text:
Academic Misconduct with alternate exam? Minimizing damage?
An individual I know is in an interesting situation and I was just wondering what you guys thought about it.
This individual had an exam conflict and emailed the instructor to arrange an alternate exam time to get rid of this conflict. Meanwhile the rest of the class would be taking the exam for this course at a later time that day.
After the alternate exam was finished, this individual answered questions and provided specific topics regarding the exam by his peers who would be taking that course exam later that day.
Now this individual received an email from the instructor accusing him of leaking information and reported it to the academic misconduct board.
Now I was just wondering if this is truly a form of academic misconduct.
Just a few notes to add:

I have fellow peers who have done the exact same thing and not face a single threat of being reported to the academic board.
Is it not the instructor's responsibility to prepare a different version of the exam for both the individual and rest of the class?
Furthermore, is it not also the university's and/or the instructor's responsibility to highlight the confidentiality of an alternate exam and notify the possible consequences? In all the rules and regulations, there are no clear cut rules for alternate exams or any offences that can take place.
Does this just come down to miscommunication and failure to provide reasonable notice?
From the rumours going around, the evidence gathered is a screenshot of a facebook conversation, is this even enough evidence?
And if so, would it not be a breach of privacy?
Another update: The individual did not know that it was going to be the same exam.

Thanks again and I would love to hear your thoughts about this.
UPDATE:
As a user pointed out, the second part to this question is how can this individual minimize the damage and not face severe academic misconduct?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. (Comments can't be moved to chat more than once, so future chatter in comments can only be deleted, not moved.)

Do we know the source of the FB screencap? It could impact answers (about severity, etc). For example, if the screen grab was submitted by another student who received the information unprompted, that would likely be worse than if it came from a member of a study group chat who was uncomfortable after multiple people asked about it and OP's peer acquiesced.

@Pants As it stands right now, it was submitted by an individual within that study group chat and shows many people asking about the exam including topics, exam breakdown, format, type of questions and etc.

The probably most important questions at all: Did the instructor explicitly tell him to not tell the others? If no, are there any university guidelines to not talk about an exam or similar?
And was the student aware that the exam will be the same?

I'm puzzled by the bounty you've just added. This question has over 7k views, 13 answers, and well over a hundred comments were posted on the question and its answers. Why do you think it has not received enough attention?

@ff524 Because the OP has not received the answer they're looking for. :-)

I think the update may be moot.  They "answered questions and provided specific topics regarding the exam."  If it was reasonable to assume the exams were different, why would his peers be querying him about what was on his exam?

I guess it depends a little on the meaning of 'alternate exam', but getting caught was dumb.

You seem to want to "loophole" your friend out of trouble, but that's just not something the folks here are going to be able to help you with. I stand by my answer that dwelling on these issues is actively harmful to your friend's interests, but if that's really the approach she wants to take then she should hire a lawyer.

I'm curious how this played out. Can you update your post with what happened?

If the facts are as you report them, your "peer" has engaged in academic misconduct.

I have fellow peers who have done the exact same thing and not face a single threat of being reported to the academic board.

Your "fellow peers" didn't get caught.

Is it not the instructor's responsibility to prepare a different version of the exam for both the individual and rest of the class?

No, the instructor is not responsible for preparing a different exam; the professor should be able to rely on the integrity of university students.  In any case, a fair separate exam would necessarily cover the same material.

Furthermore, is it not also the university's and/or the instructor's responsibility to highlight the confidentiality of an alternate exam and notify the possible consequences? In all the rules and regulations, there are no clear cut rules for alternate exams or any offences that can take place.

Probably the the professor should have told the student with the advance exam to keep it confidential, but I'll bet if you look in your student handbook, you'll find a statement about illicit knowledge of exam contents.

Does this just come down to miscommunication and failure to provide reasonable notice?

No, it comes down to someone revealing the contents of an exam to students who have not yet taken it.

From the rumours going around, the evidence gathered is a screenshot of a facebook conversation, is this even enough evidence?

See Anonymous Mathematician's answer concerning Facebook:  "Why not?"

And if so, would it not be a breach of privacy?

See Anonymous Mathematician's answer concerning Facebook: "Only if the Facebook account was hacked."

The individual did not know that it was going to be the same exam.

Then he couldn't know it wasn't, either.
Your "peer" knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway.  Now he must accept the consequences of that action.
The question was updated to ask about how to minimize damage.  That will depend heavily on the individual's history of conduct, any circumstances not brought out in the question, the institution's rules of conduct, and how tough the misconduct board is. However, I can tell you how not to minimize the damage: approaching the professor, dean, or misconduct board in a way that is obnoxiously defensive and argumentative.  If, for example, the individual says, "Nobody told me, and besides it's the professor's fault for not writing a new exam.  A screenshot is not evidence and it was an invasion of my privacy to rat me out!"  That will almost certainly lead to the worst possible outcome.
While not a prediction for the case in question, a similar case where I teach, if a first offense, would lead to a penalty grade in the course and a one-semester suspension from classes.  Second offense?  Dismissed from the university.
Note: It has been pointed out that this answer is generally in the context of higher education in the United States.  Given that a professor accused a student of academic misconduct for breaching the integrity of an exam, I expect it applies in the context of OP's question even though the institution is not in the U.S.

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

As a TA who recently wrote two exams because three students (of ~80) needed to take the exam early, I want to note that writing a second exam is a lot of work.  I already used the best questions I could think of for the first exam, and it took a lot of work to come up with questions for the second exam.  I also had to make sure the difficulty of the second exam was comparable to the first.  Asking your professor to write a second exam to accommodate you is a big favor and I'm not at all surprised this professor passed on what is a huge time sink. (see Anonymous Mathematician's answer)

Is it not the instructor's responsibility to prepare a different version of the exam for both the individual and rest of the class?

No, it's not a general rule that alternate exams must be different.  Preparing a different version is tricky, since it's impossible to make it exactly comparable with the original exam, and students may be unhappy if they perceive the alternate exam as being easier or harder.  If most students are trustworthy, then trusting them to keep the exam secret may be preferable to writing two versions.  (Whether most students are trustworthy is a judgment call, which may depend on the circumstances.)

Furthermore, is it not also the university's and/or the instructor's responsibility to highlight the confidentiality of an alternate exam and notify the possible consequences?

