text:
Do instructors have the right to know how many students test positive for COVID-19?
My university tests every student.
So they have the data.
I can understand that for privacy,
the names of the students who tested positive are not released to the public or the instructors.
But do instructors have right to know how many or if any student in his/her class tested positive?

I very much doubt there is any such universal right under law; it hasn't really come up until now and I'm not aware that any new laws have been made.  Whether your institution gives that information to instructors would be up to its policies.

If they're doing proper contact tracing with that data then I assume instructors, like anyone else who had been in contact with the student, would be notified.

Actually, with proper procedures, the number should be zero. Students known to have the virus shouldn't be in the classroom at all. And if they are allowed, you should complain.

@Buffy A highly relevant number that is definitely not going to be zero in all situations is those who have now tested positive but were previously in the classroom.

@BryanKrause. Yes, we are doomed. Doomed, I say. Well, you are doomed. I'm retired. Never been so happy about that as now.

The incubation period and the long wait time for test results (in the US) make any numbers pretty much meaningless.

I am not a lawyer. I would guess not sharing this information (or at least the fact that there is an infected person in the classroom) may be argued as worker endangerment. 29 USC 654 reads: Each employer—
(1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees;
...

If anyone is tested positive by your university, does your university have to report this to the government (such that those students can be officially quarantenized)? If so, is contact tracing done?

Also, would it be relevant to you (I assume not only students but also instructors are tested or can opt to test).

@NateEldredge, "like anyone else who had been in contact with the student, would be notified..."  afterward?  I'd certainly like to know that before I enter a room.

@ssquidd When you enter a room there shouldn't be anyone who had tested positive. But someone who is in the room may test positive at later time: at that point the university, or the health authority, should contact all those who were present in the room.

@MassimoOrtolano, "When you enter a room there shouldn't be anyone who had tested positive."  Why will that be?  Students who are tested positive are told to stay in the dorm.  Are we assuming 100% will just listen to what we say?  If that could work, then almost all problems in education are solved.

There was a rumor some students planned on getting COVID and giving it to professors they didn't like. Sounds like BS but never know.

@Buffy, "Students known to have the virus shouldn't be in the classroom at all. And if they are allowed, you should complain."   Isn't that the problem?  If I don't even know who tested positive, how can I complain?

You shouldn't have to kick them out. The system needs to be better than that so you don't get put in the middle. If you haven't noticed, some people in the US are fiercely antagonistic around being told to take any sort of safety precautions. It shouldn't be your job to enforce it.

This question is about medical ethics and applies equally to any workplace where many people are present.  So it is off-topic.

In the university I work for that would make no difference: everybody physically present is tested negative, as those who are tested positive are not allowed to enter the building, and this is checked.
The bigger problem I see with giving this information to lecturers is with smaller courses. It would be very likely that anonymity can no longer be guaranteed. Moreover, there is no clear cutoff point that distinguishes between small and big courses. So I understand the universities that do not give that information.

I haven't downvoted, but the first paragraph doesn't make sense: you cannot test every person every day before they enter the building.

"those who are tested positive are not allowed to enter the building..." whose is enforcing that?  In my university, students are simply asked to stay home if they tested positive.  If we are relying on students doing exactly what they are told, then we are doomed.

What? Can in US anyone with Corona just walk around legally?!

@user111388 There are legal mechanisms, but besides a couple unusual circumstances I do not know of anywhere in the US that is legally enforcing quarantine of people with positive covid tests. Universities are probably better off enforcing it themselves as part of required student conduct.

@user111388, in where I live: YES.  People tested positive are just walking around.

@ssquidd: That's sad. Probably the first step should be to influence politics to change those stupid laws..

How are they tested? Asked if they feel unwell? Measure their body temperature? Both of those can be abused by lying and drugs respectively.  Therefore it's highly unlikely that your university truly filters infectious people out.

Basically no student can enter without written permission. All doors but one are closed, and students need to identity themselves and show their permission. That permission is obviously immediately revoked as soon as someone is tested positive. The student can of course not mention the result, but it will eventually come out, and the consequences would be extremely severe, so that would be a very very very dumb move

Instructors have a right to a safe work environment, like any employees, and that right will be enshrined in legislation in most countries. So, if you can successfully argue that withholding information about students testing positive puts the instructor in danger to their health and therefore violates that right, the answer to your question would be “yes”.
However, this situation you are asking about is so new that I doubt any legislation or case law exist anywhere that are specific enough to make it possible to predict whether such an argument can work. So, on a practical level the more realistic answer at this point in time is “no one knows”.

For a save workplace the instructor only needs to know that no one who has tested positive is allowed on campus. So there is no need for additional information.

@MaartenBuis consider this scenario: 1. Instructor X is immunocompromised/at-risk. 2. Student A tests positive. 3. Student A attended another class the day before she tested positive, together with student B. 4. Student B is in Instructor X’s class, which meets tomorrow. Student B has not yet tested positive, but was last tested three days ago, and has another test scheduled in two days (since the university cannot test every student every day). Does Instructor C consider themselves safe in this scenario?

Then info on who tests positive in her/his class does not help her/him. Such an instructor should get permission to teach only remotely. It is not a good idea to let a instructor do contact tracing for all students in her or his class. (S)he is not a professional, so it will only provide false security, at the cost of the privacy of the students, that looks like a pretty horrible trade off to me.

@Maarten I’m not a public health expert and don’t have an opinion about how things should work. It may be a horrible idea as you say, but it could also be still less horrible than some other system the university has put in place that doesn’t allow instructors to get permission as you suggest and doesn’t provide them information they need for their safety and health autonomy. So your statement that for a safe workplace the instructor “only needs to know that no one who has tested positive is allowed on campus” may be true in some specific context you have in mind, but is false in general.

OK, we disagree


text:
How do I publish the work of my elderly father, a "fringe" scientist?
I am trying to figure out the best way to publish my elderly father's life work. He says he would be considered a "fringe" scientist or an independent researcher. Should we self-publish? The subject matter would be of great interest to those interested in earth-moon systems, and the Egyptian Pyramids. How should we proceed?

Does "fringe" mean "crank", "legitimate but not studied", or "could have been done by a professional but done by an unconnected amateur"?

I'm certain this is a duplicate.

So is this a re-write of Fingerprints of the Gods?

Thank you all for your comments.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/114009/is-it-possible-to-publish-a-deceased-relatives-unpublished-work-with-them-as-th

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/137447/a-famous-scholar-sent-me-an-unpublished-draft-of-hers-then-she-died-i-think-he?r=SearchResults&s=1|35.4051

There are precedents for this.
J.S. Bach assumed that his music would be forgotten after he died. It would have been it if weren't for the efforts of Mendelsohn, Schuman and others. Nowadays Bach is considered by many to be the greatest composer whoever lived. His work is to be heard ubiquitously.

For about 50 years after Bach’s death, his music was neglected. This
was only natural; in the days of Haydn and Mozart, no one could be
expected to take much interest in a composer who had been considered
old-fashioned even in his lifetime.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johann-Sebastian-Bach/Reputation-and-influence

With regard to publication by children of a parent's work, there is the case of Pierre Fermat.
Fermat was a great mathematician by any measure. However his widespread recognition by the general public was the result of his so-called Last Theorem. This came to light purely as a result of his son reproducing a note from Pierre's handwritten note in a margin.

Written in 1637, it wasn’t actually his last theorem, but nobody knew
about it until his son found it five years after Fermat died. Years
later, after all of Fermat’s other theorems had surrendered to
mathematical proof, this remarkable theorem resisted all assaults.
https://www.famousscientists.org/pierre-de-fermat/

Self-publishing is always an option even if it ends up being simply a treasured family keepsake.
Without knowing the details (Did he visit and excavate the pyramids? Did he decipher hieroglyphics that no-one else could?) it is difficult for us to answer.
I think you need to consult an expert in the field. Alternatively you need to get a publishing agent in the field of interest. They will negotiate the traps and tricks of the publishing industry for you (at a fee of course).

I appreciate your answer. The information you've shared here is extremely useful!

