest but, admittedly, it's been a long time since I was a TA and it may depend on the university. I'm not trying to discourage living on a stipend.

@mkennedy outside employment is usually restricted for those students with fellowships.

@mkennedy: I ran out of money in the middle of Summer 1989 (while also studying for my Ph.D. qualifying exams to be given in mid-August) and wound up working here from approximately early July to early or mid October (except for a week off when quals taken). I was originally working full-time until school started again, and I began receiving my TA money again (a rather generous "2/3 time" assistantship). However, I stayed on for 14-16 hours weekend (7 AM to mid-afternoon) (continued)

work because I liked the fast pace and break from graduate courses and studying, and although it might not seem much (minimum wage), the little bit extra was extremely helpful financially. Also, the manager really liked my work (I'd worked in the same capacity for the same company several previous times throughout the 1980s) and he wanted me to stay if I could, and it was a short walking distance from where I was living at the time. (continued)

But then one day in October an office mate of mine said he thought he saw me working in the back when he was at the store one time, and said I could risk losing my TA for doing this. I discretely inquired about this to some other people, and found that I had to quit. For what it's worth, I don't think my Ph.D. advisor or the director of graduate studies at this time ever found out about this, and I don't think I've ever mentioned it online before now.

Correction: This was Summer 1990, and July-October 1990 (not 1989).

@Dawn and Dave L Renfro  I looked at a few universities before posting my comment. VT and MIT's DMSE do not restrict people with assistanceships from other employment unless there was a conflict of interest like a professor's outside company, fellowship/grant organization or certain visas. Other universities do restrict outside employment like Marquette. UConn says you have to get your advisor's permission. Like most things in the US, it depends!

@mkennedy, it does depend but I think those you have cited are more of an exception. For instance UCLA and Duke both restrict outside working hours. This was actually part of a recent question on Academia

A department that is somehow evaluating candidates on their ability to live on their stipend is seriously out of whack

I think the important distinction is between doing “outside” work as a Masters student and doing such work as a PhD student.
There are benefits to mentioning in a statement of personal history that you worked full time while pursuing previous degrees. The academy needs more people who come from middle-class and working-class backgrounds, and this conveys that information. It also makes previous performance more impressive.
You should not work full time during a PhD. This will raise red flags. PhD should be funded by the department.

Very few doctoral admissions systems in the US would bother to consider this. The stipends, along with tuition remission, are considered adequate and they normally are for anyone with a frugal lifestyle. The doctoral education system, including TA and RA positions is intended (at least) to be able to support its students adequately (adequately).
But, if you'd rather be a carpenter than a TA, it will be difficult unless you work for billionaires, since without a TA you probably pay tuition, which can be very high; somewhere around the US medium income, IIRC.
So, what they want is someone who is likely to be successful and to not waste university (faculty) resources. Some "outside" interests and commitments can actually work against you in this regard.
Saying that you have worked on your own to support past education, however, is probably a plus since it shows commitment. But don't focus on this in a Statement of Purpose, which should be about the future, not the past.

Thank you for this. Carpentry is just a means to an end. I would give it up in a heartbeat if I could find funding. I added a single sentence in my PS about it to explain the situation.

Obtaining a TA is pretty ubiquitous in the US if you are accepted, especially in STEM fields. In fact in most any field that has required intro courses in the undergrad program. TAs perform a valuable service and are needed, most especially in T1 institutions that want faculty to focus elsewhere.

Interestingly, my current institution was struggling to find more TA's. I offered to help but was denied because I was an M.S. student and not a PhD student.

Search on this site for info on PHD funding. The general rule is not to accept a non-funded PhD.


text:
When writing a letter of recommendation for a student, should I explicitly mention where former students of a similar calibre were admitted to?
I am a professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US. My department is fortunate enough to have a wonderful group of math majors, many of whom go on to graduate school each year. Consequently, each year I write quite a few letters of recommendation for students applying to (generally US based) PhD programs in mathematics.
I only agree to write letters of recommendation for students if I believe that I will be able to write them a strong letter. In the past I would never compare students (to either current or former students) in my letters, unless it was part of some sort of superlative statement of the form "X is the strongest student in their class / that we have had for several years / etc."
This year I decided to try to be more direct, thinking that doing so might be of value both to the students and to the admissions committees reading my letters. I therefore added a paragraph at the end of my letter explaining that approximately 25% of our students go to graduate school each year, that the top student or two tend to be admitted to schools such as (elite) University X, University Y, University Z, and that the median student in this 25% cohort tends to be admitted to a school whose math department is excellent but perhaps not quite as highly ranked as the previous schools. I then say that the student I am writing the letter for is, in my opinion, most similar to recent students that went on to study at University A and University B.
On the one hand, my hope is that this kind of directness will help students be admitted to departments where they will thrive. On the other hand, there are many potential downsides to such directness. It is possible that making these sort of explicit comparisons make my letter too determinative, that places at the level of Universities A and B will view this comparison negatively, etc.
I have never been on a graduate school admissions committee however, so I am very curious to hear from people who have. (Ideally at a US based math department.) How would you interpret the sort of explicit comparisons I described above? Is doing so a mistake on my part, or does it help admissions committees distinguish between the many different types of students that all have "positive" letters of recommendation?

