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Is it possible to cite from an unknown source without plagiarising?
I am currently writing a document that needs pictures for visual representations of my topic. I’ve been browsing around on the Internet to find such picture. I found a very good picture that could be suitable for my topic. Unfortunately, I do not know how to cite this picture.
The reason why I say I do not know how to cite this picture is because it is a picture from a textbook (or article) that someone decided to upload on Pinterest. I know this because the picture has a small caption at the bottom that says, Figure 1.2: Blah blah blah.
Is it possible to cite something like this? Should I move on and try to find a substitute? My document will be published in the United States.

Can you contact whoever uploaded the picture?  (If that's an ignorant question, I apologize; I have never used Pinterest.)

I've never used Pinterest either. It was just a result I found on Google and then I visited the page and it was a posting on Pinterest. I assume you can ask the person provided that they left their contact information behind. I also edited my question with a tag and it's part of my question about a country of publication.

You should try to search by image in Google to see if you find the same picture in another site: https://images.google.com

Pinterest is a scourge of all image searches, but I believe images cannot be (or are rarely) uploaded directly. Rather, a pinterest entry 'pins' a specific website; but unfortunately, the link to the source is only accessible if you have a pinterest account. I recommend that you create an account and check if there is a source link to where the image came from (if you are lucky, it was from a blog entry and the contents make note of the textbook it was taken from...)

@TheDoctor I was able to find a tool online that has an algorithm that is capable of reverse searching where you upload a picture and it searches for multiple instances of where this picture has occurred. Haven't found any website that gives credit, unfortunately...

Plagiarism is about inaccurately claiming a work as your own. Thus, as long as you make it clear that it's not yours and attribute the source as best you can, you need not fear an accusation of plagiarism.
Whether this is an appropriate source to cite, on the other hand, depends on how you are planning to use it and in what degree of formality.  Since this is unclear from your post, I will suggest a few possibilities along a spectrum:

If you are not formally publishing the image and are not dependent on its content, there is likely to be no problem and you can credit very informally. For example, I recently made a presentation that included an humorous image marked: "[Photo Credit: The Internet]".  Even copyright is unlikely to be an issue as long as you do best-effort attribution and aren't annoying a large corporation or unusually litigious artist.
If you are formally publishing the image, then the publication venue will need to have copyright issues resolved. For this, you either need to track down the author or else give up on using the image.  Here, you can use the standard forms for citing a website. That is likely to not be very helpful for anyone trying to trace the image, given how unstable and dynamic Pinterest is, but will at least follow the appropriate forms.
If you are actually relying on the technical content of the image, you probably need to find another source or generate the content yourself. Since you know nothing about the actual ultimate source, there is no scientific credibility to an anonymous snippet on the internet, and it needs to be treated accordingly: for all you know it could be from a UFOlogy pamphlet or a Chick tract.

Thank you for your feedback. Maybe I should mention that this picture is not original research meaning that this picture is just reinforcement to a well known idea, a summary to be specific. It almost looks extremely identical to a summary table but the picture is not labeled as a summary table which lead me to believe that it was a figure and only a figure.

According to your answer, I can take the Bible, publish it under my name, cite it as "text is not mine, got the text from another book, original author(s) not clearly identified/long time ago deceased" and get away with it. Plagiarism is more or less an ethical problem (as there are no laws about it) while intellectual properly is well defined. What he is doing by taking an internet picture/table/text and turning it in a printed, probably commercial, product, is clearly against the intellectual property law.

@RazvanP I don't intend on commercializing anything. If I had the intentions on stealing it, I wouldn't have asked this question. I would like to give credit as much as I can. It's not an "internet picture" because I understand the medium of where this picture was from but I just don't understand how to give credit to something that was not credited in the first place when the picture was uploaded.

@RazvanP "Publish it under my own name" is not equivalent to "cite it"

My understanding is that, despite the best effort (such as googling the "blah blah" text accompanying the picture) you cannot identify the bibliographical coordinates of the content.
As of ownership, you use something that does not belong to you, you don't know whom it belongs, and "abandoned property" principle clearly does not apply.
What is the purpose of the document you write? If it is about gaining a million dollar, getting the Nobel prize, or all of the above, the original author of the picture will likely sue you. If not, your transgression, no matter if you cite or not the original author, will remain unpunished.
If you believe you are falling under "fair use", for example you criticize or approve the concept, and you need the picture to substantiate your claim, you can provide the URL and the date of retrieval, with "unknown original source and author" mention on the citation.


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Will a master student publishing several short papers come across in a bad way?
I am a master student in a relatively small research field in humanities. I am a relatively good student: at the moment I’m preparing my bachelor’s thesis for publication in an A journal, and an abstract I submitted for a conference next year got accepted.
Many of my courses are tested with a paper (of varying lengths, anything between four and twenty pages is common). I spend more time on those papers than my peers and in them interact with very recent research papers. I am then tempted to think I could submit a revised version of such a paper (shortening it to 4–8 pages or so, perhaps with a title like “Some notes on...”) to a journal in which the papers I interact with were published. I do not have the illusion a journal would give me the full twenty pages, nor that all of my course papers are valuable enough to be submitted, even in shortened form.
I would like to get published because the review cycle is rather long and starting to submit now could give me some publications to show when applying for a PhD position later. Also, I truly believe that my results are worthwhile.
On the other hand, I’m afraid it may come across as arrogant. All these course projects are relatively narrow-scoped, so perhaps it would be better to keep the results in mind and work them out later, in the master’s thesis for instance, and submit them to a journal then.
Yes, I can ask the teachers in these courses what they think, but don’t want to come across as overly self-confident. I understand you cannot judge my work without seeing it – but perhaps you can give some advice based on the general impression you would get from a master student publishing several relatively short papers.

Are 4-8 page papers common in your field? I'm in a humanities field, but 12-18 page papers (8000 words) are the standard. 2) What makes you feel publishing might be considered arrogant, and by whom?

Thanks for the carification, I think even it is better to do that in that way, just think about the quality more than the page numbers.
Therefore in my opinion and from my experience, you just should think about the quality, and do this work for every courses you have.

@henning 1) Thanks, that is a good point. It's definitely not the norm, but it does happen. Of course I would still like to hear some thoughts on this if I ever have a course paper that is more like 12-18 pages in condensed form. 2) I'm primarily worried about other researchers, in particular those where I will later apply for a PhD position. I'm afraid having a paper like that would give people the impression that I overestimate its results, even if I'm clear about limitations and further work in the body of the paper.

One more question: Is your revised BA manuscript accepted for publication, pending revisions, or are you planning to submit it to a journal, and if the latter, how do you consider your chances to have it accepted?

@henning it is pending revisions and will in all likelihood be accepted, though I haven't had a solid confirmation.

I find the reasoning a little suspicious that a journal would not accept your work if it was 20 pages, but may "give" you 4 to 8 pages. Is this really how journals in your field operate?

@xLeitix I don't know, that was my impression. When I wrote my BA thesis, my supervisor advised me to mention related literature in text or footnotes, even if it was not essential for my reasoning, just to show that I was aware of it. The revisions that were requested for it are partially removing those references, and I don't blame the reviewers for that. I have the impression that journal papers are generally more condense than course papers. Or is that an incorrect impression?

Try it. It can't hurt.
Having published before starting a PhD program will be seen as an advantage by the people who evaluate your application. It certainly won't count against you, unless you publish in junk outlets and neglect your exams over it, which should be your priority.
This last sentence is important though. It's much more likely to produce publishable results in a BA project than in a term paper. So make sure not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. In the humanities, having one high-ranking publication before grad school is already very good.
In any case, aiming high but realistic will be seen as determined and ambitious, not as arrogant by admissions or your teachers, whom you should also approach for advice and feedback. How you will be perceived of course also depends on how you present yourself.