Yes, the instructor should have explicitly asked the student to keep the exam confidential.  It's not wise to leave these things unspoken.  On the other hand, the student who took the alternate exam should have asked the instructor for clarification before answering questions about the exam.  This is not an innocent interaction: even if everyone involved genuinely believed that the exams would be different, the other students were still trying to learn information that would not be generally available to the class (namely, getting a sample exam written by the instructor).  And I'd bet that the other students were hoping it would be the same exam.

From the rumours going around, the evidence gathered is a screenshot of a facebook conversation, is this even enough evidence?

Sure, why not?  I'd be a little skeptical if an anonymous source e-mailed a screenshot out of the blue, since it could have been forged or altered, but it seems like fine evidence if a believable source is willing to vouch for it.  There's no rule that says sanctions for academic misconduct require absolute proof, and indeed absolutely proof is almost never available.

And if so, would it not be a breach of privacy?

Not unless someone hacked Facebook to get it.

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

While I agree with most of the answers, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective.
At my university, there used to be a rule that students were allowed to take the exam home after they were finished. Students had databases online where you could find the exams of past years for every course, which would be a great resource for practice. Of course it also allowed you to reduce the amount you studied to the absolute minimum, so it's a mixed bag. Most teachers accepted the rule happily, and published the exams from previous years themselves on the course website.
Thus, the culture in everybody's mind was very clear: once an exam is done, it's public knowledge. This was not only accepted by the faculty, it was promoted. I would say that in such a culture, if the student made the assumption that the exams were different, they would not be acting dishonestly if they provided information about the exam to other students. Additionally, in such a culture, the teacher would be partially at fault for not mentioning that the exam was the same. An understandable oversight, but an oversight nonetheless.
Your institution may not share this policy, but it does highlight the importance of the culture at the faculty.

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

Other people have already made the most important points, but I want to respond specifically to this.

Is it not the instructor's responsibility to prepare a different version of the exam for both the individual and rest of the class?

This isn't relevant, because even if the instructor did prepare an alternate version of the exam, what your peer did would probably damage the integrity of the exam.  Alternate exams usually make the same choices as the main version about what subset of the material to focus on; for instance (in my subject, math, where I'm most familiar with this), if the main exam has a question centering on technique A, the alternate version probably also has a question focusing on technique A, even if the exact question is different (say, the numbers are changed).  (There are good reasons for this: it's very hard to make exams of exactly comparable difficulty while using completely different question.)  But a student who heard that technique A was definitely on the exam and technique B wasn't could study differently, and might be able to avoid the mistake of using technique B instead of technique A because they already know what the right choice is.
Having an alternate exam limits the impact of cheating, and prevents the most egregious approach (working out answers in advance), but there's still a need for students to respect the integrity of the exam.

This is a very important point.

In all the rules and regulations, there are no clear cut rules for alternate exams or any offences that can take place.

Let's imagine an alternative scenario where the individual in question walks into the department mail room two days before the exam and notices a copy of his/her instructor's exam sitting on the xerox machine. There is no one around, so he/she quickly pulls out his/hers phone and takes some pictures of the first few pages of the exam, which he/she later shares with friends on facebook.
Is this academic misconduct, or is the student going to claim in his/her defense that "in all the rules and regulations, there are no clear cut rules for taking pictures of an exam one finds while innocently going about one's business"?
The answer is that in both this scenario and the one you described it is academic misconduct, since in both cases the student engaged in dishonest behavior. This would be covered by a clause in your university's code of conduct that says "Students must be honest at all times" or something to that effect.
The dishonesty comes from the fact that such behavior is clearly meant to defeat the power of the exam to provide a true evaluation of the students' knowledge of the material of the course. Admittedly, the scenario you describe provides a bit more leeway for the student to claim that he/she did not understand that this was dishonest (especially if the professor was very casual about the alternate exam arrangement and did not stress the need for confidentiality), but personally I would find this to be a weak argument. I guess it would depend on the details of what the professor said and what precisely was said in that facebook conversation.
UPDATE. Here's a clarification of my position taking into account a helpful comment by @Repmat: as a general rule, sharing this type of information in the situation described in the question carries a whiff of dishonesty and my default characterization of it would be that it is (potentially mild) academic misconduct. However, I am leaving some room for doubt and would consider revising this judgment based on further evidence.

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

To address the question in your update, which I take to be your primary concern:

how can this individual minimize the damage and not face severe
  academic misconduct?

Your friend's only viable strategy at any institution where I have worked or been a student (all in the US) is to

Accept responsibility;
Apologize;
Explain how she has learned from this experience and how she will take care in the future not to do it again.

Part of accepting responsibility can be explaining that she didn't realize that this would be a problem, even though she should have.1 This recitation should be as straightforward as possible, should not include any attempt to blame anyone else, and should only be a small part of her total statement(s).
In other words, dwelling on the answers to your first several questions will be VERY BAD for her in a misconduct hearing. Even dwelling on them in conversation with you might hurt her, if it causes her to go into any meetings with an attitude of ill-use. From the school's point of view, it would appear that the facts are not in question, and neither is the infraction. The only question is your friend's state of mind. She needs to be openly, genuinely sorry if she hopes for leniency.
Once she is in the right frame of mind, it can also be helpful to

Enlist a staff or faculty advocate, even if only behind the scenes.

If there is a faculty member or advisor who knows your friend and would be willing to talk her through what is likely to happen and perhaps speak on her behalf, that can be helpful. But again, I can't stress enough that your friend needs to approach any potential advocate without attempting to pass the blame to others (the professor, the rules and regulations, or even the other students).
If, in spite of her best efforts, she is given a very strong penalty, she can appeal the decision. At that point, and only at that point, it may make sense to bring in stronger arguments about unclear expectations and contributory negligence.

1 Your friend's friends wanted to know what was on her test because it would help them on the test, not because it's standard Facebook conversation to ask for details about someone else's random test. When was the last time you asked someone in a class you aren't taking for details of what was covered on their test? If your friend had stopped to think, she would have realized that there was at least a possibility that the information she was sharing would confer an unfair advantage on her friends—that's certainly what they were hoping for.

Regarding the facebook post and the argument of breach of privacy.