I would phrase it differently. The part about the "median student" and "not quite as highly" worries me. And the part about "is admitted to" or "went to schools" isn't really optimal.
Instead, I'd say something like "Maria's performance and academic characteristics here has been as good or better than some other recent graduates who went to places like X and Y and who excelled there".
Pick X and Y to be schools of similar or higher rank, and, hopefully you know enough about what happens to students later to be able to say such things honestly. Don't oversell it, though. If you say that Maria will probably be accepted at MIT (Cambridge) then some "lesser" school might decide to offer a slot to someone more likely to take it.
I'm not as concerned about the brag, though: 25% of our graduates...
However, put the emphasis on the student, not on the characteristics of your own institution, even though it is good.

I think that's a nice idea.  The calibration of letters by reviewers isn't always easy, and anything a recommender  can do to help with that should be appreciated.
I wouldn't go over the top with it, or prioritize it over including something more important if you are, for some reason, space limited, but I do believe a sentence or two, perhaps phrased as in Buffy's answer would be a welcome addition.

Is doing so a mistake on my part?

Yes. Forget about admission processes. Write a recommendation letter discussing the merit of the student as a scholar/academic - and that's that. Don't go into assessment engineering and statistics. If it helps, pretend your recipient is a recluse academic in another country (who doesn't know about any university system) who's looking to choose an apprentice.


text:
Can I mention my current grad school in my PS for PhD application to other schools?
I am currently a master's student at upenn, and I am trying to apply for phd in other schools. Would it be okay if I explicitly mention upenn in personal statement because I was trying to talk about a specific lab I've been working in here

Can you clarify why you think it might not be okay?

I thought it could give away too much personal info and potentially bias a reviewer's decision?

Well, personal information is pretty much what they are looking for. Knowing UPenn, your lab likely has a good reputation so that reflects well on you and your abilities.

@Lleryomof Are you applying to schools that have ablind application process somehow?

Yes! You should absolutely mention your lab, the names of the people you work with and the university at which you are studying/researching. I would find it extremely odd if a research statement or CV did not include any of those details.
Networking is extremely important in academia. In fact, I think it's the single most important component to a successful career, or at least to getting a position (PhD/postdoc/permanent). Some people realise this too late, and have a lot of problems getting a postdoc after their PhD, for example.
In a comment you said you are worried about giving away too much personal information, and biasing a reviewer's opinion. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to conduct an academic career anonymously. People need to know who you are and what you are working on. It's like word association: they need to see the name Lleryomof and instantly think Mating habits of three-toed sloths... or whatever your research topic may be. As you get further on in your career, this association will become automatic, as you write papers, give talks, and visit other institutions (i.e. networking).
Regarding biasing a reviewer's opinion -- well, you want to do that, don't you? In your favour! That's the goal of any application -- convince the person hiring that you're the best person for the job. One great way to do that in this case is tell them about all the cool research you have been doing during your Master's degree at an internationally renowned university, UPenn.
Make sure you get a lab mate (maybe a friendly PhD student or postdoc) and your Master's supervisor to look over your application and give you feedback before you submit it.


text:
What if date on recommendation letter is wrong?
I received a letter of recommendation from my internship coordinator and the year  the letter is dated to says 2021 instead of 2022. It clearly seems like a mistake but I’m worried that it will render the letter invalid since it looks like it was from over a year ago when it was written a just a few days ago.
Since my internship coordinator was the one who submitted it, does it really matter if the date is wrong?

I would always keep some kind of written evidence (Emails, texts), for anything, even though it may not matter. It doesn't hurt to clarify about the mistake to your coordinator.

Who is the target audience of the letter?

Nobody is going to notice, and whoever does will not care. It's not a question for you to spend emotional energy on: mistakes happen, move on.

Are you sure about this? I'm under the impression that the older a recommendation letter is, the less weight it carries. By implication, the date on the recommendation letter matters.

@Allure my assumptions is, OP received email with the letter attached from the coordinator, to notify OP that the coordinator already submitted his recommendation to whoever needed it. As the coordinator themselves submitted the letter, I doubt that it matters that much, but if it were up to me, I would ask for clarification.

@Allure I am certain that 80% of readers will not notice the mistake. And the other 20% will realize that the letter was uploaded to the portal two weeks ago by the letter writer and that the year-old date is therefore, in all likelihood, a mistake,

Just send them an e-mail back letting them know about the issue. Probably they have sent out multiple letters whilst forgetting to update the date, so they might be happy to be notified so they can correct it for everyone.


text:
How to reply to an email from Professor asking for the progress on assignments?
I didn't write any of the assignments, and the professor has now sent an email asking me about the progress of the assignments. I don't wish to submit the assignments for reasons I cannot explain. I know it will cost me an "F," but I cannot make sense of how to write the professor an email. If I write back to them that I don't want to submit it, there is a chance that the professor might inquire about the reason. So what should be an appropriate way to write an email to the professor without coming off as rude and without them getting into the details? (It is not that something is off with the course or with the instructor that I am not submitting the assignments. The professor has been the most accommodating to the students in the class and is a good teacher.)

If you had more flexibility on timing, would you be able to submit the assignments? If you don't submit them, will you fail only the assignments or the entire course?

No. Time was not an issue; I was planning not to submit the assignments from the start. The course is pretty easy and straightforward; I scored above dev in one submitted response, even without doing any readings. I will fail the course by not submitting the assignments.

Why take a course that you plan to fail?

Not the only course. But I wasn't expecting that this course professor would send an email.