The way I'd suggest proceeding depends on the answers to a couple of questions:
Question 1: can your father present robust enough evidence for his ideas to get them through peer review?
If the answer to question 1 is "yes", then you can submit a paper (or several papers, depending how many separate original insights your father has to publish) to a peer-reviewed journal in a relevant subject area, through the usual channels as detailed on that journal's website.  (Presumably you'll want to choose a journal that doesn't charge its authors publication fees, so make sure you read the small print on the journal website.)  You don't need to be affiliated to a research institution, nor to found a company: I've definitely seen papers in peer-reviewed journals with the author's home address given where the institutional affiliation would usually be.
If the answer to question 1 is "no", then you need to ask yourself:
Question 2: can your father tell a compelling enough story to make a book of his ideas a marketable proposition for a regular, for-profit publishing house?  (I'm guessing that the advent of print-on-demand services means that this is not as high a hurdle as it used to be, but its height is still non-zero.)
If the answer to question 1 is "no" but the answer to question 2 is "yes", then you can pitch such a book to a publishing house.  How to go about this is somewhat outside my bailiwick, but there's some sensible-sounding advice here.
If the answers to questions 1 and 2 are both "no", then I'm afraid you are in the territory of self-publishing or what's pejoratively called "vanity publishing".  That's even further outside my bailiwick than the previous option, but as I understand it, in this case, you don't need detailed procedural advice, just the ability to hand over some money, and to read contracts thoroughly so you know what you're getting for that money.  (Again, I'm guessing that the advent of print-on-demand services means that the amount of money you'll have to hand over is less than it used to be.)
If you're unable to determine with any confidence the answer to question 1, then your situation is slightly trickier.  However, people on orthodox academic career tracks quite often find themselves in this position too.  The traditional way to deal with it is to submit an abstract to, then present a paper at, a conference with peer-reviewed proceedings.  That way, one gets input from the relevant scholarly community, via discussion at the conference, to help work out the answer to question 1 and/or to help improve the paper to make sure the answer to question 1 is "yes".  However, this would involve you in paying out registration fees for the conference and travel costs to get to the conference, which you probably don't want to do.  Fortunately, the internet era has made available a way of achieving the same benefits without those costs: submitting a paper to a special type of peer-reviewed journal that has the process sometimes known as "Interactive Public Peer Review" (that name for the process is a trademark of one particular journal publisher, Copernicus Publications, but I'm pretty sure there are other journal publishers that have an analogous process, albeit under a different name, for some or all of their journals).  (As for other types of journals, check the small print on the journal website if you want to make sure you're choosing a journal that doesn't charge author fees.)

"Independent Researcher" is a perfectly honorable profession. If you have something worth publishing, I suggest you write it up properly and submit it to a suitable journal. You don't need to be university faculty or an industrial researcher to be published.
Self publishing is sure to leave you with almost no audience unless one of you is already very well known.
But when you say "fringe", you may have a hard time if the ideas are impossible for people with open minds to accept. But fringe can also mean just "not well known". That is fine. Publish and you can become known. But know the standards of any journal you submit to.
You will need to decide if joint authorship is appropriate, also.

I think that another way to go would be to find authors in the field that already have existing “crazy” ideas (I know there’s one or two that have appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast, particularly with pyramids) and try to collaborate with them. Those would be your allies OP.

We appreciate your input and will take your words to heart!

A few years back I was in a position when I had to submit a paper but could not use any affiliation. You could say I was between jobs or maybe in a job where I could not use my affiliation for independent research.
I spent a few 100 dollars and registered a company. I registered with IEEE to get an email address. This is perfectly legal.
In your case, the motto of your company is to do research in the ancient ways of Egyptians or whatever. You both are its stakeholders. Now you are not independent researchers. You work in a company.
Legally and for all practical purposes, you are no less than researchers affiliated to universities or research labs.

This is going to make them look more like cranks, not less.

Thank you for your contribution! You have helped us more than you know!

@Arno I don't even want to use that term. And it is not the people they should be worried about but the reviewers. People in the free world are 'free' to conclude whatever they want.

You might get the widest readership by posting on something like arXiv (for math, at least). At least if your father's work can be put into reasonable pieces that at least vaguely resemble referee-able journal papers, they would likely accept.
The main possible obstacle is that arXiv would want "an endorsement" from a more established scholar... but/and for anything presented in a reasonably dignified, serious way, this ought to be feasible.
Self-publication won't reach anyone. Journal publication hardly reaches anyone any more, either, except for the fanciest journals, which are very status-and-orthodoxy-sensitive. The "arXiv" (for math) -like on-line archives are by far the highest-profile way to publish, and are not behind paywalls.

Curious: is the down-vote just for fun, or is there some genuine disagreement with the idea of arXiv-publishing as opposed to self-publishing? Or... what?

I'm not responsible for the downvote, but given that her father has no academic affiliation the endorsement required to post in the arXiv might not be an option. Most academics would only endorse somebody they trust and have collaborated with.

@B.Núñez, I generally agree that it's not always so easy to get an endorsement for arXiv, for example, but I think it's worth some effort, given the alternatives.

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text:
*Probably* losing my tenure-track position due to COVID-19 and low enrollment
Due to low enrollment, my college's administration sent out letters rescinding all non-tenure full-year appointments (against our contract, too) and replacing them with a fall 2020 appointment only. This would be my tenured year if I made it through, and spring is unknown as of now.
I just interviewed with another institution that loves me (Zoom, informal), but I have not gone through with the official interview, and they hinted that they'd be willing to hold the position for spring for me. They are hiring urgently and my tenure is uncertain. I won't know until maybe November 2020 if I have a job next spring at my current institution.
I'll obviously need references, etc. from my current place of employment. My chair, several colleagues would gladly do it for me, but I'm afraid to tell them I'm about to leave... and I don't want to. But I have bills to pay and would hate a gap in employment and the loss of (potential) tenure, too.
What would you do?

Hard to think they could punish you for wanting to assure your future.

Are you sure you want to use your real name in asking this question?

If someone happens upon this, I don't think I said anything negative.

Probably worth having at least an informal conversation with your chair about this. They likely didn't have a lot (or any) say in this move from the College, but might have better insight into your specific situation (including an idea of how much influence they have). One would ideally hope that the chair would reach out on their own to everyone affected, but if this was a recent announcement they're probably scrambling as much as anyone else.

Is the other position tenure-track or otherwise intended as permanent?

@AlexanderWoo It is a different kind of academic position, but similar, and tenure does not seem to be on the table.

Had you signed the contract already? Or did you just get a letter offering you a new contract?

What would you do?

Disclaimer: I have never been in this situation before, so I don't speak from experience. Following my advice would be risky; that said, so would any other course of action.
Act like a rat on a sinking ship.
Your university has unilaterally rescinded your contract. Go on the official interview. Ask your chair and colleagues to be references. Make every effort to find secure and permanent employment.
Tell your chair and dean that you love your university and would like to stay in the long term. (If this is true.) Bargain with them if possible, if you decide you trust them.
One option you may (or may not) have is to go on unpaid leave if you accept another job offer. Sometimes people accept a job at University B while going on unpaid leave at University A, go to B for a year, and then decide to return to University A.
If your chair and colleagues are worthy of your loyalty, then they could not expect it under these circumstances. Good luck.

agree, but I don't think you can really bargain til you have a formal job offer elsewhere.

This is one of the few times you can tell/heavily hint to your boss that you're job searching (who wouldn't).  Your Dean/Chair has to know profs would be looking.  It's probably worth a conversation where you ask how to leave the door open as you'll have to get another job.

Sometimes people accept a job at University B while going on unpaid leave at University A, go to B for a year, and then decide to return to University A. Sounds like they screw University B then...

@RichardHardy Maybe, sort of. In my opinion, if you accept a permanent job at B, then you should at least be open to the idea of staying. But I don't believe that anyone has a duty to prioritize their employer's needs over their own. Especially since, these days, any university wanting to hire tenure-track faculty will be able to choose from excellent candidates.

@RichardHardy - University B knows the game they are playing. This is not that unusual...

First, this sounds like a horrible position to be in. The academic life is not easy and you must have put in a huge amount of work to get to where you are now.
Not sure I understand the situation completely, but if there is another institution offering you a better contract then why would you not move to it now rather than wait til spring?
If your current institution has placed you on a contract that will expire in December 2020 (I am guessing from the question) then you only have 3 or 4 months of contract left and you need to look for jobs elsewhere.
In my experience once a job is formally offered then you can start thinking about start dates and going into some sort of negotiation between your current academic institution and the new one.
I would not start to attempt to negotiate anything without a formal job offer.
I have some similarish experiences from quite a few years ago when I worked on some temporary academic contracts.

if there is another institution offering you a better contract then why would you not move to it now rather than wait til spring?  Well, the risk is pretty clear.  OP's current institution had them on tenure-track with this year being their tenure year.  If the COVID disruptions are only temporary then perhaps OP retains a high probability of completing their tenure transition at their current institution in a similar timeframe (albeit without any contractual guarantees).  The risk in moving institutions is giving up that accumulated seniority in exchange for a more secure contract.

@J...  plus one for your comment - you are completely correct, but then the risk on the other side is that in a few months time there appears to be the possibility of being forced out of the current position....   ........ I think so much of this depends on what the current institution is planning because there appears to be a risk that to balance their books the current institution are going to let people go.           We can debate this, but at the end of the day this is the OPs decision, I hope that all of the answers and comments are helpful because this is a horrible position to be in

Perhaps you can arrange a meeting with others in your situation and someone in authority (dean, say) and ask what the college is willing to do to help boost the careers of those that circumstances are putting in jeopardy. If you have to do it alone, ask the same question.
They owe you something, even if they can't keep to "normal order". But asking, puts them on the spot. Maybe it just means that you get your letters and no prejudice against you if you wind up staying.

It's not about worry of" punishment" I think (maybe a tiny bit), I think more about accepting an offer elsewhere before I do not know about my retention for Spring and Tenure. It's all based, so says our President, on State/Fed funding (public university)

Have you been given a tenure decision?

Won't get it until Spring, when it's not determined I'll be employed.