If the posting were falsified or a forgery, I'd expect your 'friend' to make that argument
Since he isn't, I'm assuming that the posting were true

Now in a criminal court, if the evidence of the facebook post were obtained through illegal means such as an illegal wiretap on the part of the police, then you might convince the judge to throw out the evidence under the doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree."
There are two caveats to this, though:

The fruit of a poisonous tree doctrine only applies to criminal courts and acts by state agents. The intent is to ensure that the state only acts within the law in its pursuit of justice. Since this is not a criminal court but a university judicial hearing, your friend doesn't have access to this argument.
Second, even if it were a criminal court hearing, the professor is not a state agent if you are at a private university. And even if you were at a public university, the professor would have had to have been the one to have hacked the facebook account. If the professor were given the information by a confidential informant (C.I.) such as another student, then the poisonous fruit doctrine does not apply.

tldr: I would expect the campus judiciary board to consider the facebook evidence to be admissible.
Note that the above analysis of the exclusionary rule only apply to U.S. courts. The EU has a similar doctrine but I'm not familiar enough with it to comment.

That was exactly what I was thinking. I keep thinking about the law and how it would work that situation. However, this isn't a court of law but rather an judicial hearing as you've stated. I guess now the argument comes down to whether the individual was in the wrong to share the questions she had on her exam with her course study group. Not knowing it was the same exam and not explicitly stating the need for confidentiality.

A danish court case decided that what is posted on facebook is public in the sense that if you can see it without circumventing (ie hacking) facebook's access restrictions (friends only etc), you can use the posts against the poster. That does include someone giving you a screenshot of the posts. An employer was in their right to fire an employee for what was written in posts on facebook.

I don't think the professor was hacking Facebook accounts to get that screenshot, instead one of the students have shown this conversation to him or provided the screenshot. I fail to see how sharing a Facebook conversation or accepting such a screenshot could be illegal. Something you share on Facebook cannot be private by definition.

I have had IRBs agree to similar things as well - that if its published on social media with the intent to be public, it's public.

UPDATE: I streamlined the argumentation and I admit that it is much clearer now. For the old one view the edits.
Is the student guilty of academic misconduct ? Answer: The situation is unclear.
The involved person was not cheating. The person provided the askers with information which helped the askers, not the askee. In fact by giving answers the askee puts herself in a disadvantage, so the only people who can be actually accused of cheating are the askers which are getting more information about the exam.
So what could be the academic misconduct ? In this case it could be a breach of confidentiality if the askee was instructed to hold confidentiality about the exam or it would be obvious that the very same exam is used. According to the question this situation was not given and if we take in context that alternative exams are common, it is not self-evident.
There is another point: Who is responsible for ambigous situations, misunderstandings or possible loopholes ? Common sense is that the person/instituition who wields more power is responsible to prove that a violation occured to prevent arbitrarily applied justice. The student cannot do much if the university makes an error, but on the other side the university can destroy a career.
The university/professor is able to prevent such situations by not offering opportunities for cheating or misrepresentation. In our university exams had two versions which were distributed alternately (to prevent prying) and the professor/supervisor was controlling the exam. If there were conflicts in time, the alternative exam was either presented later and different or, if possible, the exam was placed so that the end of the alternative exam was the begin of the standard exam. If something seems to be off (strange grade distribution), it was not tried to find perpetrators, but rewrite the exam.
There are no conflicts of interest (student between professor and peers), it prevents miscarriage of justice by blaming students for own errors and it prevents discussion if something is allowed / forbidden. Plain and simple.
For all this reasons my opinion on the matter is: The university/professor did not do their job to prevent an unclear situation and should neither blame nor punish the student for that.
Some people voiced the opinion here that the situation is clear enough and should be understandable for the student without further instruction.
I would like to give a counterexample: In this infamous video Prof. Richard Quinn accused students of cheating. As it turns out, he actually used publicly available testbank questions for the exam instead of rolling out his own and he also claimed that they were his own. Without going further in detail, it seems that even professors can have problems what exactly constitutes a violation.

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

@D.W. I must admit that it is really better now. Hope you see it now in a better light.

In addition to the other good answers, I'm going to address a broader issue implicit in your question, which is, to paraphrase, "it's not cheating if you didn't explicitly tell me not to do it". In other words, the statement

Furthermore, is it not also the university's and/or the instructor's
  responsibility to highlight the confidentiality of an alternate exam
  and notify the possible consequences? In all the rules and
  regulations, there are no clear cut rules for alternate exams or any
  offences that can take place.

is flat out wrong. You haven't told us what school this happened at, so we can only give general answers.
The conduct you describe would be cheating at any institution I've ever been associated with. All these institutions have a Student Handbook which defines the obligations and expectations of students, and includes a definition of what is or isn't cheating. The definitions of my institutions are as follows:
School 1:

Cheating involves the use of unauthorized or unethical assistance to
  gain an unfair advantage over other students.

School 2:

Cheating: Defined as using or attempting to use unauthorized
  (a) materials,
  (b) information, or
  (c) study aids in any academic exercise.

School 3:

Cheating is any conduct in connection with any examination, paper,
  competition, or other work that may affect academic credit, a grade,
  or the award of academic or professional honors at [redacted],
  done for the purpose of unfairly disadvantaging another student or
  gaining an unfair advantage, or under circumstances such that a
  reasonable [redacted] student would know that the conduct was likely to
  unfairly  disadvantage another student or result in an unfair
  advantage.

You'll notice that all three definitions have very similar but non-specific language, e.g. "unauthorized", "unethical", and "unfair". If we analyze your friend's actions with respect to all three concepts:

The disclosure was unauthorized because the disclosure of the test was not specifically authorized by the instructor. Contrast this to when an instructor or a TA hands out copies of last year's exams as examples for students.
The disclosure was unfair because the disclosure unfairly advantages some students (those who happen to see or hear the disclosure) versus other students (those who didn't).
You can decide for yourself whether or not the disclosure was unethical, but there exist plenty of ethical frameworks that would say that sharing exam details in an unauthorized and unfair manner is unethical.

Furthermore, every competent instructor I've ever met includes a line in their syllabus that states something equivalent to if you have any doubts over whether a specific action constitutes cheating, please talk to the instructors first!. Regardless of whether your friend's instructor has this specific line in their syllabus, they have probably seen it enough times that a reasonable student would know to be cautious.
The bottom line is that students are expected to exercise caution in situations that are potentially cheating or facilitating cheating, or else they automatically suffer the consequences. There is no requirement or expectation (anywhere that I know of) that the instructor has to go out of their way to prohibit certain actions, unless a "reasonable" student or instructor would not realize those actions are cheating.
Sharing test questions with those who have not yet sat for the test is certainly something a reasonable student would be expected not to do. How many tests have you taken in your life where you had a friend tell you all the questions ahead of time?