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Should I withdraw a paper if the Editor-in-Chief doesn't like it, but the reviewers think it's great?
This is a long story. A couple of years ago I submitted my paper to one of the best journals in my field. After 8 months of waiting, I finally recieved a response, and it was "A major revision is needed". I looked at the reviewers' comments. They were very positive. The reviewers only pointed out some typos and suggested several little changes to improve the exposition. I thought that it would take me at most a day to revise my paper.
Then I found some additional comments of the Editor-in-Chief in a separate file. These comments shocked me. Here I must say that there exist several approaches to the problem (Problem P) that I studied in my paper. The Editor-in-Chief is the author of one of those approaches (Theory X). In his comments, the Editor-in-Chief wrote that any paper in which Problem P is studied must be based on Theory X, and that I must completely rewrite my paper using Theory X. Furthermore, he wrote that my paper must address a much more general problem that includes Problem P as a simple particular case.
I felt that the comments of the Editor-in-Chief were unreasonable, to say the least. Therefore I withdrew my paper using "Withdraw" button at the website of the journal, and submitted it to another journal, where I, again, recieved two excellent reviews, and the paper was published shortly.
Recently, I came up with an idea about how to solve the more general problem, pointed out to me by the Editor-in-Chief, in a very simple manner. I wrote a paper about it. In this paper, apart from solving the problem, I also pointed out, as clearly as I could, that Theory X, in fact, cannot be used to solve this problem due to some of its limitations. I decided to submit my new paper to the same journal. I admit that it was stupid of me to submit the paper on a similar subject to the same journal. But what's done is done.
After several months of waiting, today I recieved a response, which once again was "A major revision is needed". Once again, the reviewers liked my paper very much. However, the Editor-in-Chief this time wrote a proper review of my paper which, in fact, was longer than what the reviewers wrote! In his review, apart from defending Theory X, and writing that I am completely wrong about its limitations, he also said that in his opinion I mix too many things up, and I must delete a half of my paper and rewrite the other half.
So, the question is what should I do? I feel that deleting a half of my paper would significantly lessen its value. I want to withdraw my paper, but some people write that its unethical to withdraw a paper after peer review, and that the journal (and the publisher, which is very big) can put me into the black list of authors.
Edit-1: I would like to thank everybody for the interest in my problem and for the thoughtful comments. I've decided to resubmit my paper without any significant changes, and reply to Editor-in-Chief's comments explaining why I disagree with them. If the paper is rejected, then I will be free to submit it to another journal. If the Editor-in-Chief insists on a major revision, then I will withdraw my paper without a second thought and inform the associated editor about the conflict of interests and the reasons behind my decision via email.

Instead of withdrawing, you should inform the editor that you disagree with him or her and are not willing to make the requested changes.  Then the editor can reject the paper.  (I think this is what you should have done the first time also.)  You do this by submitting a revision with the changes you agree with and then, in your notes to the editor accompanying the submission of the revision, you explain your point of view.

Withdrawing says that you are no longer willing to have the journal publish your paper under any circumstances.  This is not true; you are still willing to have the journal publish your paper, though you are not willing to make all of the changes they request, for mathematical reasons that a reasonable mathematician might agree or disagree with.

Totally agree with the comment above. Revise resubmit and let that editor reject the paper. Then go to another good journal,  perhaps the one where the previous paper went smoothly.

The basic issue is this:

The Editor-in-Chief's excessive involvement in your paper represents a serious conflict of interest on the EIC's part.

The reason it's a conflict of interest is that the editor-in-chief is a proponent of theory X, and wants to force you to rewrite your paper in a way consistent with his "pet" theory. This is entirely inappropriate behavior, because if the paper was written on a different topic, the editor-in-chief likely would not have intervened in such a manner.
Given that essential fact, it is entirely appropriate for you to withdraw your paper and submit elsewhere. At the same time, I would also bring this matter to the attention of the journal's publisher, to alert them of an editor-in-chief who is clearly overstepping bounds by inserting themselves into a publication in a highly inappropriate way. (I interpret the editor D's comment to be a warning to the editor-in-chief that he's not happy with the way things are proceeding. Therefore, I would explain to editor D in an email why you feel forced to withdraw the paper again.)

I strongly disagree with this answer.  My understanding is that the editorial board 'owns' the journal, and they are entirely free to accept or reject any paper as long as it is for reasons based on the subject matter itself.  In particular, they should accept or reject papers based on all the expertise on the subject matter available to them, including their own expertise.  This is why fields have several journals, so that different journals can reflect the different viewpoints of different editorial boards.

In particular, a disagreement based purely on arguments within the field itself is not a conflict of interest, though of course reviewers should make it clear when such a well-known disagreement exists and being on opposite sides may color their judgement, and editors may should this into account.  Ultimately though, it is entirely legitimate for a journal to itself come down on one side or the other (as long as it does so consistently).

@AlexanderWoo: Trying to "kill" a paper because you don't like that it used a competing theory is not really ever OK, but it's understandable from a reviewer. The editor-in-chief should not be using his position to promote his or her "pet" theory.

@aeismail Often editors decide based on their "vision of the field", which is really the same thing.

@MichaelGreinecker: Just because they do it doesn't make it ethical. If you're going against enthusiastic reviews, "I don't like that they're not using my theory" isn't an ethical reason to do what the EIC is doing here.

@aiesmail, there is no evidence in the OP that anything described in your post actually happened. The following narrative is equally consistent with the OP: the EiC saw that the problem is trivial when viewed in the framework of Theory X, and immediately saw an (equally easy) generalization. The OP indeed misunderstands the limitations of theory X. If this is the case, the EIC actions are totally justifiable, regardless of the authorship of Theory X.

Your question splits into several, which I will try to address separately.

Is it ethical to withdraw a paper after peer review? It depends. Sometimes authors use peer review to improve a paper, withdraw and resubmit to a better journal. Effectively, they exploit reviewers of one journal to improve their paper for another - clearly an unethical approach. Sometimes authors merely disagree with editors' decisions and do not want to make changes as suggested. In this case withdrawal is not unethical, but as Alexander Woo mentioned it would be nicer if you sent some final version to the editor asking them to accept or reject, instead of withdrawing.
Is Editor D right to be concerned? Yes. Editor's role is to safeguard journal's resources (peers included) and making sure they are used for the best of this journal (and only then for the best of the whole community). As academics we may care about wider benefits first, but editor's role implies some administrative duties, and Editor D is right to be concerned about it.
Is Editor-in-Chief right to promote his theory? No, I don't think so. First of all, I never heard of a Editor-in-Chief be so involved with a particular paper. In my experience, this role assumes leadership, not hands-on-work, so receiving comments from Chief is highly unusual. It is not clear it the comments should be treated simply as comments of another peer reviewer, or if they are more authoritative. This makes the whole situation a bit weird and possibly implies some potential conflict of interests here.

tl;dr: What to do? I would suggest to publish anything related to this line of research in other journals to avoid deepening the conflict of interest which is already sparkling between you and Editor-in-Chief mentioned.

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Is translation of certificates for professorship positions required?
The job websites of some US universities ask to upload a doctoral certificate for assistant professor positions in Computer Science.  My doctoral certificate is not in English. IMHO, a quick look on it suffices to read my name and "doktor rerum naturalium" to convince oneself that I indeed have a PhD. Still, no website mentions that a certificate should be in English.  As a rule of thumb, without asking, should I

continue uploading my current foreign-language certificate, or
get my certificate translated by a sworn translator, or
self-translate my certificate?

The answer to your question depends upon the specific university you are applying to.

The default expectation is that you ask.

Some US diplomas aren’t in English, either! So just upload what you have, or if you have particular concerns, you can contact whoever’s listed in the ad to answer.
Generally, such formal documentation is required at the time of the formal offer or at the hire, not for the initial application.