You might want to talk to the other place about a shortened tenure cycle if you join them, say two years. I think that would be a reasonable ask in this situation. It might change your calculus. Tenure at hire is probably not an option.

Someone just graduated recently and COVID struck. He had a job at a startup which he gave up just before graduation so he could take a break for a few months. Someone else got that job. And now he is unemployed and in high stress.
I would say be proactive, be selfish and ensure that you are not out of a job in these stressful and uncertain times. Consider the fact that the other university might soon find better candidates to fill your shoes.
The someone I mentioned above would love to get an offer like yourself.
But note that you know your circumstances best.

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text:
Chances of getting into a PhD program (Physics) after an MS from another stream (Chemistry)
I am an international student who started my PhD program in chemistry at an R1 university in the US, at the beginning of Fall 2019.
As I credited graduate level courses in Physics like Mathematical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Optics etc., I realized that I would rather see myself getting a PhD in Physics than in Chemistry. But, COVID-19 made it impossible for me to transition into the physics program at my university. Therefore, I ended up taking summer research credits enough to graduate with an MS in Chemistry.
What are the chances of getting into the graduate program in Physics again if I apply this Fall for starting next Fall?

@AnonymousPhysicist - not sure they are weak or borderline given the physics grad courses they took. More a question of what kind of physics and how any of the chemistry applies to a particular physics program.

@JonCuster https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1560/what-should-we-do-with-the-can-i-get-into-x-program-with-3-xx-gpa/1563

@AnonymousPhysicist - I agree that it should be closed based on individual factors, but nothing indicates a weak or borderline student.

@JonCuster If it's not clear why it's a duplicate after reading the two links I have provided, please ask on meta. Being weak or borderline is irrelevant to being a duplicate; those are just examples of common duplicates.

Closed questions: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/linked/38237?lq=1

@AnonymousPhysicist - I believe my reading comprehension is just fine, and your links are not particularly good fits.

@AnonymousPhysicist I don't say anywhere that I am a borderline student. To be specific the question was about making a transition to Theoretical Physics from Chemistry

Nobody said you were a borderline student.

I'm going to guess that you should do fine. Of course, I'm not going to be on the admissions committee and every one has its own standards, so my prediction may mean little in any individual case.
But I think you have shown some diligence and some awareness of your needs. Changing fields early under the conditions you state seems like a positive thing (as opposed to failing out). You may need to explain a bit about the change in your SoP for any new program, but that should be easy enough.
Of course you will need to meet the entry requirements for any physics program you apply to. And the usual caveats about competition apply.


text:
How can I deal with being pressured by my department to pass students who failed?
Due to COVID-19, I have found myself teaching a course online. I worked with the university teaching center to transition the course online, prepared an online classroom, and updated the requirements of the course to deal with asynchronous leaning. The course went along reasonably well, and at the end I felt good about the learning demonstrated by a majority of the students.
However, some students did end up failing the course, largely due to a poor performance on the final assessments. Here is the situation:

The students failed to turn in early homework. I reached out to them to see if there was any technical difficulties. There were technical difficulties, and I provided a solution that the students confirmed as solving the technical issue.
The students continued to turn in homework late, wherein I often had to reach out to them to get submissions. Trying to be empathetic to the COVID-19 situation, I waved the late penalties (although the late submissions are recorded by the online system).
The final exam was available for two weeks as a take-home. The student turned in very little, earning less than 10%.
Upon seeing their grades, they reached out stating the same technical issue as before (which they had previously said was resolved) and that they needed to pass the course to graduate.

I feel as though I am being pressured by the students and department to pass the students with a minimum grade (the department thinks we should be lenient due to the pandemic). The students never showed up for online lectures (NB: all course materials were available for fully asynchronous learning), their course interaction scores were very low, and I felt I did everything I could to succeed in the course. Yet I feel completely at fault and guilty.

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

Your department defers to you as the final authority on the student’s grade, and for a good reason: because you are the only person who sees the full picture of the student’s performance and the context in which it was assessed.
The department can give you high-level guidance and advice, but that is never a substitute for an instructor’s reasoned judgment taking into account the details of the situation.
The student, like all students everywhere, wants to pass, and like many (but not all) students will offer any excuse they can think of, no matter how feeble, for why they deserve lenient treatment. If the excuse rings hollow, ignore it.
Whatever your conscience dictates doing is the best course of action here. Making that final call is precisely what the department pays you to do and expects of you.

This is the answer I most agree with. I fear retaliation but I want to and will stand up for what I believe to be the honest and just decision in this situation.

I'll note that, depending on rules, you might wind up in the worst of all worlds if you take this advice. While it "feels good" it might not be effective, as it is possible that you will be overruled and punished. I agree that this is the way it should be, but, too often, isn't.

@Buffy OP hasn’t described the departmental pressure they are subjected to. My answer imagines “normal” pressure of the sort that one might experience in a normal, reasonably well-functioning department. One can also imagine alternate scenarios in which the pressure is more along the lines of “nice tenure-track position you have there, it’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it...”. In that case my advice might be a bit more similar to what you are recommending.

@Buffy also, to clarify, it’s not about doing what “feels good”, it’s about doing the right thing.

I'd also add that there is a need to think of all the students who DID pass on their own merits (and they were all subject to the global pandemic, too). You have an obligation to them to make their effort and pass grades meaningful.

The first paragraph of this answer is optimistic, at least with respect to many universities.  A common situation is that the department wants almost all students to pass and will punish you by various means if you disobey.  It’s a financial and administrative calculation and has nothing to do with “doing the right thing”.

@Anush thank you for the comment. What I wrote is based on what’s written in the question, assuming a reasonable/typical level of pressure from the department since OP did not specify an extreme, coercive type of pressure (which may or may not be “a common situation” as you say but I agree is at least possible). It’s also based on my own experience at multiple universities, where I have never seen a department fail to defer to the instructor as the final authority. Of course, OP will have to interpret this in the context of the specific situation they are dealing with and decide what to do.

Have you considered offering an Incomplete instead of immediately offering a pass or fail grade? This might be a compromise you could suggest which wouldn't automatically pass the student without the work being completed, while still allowing them the opportunity to complete that work and pass the class. Having been in a similar teaching situation this spring an Incomplete was a way to say, "Right now you have not remotely fulfilled the requirements to pass the class. However pre-covid shutdown you had been doing well enough (both grades and participation) that we expected you to pass the class, and as such are willing to give you more time to complete the requirements."
For a number of students in this situation we found that it was only partly about technical issues, and often there were other life circumstances compounding any technical issues. For example, chaotic living situation that was not conducive to focusing on schoolwork, struggling to keep track of all the asynchronous assignments without the structure of a class schedule, and/or extra stress about health of themselves and loved ones in the face of Covid.

Yes, this seems like the best solution to me. I would be willing to believe that the student thought they were submitting parts of the final (hence why they were surprised they only got 10%). Sit down, say "We're figuring out this technical issue, then you will have a week to do it, this is your only chance."

There are major downsides to giving Incompletes. One, it's extra work for the instructor at a busy time with no extra compensation. Two, in some environments it's very rare for students to successfully make up incompletes on their own. Especially for students with a track record of poor communication and missing deadlines, IME there's a cycle of trying to get in touch with them, and not completing the makeup work, either. In fact, it can further delay progress because the student can't register to retake the course (as they often expect to do) until the incomplete is resolved.

@DanielR.Collins That's a very valid point about Incompletes having their own downsides. It sounded like the OP was feeling caught between a rock and a hard place, in which an Incomplete is another avenue to consider. Depending on the exact circumstances with student/class/graduation requirements/university it may or may not be the best option.

@DanielR.Collins: I got an I first quarter college away from home (grad school, completely underestimated the workload, couldn't get traction on 40 page paper), took the I, converted the I next quarter, but it caused a cascading failure where I had another I because of the first I, tried to convert it over summer, failed to finish doing so, converted it the first two weeks back at college. Cascading Is are a chronic problem but not an unsustainable one.

Genius answer by question. There is a 3rd option besides pass or fail: incomplete!

The students haven't demonstrated that your course material or teaching methods are problematic. They also didn't bother making use of the material provided to help them succeed.
From your side, you resolved the technical issue timeously, and went above and beyond to both waive late penalties and chase up the student(s) when they still did not submit homework.
For me it's a clear-cut case: these students failed because they didn't put in the effort, and now that reality has sunk in, they're now trying to blame the technical issue - and implicitly you - for their failure. That's flat out dishonesty, and it's unacceptable, regardless of COVID or not.
They failed of their own accord - fail them. If they really believe they have a case, they are welcome to appeal to your department listing exculpatory reasons why they should be passed. But I suspect they won't.
Please always remember - you are part of the machine for enforcing academic honesty and integrity. Passing failed students who are also dishonest, is failing in your duty to uphold these ideals. Yes, the world needs graduates - but it needs truthful ones, not politicians.
Finally, unless your department has produced an official policy document that requires you to pass those who have supposedly failed due to COVID, pass/fail remains entirely your discretion. I suspect your department wants to have it both ways - passing more students while not appearing to relax standards - and that's also dishonest. Until or unless they're willing to formally change their policy, you have the final say, and their pressure means nothing.