[Note: adding another answer separately from my already existing one to address a different part of the question concerning the reliability of a facebook screenshot as evidence]

From the rumours going around, the evidence gathered is a screenshot of a facebook conversation, is this even enough evidence?

There has been a lot of discussion in the other answers and comments about the possibility of faking Facebook screenshots, which ostensibly calls into question the validity of using the screenshot as evidence. I find this premise entirely laughable, for the following reasons:

A motive for this outlandish forgery is completely missing. Why on earth would a faculty member even consider doing something so extreme as planting fake evidence to frame an innocent student of academic misconduct (but then sabotaging this daring act of forgery by forging only a relatively mild and controversial kind of offense that isn't even perceived as misconduct by some of the participants here)? We are talking about a final exam for a university course, not international espionage. Thus, the a priori likelihood of forgery, unless perhaps it is accompanied by prior evidence that the faculty member in question is some kind of psychopath, seems close to 0 to me.
The discussions in the other answers focus on legalistic arguments (see, e.g., RoboKaren's answer and her interesting, but amusingly irrelevant, discussion of the doctrine of the fruit of the poisonous tree) and seem to revolve around the question of whether the facebook conversation screenshots would be admissible in a court of law in the event of a criminal prosecution. Well, people, I'm afraid you have all watched one too many episodes of Law and Order. An academic misconduct hearing is decidedly not a criminal court of law, and the standard of evidence required to find a student guilty of misconduct is much lower than "beyond reasonable doubt". From my experience serving on my university's Campus Judicial Board and sitting on academic misconduct hearing panels, usually in U.S. universities (but this may depend on the university and jurisdiction) the standard that is applied is that of "preponderance of the evidence", i.e., a more than 50% likelihood of guilt. Given my argument above about the implausibility of forgery playing a role here, this would be an easy standard to meet.

To summarize, in the context of an academic misconduct investigation, the facebook screenshot would be just as good and acceptable a piece of evidence as a video recording of the student talking to their friends. So yes, it is (more than) enough evidence.

I do agree as well. While everyone seems to be going on about this from a legal standpoint, they forget to realize that is simply not a court of law. It is  a business with it's own rules and regulations and this is simply an internal hearing about what rules and regulations were broken.

My moral compass is heavily influenced by your peer's intentions. (Edit: I see from your comments that she is female.) Did she act in good faith, or was she aware that she was most likely passing on confidential information? Your question provides factual details but does not state a motive.
I feel that Bob's harsh verdict in a different answer may be justified for an intentional betrayal1, but not for a (perhaps careless, granted) communication in good faith.2 Of course there is a spectrum, depending how much your peer lied to herself because it spared her a conflict.
Whether your peer  can convince the authorities that she acted in good faith is actually quite independent of whether she did. Unfortunately, this is true both ways. Circumstantial evidence in her favor could include:

She communicated openly without any attempt to conceal it; witnesses corroborate the innocent nature of the conversations.
The type of information fits a conversation rather than a targeted betrayal. Simply passing results would indicate cheating; discussing questions academically could be interpreted as a normal conversation in good faith.
Other teachers take care to communicate confidentiality of an alternate exam, and/or they provide different tests. Therefore the absence of that could reasonably be understood as an absence of confidentiality.
Your peer has had a clean record until then; cheating would not fit a pattern.
There is no evidence of an advantage to your peer besides the natural wish we all have to be loved.

A list of incriminating evidence can easily be constructed by inverting the above criteria ;-).
On the practical side I checked out the University of Alberta's documents, see the footnotes for links. My takeaway is that there are no mandatory minimum sentences. Instead it is the Dean's prerogative as the first investigator and decision maker to recommend or not recommend severe sanctions like suspensions. I would — assuming Alberta's rules are typical — recommend to seek advice of others (alumni, ask in the fraternity etc.) who have gone through a disciplinary procedure. I would try to find out how to best present the case and herself to the first decision maker. I don't want to imply that being overly strategic is always advantageous; rather, that being naive and unprepared may be unhelpful. Since the first interaction is possibly with a single person, much depends on that person and whether she can convince him or her of having cheated unintentionally.
1 Even then I find a one-semester suspension from all
classes (I understood that correctly, I suppose?) harsh and zealous, let alone an expulsion. Cheating in various ways and grades is fairly ubiquitous, and this is really not the worst case. For example, even if it was intentional it still was not planned and it was not strategic; at worst it was using an opportunity which presented itself, not even for her own benefit. None of us is Jesus. To make an example of the one scapegoat that gets caught seems simply unjust, exactly as the OP perceives it. Make no mistake: there must be consequences. But let her learn something. Let her correct next semester's homework. Let her tutor freshmen; whatever. The purpose of a school, including the tests and the punishments, is to teach and enable, not to reject and make fail.
2 I checked out the University of Alberta's relevant documents (just because it's the first city name which came to mind). The Academic Integrity Undergraduate Handbook makes it very clear that "not
knowing is not an excuse": "It is possible, however, to
violate academic integrity even if you believed you were being honest. Each year, students who did not intend to deceive are charged under the COSB because they were careless." (From the Introduction)  I hope they are charged but not sentenced.
The Code of Student Behaviour appears not to mandate minimal sanctions for specific violations.

We have no room for cheaters where I teach.  They don't all get caught, and the punishment for offenses less than compromising an exam is correspondingly less harsh.  However, a second offense of any nature is very likely to mean dismissal for the very reason that the student did not learn.

@BobBrown Being in your school, does that imply you have not cheated twice? Not in your tax declaration? Your household help's taxes? Your wife? Hail! I have found the savior!

I've never cheated, not even once, from grade school through the Ph.D.  Nor in taxes or any of the other things you've named. That doesn't make me special; the best students do not cheat, and there are a lot of "best" students.  It does make me intolerant of those who want the diploma without learning the material.
(Teachers in state universities cannot afford household help, so that circumstance doesn't arise.)

@PeterA.Schneider See that's the thing, the conversation that took place in the study group was simply to prepare the rest of the class for the exam they were to take. From the conversations I have seen, it was largely in good faith, there was no discussion of answers or how to tackle the questions. But more so what questions the individual got, how hard she found out and just assumptions the study group made to be better prepared on. Knowing her, if she was specifically told not to do something knowing there would be consequences, this situation would have never happened in the first place.