@Abra Some diplomas are still written in Latin.  For example, Princeton provides translations of the Latin in their diplomas, which presumably indicates the diplomas are still in Latin.

@Abra: A school's diplomas will all be in the same language, regardless of department. So, yes, there are reputable schools in the US with PhD diplomas in a foreign language.

Diplomas in Latin. Wow. Even though the university was founded several decades after Latin ceased to be used by anyone other than catholic priests seriously.

@NajibIdrissi: Newton’s Principia were published exclusively in Latin in the 1680s, and an English translation didn’t appear until 1728! Knowledge of Latin was also considered an essential part of a good education at the time.

I simply find the idea that a university delivering diplomas in a language from another continent and several centuries ago rather... pompous.

@NajibIdrissi Graduation is all about pomp  (and circumstance).


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In what parts of the world, besides the US, do endowed chairs exist?
Browsing academia.SE, I discovered the existence of "endowed chairs" or "named chairs", i.e. professorships named in the honor of someone else and paid for by a donor with a gift to the university. I've never heard of anything like that before (I live and work in France so I mostly meet European academics).
Apart from the US (where this apparently exist), do endowed chairs exist elsewhere in the world?

Not all named chairs are endowed, although nowadays the fundraisers would not be happy to see a "naming opportunity" squandered.

Yes, endowed chairs exist outside the USA.
An example is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, which (according to Wikipedia) was founded in 1663 by Henry Lucas, the then Member of Parliament for Cambridge. The post has been held by the likes of Isaac Newton, Paul Dirac and Stephen Hawking.

Thanks. So perhaps it's more common in the Anglo-Saxon world.

@NajibIdrissi I have seen similar things in Scandinavia but I can't find a concrete example.

@NajibIdrissi Germany has them (UBS Endowed Chair of Strategic Management)

They exist in Australia too, e.g. https://www.garvan.org.au/news-events/news/garvan-breast-cancer-researcher-awarded-10-year-endowed-chair

In Nigeria , Endowed chairs exist; an example is the University of Lagos which has the Enoch Adeboye professorial chair for Mathematics, Named after the University's top donor, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.


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When would it be appropriate to disagree (in a publication) with a paper you have proofread?
I have been asked informally to proofread a paper by a colleague on topic X with an application on Y (constituting about 10% of the paper). After my comments (and those of others), the article was submitted. While it was in review, I looked at Y in more detail for my own work. My own research has led me to believe the conclusions on application Y are quite incorrect.
The paper is now accepted for publication and only typographical edits are accepted, so although I communicated my concerns to my colleague it cannot be included in his paper, even if he wanted to. Would it be wrong for me to prepare a paper on Y myself, disagreeing with my colleague's article (because I had foreknowledge about that article)? If yes, how long should I wait before considering sending something in myself? Naturally, I want to stay on good terms with my colleague.

Would 'attack' be the best word to describe your question? (you never say it in the body of the question itself)

@FrankFYC I didn't want to be too verbose, but edited it to clarify.

The fact that you proofread the paper does not change anything: once the paper is published it is available to anyone who wants to criticize it.
The most appropriate course of action however is to try and correct the error in collaboration with your colleague: either by publishing an erratum or a new paper. Or maybe you will decide (after discussion with said colleague) not to correct the error, eg. because it is not important enough. Your colleague will probably not appreciate it if you publish a paper about him being wrong without discussing with him first: doing so is one sure way to destroy any friendship or future collaboration.
Secondly, simply pointing out that another paper is wrong is usually not enough to get a publication.


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What are the different committees for in a conference?
I would like to take the example of QIP 2018 conference. I've always wondered what the roles of committees are. In this conference, for example, there are three.

Organizing committee
Program committee
Steering committee

It's obvious what the Organizing committee is, but what are the other committees for?

No, it's not even obvious what the organizing committee is for. Organization is everything.

I would assume it would be the local committee responsible for on ground arrangements. At least that's what I can tell from the fact that all its members are from the host institution.

Some conferences even have a "shadow program comittee", e.g. the ASIACCS. An explanation is given there: http://asiaccs2017.com/organization/program-committee/

The organizing committee (OC) represents all organizational departments of the conference, such as local arrangements, publications, publicity, satellite events, etc. Typically, for each of these departments, the OC includes one or two chairpersons. The OC is usually coordinated by a General Chair, who is the main responsible "manager" of the conference. Members of the OC usually change between different editions of the conference.
The program committee (PC) selects which papers to accept and to reject. The main task of PC members is to review papers and, afterwards, to take part in discussions of the reviewed papers. The PC is usually coordinated by one or two Program Chairs, who are actually part of the OC. Usually, the PC is more stable across different editions of the same conference than the OC; PC members often stay for 2-5 editions.
The steering committee (SC) steers the direction of the conference, for example, by selecting the location and General Chair of the next edition, and by deciding the direction of future editions (e.g., which topics to include in the Call for Papers). Compared to the OC and the PC, the SC is particularly stable across different editions of the conference. It is often comprised of former General and Program Chairs of the conference.
These considerations assume a typical medium-sized to large conference. There can be variations, especially in small and very large conferences: Small conferences may have a scaled-down OC and no SC. Very large conferences may have several main tracks with distinct PCs, or an additional committee on top of the PC (such as a "Shadow PC" or a "Program Board").

This answer assumes that the conference is large. In a smaller conference, the OC chair is often the person who won the bid (or volunteered) to organize the conference. The rest of the OC could be just a mix of general volunteers and people with specific duties.

@JouniSirén I would say that there are two types of conferences: those with and withou a SC. If there's no official SC, it's usually "somewhat decided" where the next meeting will be by "somewhat the core participants of the series".

"PC members often stay for 2-5 editions" — this probably depends on the research area; in theoretical computer science conference one usually selects a different PC chair each year, and it is up to the PC chair to select the PC members.

As for the particular conference, ask them. In general, typically:

"Organizing" can mean a whole lot of things. Unclear and too broad the way the question is stated. (Sometimes "local" is added, which then changes the meaning toward local arrangements.)
"Program committee" decides which papers to include and which ones to reject.
"Steering committee" is a senior decision-making body. Made of high-level experts to provide guidance on key issues.

As OP suggests, the "organizing committee" normally handles local conference arrangements, including the conference budget, registration, lecture rooms, A/V equipment, accommodation, and the high-level event schedule.  Basically everything except the specific scientific content.

@JeffE In this meaning the word local is typically part of the phrase or of the explanation that follows. Simply "organizing committee" (the way it is stated by the OP) without any explanation is still vague.


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Is it normal to ask to see the entire manuscript (not just the abstract) before accepting a peer-review invitation?
I apologize if this question has been asked before. I received a peer-review invitation from a journal to review a paper. In the email there is just the author's name and the title of the article and an abstract. I should just tell them if I accept to review the paper or not by clicking on corresponding links.
Is it normal to ask the journal to send the entire paper before accepting to review it? Isn't this request odd? I am potentially interested to review the paper (from the abstract, I guess I am familiar with the methods), but I would like to see the content to be sure if the methods used in the paper aren't beyond my knowledge and to check if I have enough time to review the paper (e.g., to avoid a surprise manuscript of > 150 pages!) If that matters, the subject is mathematics.

I don't answer because I'm not familiar with mathematics, but all journals I'm familiar with, when sending review invitations, send also a link to the full paper, allowing the potential reviewer to download it. I would consider the request to see the full paper quite normal.

@MassimoOrtolano As an applied mathematician, it has happened to me a few times to receive a review invitation without a link to the full paper, just the title and abstract. But I would say it's below 5% of the invitations I receive.

Have you tried googling the paper? Maybe it can be found on the arXiv.

@MichaelGreinecker Yes I have checked the arxiv and googled the paper. I have also visited the author website. The paper is not there.