That doesn't really answer my question - why are you taking this course if you plan to fail it?

Don't know.....

Okay, well, it seems like a concerning behavior so I think it's quite understandable that the instructor is concerned. Sometimes a student might want to take a class to get exposed to the course material but they aren't actually interested in "credit" or a grade for the course; this was called "auditing" a course in my institutions, which formalizes the agreement between student and instructor/institution that the student is not planning to complete course assignments or exams (they may complete these anyways if they and their instructor agree, but no grade is given at the end).

I agree with @BryanKrause that the instructor is in all likelihood concerned about your well being. (S)he is doing the right thing in not trying to help you with your problems, there are professionals for that, but instead focus on if anything can be done to let you succeed in her/his course.

You could just say that "for private and personal reasons" you won't be submitting the assignment. Apologize if you think it best. "Sorry to disappoint you" or whatever feels right. You can also thank them for their concern.
You don't need to explain yourself.

Would it be OK if I don't reply at all? The professor will forget about it in their busy schedule?

Actually, you should reply. It will take the item off the professors to do list.

Indeed, not replying only makes them more concerned about the OP.

I would add  - acknowledge that this will likely cause you to fail.


text:
Is it normal to reject a peer-reviewed paper and then reject it after accepting it without specifying the exact reasons?
It seems that a paper has been peer-reviewed and then rejected again, which is weird:

An "independent, internal review" had "identified a number of issues
with the peer-review and revision process," a new note reads, leading
the editors to put the paper on hold and "examine whether the editors
can rectify the problems." Podvig declined to elaborate but says: "In
hindsight we probably should have sent it to a different set of
reviewers."

Is this normal, and also, can a journal reject a paper without giving the exact reasons as to why it was done? The paper in question was being held back following an “independent internal review of the editorial process” which threw up unidentified “issues” with the peer-review and revision process, but they didn't specify what they were. The non-transparency is a cause for concern and seems to be very unusual.

This question appears to be far less about the peer review process and more about prompting a discussion about the paper described in the linked article, and that's not going to be on-topic here.

irrespective of the paper in question:
(1) "it has been peer-reviewed and then rejected again, which is weird" - not really..
(2) "can a journal reject a paper without giving the exact reasons as to why it was done?" - yes - they can do pretty much whatever they want

Voting to reopen because the question as-asked doesn't ask about the details of the paper.

@Allure Yes, it does. It references some political process and mystery specific to this paper, and OP is posting elsewhere on the network about this issue with Syria, that's their interest, not academic norms.

@BryanKrause no, the question is It seems that it has been peer-reviewed and then rejected again, which is weird. Is this normal, and also, can a journal reject a paper without giving the exact reasons as to why it was done? which is a question about academic norms. If you're basing your decision to close this on what Sayaman has been doing elsewhere on the network, I'd say that's ad hominen. Furthermore, being interested in this particular political process ought to not preclude one from asking questions about it.

Meta discussion about this question.

@Allure thank you, you can remove the context if you want, I just want the question answered.

@Sayaman I went ahead and removed the parts with the most accusatory and loaded language. What remains is, as Allure said, an answerable question about publishing.

There're a couple of questions in the OP:

Is this normal?

No, it's not normal. Most papers are not rejected after they are accepted. However, it can happen. One relatively common reason for this is plagiarism detected after acceptance. Similarly, other kinds of academic misconduct can result in such rejection, e.g. if one of the co-authors write in saying they didn't consent to their name being on the paper.
However, it's also worth pointing out that many papers are retracted after publication. In terms of the end state, this is effectively the same as rejecting it after acceptance. It's common for papers to be retracted if their validity is contested. Wrong papers will often stay published, but if the flaws are such that it should arguably never have been published in the first place, then retraction can happen. See Wikipedia.

Can a journal reject a paper without giving the exact reasons as to why it was done?

Journals can pretty much do whatever they want - nothing is published without the editors' consent, after all. But it's rare to reject a paper without giving reasons. Usually the editor will say at least something, even when the paper is desk rejected without review.
Finally:

The paper in question was being held back following an “independent internal review of the editorial process” which threw up unidentified “issues” with the peer-review and revision process, but they didn't specify what they were. The non-transparency is a cause for concern and seems to be very unusual.

This is pretty normal whenever there's a peer review failure. (What is unusual is there being a peer review failure in the first place.) In this scenario, the editor/publisher will investigate what exactly happened. Questions such as who handled the paper, who reviewed the paper, what exactly did they say, are they qualified to review the paper, etc. are all critical ones to answer. An "independent review" of the editorial process generally means someone who isn't involved in the original peer review now looks over the editor's work to see if it's up to standard. Since "issues" were discovered, the original work was probably not up to standard. The result - the paper being rejected - is a sign that in the new person's opinion, the paper should not have been published in the first place.
As for transparency: it's common to not reveal what exactly happened in the peer review process. Peer review is anonymous for a reason. If you reveal what happened, then you break anonymity, with a variety of possible results. You might be able to reveal some details (example) but if the people involved don't want to be named, then their identities really need to be kept under wraps.


text:
Can I get accepted into a PhD program in Electrical & Computer Engineering with an MS in Computer Science?
I am wondering if it's a wise idea to apply for a PhD in electrical & computer engineering (I believe if i take this route, i would need to take pre-requisites before being accepted into the program) or continue on with Computer Science? Any advise or insight will be valuable.