“didn't bother”  ⇒ The observation is that the student did not. It does not follow that they didn't bother, which is a statement about the student's internal motivations unsupported by evidence.

@Reid Disagree. If you are unable to complete coursework due to extenuating circumstances, you should let the person who has set the course know as soon as possible. That is standard procedure, which COVID does not affect, and these students did not do this. So either they had so much drama with COVID that they could not make even that communication (yet they were able to sit the final exam and complain about technical issues)... or they didn't bother with the course. Occam's Razor is rarely wrong.

A passing grade in a course indicates that the students has achieved the minimum requirements of the course. In this case it seems the students have not submitted sufficient evidence to reach the minimum course requirements, so they are not entitled to a passing grade. Further, it shouldn't be your 'choice', the department shouldn't put pressure on you to change grades without good cause and clear written advice. It may have consequences for the institution as a whole and its external accreditation.
With that in mind you have 3 routes:

The students in question fail the course
Following discussion with your department, allow additional evidence to be submitted/taken account of (e.g. coursework, additional exams etc.)
Following discussion with your department, accept that the course requirements for the 2020 course should be changed and re-grade accordingly.

Either option 2,3 require strategic decisions to be made, not by you as a course teacher, but by someone with overall responsibility in the institution and with due consideration of the external certification process (if applicable e.g. chartership, medical licensing).

Yet I feel completely at fault and guilty.

It sounds like you tried your best to deliver the course as well as you could, but it hasn't worked out as well as you hoped. Addressing this feels like a very different question, but I hope this works out for you in time.

As a matter as opinion: #1 to me seems to be appropriate, it's the situation you are currently in and there's no obvious justification for change. #2 seems to be a reasonable compromise if such materials are already available or exams can be re-set and re-sat. Bear in mind however this is will be a potentially substantial amount of extra work for you and your colleagues.

Under the circumstances, I would probably bite my tongue and go along with a minimal passing grade. Others would disagree, I'm sure, but let me explain why.
First, it seems like you did  your job, giving feedback to the student along the way that there were issues with their learning. I won't fault you on that. But I agree that the final is not the time to learn you've failed. In fact, I tended to minimize high risk exams altogether, but if I were still teaching, would do so even more in the current pandemic situation.
Some student, who are otherwise quite good in a certain educational setting won't do as well in others, since the expectations and processes have changed and they haven't had time to adjust. Certainly, few students are currently "experienced" in the new way of delivering courses. That alone is disruptive and it might also be in psychological as well as educational ways.
Being a bit generous isn't a sin, generally speaking. If the student is bad generally, it will catch up with them. If they are good generally, then a single course blocking their graduation, or delaying it for up to a year, seems unfair in itself, if they tried.
I'll note that there are some universities who have decided not to fail students at the current time, for some of the reasons above. In fact, they are essentially giving only top and incomplete grades. Until we get more experience with online teaching, we need to be cautious not to harm students for things that they have little control over.
I can't judge the level of effort that the student put in, of course. Normally, I would fail students who didn't try, but work with those who were willing, so as to get them over the line. But that is much less possible now, both to judge the situation and to compensate for it.
And given that the administration is suggesting leniency, I'd recommend going along. But it is a tough call, I know.
And, for the record, your administration should defer to your judgement.

To clarify, this was an ENTIRELY online course.

I agree. @novice don't bother with that student. Give him the worst grade you can, but let him pass. For some the current situation is very severe, I would not be too harsh this year.

-1 Fraud isn't generosity.

I do not think passing everyone as a rule is being generous. It means telling hiring committees "grades from this period do not have any meaning, so just ignore them". Grades are a measure of how much one knows about a topic. Plus, my experience in my department is that passing rates this year are similar to other years...

If we're going to pass students who we should flunk just because OMG COVID!!! then we've lost sight of the whole point of education.

@CarlWitthoft, absolutely not. Don't mischaracterize what I said. Don't flunk someone at the margin if you can't be sure your assessments are valid. And assessments are never perfect.

@buffy  ummm... "earning less than 10%"  is hardly a "marginal" case.

@CarlWitthoft I agree, IMO it seems like the student didn't even try to pass the class and failed to put any effort to success it. Why would he/she deserve to pass the class? Unless I'm missing something.. side note : I'm a student and the online classes we got due to COVID19 were (IMO) made ''easier'' in regard to the current situation (agree it might not be like that everywhere) so I'm not sure how someone that got under 10% should pass.

This deserves to be upvoted if for nothing other than coming out against high-stakes exams in general.

I don’t think OP is asking for advice about whether to pass the student or not. The question was “How can I deal with the pressure of passing a student?” It’s about how to deal with the pressure while remaining true to one’s convictions, not about what those convictions should be. This answer makes the same mistake that the department is making in pressuring OP to pass the student, which is to presume that the writer of the answer knows better than OP what they should do, despite the fact that OP is the only one who sees the full picture and has already decided what the correct outcome is.

@DanRomik, please don't suggest that I meant more than I said. In this case, the advice is to go along with the department. Yield to the pressure if you like. But I agree that the final decision is with the OP, even if I might disagree with it.

Supporting some other answers: spring 2020 has been an exceptional time. The stresses affect many people quite severely... and some don't quite realize.
Sure, maybe the student was not really working hard all along... but the advent of COVID-19 just made/makes all the usual things break.
My attitude, and advice, is to be generous in spring and summer 2020.

You realise it's winter now, right? I hear that they're may be a 'northern hemisphere', but personally I think that's just quackery.

I’m guessing that many of the downvotes are from students who actually did work hard these last few months despite the adverse circumstances, and recognize the obvious unfairness in what you are suggesting.

@DanRomik, of course, I can understand that some people might be resentful that someone else is "getting off too easily" or similar. Perhaps the issue is as much ideological as pedagogical.

Why is "passing everyone" equal to "being generous"? I think "passing everyone" is closer to "lying to everyone" than it is to "being generous".

@wimi, I think it depends on what one views as the primary question/issue. One could certainly claim that changing the ground-rules of a course mid-term is simply not fair... then what? One can also certainly claim that just because the change was "the same for everyone" does not necessarily make it fair. Also, it's not "lying to everyone" to say "a pandemic has disrupted everything".

@paulgarrett I am not even considering "fairness", I just mean that writing "this student has passed the Linear Algebra course" on the transcript when the student knows only 10% of the content sounds like lying. My university has made it such that failing this semester does not carry any academic disadvantage: it does not appear on the transcript, and the graduation deadline is extended by one semester. Exams this semester are "free tries". But I do not think that giving degrees to people who do not know the content will help anyone. (We might have to agree to disagree though).

Many of the existing answers focus on options available within the academic structure of the university. Depending on your institution, you probably have at least two other options.
Many universities employ an ombudsperson. They don't possess much authority, but can be helpful in mediating disputes. They can also help connect you with the appropriate people and (informational) resources to navigate a conflict. There may be better avenues to try, policies or information you don't know, etc. The ombudspeople can help with this.
Second, consider talking to your institution's auditors. Being pressured to pass a student who did not garner that grade is fraud. A department who does this for one student is likely to have at least tried to do it for others, and may be at a higher risk for other kinds of fraud. Even outside of fraud, it highlights a management problem that may also demonstrate a risk for financial problems, HR problems, and a litany of other things.
What can auditors do? Well, they also don't have much authority, but they are excellent at performing investigations and they have the ear of university executives. If you have a board of trustees or similar, they typically report directly to them. Your auditors are in a position to hear your compliant, and if it seems to represent a risk to the university, conduct an investigation and let the high-ups know.

Fail them, but don't make it count against their GPA.
My university had the following policy for the classes that were affected by the Covid-19 lockdown: all classes were online, and students who failed were recorded as having failed, and would need to repeat the courses they failed. However, these failed courses wouldn't be counted on their transcripts, and wouldn't be counted for the calculation of their GPAs.
After all, if the student hasn't passed the unit, it isn't fair for everyone who put in the effort to pass the class legitimately. Additionally, if they haven't gained or demonstrated the knowledge that the class aimed to teach, then they should be given another option to gain or demonstrate that knowledge by redoing the class at a later date.
This would, of course, delay their graduation and result in them paying additional tuition fees, but that's what happens when someone fails their classes.

This would typically be a university policy decision, not something an individual professor has the power to impose.

Well, an individual professor can lobby the relevant committees or deans to implement similar policies.

Yes, but I doubt it would happen in a time frame that would do much for the specific students that OP is concerned about.

And don't charge for the student repeating the course.

Brown University did this for years back in the 60s-70s as some kind of sop to fringe group protests.   Kids quickly learned (pre-meds, I'm looking at YOU) that, if they weren't getting the "A" they wanted, to tank, flunk, and start again next year with nothing showing on their transcript.  Then some professors (I knew them personally) caught on and gave these kids a "D+" regardless of their abysmal work.

@CarlWitthoft: I am not from the US, so there might be a cultural issue here, but what is the problem to start a course"fresh" when one wants to?