Not exactly your situation but it happened to me to contact (very soon) the editor saying that after a look at the entire ms I was not able to do an accurate review. In few other cases I made explicit that I was not able to safely review part or paragraph and he/she should make sure that at least another referee went through it.

It is rather common in mathematics to have access to the full paper before deciding to review (it is attached or a link is provided). You could basically use what you wrote here as the basis for your reply. I specifically mean the phrase:

I am potentially interested to review the paper, but I would like to see the content to be sure if the methods used in the paper aren't beyond my knowledge.

I would just ask for the full paper with this reasoning.
Only make sure to decide whether you are willing to review in a timely manner after you received the full paper.

It's definitely fair to ask as suggested here. But I'll also note that I know several math journals that don't send the whole paper, just the abstract.

@Wolfgang: It has happened to me once or twice (out of maybe 75-100 total referee requests) that they haven't sent me the paper.  Each time I have asked for it in order to make my decision and they had no problem sending it to me.  A math paper could be 3 pages long or 100 pages long.  Just because you are an expert in the subject of the paper does not mean you will necessarily be able to understand all the technology used in this particular paper.  So the practice of not looking at a math paper before you agree to referee it seems like a really poor one to me....

...I wonder whether there is any justification for it.  I myself can't remember what these one or two journals were.  So I'd be curious if you could name journals that have this practice and/or if you have any insight into it or defense of it.

@PeteL.Clark: I'm not defending the idea, I'm just saying that such journals exist :-) Computer Methods in Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (CMAME) appears to be one of them.

I think that not sending the full paper is more common in Computer Science. I'm an associate editor for a respected journal that initially only sends abstracts, not full papers.

I gather from other answers that the norm in math is to send the entire paper when requesting a peer review. By contrast, in the fields I'm familiar with (generally, biology/molecular biology) it's the opposite; peer review requests send the title and authors, and often but not always the abstract; never (or very rarely) the full paper.
I assume that one reason is to avoid conflict of interest awkwardness. Editors presumably don't want to accidentally send the full description of a project to someone who is directly competing.
Edit to add a possible difference from math: I have the impression that math peer reviews are much more time-consuming than in biology, and that a peer review involves basically working through the entire paper oneself. That's rarely possible in biology (I can't take five years and 5000 mice to repeat a set of transgenic mouse experiments) so my peer reviews might take a few hours to a couple of days, and I don't need to see the paper to judge how much of a commitment I'm making.

Uh, interesting. I am used to have directly competing groups (in applied maths) to review papers on a regular basis. They are best to judge what's going on in this very topic. But these groups also tend to share their knowledge in conferences and sometimes even the visit each other. Its a friendly competition.

I'd guess that a large percentage in my fields are the same, cooperative and open, but there's a significant minority that are not. And that minority may include the same people who are open -- labs may have four projects they're open about, but one they'd rather not share; or they might be willing to share with ten labs, but have been burnt by one that they don't want to deal with again. It's complicated, and editors don't know and don't need to know all the personal and professional interactions out there.

One comment about math: you should be able to tell from the abstract of a math paper whether it is of enough potential interest to you to justify reading any further.  You usually cannot tell from an abstract how well you will be able to understand the paper.  I am a bit skeptical that this would definitively not be an issue in other STEM fields as well, but I suppose they manage to make it work somehow.  (Another difference in math: there is frequently only one referee, so they had better actually understand the paper.)

I do think this is different in some other fields (I can't say "definitively" though). I can generally tell from an abstract if I'll be interested in a paper, and if I'll be able to understand it. Perhaps this is part of the whole "re-derive the whole thing" approach in math? I probably wouldn't be able to hands-on replicate an entire paper even if I have a good enough grasp of the concepts to critique the techniques.

I referee in math. I would never accept an assignment without first seing the whole article. And, over many years, I have always been offered to see the manuscript, both when asked by email directly by an editor, and also when receiving an automated invitation.
Are you sure there is no link in the email to see the article?

Yes, I am sure, there is no link. I even visited the submission site of the journal. They only offer an abstract. If I accept to review, then I can see the whole article.

My initial suggestion would be then to reject the invitation. If you have strong reasons to accept (either by being very close to the area, or in need to build your reviewing reputation), maybe you can get to read an Arxiv version of the article?

Unfortunately the paper is not on arxiv.

Well, if you think you are an otherwise plausible referee, you may as well write to the editor and ask to see the paper.  I have done this before, and they've said yes.

Yes in every engineering manuscript I have reviewed I had access to the full manuscript before making the decision about whether or not to review. Standard ethics apply (you can't use your advance knowledge of the manuscript contents for nefarious purposes)


text:
How much time does it take to come up with a specific theoretical research problem?
I work in computational algebra. The last seven months, I have been reviewing literature and reading some research in computational algebra, but till now, I've not been able to come up with any specific problem. For the first two years of my PhD, I did the course work.
Question : How much time does it take to come up with a specific research problem? Is there any way to speed up this phase of the PhD?
Please note that my research supervisor is helpful, I discussed this issue with him and he told me that it takes some time to come up with a research problem, but he did not tell me how much time it will take.

At least in my experience, one's PhD adviser helps with finding a research topic, or even provides one. Depending on how mature and technical the field is, it might be very difficult to come up with a reasonably problem by oneself.
I suggest discussing the question with your advisor.

Finding a thesis topic can be quite difficult. For example, I needed more than a year until I got into an interesting project where I was able to use my abilities and to find interesting research questions.
I was able to solve this issue by talking to my professor since he has a good overview of the state of the art. Thus, I would also recommend you to talk to your professor and other PhD students.
Another way might also be to read recent(!) research papers. Have a look at journals, conference proceeding. Think about attending an interesting conference and talking to other researchers there.
Even if you found a topic: Keep in mind that the beginning might still be difficult. It needs a lot of time and work to finally get familiar with a new topic, so do not give up too early.

Reading papers can definitely be helpful, at least in principle.  Many papers leave questions unanswered.  Sometimes they specifically point them out, sometimes they are left hidden and only occur to you if you have enough understanding and insight to ask "But what if...".  Of course, these questions need not be particularly accessible to a starting researcher, but sometimes you can get lucky (ie, the problem is "easy" for you because you studied bizarre thing Y which is perfect for it), and worst case you get some idea of what other people think is a good research question.

If something remains unclear, it can also be very helpful to start a discussion with other PhD students of your institute. That may also help coming up with new ideas. In most cases it can be a nice idea to write to the author. Personally speaking, I am quite happy if someone reads my papers and is interested in my work.

If you are a full time researcher, you may not have the luxury of an adviser to guide you, especially if it's a new field. But, as a graduate student, you should seriously discuss with your adviser what you have read and what you found interesting. They should be able to help you find that research topic.
Ask them to send you to a summer school or conference, where you would get the pulse of what's going on in your subject area. That's also the place to meet other people who might become later your friends and collaborators.
Apart from the adviser, you should talk to the people in your thesis committee, if you have one. If your department is a healthy place, they would be more than happy to help. Also, talk to other faculty and students about things related to the field you want to launch yourself into.
It is not sufficient to read a lot in order to come up with ideas of research subjects. From reading you may find out what are the main open problems in your field and what are the state-of-the-art methods. But, there is no substitute for hands on research experience. Without that, you cannot know if the thesis topic you propose is something doable or not.
Since you read a lot about computational algebra, try to find a review where they talk about open problems in the field. Pick one which sounds interesting and do some more literature search to see what you need to know to approach the subject. Then discuss that with your adviser, peers or other faculty that might be helpful. They should help you divide this problem into subproblems, and one of them might be your topic.