Which country? every country has a different system.  For example, some universities may not accept you as a PhD student if you don't have an EE background.  You also need to find a suitable supervisor who has a research area suitable for you.  He/she may require a certain background.

@Prof.SantaClaus thank you for your reply! I'm in the U.S. I see, so the research interests should align with the supervisor.

From a UK perspective, the individual programme will set the requirements, so check with the graduate schools and prospective supervisors who are advertising PhD places that you are interested in.
It's in everybody's interest that you are equipped to complete the project that you take on, so having a frank discussion about what your knowledge and skills are and how that will fit before you apply will be important.
You might find (as I did) that the school suggests a short taught programme before starting a PhD, or perhaps they can alter the project to fit your own interests if you are a good candidate and the new direction is one they are interested in.

Thank you @George Savva for your thoughtful reply. I'm realizing how complex the process is with both finding the right supervisor/ and seeing what skills will benefit the research project if I were selected in a lab that is intertwined with my interests.


text:
How should I deal with rejection from a place that, arguably, exploited me?
Long story short, in September 2021, I was hired as an associate lecturer at a British university. I was headhunted for the position. Since I was about to finish my PhD and I needed some experience, I decided to put myself forward.
I covered for a colleague who was on research leave. I became the interim coordinator of the MA programme and took responsibility for all the teaching, MA supervision, and administrative work.
The Department repeatedly asked me for many favours (covering for colleagues on sick leave, taking on marking, etc.), usually at very short notice. I accepted, even at the expense of my mental health. I delivered. The students were very happy with my performance and both the head of the department and my colleague were complimentary to me.
So, in November 2022, the department decides to advertise a permanent position. My only colleague strongly encouraged me to apply. It was basically to do the same job I had been doing but permanently. I listened to my colleague and went for it.
A few weeks later, I was invited to interview. Both my colleague and the head of the department were in the panel. I attended the interview and answered all their questions. They said they were really impressed. However, after days of silence and deliberation, they decided to offer the job to someone else.
My colleague got in touch with me shortly afterwards to give me 'a massive thank you' and told me that the decision they had to make was very difficult. Apparently, I was a very close 'second'. I now feel upset and disappointed. I kept the programme running when no one else was available.
I've applied for jobs in the past. Sometimes, I made it to the interview stage. I've dealt with rejection before (it's part of the process), but the feeling here is quite different. I feel I've been let down. Am I being unreasonable?

I’m voting to close this question because this feels more like a rant than a question.

"The Department repeatedly asked me for many favours (covering for colleagues on sick leave, taking on marking, etc), usually at very short notice. I accepted, even at the expense of my mental health. I delivered. " I am sick of hearing these stories of hardworking people. Hard working is the other side of exploitation. The head of dept can be the nicest person on the Earth, but it remains exploitation.

What would an answer be? You are upset. Maybe (probably) for good reasons maybe not: we don't know.

I don't think this is a rant. It is quite concise actually, and ends with sensible questions.

@Angus: Could you please elaborate on the nature of the "headhunting" process ?

@Trunk: They needed someone to keep the programme running. The recruiting process was a bit opaque, but I put myself forward and was offered the job on a fixed-term contract. They said they couldn't guarantee another renewal of my contract after a year, so I started looking for jobs elsewhere. Even after being offered a part-time job at a much better university, I bailed them out once more (for another 6 months) when the person I had replaced in my first year went on leave again. I had to make a lot of adjustments to make it work. Hence my frustration when I wasn't offered the job in the end.

@Trunk: Anyway, thanks for your answers. I have decided to turn the page and focus on my work. That's all that matters now. Even though this left me in a precarious position, I'm not jobless, and I will come out of this stronger.

@EarlGrey: Perhaps it has worked for you, but for recent PhD graduates like me "not being exploited" is often not an option if you want to pay the bills. In an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. My mental health issues have nothing to do with these favours, by the way. I had to take on this job to pay the bills, making a lot of adjustments to make it work, especially considering that I have another part-time job.

@MaartenBuis: Thanks for your empathy. It helps to hear from others' experiences, especially when you're an early career academic looking for some guidance. But don't worry, I won't ask again. Have a good day.

@Sursula-they-: Thanks. :)

@Angus "Even after being offered [...] I bailed them out once more" I guess it is all here: you are not saving anyone, you did not bail them out, you put yourself in an even deeper hole.
The sooner you realize you are paying the bills for someone else, the better. Stop setting your value lower than it is. Stop contributing to the exploitation. You are a PhD graduate, you already did your contribution to science (and probably education) it is time to stop being the slave of  "progress of humanity". Because doning right the right thing is not a goal, it's a process.

@Angus  I still don't see how senior staff at Dept X at UoA just happens to ask you at Dept Y at UoB. Are we to assume that UoA and UoB senior staff know each other's research interests and swap qualified PhDs and fellows ? But I'm glad to read that you are gainfully employed elsewhere.

You needed experience, you got experience.  Sounds like a successful venture to me.  You should probably make sure that experience is well represented in your application portfolio, hammering it home by lining up solid recommendations, and then continue applying for jobs.
Be wary of letting your disappointment trick you into burning your bridges.

OP is unlikely to trust that department's emissaries again (would you ?) so bridge-burning is inevitable. The rest I agree with.