In a U.S. university, the only way to have a course not count against your GPA would be to re-take the course entirely. In most cases, if they pass the second time the higher grade would be computed in their GPA IIRC (but their transcript might still show the original F).

@user111388 I guess one problem might be high tuition fees.

@wimi: I don't quite understand. Do you mean that students who don't get a grade (as the ones in Carl Witthoft's example) get their tution fees back?

@user111388 ok, my mistake, I did not see what you were replying to. In my university, students can repeat courses if they fail, but not if they pass, so it does happen that some students prefer to fail if their passing grade would be low. I guess the rule is there to prevent overfilling of courses, but I agree it might be seen as unfair.

@EJoshuaS-ReinstateMonica, that isn't a standard practice yet. Not all colleges allow this. https://education.seattlepi.com/make-f-college-can-grade-replaced-2644.html


text:
Discussing sole author vs first authorship in ML/CV with supervisor
I am an UG research assistant in CV/ML on a robotics project. I was given a surveillance video by my boss, and w/o being too specific, I was asked to find a way to detect something in the video. W/o revealing myself by giving too much info, I went above and beyond and found a way to predict something occurring in the videos. I did everything from collecting the data to implementing the code. I am not sure what I should do.
Usually, a co authorship or first authorship assumes some kind of mentoring in UG. There was 0 mentoring or guidance, so this would be wrong. I was given a project and left alone to do it. At the same time, he took me on and gave me a chance with little experience. Additionally, I would want to use him as a LOR, so I don't want to upset him.
Short summary: I discovered a new and effective way to do something that AFAIK, has not been done before. I am not saying this is groundbreaking research, but it's not too bad for UG work. I spent a little over a year on this project and worked extremely hard. I received no help. I am not sure if I should ask my boss if I can solo author. Should I write a draft of the paper, then ask him if I can solo author? He supplied me with a video, in which I collected data, can I acknowledge him in it instead of coauthoring?

What does he suggest? Or haven't you explored it at all yet?

I haven't explored it yet. I'm scared to ask. I've heard stories on here of students submitting work and their professor claiming ownership.

In some fields, coming up with the research problem (in this case, detecting the specific object in the video) is a significant contribution and leads to co-authorship. Also, having him help draft and revise your paper might increase the chances for getting it accepted. There's a lot of implicit knowledge involved in writing a strong paper

Please do not "vandalize" your posts. Please see here for an explanation, and to review your options.

Just go with co-authorship
You're an undergraduate researcher.  This is a case where having co-authorship is actually better than sole authorship.  You said yourself it isn't groundbreaking.  By doing co-authorship you've created a google trail back to this professor.
When people are googling the professor's name, your paper will come up.  When people google your name, they will see your research network back to the professor.
Ph.D. students in the group likely talk about first/sole authorship more.
That's because Ph.D. students are expected to do high-level research and come up with novel ideas.  The next step in their career is (maybe) being a professor.
The next step in your career is getting into grad-school
The prestige of the professor your working with is a factor in admissions.  He'll probably write a recommendation anyway, but drive it home to admissions committees with a co-authorship.
From your post it sounds like he's pretty hands-off.  Write up the paper and put your name first and the profs second.  Let him tell you to swap them.

The co-authorship route is probably better, and there are several benefits you would get from him. A scientific research article is written in a different way to most other types of articles, so you would be getting mentorship in scientific writing. Without this mentorship you may have much more difficulty in getting the paper accepted due to your unusual writing style, the fact you will likely place emphasis on the wrong things and leave that you may leave out key points that the readers need to follow.
Your supervisor also knows the field better than you, and so knows if this is a publishable result, or if you will need to do some checks/extensions. They may also realise that your method may be an extention of some other method or an application of a method to a different field (even if you didn't know of the method before). That may give some insight to the result and/or make it fit more snugly into existing literature. It may also turn out that your result was published last year, or ages ago in some out of the way place, which your supervisor may be more aware of.
There are also money/grant aspects to consider. Money may be involved in getting it published (though it might also be possible for the university to have some money, but they probably expect post-docs/advanced PhDs to be requesting it). I have also heard that computer science papers are normally published by going to a conference which will have expenses. If you got some money from a grant your supervisor may wish to say that this is an output of that grant so they can include it in reports and it may look weird not to have their name on it (shouldn't really be reason for name on a publication, but might be useful if trying to understand any behaviours).
All in all: probably go co-authorship, but view it as a mentorship in how to write academically and instruction in how this work fits into the broader picture. However you can discuss with him about being a corresponding author (which may indicate you are more than just an undergrad doing plug and chug who got lucky). Furthermore when you get a reference from him you can ask him to explicitly point out how you took initiative and went beyond what was expected, resulting in this paper.

Contrary to some of the other answers, Id suggest that you have a conversation with your advisor about it. Don't make assumptions. But ask what the advisor thinks what would be appropriate here, putting them on notice that you have thought about the issue and have some preferences. But making any assumption without having this discussion could lead to problems and you might wind up with less than you deserve or hope for.
Ask whether you should be sole author with an acknowledgement for the professor's help in getting you started, or whether co-authorship would be more appropriate and helpful to you in the future. If they make a recommendation, ask for the reasoning behind it so that you can learn more about how academia works. Listen to their answer and analyze what it means.
Don't bring up the issue of stealing your work. If the professor is someone who would do that, then they might anyway, but, while it happens, it isn't as common as you fear. Yes, there are a lot of questions here from students it has happened to, but far more students have no need to ask.
I don't think you will lose anything in starting this conversation. The professor won't suddenly think "I can steal this work." Trust, but verify.
But, as the other answers suggest, co-authorship can be a good thing. Don't reject it out of hand if it is suggested.


text:
Should peer review invitations be accepted if one is unemployed?
My colleague lost his job in academia due to COVID-19. He has zero income at the moment and there is little to no funding or employment opportunity in his field (invertebrate taxonomy) in his region (a developing country). He is now looking for other non-academic jobs.
But being one of the few experts in his field, he is still frequently invited to review manuscripts. Each of these reviews takes a long time (especially large taxonomic monographs) and takes away his time to develop skills and look for jobs. And hours spent on peer-reviewing are not remunerated by anyone. Should he just outright reject such invitations? Should he give reasons for rejecting such invitations too?

Do they hope to get back into the field? If so, maintaining a basic review volume might be useful for the CV.

Peer review is not a tax: if it doesn't make sense for somebody to peer review, they shouldn't do it.
Instead, I view peer review as:

an opportunity to contribute to a community that I care about, and
beneficial to me in helping me "keep my tools sharp" on critical thinking, writing skills (even as a reader!), and exposure to authors and ideas I might not otherwise read.

Because responsible peer review takes a significant investment of time, however, I set a budget for myself on how much time is sensible for to contribute over the course of a year, and I refuse assignments that would take me over that budget.
I would thus advise your colleague to consider a sensible budget, given their current situation and how much those motivations make sense to them. Yes, peer review may take time away from job development. On the other hand, peer review may still feel meaningful as a contribution, an intellectual connection, a motivation, etc.
Maybe the budget should be zero.  Certainly the budget shouldn't be 10+ hours per week.  But it may be entirely reasonable to put in a couple of hours of peer review per week if they still enjoy and benefit from it.
Bottom line: the amount to continue peer reviewing is an assessment that your colleague needs to make for themselves based on their personal situation and to periodically reassess as that situation evolves over time.

Thank you for the very good advice! Will forward it to my colleague.

Reviewers should never feel obliged to review a paper. If one is unable to review, there is always someone else who can. Do it because one wants to read the paper, because one is interested in the topic, and so on. If one genuinely does not want to review the paper, for any reason, decline.
If your colleague feels bad about declining, he could try to redirect the editor to someone else who can review it.
As for reasons to give when declining - a simple "no time" works.

Thank you for the advice! Will forward it to my colleague.

Peer review is an ethical obligation, but it not an obligation to review a particular paper at a particular time.

PR is an ethical obligation? Maybe for university researchers, but surely not for the unemployed. Even for uni researchers I would dispute that participating in the current peer review system is ethical; some refuse to review for Elsevier journals because donating labour to a parasite company defrauding university budgets is not an attractive prospect (paraphrasing here). See also this blog post.

Your colleague could always reject some of the requests and accept others, perhaps choosing which ones to accept based on which ones he thinks actually are likely to develop skills that improve his chances of finding new paid employment.
If your colleague does want to accept any of the requests and he's claiming any kind of state unemployment benefit, he should check carefully whether the conditions of the benefit limit how much unpaid work he's allowed to do, or require him to declare any unpaid work to the authority that pays the benefit.
Personnel at the publishers of the journals for which your colleague reviews, and continues to be asked to review, are aware that your colleague has certain skills relevant to their operations.  If any of those publishers have an office that's conveniently located for your colleague, it might be worth his while including those publishers in his job search.

Is this a colleague or a friend? If a colleague, I think it is presumptuous to tell him what he should or shouldn't be doing with his time. I'm sure he is aware that he is under no obligation to review papers. (If not, then it would perhaps be helpful to point this out.) Whether he "should" review papers or not is like whether he "should" spend time gardening, reading textbooks in new fields, learning a new language, etc. -- none of a colleague's business. (Perhaps he enjoys the stimulation of reviewing papers; I often do.)
Of course, if you're a friend, this is different, but what your friendship is like is for you to assess.