In my experience: anywhere between one second and 5 years.  Sometimes you don't start from the "specific".  You will frequently start from a rather general problem (perhaps even just a feeling..."there's something interest going on here..."), and then you narrow it down to something more specific and tractable as you go along and understand why it needs to be narrowed down, and even how it can be narrowed down.  To rephrase some advice my advisor gave me: "Theorems are produced by proving a long series of minor lemmas. You rarely ever just produce the theorem from the start.  Instead you prove special cases of special cases and technical lemmas until eventually something bigger emerges."  One of the most important skills to learn to be a successful researcher is not how to identify big, overarching problems and how to solve them, but how to dissect a problem into little pieces that you then attack and start assembling into the big picture.
If you've been given, or otherwise have, some questions and are having trouble thinking of how to even start on them, then start dissecting: come up with subquestions, special cases, identify what makes things "trivial", do some accessible/"easy" calculations, etc.


text:
Include consulting work in CV
I am now between postdocs and I did some consulting work for a SME. The work was slightly related to my research field (I am a physicist specialized in developing algorithms, and the work I did was to develop an image management system).
In my CV, I included the consulting work in the "Education and experience" section. Would you recommend doing otherwise? Is there any reason why I should leave it out, e.g. to show that I am focused and will do the work?

I think it is good that you have included it, and that you have included it in a separate section (another alternative would be to include yet another section, towards the bottom of your CV, listing "consulting activities", but it certainly falls under an 'experience' heading).  Having some consulting experience under your belt gives you some credibility that a 3rd party finds your insight valuable. If this consulting activity has ended, I might also note as such (e.g., 2015-2016) so as to avoid any hesitation that your time may be shared in the future.


text:
What does "Experience as a superior" mean?
In the process of applying for a particular faculty position in computer science in Finnland, I got stuck when answering the question

Experience as a superior

The choices from the dropdown menu are

No experience
Less than 1 year
1-2 years
2-5 years
5-10 years
over 10 years

What could they mean exactly by "a superior"? (Before you cane me: yes, I  asked my contact but have not recieved an answer yet.)

As a Finn, and without further context, I read that as leadership experience. I would translate "superior" as "esimies". Esimies is Finnish for superior (of someone at work, in the sense that they are responsible and have power over other people; not in the sense that they are superior as human beings or scientists or anything like that). Have you lead a research group or supervised PhD students? Have you been the principal investigator of some project?
I don't think there is any precise definition available.
If the recruitment system is also available in Finnish or Swedish, you might also look at the equivalent term there and check what it means.

Got to be "leadership experience" IMHO

Thanks! Unfortunately, the site version in Finnish is not available.

@SolarMike Esimies is a common word in Finnish, and "superior" is the first translation that springs to mind. It has slightly different connotation than leadership, though I doubt it is relevant.

@Abra You can try sending feedback to the HR/recruitment people, possibly after the job search has concluded, about how difficult the term was to you. They might even do something about it.


text:
Is it legally okay to photocopy solutions from a solutions manual when giving answers to students?
I am the TA for a class and we plan on assigning problems from a book. The professor also has the solutions manual for this book.
Would any legal problems arise if, instead of writing the solutions myself, I simply photocopied the relevant solutions from the manual and posted these on our private class webpage?

In which country?

California, US.

It's not really a good idea to try to get legal advice from random Internet strangers - if we're wrong and your university gets sued, they're not really going to be impressed when you say "but Academia.SE said it was okay!"  Your university librarians are a better source of help - they know a lot about this kind of thing, and often have ready-made solutions that have passed legal muster.

It's also worth noting that the textbook publisher is likely to get mad at you if they find you're sharing the solution manual with students.  If it's a student manual, they're going to want the students to buy it.  If it's an instructor manual, they are not going to want students to get it at all (even though the instructor manual will inevitably be on the Internet somewhere anyway).    It might not be a copyright issue, but it may violate the terms and conditions under which they gave you the solution manual.

It's not OK, but it's also moot.  I'll bet real money that your students have already found an illegal, online copy of the instructor solution manual.  I'm not even good at it, but I can find worked out copies of every quiz I've given in the last ten years.  Websites like Cramster and CourseHero have almost everything.  Chinese websites make up the difference.  Giving the students copies of the manual answers adds no value to the class.

You're in the wrong section of stackexchange. You meant to post this here
https://law.stackexchange.com/

That being said you should look at https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions/non-coursepack/

Legally?  Dunno.  I'm not a lawyer and the test for fair use is anyway not a bright line test.
Pedagogically, it will be far better to give answers that relate to how the course was taught, and it might be possible to generate those from the publisher's manual without much trouble.  Pick something discussed in class, relate it to the current problem, and explain how one gets to the solution.
Also, see both comments to the question by Nate Eldredge.

I don't think so to be honest. However, from what I have experienced, solving the problem in your own way can help the students have more trust in your expertise. This will help learn better.

Ok lets go back to good old fashion common sense! Obviously it is not ethical to just "copy/paste" the materials. This applies for questions/solutions/slides/etc. The legal issue is secondary in my opinion.
Why not come up with your own questions and answers and take ownership of your own work? What is the point for students to attend your class? To get a photocopy of things? You have the better understanding of the the field and topic, so I suggest to come up with interesting questions/answers that triggers the imagination of student about your teaching topic/field.


text:
Dealing with aggressive student suspected to be cheating
In a previous test one of my TAs discovered a fraudulent pattern in six of the exams. The answers were uncomfortably similar, actually identical in many places. I called the students to my office and brought two colleagues to help me "interview" them individually (ask them questions about the test, gauge their level of knowledge about the subject, ...)
One of the students reacted very explosively at my one and only question: "Could you please tell me how you solved 'problem 2'? He told me he felt threatened by the question and that I had no right to ask him questions after the exam. To what I reply: "do you or do you not know?"
At that point things spiraled very fast out of control, he reacted violently, stepping out of the office while muttering some insults. On the way out he hit the door. I tried to calm him down but he got only angrier and the color of his words became redder. After seeing this, the other students refused to continue the interviews with my colleagues and left.
I definitely don't know if I should have approached the situation in a different way. Should I make them repeat the exam? Start a disciplinary process?
EDIT (Jan/09/18):
In case of suspected misconduct I should bring the case, along with evidence, to the Dean. He then reviews it and decides whether to bring it to the Academic Council or stop it there. They ultimately have the power to decide what to do. However, almost a year ago a colleague also faced a situation that involved fraud during a test, and the Dean decided to not do anything because the potential punishment for the student would be too harsh (he might be expelled)
EDIT (Jan/10/18):
Just to add some details into the situation: At the moment of the incident I was talking with one student, and each of my colleagues was doing the same with a student. The six of us were in the same (big) room. And the other three students were waiting outside.

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

The six of us were in the same (big) room — Ah.  That's an incredibly important detail that wasn't clear in your original wording. Questioning a student in the presence of other students is a really really bad idea. Each student's guilt, or even the suspicion of their guilt, is none of the other students' business.

@JeffE Worse than it just being none of their business, I suspect that discussing this kind of issue in the presence of other students likely runs afoul of any privacy rules the school has or possibly even laws. The OP may have put themselves in a very bad position by doing so.

@JeffE This arrangement for oral exam is usual in some countries, e.g. Russia. The customs are different in U.S. and UK, of course.

@JeffE I understand your point, but I was (still am) convinced all six of them planned this together

@caverac: The police question suspects separately so they can't hear each other's answers.  It makes it harder for them to tell a consistent lie and have all their answers match if they don't hear each other answer.  Questioning them separately is still the best strategy to catch them.  You might need to check the rules about bringing up specific other student's names, because you're not the police and this isn't a criminal investigation (and I only watch cop shows on TV anyway).  But you want to ask them separately about what they did with each other.

It doesn’t matter whether you think they planned it together.  After all, you might be wrong.

@DmitrySavostyanov From what I understand, this wasn't an oral exam, but an "interview" arranged only because OP suspected cheating.