@Trunk -- why wouldn't he trust the department??  He competed for a job and lost.  He needs the goodwill of that department for a recommendation.  Screwing up that rec, which should have some really nice things in it, like "this junior faculty member had and met substantial responsibilities, such as the acting directorship of our MA program".  The original poster's job search will be better for having that strong rec.  If he feels like he needs to hate the department for the rest of his life, so be it, but that feeling should be kept close to the chest so as to avoid burning bridges.

The reference is a given I think - if only to soften his fall to earth. I don't see OP applying or being headhunted by that department again. Emotional betrayal has consequences.

Trust me, the tone and level of enthusiasm of the letter is not a given.

Then he may get his white collar union to make it so. And they do in the UK.

This is quite common for UK Universities. They are under-resourced and run off staff goodwill. Covering for each other is a good strategy for established staff, but early career academics on precarious posts often find this exchange a little bit one-sided. You are right to feel let down. Many of your colleagues feel or felt the same at some point.
I am sorry you find yourself in this place. You are not alone.

You were hired in an interim basis to fulfil a job and you were paid to deliver. From the description you delivered well and even exceeded the job expectations. It is difficult to judge what is right or wrong about 'asked favours'. I would say it is inappropriate to expect that favours will ensure you getting a position that was transparently advertised and, hopefully, transparently granted.
How can you deal with it?

Make sure you get a comprehensive letter of recommendation that includes all your work delivered and even highlights the extra work you have done.

Remain on good terms with your superiors, finish your work professionally and let them know that you might provide their contact details as references for future job applications.

If you do not want to 'feel' exploited, set the boundaries of your job and please, do not compromise your mental health ever. Instead, identify tools to better deal with such situations. Whatever you can learn from your current employment will enrich your experience and prepare you better for future situations.

If you deliver 'extra' work, you might be entitled to ask for additional benefits such as a training course, etc. leading to a win-win situation.

Are you familiar with UK academia? The answer seems to be written from US perspective.

I don’t think the hiring was on an interim basis. I think they took on secondary duties on an interim basis.

I would edit some of this. But the boundary setting is good advice.

Yes. The reference obtained from that employer must be unequivocally positive about OP's professional commitment and character. It can't have anything hinting at reservations about OP.

I think that in the recent past your having filled in with aplomb would make you a shoe-in for that permanent vacancy.
But today there are so many candidates for each permanent vacancy that hiring departments can always go for the "fresh veg".
You are naturally aggrieved. While no quid pro quo was spelled out in relation to the permanent job, you did everything you could to show your loyalty and flexibility. What's more, you applied for the job after a specific request from a colleague acting on behalf of the department.
Ethically it's the equivalent of a breach-of-promise in the days of our grandparents. But you would be unfair to yourself to brood too much on these kind of people. You have to keep positive for the next opportunity and give the benefit of the doubt to the next potential employer. But you must also learn to protect your own emotional investment in a job and ensure you get what is merited from such commitment. Precisely how to do this is your own call but I imagine very frank conversations must be had before any effort "over and above the call of duty" is to be entertained again.
What deselected you was quite possibly the HoD (and his emissary "colleague" of yours) that didn't want to live with someone who got them out of an embarrassing academic situation rather than any superiority of the chosen candidate.
Right now it's little consolation to you but the carry-on of your last temporary employer will soon catch up with them.
Commiserations and I hope you have a Christmas free of stressful ingratitude.

Is it really a breach of promise though? Was there really an unspoken agreement that the OP will obtain a permanent position in exchange for being willing to disregard their mental health and provide unlimited free labor for the department, or was the OP simply hoping that this was the deal? I don't know how British academia works specifically, but just because you never say no (in the silent hope that this will oblige other people to give you job) does not actually oblige anyone to give you a job.

No it doesn't oblige them to employ you in any legal sense of course. But the original deal was for OP to replace Prof X on research leave. The many and short-order added work was not part of the original deal. Doing them creates an ethical obligation. It is also a living testimony to OP's flexibility and dedication to academic work. Other candidates will have fellowships and only references to what they can do teaching and supervision-eise. All in all he got used. They hired a willing but  disposable staff member. It happens too often and the cynicism of it all is offensive.

@AdamPřenosil It does not oblige them. But OP was good enough to replace a Prof in moment of need. And then OP was not good enough to keep them permanently despite excellent performance and commendations. This is wrong.

@Trunk I am talking about ethical obligations too. "The many and short-order added work was not part of the original deal." That's right. But nowhere did the OP say that they couldn't refuse this work. Yes, if someone was waving the promise of a permanent position in front of the OP to entice them to take on extra work, then that's highly unethical. But it's equally consistent with what the OP wrote that they didn't know how to say no (as heavily suggested by: "I accepted even at the expense of my mental health") and the idea that this entitled them to obtain the position was their own.

Note that we're talking about a period of 1 year here, not someone giving their best to the department for 5 years and then being rejected. It doesn't exactly stretch the imagination that a stronger candidate was chosen despite the fact that they might be less willing to do all this extra work and despite the fact that the OP's colleagues may well have been genuinely inclined to hire the OP. Honestly, not being willing to say no to any request to the extent that it impacts your mental health is in the long term probably not the great advantage at work that the OP imagines it to be.