@PeterA.Schneider It would be one thing to be made aware of how this would be classified as academic misconduct versus something said in casual conversation. As for BobBrown's answer, while I agree that it seems harsh, it also seems to be the way the academic board will be looking at this case. He does highlight some strong points and raises a good argument as to why this does without a doubt classify as academic misconduct.

@LostWanderer I assume that what you report could help her. There may be a way for the unknown participants to testify anonymously (beware of data trails there as well) on behalf of the accused. I think a school has a lot of leeway to handle internal affairs.

@BobBrown I accept your personal statement and apologize for veering into the personal. I wanted to (perhaps too vehemently) argue against the tendency to judge others harshly from a moral standpoint that often does not sustain scrutiny; few of us are infallible. I also wanted to emphasize the essence and purpose of a school, and the goal of punishment (which is not alleged purity by separation but betterment though, again, learning). Suspension and expulsion seem to run against all of that.

An individual I know is in an interesting situation and I was just wondering what you guys thought about it.

Before addressing this particular incident, let's consider that students are customers who pay a lot of money to buy the necessary tuition to get an education in some particular subject. However, universities do not treat their students as customers, they abuse their monopoly power they have for issuing university degrees. This is how you get into the problems associated with exams in the first place. The term "academic misconduct" should not apply to students unless they have engaged in fraudulent scientific work.
But given how the system works, it was a mistake to give the student the same exam as all the other students. Punishing the student for having talked about the exam (when not very clearly told that he was to keep his mouth shut about the exam) with his fellow students is another mistake. Students should be expected to freely discuss the subject, it's natural if someone has already taken an exam that this will be discussed, not because students are trying to find ways to cheat but simply because students are interested in the subject and want to be as well prepared as they can to take the exam.

Your first paragraph doesn't make much sense to me, and in any case seems like a bit of a tangential rant.

Yes, you correctly say that they pay tuition to get an education. An education, mark you, not a degree. A degree is a kind of currency paid out by the university which should match the students achievements. And, yes, if you give out a currency, you need to implement a monopoly, that's the nature of that. Cheating in exams is a bit like printing fake money. Yes, the university was careless in leaving that door open, as the driver of the security truck who recently left the door open and where the bucket with the gold flakes were stolen. But one is negligence, the other one is intention.

@user2390246 One has to put the problem in the right context, if you are in bad physical shape, prone to get ill any and then you do indeed get ill, leaving this situation out of the discussion and only focusing on  the details of the particular pathogen, does not give a good overview of the situation.

@CaptainEmacs The OP denies that the student was told about the fact that the exams were the same.

@CountIblis Yes, and that's why I said in another comment that the incident is accumulative, not definitive evidence. I didn't want to repeat that other argument here. I here essentially just aimed to respond to your point about paying for tuition.

@CaptainEmacs I see. Having worked at university with a bad exam system and having been a student elsewhere where the system was better, my opinion is that there should be a larger distance between exams and the teaching of the subjects. Ideally, there should be no exams at all at university. A university degree is an archaic concept. Testing should be done at separate facilities, tailor made tests based on the demand of particular employers can then be made. People who want to work at some company know what the requirements are, they will then want to buy whatever education they need.

@CountIblis Interesting idea. However, this used to be the domain of vocational colleges. Universities were, as the name says, about universal knowledge. Fundamentals of what's important in math, of physics and, yes, of computer science, do not change fast (the facts do not change at all, but some perspectives modernise, albeit very slowly). This is what universities used to teach. It was expected of a university graduate to adapt to the needs of a concrete job fairly quickly. Specialised knowledge for very particular jobs outdates quickly. No point wasting a university education for that.


text:
Correcting grammatical errors versus content in post-graduate coursework submissions in the sciences
During an intramural teaching forum, I was interested to learn from a Head of Department (HoD) that she didn't consider it her role to correct grammatical errors when evaluating coursework submissions (an essay, say) at the post-graduate level and that she limited her assessments to the content of the essay. I'm an HoD myself and am directly opposed to this, and have strongly recommended to academic staff in my department that the assessment of grammar should be part of the feedback provided to students. My reasons for this are:

Communications with peers, the public and policy makers are important aspects of the role.
While a number of our students are non-native English language speakers, there are a number of so-called native English language speakers with atrocious writing skills.
The students appreciate the feedback they receive and we can detect a substantial improvement in their writing skills.

The other HoD's reasons are equally cogent:

The university already has a minimum language level required for entry.
This additional task would impose a heavy burden on her already limited staffing resources.
Students need only be made aware that there are errors and can seek guidance on correcting the grammatical issues elsewhere.

This is my question to you good folks:

For teachers, what is the practice in your department and is this practice backed by specific assessment policies?
For students, what are your expectations about your grammar being corrected?

EDIT: I am interested in approaches from STEM fields, primarily. As @DanRomik points out in the comments, the approach in the humanities and arts may be different.
To put this in perspective, here is part of a report submitted in partial fulfillment of a basic statistics course at the Master's level that I am grading at the moment. The statistical formulae, graphs and numerical results are spot on.

This report uses te data from the study of [redacted] about lizard to do some analysis. Graph 1 shows the survival status of lizard. The value of survival lizard are higher than that of the death lizard.

How would you approach such a submission?
Thank you for your patience.
PS. I have found the related thread here but it focused on peer-review. Nevertheless, I accept that some grammatical errors are so egregious as to make the submission unintelligible. I am not concerned about those submissions here.

I recognize the style: looks like that of my students :-(

For context, can you tell us what your area is? (You mention grading a statistics course so that would be my guess, but it'd be good if you can make that more explicit.) The answer to your question would potentially be very different for the humanities than for STEM disciplines. Even within those categories there could be differences, e.g., for math, grammar can be important to the extent that the correctness of a proof may depend on subtle grammatical distinctions (whereas physicists I assume generally wouldn't care ;-))

Thanks, @DanRomik. I'll make the edit now. In short, I'm interested in STEM approaches.

I'm in industry not in academia, but if we got a STEM job application written in that "standard" of English, it would go straight into the reject pile. If the education system can't teach applicants to write by the time they have a first or higher degree, we don't consider it our job to provide free remedial education classes!

If the language level is "I can haz..." or the mistakes can be reduced by simple spell check I return such works to resubmit with proper [english]. When the student is a foreigner, I ask them to correct the language politely.