-1 Uncalled-for attack on the asker.  The question is a theoretical one.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Where are you seeing an attack here?

Agree with @AnonymousPhysicist, the tone of the answer is needlessly critical. I think it is presumptuous to tell someone that it is presumptuous to do something that person never said they are thinking of doing.


text:
If I work on a project funded (for example by Ministry of Transportation) through my supervisor, is he legally obliged to pay me?
This question is specific to Canada (but you could also say North America)
So if I am a sponsored PhD student (externally from my government), and I happen to work/research on a project funded through my PhD supervisor (for example by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation), is he legally required to pay me (regardless of my external sponsorship)? In other words, if my supervisor gets funding from a certain organisation, does this organisation stipulate that whoever is working on this project get paid because it is illegal to work (even if it's part of a degree) for free? This is what I understand from current PhD students, so is this understanding correct?
What are your experiences, particularly if you were sponsored?

Depends on contracts so ask on law but without contracts..,

I have never heard of a situation where volunteering is illegal.  Inappropriate or unethical, yes, but not illegal.

Most research are externally founded. I hardly can imagine a situation when most research exclusively done by people who are directly paid from it. In most countries grants wouldn’t even cover everyones‘ salary who is involved.

@AnonymousPhysicist When I was an exchange student in Canada (American nationality), I couldn't volunteer in a lab, only work for pay. This was a huge annoyance because they kept issuing my work permit incorrectly, so I couldn't do anything with the lab I was hoping to collaborate with. Because I was working closely with the immigration office to fix the work permit, I had to be really careful about not violating this labor law to get it fixed.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Typically, inappropriate volunteers are considered victims.  Hence, it's more common to have laws restricting employers from making use of volunteers than it is to have laws restricting volunteers directly.  For example, unpaid internships are often illegal in both Canada and the United States.

At least in the U.S., the answer is "no." In fact, in general you can't be paid twice for the same work under any graduate student arrangement I know of. You could turn down your external sponsorship (a terrible idea) and then be supported by your supervisor, but you can't have both. With the external sponsorship, you're not working for free, you're being paid by the sponsors to study and do research, and it's typically a good thing that this overlaps with research someone cares about.
One exception may be if the funding level for the sponsorship is less than the graduate student stipend that the grant supports, in which you can be paid the difference. (I have seen this in the U.S.)
I don't know about Canada specifically, but my past interactions suggest that the procedures are similar, so I'll post this in case no Canadians respond!

Thank you for your response and detailed explanation. My sponsor is my government (hence outside Canada), I can't see why this would be seen as being paid twice (not arguing, only thinking out loud). In this case, where is funding money going if work is mainly modelling (i.e. no materials, equipment etc)

@bikkil Suppose the graduate stipend is C$ 30k. You get C$30k from your sponsoring goverment. Getting another C$30k from the grant, and so C$60k total, means you're being paid twice (paid double is perhaps a better term). Running a research group, or administering a grant, isn't like hiring people to pick strawberries -- there's not an obvious relationship between salary and "the output." One assembles a team to tackle challenges that haven't been tackled before, paying the stipends of students whose stipends need to be paid, hiring other people, etc.

In other words, if my supervisor gets funding from a certain organisation, does this organisation stipulate that whoever is working on this project get paid because it is illegal to work

I have never heard of anything like that. What is however frequently the case is that the sponsor expects some reporting and/or provided the monies based on an agreement regarding who will work on the project (if not which individual, at least how much work would be conducted by a seasoned researcher as opposed to a PhD student). To the extent that your supervisor is not entirely upfront with them about that (and for example, claims to be spending x% of his time on this project when he is only spending y% supervising you instead of doing the work himself), it could be a form of fraud. It is quite common however and it doesn't get you any money.


text:
Why do German universities rank so low internationally?
There are very well known American and British universities, which have a very good reputation in a lot of different fields. Obvious examples being Cambridge, Harvard or Princeton.
But what about the state funded German universities, how is their international reputation? Why are the German schools ranked so poorly in international rankings like the Shanghai ranking?

I think you premise is wrong. German unis rank high, just not as high as the US. (At least the premise depends on what "high" means.)

Three German universities in top-60 in this ranking isn't "so low".

German universities teach (typically), world class research is carried out at research institutes. (Not something the English know for example...) If you look at the ranking for institutions in Nature, you will find the Max Planck Society or also the French CNRS well ahead of the British: https://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2019/institution/all/all

Please see this answer to the same question regarding Russia and Israel: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/46264/11353

Whence university rankings?
University-wise reputations are somewhat of a self-amplifying phenomenon:

University-wise reputation is an established thing. This is opposed to the reputation of a department or faculty.

Students and academics want to be at a well-reputed university. Thus, well-reputed universities can be more selective and get better students and staff.

Better students and academics at reputed universities raise the level of teaching and research through existing qualities, higher teaching levels, cross-fertilisation, researchers having access to better students, etc.

Reputed universities actually are better as they produce better graduates and research, attract more funding, etc.

University-wise reputation becomes a reasonable criterion and gets further established. Go to Step 1.

However, without such a process, university-wise reputations hardly makes any sense:
Most interactions in universities happen within departments or at least within faculties, and thus there is no reason to assume the qualities of different faculties correlate with each other.
For example, the idea that a university with an excellent science faculty also must have a good law faculty is absurd (except for the above mechanism).
German specialities
In some countries, such a process has happened; in Germany, it mostly didn’t.
Germans rarely think about the reputation of a university, but rather about the reputation of a department, and there are indeed strong variabilities between those.
This is at least partially due to historical factors, but there also some systemic factors:

In the German education system, students specialise on a field upon entering university. This reduces the interactions between departments as compared to other systems.

German universities are primarily funded by taxes not by fees and donations. People do not make donations to their alma mater; they pay taxes. Reputed universities cannot raise higher fees. There is no rich-get-richer amplification furthering the above process.

The German culture is rather egalitarian and particularly holds to the ideal of providing free and equal education to everybody (or in case of universities, everybody with certain prerequisites). The concept of an elite school or university is not generally well regarded. (Mind that whether those egalitarian ideals are actually achieved is another question.)

A considerable amount of research in Germany happens at dedicated research institutes (mostly Max Planck, Helmholtz, Leibniz, and Fraunhofer Institutes) that are usually only loosely affiliated with universities. Whatever reputation these institutes acquire does not fully rub off on universities (in public perception as well as methodic rankings).

Note how the German universities that have a somewhat generally good reputation tend to be located in beautiful and expensive cities and thus are more attractive to students with rich parents (which despite all egalitarian tendencies have better prerequisites). Finally, mind that there is a (disputed) initiative that may initialise the above process, but even it does, I would expect it to take decades to show effect – in particular if you measure success in Nobel prizes (see below).
Consequences
Now, all of this leads to German universities scoring badly in different ways:

The effect of a few good departments at a university gets lost in averaging. The good departments in Germany are simply not clustered at a single university.

Scoring high in a university ranking is not such a relevant factor for universities, and thus they have no incentive to game those systems.

Even top departments are not that attractive to students that they can be as selective as a globally high-ranking university. Students simply select their place of study by other criteria.

A considerable portion of research successes happens at research institutes and not at universities and thus does not boost any university’s ranking.

For ARWU (Shanghai) in particular: This ranking mainly counts the extremes (Nobel prizes, high-impact papers, etc.). Broadly speaking, it looks at the highest percentile of research happening, not the median, average, or similar. Most of the aforementioned points are particularly bad for achieving such extremes, while hardly affecting the average quality of research and teaching.

I had the idea that the "top" research in Germany is done in the MPIs rather than universities, is this correct?

@Wouter I wouldn’t say that categorically, but MPIs generally have better funding than most university departments.

This answer seems to imply that German universities will do comparatively well on ARWU subject rankings. Checking the data, there is some effect but it's small. For example in the ARWU proper (ranking university-wide), there is no German university in the top 50; the highest is the University of Munich @ 51. Searching though the subject rankings for some random subjects, there is no German university in top 50 for law, one in top 50 for math, none in top 50 for chemistry, one in top 50 for civil engineering, one in top 50 for biological sciences.

Few more data points: there're no German universities in the top 50 for nursing & finance, two in top 50 for food science, two for oceanography, 1 for geography.

@Allure Nursing is probably seen as "vocational" rather than academic in Germany, and finances, too. The best people I know in the field go to Anglo-Saxon countries to study finance.

This answer seems to imply that German universities will do comparatively well on ARWU subject rankings. – Not necessarily. It’s not that being at a reputable university doesn’t have its advantages for individual departments, in particular when it comes to attracting better students (who are the most likely to hold university-wide rankings in some regard). As for the ARWU ranking, it could be that Germany just does less “Hollywood science”, which is what this ranking seems to be aiming at.