All true. But it's also true to say that had OP refused the additional duties - or the more strenuous ones even - then he'd be certain not to be appointed to a permanent position. And neither would he obtain a good reference - a strong deterrent in itself for OP to accept the additional duties despite the extra stress. But I think we both know why OP was not appointed whatever the claims of the appointed applicant. OP has learned a hard lesson in academic psychology.


text:
How long does it take for a German university roughly to finalize the selection process of an STEM faculty position?
In STEM fields, US universities often spend 5+ months to finalize their decisions on assistant professorship positions, while UK universities do the same in almost a month. where do German universities lie in this spectrum?
In particular, I had submitted an application to a German university whose deadline was Sept. 15, 2022. I chased my application yesterday, and the secretary of the rektor told me

... thank you very much for your message. At the moment, I can only tell
you that the work of the commission is not finished yet. We will
contact you as soon as there is news.

According to the timing I cited above, is it likely that they have already conducted their interviews and those "news" would be just about rejection, or German universities are generally slow like Americans and there is a chance that they have not yet decided whom to be interviewed?

Oh well... do not expect it to be fast. In my experience, it can take ages, 5+ months is not unthinkable. It depends on a lot of individual factors, though. A neighboring institute here has been looking for a new head for 6 years now and managed to arrange two rounds of interviews during this whole time... that is a rather extreme example, of course, with a lot of 'politics' involved.

@Snijderfrey: Thanks for the comment. (This position in an (entry-level) W1 professorship.)

In that case, you may find this relevant: Academic Hiring Process and Practices for Junior Professors in Germany

German universities are, at least traditionally, rather slow with hiring processes. However, you would expect that state 1 - inviting people for interviews - happens relatively timely. Rejections, however, are usually only sent out after the whole process is concluded, which might well take a year (or more, if one or several candidates decline). Some places are nice and at least inform you that as of now, you are not actively considered, i.e. invited, but this is not very standard, I believe.

This varies a lot, but it may be slower that you think. From my experience it can take anything between 6 months and three years (really) to fill the position. In the majority of cases, the position was filled between 6 and twenty months after the closing of the deadline.
The time between the deadline and the interviews is usually between three weeks and a few months, but occasionally it may even be longer. Unfortunately, nobody will tell you if you are still considered for the position (i.e. if you are still in the game or not). I find this very unfortunate, but universities in Germany are very strict about this and all members in hiring committees are told multiple times that they shall not "leak" any information of the process to anybody not in the committee…


text:
May I use a CC BY-SA 4.0 image (own work) for an open access journal article under CC BY 4.0?
Some years ago I uploaded some images to Wikimedia commons and selected "own work". That images were uploaded under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.
However, the journal (in which I am attempting to publish an article) uses a CC BY 4.0 license.
My question is, may I use this CC BY-SA 4.0 image in the CC BY 4.0 publication?
Here is the example of an article in another journal who did a similar thing.
Hsieh C-L, Yu C-C, Huang Y-L
and Chung K-F (2022) Mahonia vs.
Berberis Unloaded: Generic
Delimitation and Infrafamilial
Classification of Berberidaceae Based
on Plastid Phylogenomics.
Front. Plant Sci. 12:720171.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.720171

Unfortunately my target journal has not a documentation or statement regarding use of creative commons image. I need to know the general or internationally accepted rules regarding such scenario.
Update: The creative commons page
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/ShareAlike_compatibility clearly states that

What does one-way or two-way compatibility mean?
One-way compatibility means that you may adapt work under one license (X) and apply a second license (Y) to your own contributions, but you may not adapt work under the Y license and apply the X license to your contributions. For example, CC BY is one-way compatible with BY-SA. You may adapt a BY work and apply BY-SA to your contributions, but you may not adapt a BY-SA work and apply BY to your contributions.
Two-way compatibility means that you may adapt work under one license (X) and apply a second license (Y), and vice versa.

This makes me really scared - like do i need to add a CC BY 4.0 license on those media files? and as @Ian's answer suggests, should I directly submit the image without a mention that these images were appeared on Wikimedia?

Your quote is intended to inform other people about their rights. You never gave up any of your own rights when you licensed your photos.

@Ian kindly make it clear that may I just withheld in the journal  that the image appeared in wikimedia commons. In case it is mandatory to mention, what is the proper format or language to write so?

Some years ago I uploaded some images to Wikimedia

I have bolded the most important word in this question. You own the images. You provided Wikimedia and the rest of the world a license to use your images provided they give you attribution and share alike.
However, you did not sign away your rights to those images.
From Creative Commons:

Every license helps creators — we call them licensors if they use our tools — retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially. [Emphasis added]

They are yours to do whatever you want.
This includes releasing the images under a more permissive license. CC BY SA 4.0 requires that "adaptations must be shared under the same terms", or shared alike.
In contrast, the license required by the publisher, CC BY 4.0, does not require sharing alike, making it less restrictive.

You should reference the images to avoid any appearance of self-plagiarism.

Hmmm. misleading. The OP has actually already licensed those to you and to me through the commons. We can share and adapt them. Subsequent publication doesn't take those rights away from you and I.

Then a CC license means nothing at all. It would have to be individually granted to each entity. Yes, you hold copyright, but a CC license says you don't retain "all" rights afterwards. And wikimedia commons would be entirely worthless.

@Ian yes, you can relicense the work to anyone you want, but if I already have a license to use the image, the question author cannot revoke or modify the license after the fact (which is part of the CC license).

You seem to imply that you and I have no license at all since they were licensed "to Wikimedia". And that a publisher could enforce a more restive license.