For reference, what are your institution's cutoff admission scores for TOEFL, SAT/GRE -Analytical Writing and -Verbal? Is this workload coming disproportionately from the bottom end of the scale? You could make the case for raising the cutoff.

@alephzero: this is too subjective. It depends entirely whether that's a job involving lots of written/ verbal communication (e.g. marketing), or hardware design. I've worked with excellent designers who couldn't string an English sentence together outside of their technical domain, and vice versa. I found it unrelated to their technical competency. It's only a function of where they studied undergraduate, which is a function of how rich their parents were. Would an employer pay 20% extra for someone with more English fluency? It's their call and it depends on what their actual need is/isn't.

Given that the top answers to this question suggest physically marking up error on a paper, but not writing how to fix them, I wonder how this would change in a fully online environment (where physically marking up a paper may be infeasible)?

I am somewhere in between physics and mathematics. My personal policy is this:

I mark any spelling, punctuation, or grammar mistake I find, but I do not explicitly search for them. However, I usually do not go at lengths to explain why something is wrong.
This does not affect the grade unless the number of mistakes severely affects the readability of the text or is particularly egregious. (Being in Germany, I may be more lenient on submissions in German by non-native speakers, depending on the programme’s main language and other factors.)

My rationale for this is:

As I have to thoroughly read the text anyway, the additional effort for marking mistakes are negligible in comparison to the reading time. In most of the cases, it’s adding a comma, crossing out a letter, or replacing a single word. This applies to analogue submissions as well as to digital ones.
Just telling students that they made language mistakes somewhere in their writings does not really help them. The effort of seeking help from a third party is unfeasible in most situations (and disproportionate in comparison to my effort). However, I expect that they are able to find out the source of a specific mistake that I marked.
The admission requirements should not and cannot be so strict that only people who completely mastered the language can be admitted. In many languages, even native speakers tend to commit some systematic spelling mistakes (in particular regarding punctuation) that can only be weeded out this way.

So in short, I think that the other HoD’s rationale is blatantly misjudging factors.
We do not have any departmental policies regarding this here, but I know many that follow a similar policy.

If you are well organized, you can have your students submit a first draft early enough that you can still send them back to a campus writing assistance center if need be.
Have them submit the draft to you triple spaced and/or with wide margins.  Mark some feedback clearly on a section of the draft, so the writing center folks can see what approach should be taken.  You don't need to do this throughout the whole submission.
In addition, you could have some TAs in your department designated to be able to help with these aspects during their office hours.
I was assigned this TA duty for several semesters in an applied math department.  As we worked through the draft together, I used the opportunity to help the student understand certain things about English.
Some students were foreigners and some were not.  I remember one student, second generation Italian American, first generation college goer.  He was a hard worker and an intelligent young man, who was hazy on grammar and sentence structure.
The department had a commitment to supporting student growth, including their ability to express themselves clearly.

I don't know what a campus writing assistance center* is or whether any of the universities where I did my studies at had one. I assume I'm not the only one...

@fgysin I googled campus writing center and the name of one of the most famous universities in the U.S., to see if it would give me a helpful example. Result: "The Writing Center, part of the Harvard College Writing Program, is a place for Harvard undergraduates to get help with any aspect of their writing, from specific assignments to general writing skills. The Writing Center is staffed by trained undergraduate tutors who provide individual conferences to students working on any writing assignment."  http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/

@fgysin I don't know if it's common outside of the US, but there's such an office on every US university I'm familiar with.  Oftentimes it's organized under the library.

I tend to agree with your stance. The other HoD's points make sense, too, but only when considering each of them separately, in particular:

The university already has a minimum language level required for entry.
This additional task would impose a heavy burden on her already limited staffing resources.

I see no way how both of these can be right at the same time. Either, the minimum language level required for entry ensures that students sufficiently master grammar (in which case pointing out the remaining mistakes should not be much work), or there is indeed a considerable amount of mistakes left (in which case the entry requirements do not seem to solve the problem).
As an additional issue, I fear I have seen often enough how

Students need only be made aware that there are errors and can seek guidance on correcting the grammatical issues elsewhere.

plays out: "I asked my friend to check my text. He's really good at grammar. He told me that I should write 'Researchers of not made no new findings about it's standart deviation.' in passive voice, so I changed it to 'Their of been no new findings about it's standart deviation.'" While it is not a guarantee that the text will turn out right afterwards, at least indicating which words need to be revised cancels out at least some misguided attempts of students correcting the text without knowing what they are doing.
Therefore, I would indeed opt for just marking the mistakes, not indicating how to fix them (unless that is inherently a part of the marking, such as for indicating missing commas or whitespace between words). That should not take much additional time because jotting one or two lines at the respective positions while reading is sufficient.

Good observation about the contradictory HoD claims. The way I've seen that play out, it's means something like: "Our institution sets an 'acceptability' threshold, which is intolerably low; but that is their responsibility and we cannot overrule what is officially sanctioned as acceptable language skills here."

@DanielR.Collins: I disagree with that stance: The 'acceptability' threshold is the threshold students have to master to start studying. It says nothing about the language skills they must have acquired by the time they graduate in general, and even less about the skills they need to have acquired to pass your particular (possibly more text-focused than others) class.

Sure, I disagree with it, too. But that at least explains why it's not self-contradictory in a proponent's brain.

I'm in math. I think it's extremely rare that I offer students (either undergraduates or graduate students) feedback to help them improve their grammar, for the simple and unfortunate reason that if I were in the habit of doing that then I wouldn't have time for anything else. Getting students to understand the mathematical concepts I'm teaching and express themselves clearly (irrespective of grammar) and correctly is already a major challenge all by itself, and virtually all overseas students (and as OP points out, some native students) have grammar difficulties ranging from moderate to serious, so the time and cognitive resources to aspire to such luxuries as correct grammar simply aren't there.
Despite this, I will occasionally mark off points for incorrect grammar if it's bad enough that it affects the correctness of an answer or my ability to discern the meaning that the student is trying to express. I may offer a bit of helpful feedback on rare occasions, especially in the case of a really good international student with poor English, where both  the student and I get frustrated by the fact that the student knows the material very well but finds it extremely difficult to make their knowledge apparent. But generally speaking, expecting me to consider teaching grammar to students a part of my job by offering feedback on a regular basis would be wildly unrealistic.