Anger, particularly excessive anger, when questioned about a subject is a typical deflection mechanism. While some people do become angry/offended when their honesty is questioned, it's usually a low-intensity. IMO, it's significantly more likely that excessive anger indicates guilt. Like basically all such things, it's just an indicator, not a certainty.

When you dont have seen them cheating in the exam, you cant do anything

@Makyen That's absolutely not true. If I had been asked the same set of questions post-exam in front of my peers and I hadn't of cheated, I would of been very upset. Especially because some of us who are studying vigorously for multiple exams, sometimes knowledge is dropped out of the brain the moment the exam is over. Have you ever been accused by a partner of not being faithful when you actually were? How about if I accused you of being a child molester in front of your coworkers, are you going to react calmly to such a dramatic accusation? Defensiveness is not a good indicator of guilt.

@8protons, I'd be interested to see actual studies, either way. I didn't say defensiveness, I said anger, particularly excessive anger. In my experience, excessive anger tends to be a used as a deflection mechanism, and can tend to indicate guilt. As with all non-verbal queues, there's no 100% lie detector. There are just things that tend to indicate things. Usually, you look for groupings of non-verbal cues and/or specific ones which tend to indicate stress.

@8protons As to my being accused/asked about important things where trust/honesty was being questioned in a stressful environment: I've been there moderately, but not excessively. And, yes, I'm going to react calmly, because A) that's the best way to be convincing; and B) I'm confident in my innocence.

Bad bad bad idea. Questioning a whole group of students together in the same room to make up for the fact that you were not attentive enough during the test to prevent cheating is borderline harassment.  SIX students managing to copy means that they were basically left unsupervised. Walk around during the test, stand behind the last row. Potentially damaging a student career this way is deeply unprofessional. Get over it and be more attentive next time! :)

Report the student and his problem behavior to your honor council or academic conduct officer, as appropriate at your institution and let it be their problem.  At most schools, your responsibility as an instructor is to report suspected cases of misconduct, not to form a final judgement.

This is certainly true throughout the US -- acting like a detective grilling a suspect is no longer viewed as an appropriate response to suspected academic misconduct.  Rather, there are designated university officials whose job it is to investigate this.  But the OP may be outside of the US (e.g. I would guess that English is not his native language) and things could be very different in other parts of the academic world.

@PeteL.Clark You're right, I'm not a native speaker, and the university is outside US

@caverac: For this type of question, I think you need to be geographically specific to get useful information.

Even in U.S., this advice varies by location. E.g., Our institution's academic integrity policy explicitly says that a faculty member "shall review with the student the facts and circumstances of the suspected violation whenever feasible" as a first step, and the process is then streamlined if "the student does not contest either his/her guilt or the particular reduced grade" at that time.

Thanks for your reply. There are certainly stablished steps I should follow, beginning with the Dean, but in a similar situation that happened about 1yr ago he decided not to do anything because the punishment would be too harsh on the student (expelled).

@caverac I still think it is worth reporting to the Dean and following the procedures as to make records straight. Whatever the outcome in the future only the reported cases will remain and any retrospect analysis will be inconsistent.

It is a good thing you had two colleagues present. As far as the cheating part is concerned, it is now time to escalate (in the bureaucratic sense of the word) the process, that is, hand it over to someone higher up the hierarchy. Ideally, this is someone or some committee who is specifically appointed for that purpose. But when that is not the case, discuss this with your colleagues who are knowledgeable of what that might be.
As far as the language is concerned, you need to make a judgment call. I would take into account that as an instructor part of your duty is to maintain a safe and unthreatening work environment for your students and for yourself. If you feel that that language imperiled that environment, then it is certainly legitimate to take action against that. Again, in this situation, I would not try to handle it yourself, but instead hand it over to someone higher up the hierarchy.
For the future discuss with your department what a standard process is in such cases. Following a standard process makes it easier to defuse the situation; you can deflect the anger away from you to the process.

In reaction to your edit: You should have brought this to the Dean without your own "interrogation session". Whether and how to investigate was her or his decision, not yours. Trying to create an unofficial "pre-Dean stage" in this process can easily backfire, as you have noticed.
If you are unhappy because she or he is too lenient, then you should discuss that in the appropriate committees. It sounds like the Dean does not have enough sanction options, either do nothing or expel and very little in between. Fixing that would be a possible way forward.

I certainly appreciate your answer. The situation as whole was rather uncomfortable, specially after seeing how my student reacted. I added an edit to my original post that may contribute to the discussion. Thanks!

I've had similar situations arise many times in my 20+ years of teaching, and I have gotten confessions 100% of the time.  Everything is easier with a confession -- you don't need to worry about a trial or dispute later, the student doesn't get mad at you, etc.     My technique:

Establish rapport with the student(s), through casual conversation about unrelated topics.
Explain that the purpose of the interview is for you to understand issues with the exam.
Present the exams (or copies) side-by-side, and show the similarities.  Explain that the likelihood of this occurring due to chance is very small (below 1%).  Ask the student(s) how they think this might have happened.
Usually at this point there is a confession.  If not, I state that without a confession or mitigating factors, the evidence is so strong that I will be forced to punish all parties to a very high level.  I then explain all the various punishments available, and how I have substantial flexibility in my choice.
Guilty people want to tell their story.  Also, one party is always less guilty than the other (or even completely innocent), and the guilty person doesn't want their friend or classmate to be punished unfairly.  Hence, there is a confession.
Only once have I faced both parties completely denying everything, and I moved forward with punishing both.  The next day, after reflection, one of them made a full confession exonerating the other.  They were not friends, so this was not an agreement between the two of them.

Note: I only pursue these cases if I am over 99% sure that cheating occurred.  If not, I keep copies of the exams and wait for the next exam to see if it happens again.

The unfortunate situation described by OP was caused by the misguided interview question "how did you do this problem?".  It challenges the student to solve the exam question again, spontaneously, in this stressful environment.  This is the wrong question to ask, for several reasons.  Most importantly, it doesn't get at the heart of the matter, whether or not there was cheating (and who was responsible).  Students who don't know the right answer can get lucky sometimes, and students who do know the right answer can fail to reproduce it later.  Also, as the student was pointing out (explosively) it is unfair to repeat portions of the test, with the lower of the two grades applying.  The interview should not be about the content knowledge of the students, but solely about the issue of academic misconduct.

Interestingly, this is exactly how professional interrogators extract confessions according to a book written by three professional interrogators who have consulted for intelligence, defense, and law enforcement agencies for decades. That said, it may be that some universities have a policy against any action taken by the professor in these cases, so this is probably a great strategy (and seemingly effective!) as long as it complies with university policy for anyone thinking of going this route.

These steps (esp. #4-6) can only be followed if the person conducting the interviews is also the person who is authorized to impose punishments. That doesn't seem to be the case here - it seems to be the case that only the Dean or Academic Council can do so, in which case it may be best for those parties to be the ones to perform the investigation.

@ToddWilcox it's also how investigators extract false confessions, so YMMV.

@fectin, not quite.  Police also (a) lie about the quality of the evidence, and (b) use signs of anxiety to determine when the suspects are lying.  These questionable means are what lead to false confessions.

@vadim123 The described technique does too: "Explain that the likelihood of this occurring due to chance is very small (below 1%)", "without a confession or mitigating factors, the evidence is so strong that I will be forced to punish all parties to a very high level", and "Guilty people want to tell their story. Also, one party is always less guilty than the other"

It is hardly surprising you always get confessions. Being confronted with your options, it is always the better choice to confess, even if no illegal activity was conducted. You being sure about it, only makes you less likely to accept the 1%. Harshly put, you probably ruined someones life.

@Thaylon, it is hardly ruining someone's life to take a lower score on one exam.

@vadim123 The score, maybe, but the feeling of being unfairly accused and penalised can easily drive a fragile student into clinical depression.