Your mistake is that it isn't wikimedia or the publisher itself that wants to modify (etc) the image. It is that the public at large has that right and may want to enjoy it. The license is to the public at large. That is the essence of wikimedia and CC.

If I give a restrictive license to A and then a general CC permissive license, then A can also take advantage of the permissions. You can loosen, not tighten restrictions.

as Buffy's answer makes clear, you are most definitely within your legal rights to license your image to anyone you want, under any license, regardless which licenses you already gave out. But the journal may not be happy that your image is also available under a different license (which essentially makes the CC-BY license useless as long as you know about the other one).

You are confusing holding copyright with "retaining all rights". A license specifically gives away rights. You can't have it both ways.

Actually CC licenses are "sticky". A derived work can't impose restrictions. It needs to be CC BY-SA 4.0 or more permissive still. Neither the journal nor the OP can take back rights already given.

Kindly see my update

Generally, once you have given a permissive license to the public you can no longer restrict it. The publisher would need to know about the SA license that the work already carries.
My best guess is that you can use it and the publisher will agree. I doubt that they would reject a paper on that basis alone.
It might be a bit weird, however, if they don't actually say the image is CC BY-SA, but anyone else knowing the permissive terms can use the image without violating license. Your image seems to make it clear. Hopefully the publisher won't obfuscate it.
But you need to inform the publisher. They will work it out with you. But if you fail to inform them then there will be issues.
I'm going to guess here that the publisher will be happy enough since they are open access. The reason that they use CC-BY and not CC-BY-SA is that they want to let you retain rights to derivative works rather than, themselves, taking that retention right away through a more permissive license. But you've already done that.

Kindly see the update


text:
Are the ombudsman's decisions of German universities legally binding?
I was accused of academic and administrative misconduct by one of my students several months ago in Germany. Finally, it was proved that I was innocent and there was no wrong doing on my side.
Now, this student is sending around e-mails (under a fake name, but I know who is the sender) and he is defaming me that I'm a fraudster and a thief. Our university, as a whole, has a plan to initiate a lawsuit against this person. As a person who is defamed, I also want to take this student to court. My questions is: Can I prove my innocence to the court by invoking the ombudsman's results? Or, will court ask for a new investigation by involving other universities?

This should probably be migrated to Law.SE. Procedural questions like this could use that expertise.

I'd be surprised if any such administrative/disciplinary process anywhere had the force of law in the sense you mean. It might carry some weight, though and the same evidence might weigh in your favor in a court. (Caveat: not a German academic.)

I am not an expert on German law, so this isn't a direct answer to your question. But I think it's worth addressing some of the general issues raised by your question.
First, it is likely that the Ombudsman decisions are significantly limited in the extent to which they are binding. In Australia, for example, the role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is that of a "merits reviewer" rather than a judicial decision maker; the same applies to decisions made by other lower-level administrative tribunals such as the Information Commissioner. Even decisions of the (now abolished) Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) were binding only on Australian Government Departments and not on anyone else. My expectation would be that the Ombudsman decision to which you refer would be, at best, binding on the university. If, for example, the university had suspended your employment, the Ombudsman might be able to make a binding review decision that required the university to reinstate you, but the decision would not affect any other person or institution.
Another thing to consider is that the standard of evidence usually required in Ombudsman reviews is very different from that required in other judicial processes ... which brings me to the issue of defamation. You talk of wanting to sue the student for defamation and of your certainty that he (or she) is behind the apparently disparaging emails. However, unless you were able to prove that the origin of the emails is indeed the student, as you say, it is unlikely that you would even be able to initiate, let alone prosecute, a claim for defamation. Nor, in a common-law style jurisdiction at least, would be able to secure an injunction against the student because you would lack evidence that he was the perpetrator. The potential obstacles in the path of pursing legal redress seem very high indeed.
Third, consider the likely unprofitable nature of pursuing legal avenues. You are probably feeling particularly emotionally "raw" having endured both the previous allegations and the process to clear your name. Thoughts of revenge and redress are likely to be high in your mind. But is it really worth pursuing further?
I know of a number of academics whose (successful) pursuit of redress for defamation actually cost far more, in terms of emotional energy, life and money, than any award that they were given by the courts. Their professional careers suffered significantly, not because of the background noise of the defaming emails, but because their focus was to much on their own feelings of hurt and too little on the real world of their academic reputation and research.
If your reputation among your friends and colleagues is reasonably intact, then my suggestion would be to get on with your life, to further cultivate your professional relationships, and to ignore the background behavior of the alleged perpetrator. As the old saying goes, the best revenge is to live well.


text:
Any Solutions To Viva Deadlocks?
The field: humanities - combining historical research done via study of old manuscripts written in late middle ages versions of a now uncommon European language.
The situation: a previously stellar student denied a doctorate at viva in a major world university.
The outcome: the student returns to their home state, acquires a modest teaching position in their field at a small university via their MA and a research fellowship prior to the PhD programme, succeeds in teaching and research, later moves to a bigger university and about 10 years after the viva failure is awarded a doctorate (from the same university that denied it to her) on the basis of quality published work in the interim period.
The question: how could we avoid a student not being awarded their doctorate where there is a conflict of judgement between an external examiner and the student (plus their supervisor)?

A "viva" is, in essence an exam based on a dissertation with a number of people able to judge the result, perhaps with a vote. It is called a "defense" in some places. Examiners in a viva can challenge the candidate and the dissertation in some places.
A "deadlock" is a disagreement between examiners that results in strong differences of opinion that don't make it clear, necessarily, whether the student should "pass" or not.