@Wrzlprmft I don't understand what you mean. The answer says Germans focus on the reputation of the department, which (if we assume German academics are of comparable standard to their best international competitors) should imply that German universities don't show up in the ARWU because the collective is not comparable, but individual departments are, and therefore the German universities should do comparatively well on the subject rankings. Can you explain what's wrong with that reasoning?

@Wouter The role of MPIs is completely field-dependent. In my field, they are not a thing at all.

As for Hollywood science, if that is the reason German universities rank low internationally then I would suggest writing that as an answer instead, because that would be the substantive answer to the OP's question.

@Allure: Please see my edits. As for Hollywood science, that was mostly a stab at that particular ranking. I don’t want to be too much specific on this, since it does not seem to be the main point of the question to me.

@lighthousekeeper: But in other fields you have Fraunhofer etc.

Are there any rankings that include the research institutes, like the MPIs? Does that show a different picture?

@Wrzlprmft True, but in my field, such institutions maybe host 5-10% of the top researchers (as in: researchers regularly publishing at the top venues). The other 90-95% are at universities.

@GoodDeeds The Max Planck Society produced the third-most nature publications in 2016 and 2017, being only outranked by the Chinese Academy of Science and Harvard University (though arguably it is unfair to compare a whole organisation with a single university). The Max Planck Society comes Second in sheer volume of research papers produced (2009).

Regarding nature, the same holds true for 2018 and 2019. I couldn’t find more recent figures regarding total research output.

The institute point is critical.  Bonn is one of the top 10 cities in the world for mathematics research, but that includes the university and two institutes.

@Narusan it would be interesting to try to make a fair comparison. The Max Planck Society is made up of 86 institutes (even some outside Germany) and employs "23,767 staff as of 31 December 2018". Perhaps research output per employee would be an interesting metric? It might also be worthwhile taking into account that MPI spends relatively less effort on teaching compared to universities (and hence can be more focused on research). https://www.mpg.de/facts-and-figures

Some (at least one) of these reasons would also apply to Cambridge university.  It’s not clear that Cambridge excels because of market competition in the US sense. [ Discussion moved to chat.]

There are lots of biases in international academic rankings, they tend to favour US and UK universities because they use criteria which are mostly relevant for a market-oriented academic system, such as the US/UK ones.
In many European countries the academic system is not market-oriented, or at least not as much as in the US and the UK: students fees are very low because higher education is mostly funded by public money.  Universities are seen as a public service offering education to society as a whole, rather than a kind of commercial institution which sells knowledge and qualifications to those who can afford it. As a consequence Non-US/UK universities are not as incentivized to attract international students, they don't make big efforts to play the competition game since their income doesn't depend (at least not much) on their international ranking.
Of course this is only a simplified explanation, but this is the main reason why US/UK universities perform better than German universities (among others) in international rankings.

[Edit] Originally this was only a quick answer to explain what (I think) is an important structural and cultural difference with respect to international rankings between UK/US-like academic systems and others. My point was only to emphasize this difference to the attention of prospective students looking at these rankings, knowing that this is a common source of misunderstanding among them. I didn't imagine that the question and my answer would attract so much attention. I gladly admit that this is a rather simplistic answer, and I'm happy to see that other answers have done a much better job than me at analyzing other aspects of the question in detail.

"Germany does not have top universities, because it's not trying to have them." It's not true that they're not trying. Since 15 years, as part of the "Exzellenzinitiative" (later "Exzellenzstrategie"), Germany has spent billions of Euros into programs for increasing the international appeal of their universities, including the upgrade of a handful of universities to "Exzellenzuniversitäten" (excellence universities).

@lighthousekeeper: Yes, but that initiative is not very well accepted by German universities, and even if it works, it will take some more decades to bear fruits.

They cared about the excellence status, but compared with the endowment of the top universities in the US, the total financial investment in the Exzellenzinitiative was not exactly massive. Also, because of its strong regional emphasis, Germany's universities did not have a tradition of being in direct competition with each other, but rather being good per se. The result being that you could study anywhere and expect get a good education.

The Exzellenzinitiative was pretty much a joke if you count it as an effort to get to high ratings. To my (first-hand) experience there are quite a lof of flaws to it: the amount of actual money given was not that high, it was limited to a rather short time frame, it only awarded money to special projects ("excellence clusters") and it totally neglected some of the practical issues (e.g. "how is the university going to provide offices for those new researchers?"). In the end it was little more a handful of additional PhD student positions

I've moved most of the discussion about this answer to chat. I've left here the most relevant comments discussing the Exzellenzinitiative. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

How does this answer the question? Are you claiming that the rankings are determined by the ability to attract international students? And what is the relationship between attracting international students and public funding? Aren't some highly-ranked US universities like UCLA and UCB publicly funded, as are some highly-ranked Canadian universities?

This answer would be better if it mentioned some of the criteria in which studies are biased against continental european universities.

@user76284 Even publicly funded universities in North America have huge incentives to try to attract international students because they can get much more money per student from them, especially when they're underfunded

I think this is all probably true, but I think the points raised in other answers are more important.

A significant portion of this phenomena may simply be due to core problems in the methodology of these rankings systems.  For example:

ARWU rankings are based 50% on sparse outlier information for "glamour" rather than "normal" science: 30% for Nobel and Fields winners (which instantly excludes most research fields) and 20% for Nature & Science papers (which form a quite small fraction of even most famous researchers' significant output). Here, the top two German universities are ranks 51 and 54.
QS World University rankings are based 50% on reputation surveys, which will tend to make "top ranking" a self-reinforcing phenomenon.  Here, the top two German universities are ranks 50 and 63.
Times Higher Education rankings are a bit more egalitarian, with 35% based on reputation surveys.  Here, the top two German universities are ranks 32, and 41.
US News rankings are also less reputation-based, with 25% based on reputation surveys. Here, the top two German universities are ranks 43 and 56.

I find it interesting and possibly significant that the German universities rank higher in the less outlier-based and reputation-based ranking systems. Remember also that top 100 is still quite high, given that there are approximately 1000 graduate schools and thousands more 4-year colleges in the USA alone.
Furthermore, even the "objective" measures like "citations per faculty" and "number of papers in top 1% of field" are going to be dominated by the high tail of the distribution, rather than the actual educational and research opportunities provided to the median undergraduate or graduate student.
Thus, if the German universities have not been optimizing for these metrics, as suggested by other answers, I would expect the best ones to show up only in the medium-high rankings, even if they are extremely good institutions (as they have been).

In addition to which one might add that the presence of “high-flying” researchers does not correlate to very many “high-flying” classes or students in such classes.

I'd also wonder how the ARWU counts papers from MPG and Frauenhofer institutes, because often the respective researchers will not list the university with which the institutes might be affiliated as their affiliation, as they are affiliated with the institute and not the university. But the institutes have quite a bit of output regarding high listed journals and the like.

@FrankHopkins I also assume that this is an important part of the answer. A lot of top research happens at these institutes; it is what they have been designed for.

Just writing up an additional point discussed in the comments to Erwans excellent answer. US universities vary massively in terms of funding and any excellence or quality measure you can think of amonst each other. In comparision, German universities are much more uniform. This means that if you only look at the very top, you will see a few US universities but not a single German one. At the same time any German university would count as fairly good compared to the average US university.
In terms of funding this is a result of politicial choice in Germany. If you want a university that scores in the top 10 internationally, a necessary but not sufficient condition is an amount of funding similar to the current top 10. No German university is anywhere close to that amount of money and the German government, which provides the bulk of their funding, is (currently) not interested in giving out that amount of funding to a single university. There are a number of programs to increase excellency but they are all targeted more broadly.

There are undoubtedly many things going on here, but some of this is almost certainly attributable to the broad sweep of history. Academic inquiry flourishes best under some sort of liberal democracy. Germany was the originator of the modern university system, but for most of the 20th century, the political environment in some or all of the country was very negative. During the Nazi period there was a "brain drain" of academic talent, e.g., many leading physicists who were Jews fled to the US or UK. Taking TU Dresden as an example, it was ruled by the Nazis, then "largely destroyed" (according to their web site) by the allied bombing. Immediately after the war, there was just a struggle for daily survival in Gernany. TU Dresden was then rebuilt but run under totalitarian communism until reunification.
You don't just get those years back for free. Often in economics if there is a setback, that simply becomes the new starting point for continued exponential growth, so where some country that didn't experience the setback gets $Ae^t$, the country where bad things happened sees $A'e^t$, where A' is just smaller. It's true that sometimes destruction can actually have paradoxical effects, such as allowing a fresh start. (IIRC this happened sometimes when wars destroyed obsolete rail systems.) But that's not a guarantee.
So liberal democracy matters in many ways, including this. That's one reason why the trend toward populist authoritarianism in places like Poland, the US, and Hungary is such a bad thing.

If it were simply a question of recent time spent as a liberal democracy then you wouldn't see Chinese universities in the top but no German universities.

@gormadoc Chinese universities aren't at the top of the rankings (0/25 top institutions, 2/50, by the Shanghai ranking cited).

I'm amazed that I had to scroll down so far for this answer. The persecution of scientists and other effects of the Nazi regime were the primary reasons German academia lost its cutting edge position.