@vadim123 Assume the 1%. Either they will "be punished to a very high level", or they lie that they have done something wrong because they are powerless before an authority figure, and will still be punished. How would you feel? Angry? Sad? Depressed? What would it do to someone already at the edge? - You feel yourself confirmed because you always get confessions, but should you not expect 1% error margin? That seems unacceptable to me.

The highest level of proof commonly required by court systems (e.g. in the U.S. ) is guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt", which is approximately 98-99% likelihood of guilt (or 91% in the UK ).  Hence my standard is beyond a reasonable doubt.  Questioning this standard means questioning the possibility of any court ever convicting anyone.

@vadim123 Courts ruling nowadays use physical evidences, not only interrogation as their only means. I mean in democratic countries, I am sure counter examples in many less functional places.

@vadim123 Sure, and you are a professional judge and not biased to your opinion. Reminder: you start a case when you are already sure of guilt, you would qualify as prosecutor, not as judge. Before court, there is a possibilty to go unpunished.

I have 30 years experience teaching at the college level. Angry, aggressive reaction to having been caught cheating, while not common, is not all that rare either, in my experience.
Some people seem to think that attempts to intimidate will work.  Make absolutely sure they don’t. Calmly stand your ground, and let the person know that you will report aggressive, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate behavior to the relevant dean.
Additional advice:

Become thoroughly familiar with your institution’s policies regarding academic misconduct and follow them.  That protects both you and the student.  At my university we are instructed to talk with the student directly and privately first, before reporting it formally.
At the beginning of each semester provide a written (usually in the syllabus) explanation of your approach to academic misconduct, including your policy of reporting it to the dean (or other administrative authority).
Avoid any potentially humiliating conversation with a student within earshot of any other student(s).
Any test re-taking or paper re-writing should not be taken as proof of guilt or innocence, but rather discussed at the end of the process as a possible form of partial “restitution” to be completed a few days later.

Thank Judy, probably it is lack of experience from my side. I've been teaching just two years and never faced a situation like this before. It definitely caught me by surprise, but you are right: being explicit about the rules from the beginning would have helped a lot. Thanks

Many people have addressed the procedural question regarding handling suspected cheating.
However, your post and comments indicate that a student, when asked a perfectly reasonable (albeit, potentially challenging) question:

Raised their voice
Cursed
Struck an inanimate object (a door, I believe)

This indicates a significant anger management problem. This kind of behaviour, if repeated, will result in the individual losing jobs, friends and, potentially, get them into trouble with the law.
If your school provides any kind of counseling service, I would recommend talking to them (without mentioning the student's name, to begin with) about getting them engage to talk to this student.
This is probably not the first time that this student has reacted so inappropriately and this may be part of a broader pattern that will not end well.

I don't know if you wrote this before the Jan 9 update.  OP says the stakes are very high at this institution -- possible expulsion.  Look, I've heard of students committing suicide when facing possible academic ruin.  Students are only human.  If this student raised his voice, cursed, and hit a door... what we can conclude is that he is a human being.  I don't condone such behavior -- but when the stakes are high, it is understandable.  Take-home message: set students up for success, and do not put them in temptation's way.  Proctor the exam scrupulously so that cheating cannot occur.

It might be understandable, but that does mean it's acceptable in a professional environment. I wouldn't advocate for a student to be punished for that behaviour, but they certainly need to learn how to manage themselves under high stress situations, for their own benefit and for the benefit of their current and future peers.

Me, I'd rather invest society resources in supporting student success than in trying to rewire students' brains so they don't get upset when facing possible academic ruin.

Perhaps, but I'd like to reiterate that I'm not talking about the student being upset, I'm talking about their response to being upset and being under pressure. These can be relearned and a violent outburst is never appropriate to professional pressure and will have negative consequences for them in the future.

Anyone, sufficiently provoked, will display an angry outburst.  Different people's thresholds are at different levels.  My 14yo's threshold is very low -- he's wired that way.  I would much rather he stormed out of a situation where he felt threatened, as this student appears to have done, than that he stayed, where things could escalate further. // The OP acknowledges the stakes were very high.  The angry student may have interpreted them as even higher than the OP did.  Many people will not be able to think straight if they feel their entire career is on the line.  But...

I've told you why I downvoted your answer, and we've each aired our views; do you think it's time to agree to disagree?

Agree to disagree :)

I used to work as teacher assistant and tell you for sure - if student refuses to give answers - he is cheating. Student who does know material has no fear.
In this situation - ignore what happened or give a second exam for everyone.
On next exam give everyone individual tasks. Just unique tough questions which can only be solved if student knows the subject. Yes, get ready to see a lot of F marks. It is better to do on finals when mark has more weight.
Failing exam will be a good lesson for cheaters.
You are not mommy, you don't have to teach students how to behave or control anger. This is not your job.
If students don't respect you and cheat - give them some lesson. A tough one. This is the time. Smart students will respect you, others - hate, don't care about them.

Smart students would think you're overreacting to a situation that has plenty of precedent for being handled appropriately, and resent the waste of their time as well as getting a low mark after putting in the effort the first time to earn a better one. Not to mention that even trying to give a second exam may not be an option at all. This is a terrible suggestion all over.

This terrible suggestion is an observance from practice of the best teachers I saw in my life. They completely ignorant to students who is trying to cheat. Also they normally know smart students and don't punish those.

Your first paragraph is a false statement - there are many reasons why a capable student wouldn't or couldn't answer when put on the spot. Your second paragraph contains two further terrible suggestions: individualised questions and "unique tough" questions. The first makes marking extremely difficult for very little gain, the second defeats the purpose of a standard exam. Your last statement there also demonstrates antagonist attitude towards students generally, being okay with a lot of failure grades just to teach a lesson to the potential rare cheater.

I've already pointed out the issue with the last paragraph. Smart students do not respect having their time and effort wasted by staff that see themselves as police detective first and educator second. Further, it is the professional (and technically, legal by virtue of the employment) responsibility to care about all students regardless of personal feelings.

If you do not want a student who feels alarmed and threatened to react like a cornered rat, I suggest that you not corner him or humiliate him.
Students make mistakes.  I think our goal as teachers should be to help students learn certain facts, skills, habits, and ways of thinking and analyzing, and provide useful feedback in a fair way.  I don't think our goal should be to create a cornered rat.  If a student appears to have cheated on a midterm exam, but we don't have proof, then let's step up our proctoring on the final exam, to minimize the chances that a student could cheat without our realizing it.
(As a TA I once faced this situation.  Two students handed in identical homework.  But there was no proof of misconduct.  Solution: the department scheduled my class's final for a special room where I was able to put the suspects in isolated seats widely separated from other students.  One student got a D and the other failed the final and had to repeat the course over the summer.)
If a student cheated in the midterm, chances are very good that if s/he is prevented from cheating in the final, s/he will fail the exam.
If not -- if the student manages to demonstrate the desired knowledge and skills in the final, without unfair assistance -- that's a good thing, no?

An exact quote from the question: my one and only question: "Could you please tell me how you solved 'problem 2'? I fail to see how this can be read as "pushing to extract an admission of cheating".

@aparente001 also, unless I read incorrectly, he wasn't "in front of other students". There were 3 students being interviewed individually and another 3 students outside of the door.

@StephanKolassa it was pushing because the implicit question was: "and the only reason I'm asking this is because I think you cheated". If the student was guilty of cheating the only way out for him with a chance of a good outcome was exiting that room and not answering the question. He basically plead the 5th.

Thank you for your reply, you're right, perhaps he felt cornered with the question. But please consider this: all the students that were there were facing the same situation, I do not believe that he'd feel humiliated in front of the same group that designed and carried out the fraud together

@PieterB: I do not agree it was pushing, because the purpose of the interview was to determine which of them cheated, and not at all to force all of them to admit to cheating. In fact, it is the surest way for any test with objective correctness of answers, which is typically the case in mathematics or physical sciences. I do not see how "muttering insults" is pleading anything. If you want to compare to court pleading, it is more like contempt of court!