This question seems incredibly vague to me: what's a "viva deadlock", because it isn't mentioned in the question body. Why should these be avoided in general, rather than in this particular case? Who is to say that anything actually went wrong here?

Clearly the student - and one would expect also their supervisor for the previous 3 years - considered a thesis to be adequate but the external examiner did not. Both need to agree before the thesis is sent to the university formally for award of doctorate. Hence the deadlock.

"Deadlock" implies there is no way to resolve the situation. In your "major world university" (please name a system), the external examiner can just veto a doctorate and sucks for everyone, no redoes?

@Azor Ahai -him  Seemingly not in a way that the student and supervisor would agree to.

@Trunk "Clearly the student - and one would expect also their supervisor for the previous 3 years - considered a thesis to be adequate but the external examiner did not" That's not clear to me at all, because you haven't explained this at all. It also sounds like the deadlock was resolved once the student completed further work. How can we objectively determine here whether the external examiner had a reasonable complaint about the thesis originally submitted?

No. It was not resolved at all. The PhD awarded 10 years later would not have been allowed to concern the same topic as the thesis submitted and rejected due to the 2-6 years time limit.

I understand you are trying to keep things general, but this question is lacking detail. For example, everything that happened to the student after being denied the viva doesn't seem relevant to the actual question. Furthermore, you'll have to state in which country the viva was denied, as the answer will depend on the system.

The question seems to reduce to something analogous to: "if 70% is the cutoff for passing, how do we avoid failing students who scored less than 70%"?

@cag51. That is what I think as well

@cag51  That is a ridiculous comment. If there was a clear conflict between supervisor and external examiner on something the thesis lacked, then that doesn't necessarily mean that it is a case of a sore-loser student wanting to redraw the boundary lines.

@Trunk How is it ridiculous? cag51's comment is exactly how I'm reading this, how Pikachu is reading it - if you want us to think differently, it seems you'd need to present it differently. Why would there ever need to be an external examiner if the assumption was that their opinion of a thesis is invalid?

@Bryan Krause  I have no issue on having EEs or them having a right to order rewrites to parts of a thesis, supplementary data addition to support assertions, even a veto where EE judges it to be wholly unsalvageable. But where something - perhaps essential to the thesis in the supervisor's and student's views - is ordered removed from a thesis, you have a scenario of peer conflict. I can't see how an EE can fairly write off 3 years work.

@Bryan Krause   And it does happen that some EEs may be personally offensive based on their reaction to the candidate, their gender, dress, accent, manner, tone of voice, perceived ethnicity/religion, etc. There is a limit to what the supervisor may do about this on the day, although a  supervisor ought to consider this when selecting the EE with the candidate.

@Trunk I missed in your question the part where an external examiner has ordered something removed from a thesis because of a personal bias they hold. By the same token, it shouldn't matter how precious these elements are to the supervisor or student, but rather whether they are scientifically/academically rigorous. The EE isn't writing off 3 years of work, they're judging that the work done is not sufficient to have earned a PhD; the work is still there.

@Trunk I also missed in your question the part where the EE is preventing a candidate from earning a PhD due to the candidate's gender, dress, accent, etc.

@Bryan K  It seems you missed the subjunctive connotation of "where" and "it happens that". Or else you miss the need to protect against not infrequent possibilities occurring in exchanges during vivas when devising viva rules. I no more than you do not know what actually happened during the viva in question. But I know the candidate involved was a top-rank student and very orthodox to boot. Hence my willingness to question this whole PhD denial.

@Trunk You'll get a better response if you ask the question you want to ask rather than loosely alluding to it. Your first version of the question did not even mention an external examiner. Your current version mentions them only in that there is an unspecified "conflict in judgment" between external examiner and the student/parenthetically their advisor; presumably such a conflict exists every time an external examiner says "no". Instead, it seems you want to ask about the case where an external examiner's ruling is in some way unjustified. If that's what you want to ask about, ask it.

@Bryan K But here again "unjustified" is a debatable term depending on which side of the disagreement that you are on. The question here really is when there is serious conflict between supervisor and EE on the acceptability of a thesis - something too essentially field-based for others present in the viva to be able to offer any useful opinion - then how can we avoid having the candidate's work being left in limbo thereafter ? Could we have an application to the university authorities for a "second opinion" mechanism in such cases ?

Actually, there is an easy solution, but you have to think hard (hard) about whether you want to implement it or not.
You have a rule, whether you think of it that way or not, that deadlocks are not resolved in favor of the student. You could change that rule. You'd have to think hard (hard) about what a different (better?) rule might be. The most generous rule would be always in the student's favor. Another might be in favor of the supervisor's vote. Another might be to appoint someone else to resolve the deadlock. Others are possible.
Before choosing a policy, however, look at your history and decide what the impact would have been (likely to have been) with a different rule. If it is rare then it is probably easier to find something than if it is common.

It's not a change of rules as such but couldn't a "second opinion" be allowed in cases where the student's supervisor is adamant on the quality of the thesis as is ? As it happens, I'm reading Oppenheimer's bio at present and therein it says that de Broglie's PhD might not have been granted at all had it not been sent to Einstein and he been positive towards it. Experts can sharply disagree in academia as elsewhere.

Yes, that could work, but it needs to be a policy (i.e. rules).