I will be following this one, as incorrect grammar in anything other than short texts and comments really irks me.
That said, I would approach the said lizard situation as I would any other time that something did not make any sense....
I would simply ask if the author meant that the survival rate/value outpaced the death rate/value....and if so, suggest that be made as an edit in order for ease of reading for the general populace.
I am ass+u+me{ing}(please get the joke) that the author's first language is not English, and that would be the reason for the incorrect grammar.
// I know that humor and Stack Exchange does not go well, but at 1:14am, it seems like a good idea.

dear lord, the up/down vote history on this comment is like a soccer match 6 up 3 down.:  Note:  downvotes without comments are infantile.

Let's say, rather, that downvotes without comments are not helpful.  (I didn't vote one way or the other.)

Yes, your way is more tactful >.<

I have a bit of experience on both ends, as I am a current student, but have also graded research papers as a TA.

For teachers, what is the practice in your department and is this
  practice backed by specific assessment policies?

My department does not have any official policies, but professors will often refer students to our university's writing center for assistance, occasionally offering incentives such as extra credit if students have their manuscript reviewed by the writing center prior to submission (this does tend to produce better writing and fewer grammatical errors overall- which not only benefits the students, but also makes the grading process easier).
Since marking grammar can be very time-consuming as a grader, some professors create a marking scheme/code for particular grammar errors. While creating said code can be time-consuming upfront, it makes the regular process of marking grammar and providing useful feedback much simpler.

For students, what are your expectations about your grammar being
  corrected?

As a student, I don't generally expect that my professors will correct my grammar unless it's so awful as to be unintelligible. Some professors will occasionally mark students' grammar as incorrect without explaining any further, and I have not found this to be particularly helpful. While third parties are often available, students (at least my peers) are generally uninterested in seeking them out, due to the effort and time involved. If your goal is to help students improve their writing and grammar, simply marking grammar as "wrong" and expecting them to seek further information elsewhere seems unlikely to accomplish this goal.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
What Math Courses are required for pursuing Economics Phd in US?
I have completed the following mathematically inclined courses offered at LSE:
1) Mathematical Methods (Which includes Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus)
2) Elementary Statistical Theory
3) Principle of Econometrics
I am planning to apply for a Phd program to universities in the United States and I've read on some forums that taking challenging math courses might improve one's chances of getting in highly selective schools. So I was wondering if these courses along with usual Econ courses demonstrate would enough rigour to the admissions committee. I am asking this because I have a chance to specialize in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics in my final year and so if I'm missing some math courses, I might be able to cover them up by choosing this specialisation.

You should be able to find course requirements or recommendations on prospective applicant websites, for example UMD

Thanks. I began with UChicago's website but couldn't find it there. So I asked this question.

You can contact admissions department directly. They'll usually be more than happy about answering those questions. If they don't have an official list, ask them what the average student has completed, and they'll usually say XYZ courses, and that'll give you a good base line for what to aim for.

To answer the general question of how to find graduate admissions required or recommended coursework, you can typically visit target program admissions pages.
If there are official requirements, they will be listed in the prospective applicants section, providing you course types and expected credits/periods of knowledge. If they are recommendations, this gives you a guideline for what you should aim to complete.
For example, UMD asks for:

In general, our admitted students have GPA's well above a "B" average, particularly in economics and mathematics; very high GRE's (particularly quantitative); math preparation that includes at a minimum three semesters of calculus, a semester of linear algebra, and a semester of differential equations;

I would assume that alternative similar classes, or classes above this level, are also accepted (verify with admissions department, as always).
If this list is not available online or you need help, calling the admissions department is a great way to get info as well. You can provide your list of current and potential mathematics courses and see if you're missing anything.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Does changing major if you’re not passionate about a good idea or should I accept what I have and live with it?
I’m a 26 yo with a BA in English. While studying and even the 3 years after I never felt EL fits me the best but still finished it with the hope of studying again the major I like (and trust me it was a hard decision to take as doing another 4 years is unacceptable here especially people here (including my family) thinks of getting job and live with it to the end. Now I'm studying CS. but felt like… What the hell am I doing with my life? Students with me are 8-9 years younger and i feel like i'm chasing something i won't catch.
I don’t really hate my major and I’m thankful I learned a bit of English which allowed me to develop myself in math, physics and coding (which I’m into) but I feel like I want more… now it seems like the way is too long, 4 years plus I want to do master and PhD so 9 years sounds terrifying
So am in front of 2 choices, 9 years to follow my goal or just doing master and doctorate in my already-have major (5 years) and accept being stuck with what i have
I know this is too long but, Please, any advice would appreciate it, a few words of wisdom, anything, really, anything would help me out.

I think it's highly unlikely that you will be able to complete a PhD in a subject you don't enjoy.

Time to do some career exploration visits.  It's sometimes called "shadowing".  When you've got a short list of jobs you think you'd enjoy, and you've got some relevant coursework under your belt, then it's time to do an internship, if necessary an unpaid one, for a few months.

As a software developer turned college teacher, I advise a lot of students in my Information Technology program and I like to tell my students "begin with the end in mind". If I want to go to my friend's house, do I go outside and start walking/driving and just turn left and right hoping that one day I will get to their house? Or do I ask my friend where they live, and get a map so that I know how to get there?
Why masters and PhD? Does that help you get to where you want to go? Or are those just streets and turns that you just happen to see in front of you?
Students I work with say "I want to get a job as a developer." If that's the case, I work with them to find some job postings, look at what they require, and figure out what knowledge and skills they need to get that job, and work backwards and plan out their degree or coursework.
I recommend you think about "where you want to be". It's a difficult question to answer for many people and sometimes it's worthwhile to talk to people in the field about what they like and don't like about their job and lifestyle and what they would recommend if they were you. Once you have an "end in mind", you can then work backwards and figure out a map as to how to get there.
Hope this helps!

MS and PhD are required to get a job (and in something am into) because i live in a country with a lot of graduated students but no work chances. Also I aim to gain as much of experience in this path to help me with what i like, i mean it's like migrating the job with the hobby

Sadly here the experience is not something make you pass the HR (i know it's stupid but it's Iraq too) i do code in several languages, experienced in RE and InfoSec field but it seems like .. anyway


text:
Is there a way to follow particular authors on arxiv?
I have googled and it is possible to create rss feeds for categories; nothing about rss feeds for authors.
Is there a way to automatically follow a large number of authors on arxiv?

https://arxiv.org/help/author_identifiers See the line about atom feeds for instructions on following one author.  If you have all the identifiers, you can manually follow all the authors.  Automating that is not really an ArXiv problem.