Downvoted as there is no indication any student was harassed in the way suggested by @aparente001. All being adults and within the law, reacting aggressively to a direct technical question by an instructor inside the institution is unacceptable behavior.

@caverac Wait. You asked them how they solved problem 2 while they were all in the room together? I think it would be helpful if you edited your question to say exactly what you did and who was in the room at the time, since people seem to be interpreting your question in different ways.

Cheating is not "making a mistake". It is premeditated and fraudulent. Please do not normalise it.

In light of new details from OP, I have to reverse my stance.  Each student's guilt, or even the suspicion thereof, is none of the other students' business. Questioning the students together in the same room (as opposed to merely at the same time, which is what I understood) is not appropriate.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit - In many cases, in the U.S. (the educational system I am most familiar with), cheating is more common than many of us realize.  Getting all judgmental is not as helpful as figuring out how to set students up for academic success.

@caverac - "please consider this: all the students that were there were facing the same situation, I do not believe that he'd feel humiliated in front of the same group that designed and carried out the fraud together."  Students are individuals. // Look, if you want to create a Hercule Poirot drama, join a community theater group.

A bit uncalled for, but I get your point. Thanks

@caverac - What I mean is, think about what the end outcome will be -- best case scenario, worst case scenario, etc.  What were you hoping would occur?  I suspect you were hoping students would spill the beans, and describe the process they used for cheating, when they were confronted.  Also I suspect you were hoping to discover one or two students who were sharing information with the others.

@aparente001: The USA is just one country of nearly 200. In mine, getting "judgemental" towards students who deliberately set out to stick one over on their peers and to obtain a degree for which they are not actually qualified, is considered absolutely fine. Do not normalise cheating.

In mine, getting "judgemental" towards students who deliberately set out to stick one over on their peers — Also in mine, and I am in the US.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit - "Please do not normalise cheating?" You have distorted my position. What I said was, cheating is more common in the US than many people realize.  I don't like cheating either.  As my post indicates, I don't believe a student who avoids making an effort to do the work and learn the material, and cheats, should pass the course.  It should be possible to disagree about how to prevent and address cheating, without distorting each others' views.  My view is that if we proctor well, a cheater will make his own bed and will have to lie in it.

Your initial action to speak to all the students together was correct and well done for getting some of your colleagues to sit in.  This will help you to make a case if need be at any disciplinary action.  However, from the student's perspective he/she may have felt embarrassed as this was happening in front of some of his/her friends.  That would have probably overwhelmed any sense of guilt/regret or simple acceptance the student may have felt in this scenario.
I would give the student another chance, this time in a one-to-one tutorial.  If at all possible (perhaps you see this student regularly) try to speak to the student without contacting them and booking a time - that may simply result in no reply or a refusal.  I would try to catch them in passing in a corridor, at the end of a class or if they are in an open lab area on their own.  This will already show the student that you are concerned about the situation.  Take them somewhere where you can speak to them discreetly and privately.  Tell your line manager in advance that you are going to do this and if you are particularly worried about the student, if they have a track record in any way or you feel you may be threatened or they may use the private space to their advantage (e.g. later state things that did not occur) perhaps locate the tutorial somewhere where their is cctv - just in case.  Explain to the student the seriousness of cheating and plagiarism and your obligation as an academic to report any suspected incidents.  Explain that if the student refuses to discuss it informally (the tutorial is their opportunity to do so) what occurs when an incident is formally reported - the worst case scenario.  Try to make them understand that it is in their interest to discuss it.
Report back to your line manager or the head of department.  If the student admits cheating/plagiarism and this is a first incident by that student it is in their power to deal with this without escalating it to a formal disciplinary action.  For example, I had a plagiarism incident in the past where the student had no prior incidents and what they plagiarised, while clearly plagiarised and evidence was provided via Turnitin, was a small percentage (less than 15%) of the body of work they produced.  They admitted it and the decision was taken by the head of department to deduct an equivalent percentage from their overall grade.  Formal disciplinary action was not taken however the student did fail the assignment and was required to repeat it during the summer in order to progress to the next year.  All-in-all this seemed very appropriate, the student learnt their lesson, it did not end their opportunity at university and they did not plagiarise again on their degree.

After the blow up, I would strongly recommend that the instructor never again interact with the student about the issue or alone regarding any issue. One time attempt was reasonable; a second attempt would be folly and dangerous ("fool me twice, shame on me"). Definitely hand off to others at this time.

"Your initial action to speak to all the students together was correct" How can you say that without knowing the precise rules of the institution concerned? (By the way, the question only says the asker spoke to all the students individually. Speaking to them all together would seem dubious, to me.)

@David Richerby - yes it does say individually however the question goes on to state "After seeing this, the other students refused to continue" so the other students (perhaps not in the room) were aware, which is why I suggested the student may have been embarrassed.  No institution I've ever worked at would want to take formal disciplinary action without speaking to the students first - especially not for a first offence as it seems this is and given the comment about the dean it seems that is also the case here.

The situation has now been clarified by an edit to the question: in fact, all the students were in the same large room at the same time, each being interviewed by one staff member.


text:
Revising dissertation for publication – anxiety about revision process
I finished my PhD last year and am now in the process of revising my dissertation into a book or articles.
As I revise my dissertation material, I am of course trying to improve and polish it and make it interesting to a broader audience. However, I have recently grown increasingly anxious about revising my material. As my dissertation is online in a repository, I am really afraid that once I publish material from my dissertation, some readers will compare the dissertation with the published material and notice improvements I have made, mistakes I corrected or things I clarified.
For example, in one of my chapters I give a rather general literature review and summarise a number of publications in one sentence. For a journal article I am now working on, I have now decided to draw two of the listed publications out of the sentence/citation and discuss them separately, mainly as these publications fit the journal I am aiming at more. But I am now worried that some people might feel that I should have done this in my dissertation already to do these articles full justice.
I know that the dissertation is just a draft of sorts (that is what I was often told) and I should probably put it behind me and get on with my publications, but this is still something I think about this and was wondering whether anyone else had similar thoughts and how people generally deal with the revision process.

What's your question? Nothing bad will happen...

Nobody is going to go back and compare your book/article with your thesis. And even should somebody do so, everyone else will realize they are not doing anything useful.

@Dirk I was just wondering whether such thinking was common and how others deal with this problem. My apologies if that wasn't clear.

@JonCuster Thanks that is very helpful. I need to convince myself of that I guess:)

But I am now worried that some people might feel that I should have done this in my dissertation already to do these articles full justice.

It's probably unlikely anyone would compare the two, and if they did notice a difference, most likely they'd appreciate the fact that you improved it in the published version.
But even if they do think your dissertation could have been better, so what?  You can't do anything about it.  What's the alternative?  Don't improve the published version?  That would clearly be worse.  The published version is what 99% of readers are going to see, and you should make it as good as you can.

I know that the dissertation is just a draft of sorts (that is what I was often told) and I should probably put it behind me and get on with my publications.

Yep, do that.


text:
Post-doc requested only research statement; no cover letter?
I'm planning to apply for a postdoc that asks only for a CV and a research statement describing "educational and research background, areas of interest, and what you would like to accomplish in your postdoctoral training."
Does this mean they don't want a cover letter? Should I be essentially merging the cover letter and research statement in one document? Because in a way it just sounds like they're describing what I would expect to be in a cover letter. Or is the cover letter just expected and I should do that plus a research statement?

Unless this is an online application with nowhere to upload it, you should always write a cover letter. It's not hard, and it brings that little extra. It allows you to tell your story the way you want it.
Even if there is nowhere to upload /send a cover letter, you should add a small "summary" at the top of your CV (one paragraph).