The US barely qualifies as a liberal democracy these days though. Probably I should say "doesn't qualify". 2. TU Dresden actually did quite well during the East-West partition, If I'm not mistaken - of course, given the effects of the war. If you compare it today to, say, TUM or TU Dortmund - would you say it's inferior?

German science got strong in late 19th/early 20th century, when Germany was an illiberal monarchy. I have even seen people argue that the two are related: a closed political system means that fewer talented people go into politics and more go into academia (in Hawes, The Shortest History of Germany. He raises this point for the early 19th century, however).

@Colin 2/50 and 6/100 for China is still more than 0/50 and 4/100 for Germany. It's also wrong to attribute such a lasting effect to Nazi persecution of Jews who happened to be scientists (not even close to 1:1) when China persecuted scientists for being intellectuals (much closer to 1:1) decades later.

@gormadoc 6/100 would still be an underperformance for a country with 1/5 of the global population, even if it shows impressive recent improvement. Whereas with 4/100, Germany overperforms its population.

@gormadoc The effects of the Nazi regime are the accepted reason why, e.g., Gottingen lost its status as the global center of mathematics, which it never reclaimed. It is seriously mistaken to think that the Nazi persecution of scientists was limited to Jewish scientists (as horrific as the persecution of Jewish scientists was), and the major exodus of German professors consisted in large part of ethnic Germans. Chinese   universities lacked elite status prior to the cultural revolution, so the scenarios are not quite analogs -- and Chinese u's remain underperformant in these rankings.

Edit: pointed out by by "henning -- reinstate Monica", my answer is not true as I wrote it since by using something called "Leistungszulage" you can negotiate top-ups to your standard salary.
One factor which has not been explicitly mentioned, but is somewhat related to the different amount of funding: In Germany, salaries of professors are regulated. This means that there are three types of professorships (W1 = Juniorprofessor, W2 and W3) for which there are fixed salaries no matter on who you are or where you have this professorship (they do change depeding on your years in the job, though; they also perhaps fluctuate in miniscule amount between the different "Bundesländer", but one can really ignore that for my point since the difference is too small). What this means is that if you are performing much better than the average in your field and can negotiate for a higher personal salary in a position at a US university, this option does just not exist in Germany. The best you can go for is negotiating e.g. more doctoral students or perhaps funding for your research/working conditions. I think this provides a high disincentive for over-performers to settle in Germany and might thus affect the outlier-measuring metrics used by many of the comparison schemes.

That's not entirely true. German profs (and other Beamte) can negotiate nice top-ups, so-called Leistungszulage.

I did not know that and will edit my answer for that. Thanks.

See e.g. https://m.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/berufungs-und-leistungszulagen-wie-das-grundgehalt-waechst/10921980.html

Professors' salaries are - I assume - not low in Germany. Under this assumption, the motivation of earning more money is usually less significant for people in Academia than considerations such as the collaboration environment, ability to secure research funding, ability to attract good graduate students etc. Those might keep one in Germany or motivate immigration more than the pay.

This is true, but "keeping in Germany" and "attracting people from outside" are quite distinct here, I would think. Although professors' salaries are of course not low in Germany, for (already established) top academics who would consider transferring to Germany otherwise, the pay cut might be a factor against their decision. Anecdotally, I witnessed cases of this. Of course, it's hard to quantify if this argument has any importance at all on a big scale (even I would place its importance at the very low end of stuff mentioned here, and as proven by my ancedotes, I am quite biased).

I would like to add one more point:
Top Institute like Max Planck, Helmholtz, Leibniz, Fraunhofer Institutes and many more offers Research (master, PhD, etc) in the German language, where hardly any international students gave more choice. Even these Institution and other Institution offers in the English language, which gives more completion for admission.

I am sorry, but I fail to parse your sentences. What I can say is that the staff and students at Max Planck Institutes tend to be very international and English is the predominant language there. But I am not even sure whether this contradicts your answer.

At more than one of the MPIs that I have seen, the majority of the students and a large fraction of professors were from non-German speaking countries, and all work was conducted exclusively in English.

@Wrzlprmft You are mentioning only Max Planck.

@dtc348: Because those are the ones I am most familiar with. Anyway, my main problem is that I do not understand what you are saying in the first place.


text:
Is the English-version of a paper previously published in a different language considered an "original contribution"?
I am an academic in a Portuguese-speaking country, so there is some incentive for me to write in Portuguese. However, much of the literature I deal with is in English, so I would like to publish in journals from anglophone countries.
Given this state of affairs, and given that no matter how many translations are made of a work, the research leading up to it remains one research, I had the idea of maximising my audience by publishing in both in English (abroad) and Portuguese (in my country). That is, I'd like to publish a paper first in a Portuguese-language journal, and then later submit it to an English-language journal, or vice-versa.
However, as we know, originality is typically a requirement in academic journals. But are translations of papers previously published in foreign languages considered "original work"?
At face value, I think the answer might be "no": the work, as a research, has been published elsewhere, so it isn't quite "original". But that would mean that no research published in Portuguese can ever find itself as a translation in an English-language journal, which also sounds a bit exaggerated. If that is the case, what is the appropriate venue for translations?
I'm aware some journals have a policy giving editors discretion to consider exceptions to the originality rule on a case-by-case basis (see e.g. [1]). Still, I was unable to find information on how situations like this are typically treated. Obviously, as a matter of ethics, the original work would be properly referenced in the translation, which would be flagged as such.
So, paraphrasing: is the (original) translation of an academic article previously published in a foreign language considered "original work" for the purposes of publication?
P.S.: I imagine this may differ from field to field. I do research in the fields of law, Social science, and philosophy.

It's very important that you are open with the journal you want to publish a translation in. Some journals will publish a translation (and clearly mark it as such). However, you have to take the hurdle of the licensing issues, the journal which published the original paper either needs a license that allows this or needs to grant permission.

What comes to mind is to publish in your preferred language, and include a note of the form "Translation into XXX can be found at YYY"

No.  A translation is not considered an original work in the context of submission to an academic journal whose stated policy is that submissions must be original work that is not published elsewhere.*
You can still send an email to the editor explaining your idea and asking if they’d make an exception to the policy. Some journals, in some circumstances, might consider it.
You can also translate your paper anyway and make the translation available via a paper repository such as arXiv. It will undoubtedly increase the exposure and impact of your work.
*Translation is of course a creative activity requiring skill and expertise, and in other contexts would certainly be considered a kind of original work.

Why would it be "exaggerated" to think that journals are reluctant to publish findings that have already been published? A journal has limited space to publish articles. They want to maximize the "value" they get out of the articles they publish (prestige, money...). An article that exclusively contains already-known findings is of less value than an article with new findings, plain and simple.
There are some exceptions. If an article is of high value, it may be worthwhile for a generalist journal to publish a translation. Books are a different beast: it is more common to publish translations of books, as they are generally assumed to have a wider readership and a longer-lasting usefulness, and the "space" concern is less pregnant. Finally, some journals specialize in publishing translations. Other than in these cases, I don't think it is likely that a journal would publish a direct translation of an existing article.
As for what you are trying to achieve, I am a bit puzzled. Is there really an incentive for you to publish in Portuguese? I do not work in Portugal, but in a non-anglophone Western European country. The language of my field is English. There is no incentive whatsoever for me to publish my findings in my native language. Anyone remotely interested in reading what I write knows English, and I am personally evaluated on the basis of all my articles, including the ones in English – in fact, almost all the top journals of my field almost only publish in English. So let me ask you: are there really lusophone academics in your field that are not able to read documents in English? Do the incentives to publish in Portuguese really exist? This may happen in specific fields (e.g. if you study the history of Portugal, or the Portuguese language itself), but otherwise, since you claim that most of the literature you read is in English, color me doubtful. What exactly do you gain by publishing in Portuguese?

Thanks for the answer. By "exaggerated", I meant that the consequences of interpreting "original" so as to exclude translations appeared a tad demanding, and seemed to entail an impossibility of publishing translations.
As for the incentives for publishing in PT: first, there is a sizeable audience of academics in my country which cannot read English material (or simply isn't used to). As a result, I see a lot of redundancy: findings which are commonplace in anglophone academia are often perceived as cutting-edge novelties in my country. This is especially true in law-related journals.

In short, I have an incentive to publish in PT (even though much of what I read is in English) because there is a dearth of literature on many fields in the lusophone journals of some of my fields. Plus, publishing locally would also be a plus for "networking" purposes, something important if I choose to seek teaching positions in my country, rather than abroad.

"pregnant"? Did you mean "present"?

Many journals and universities would consider it plagiarism to publish the same paper in two different languages. If the papers are similar enough that one would be considered plagiarised (or not publishable as not enough novelty) if they were in the same language, then putting one in another language does not change its status.
What are your goals with the Portuguese version? I can understand that some of your legal issues papers may be most appropriate in Portuguese if you want to perhaps have them read by legal practitioners as well as scholars. But you state that much of the material (and therefore the intellectual debate) is in English. If you want to contribute to that discussion, then you presumably need to publish in English.
One approach might be to publish in English but have a blog or other less formal outlet where you summarise and promote the paper (in Portuguese).