In general (for other types of web updates, I mean) I have had pretty good luck with google alerts and mention.com.

You can also follow RSS feeds in Thunderbird for example and just filter for the names you want.

Yes. Go to https://arxiv.org/search/ and search the author name (choose author name from the pull down menu on the right).

Original deprecated method:
Yes. It seems to be a link of the following form:
http://arxiv.org:443/find/math/1/au:+***AuthorIDHere***/0/1/0/all/0/1

Three comments in one: (1.) The search interface used here is deprecated. (2.) Why "http://arxiv.org:443" and not "https://arxiv.org"? (3.) I couldn't get this to work because it wasn't clear to me where to find an author's ID.

Why ":443"? Answer: I don't know. I have simply stated a solution. I don't have an explanation why it works.

Thanks for the explanation. Could you give an example with an author ID so I understand how this works? Many thanks!

Sorry, I am indeed unable at the moment to provide a way to find authors id.

Thanks! That said, I don't see any RSS feed on the result page for a search, so I'm not sure that simply using the search interface answers the question.

If the author has an ORCID ID, you can use something of the form:
https://arxiv.org/a/0000-0002-7970-7855.atom2
If the author has an arXiv ID, you can use:
http://arxiv.org/a/warner_s_1.atom2

How would I find out whether an author has an arXiv ID?

@Kvothe: Good question, I don't know -- I guess this could be asked to arXiv support

The arXiv API can be used to return search query results in Atom format which should be readable by most RSS clients. For example, to follow "Author Name" you can add a feed to your RSS client by giving it the following url:
http://export.arxiv.org/api/query?search_query=au:"Author+Name"+OR+au:"A+Name"&sortBy=submittedDate&sortOrder=descending&max_results=100

The generic HTTP syntax is http://export.arxiv.org/api/{method name}?{parameters}. To break it down:

http://export.arxiv.org/api/ is the arXiv API endpoint.
query is the method we call to search
the search_query parameter specifies what to search for and where

au: says to search the author field
+ is a space
OR is a boolean operator. Be sure you include all possible permutations of First Name (full or initial), Middle Name (full, initial, or absent), and Last Name to make sure you don't miss anything. You can also use this to combine multiple authors into a single feed, and you can use parentheses to build more complex boolean statements.

& separates parameters
sortBy=submittedDate and sortOrder=descending are also important to get the most recently submitted papers, and you may also want to specify max_results.

See Details of Query Construction in the appendix of the arXiv API spec.

I've tested this with Feedly and I'm able to get feeds with the latest articles by the authors I'm looking for. The results depend on the quality of your search query.
P.S. You can use this online tool to validate that your url is in fact returning an RSS feed.

It seems Arxiv Sanity has this feature.
http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/

Actually, it doesn't.  It allows following 'friends', but you have to invite them first and have them accept.

It is possible to search by name, but it appears that quoted strings do not work and you can't require that the name be an author.

If the author has a google scholar profile, then there is a button to "follow them" next to their profile and by doing this you can get email notification whenever they publish a new article or(and) get cited. But no idea on whether it can be done automatically.

An author can have multiple e-mails.

@Nobody, I edited my answer to avoid confusion. It doesn't matter how many e-mails they have as long as they have a google scholar profile.

This approach also relies on the author keeping their profile up to date, and on Google Scholar's indexing being timely.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
How is a graduate school application affected if an undergrad does research in fields outside of their major?
I'm an undergraduate freshman in the United States majoring in physics, but I am also interested in several other fields of research. I find many questions in biology and geology interesting. I'd like to explore mathematics. There are questions about materials that would be answered through research in chemistry, and there are questions in astronomy and cosmology that I'd be interested in getting involved with.
However, there are only so many opportunities to do research as an undergrad. Would it be limiting at all when applying to grad schools for most of your research experience to be outside of your graduate field of study (physics)?

Let's see: biology, geology, math, materials, chemistry, astronomy, cosmology -- I'm getting the same feeling I get when I take my children to a Chinese buffet and, overwhelmed by all the choices, they load waay too many different things on their plate, and can only eat a quarter of what they took.  Buzz's answer is very good, by the way, and welcome to both Academia SE, and to academia!

When looking at graduate applications, the fact that a student has done a some research is much more important than the content (or even the field) of the research.  It probably does not even matter much whether the people reviewing your application even understand your research.  The key point is to have a one or more strong letters of recommendation from your research supervisor(s).  Many research skills transfer relatively well from one field to another, and faculty letters than can attest to your skill level are extremely important to your application file.
Some professors may have a marginal preference for students who have done undergraduate research in the same area in which they pursue graduate studies.  Personally, I do not.  However, it is unquestionably better to have research experience in a relatively unrelated area than to have no research experience at all.


text:
Submitting journal version of an article while conference version is still in review
In my field (electrical engineering) it is a commonly-accepted practice for publications to be produced at various stages of the "evolution" of a research project, meaning that preliminary results can be published in a workshop paper, intermediate results in a conference paper on the same topic, and "final" or "definitive" results in a journal article. This paradigm is supported by the IEEE, for instance. As long as you cite the original work(s), state that the work is an expanded version of an earlier work (published at the lower stage of the "evolution") and obtain copyright clearances, this is a generally accepted practice.
This leads to a significant reuse of content across generations. I have heard multiple times that the threshold for jumping from a conference to journal paper is "30-40% new material".
My question is this-- do you need to wait for a conference paper to be accepted/published to submit the journal version of an article?  If you do not wait, does this violate the "multiple submissions" principle, even if the submissions are not identical, and not at the same "hierarchy". If so, why does waiting for the conference paper to be accepted make this "okay"?
The reason for this question is the case where you are on a tight timetable to submit a journal article, but you want to include some conference results that are currently in review (and may be for several more months).

As a general rule, as long as you are honest with the editor and reviewers, you're OK:

Make it clear in your cover letter that you are submitting an extended version of a paper that is currently under review at a conference. Also clarify this anywhere else in the submission process where you are asked whether this submission is an extended version of an existing publication.
Submit a copy of the conference version together with your journal manuscript, so that reviewers and editors can evaluate the new contribution. Note on this copy that it is currently under review.

Some journals have a policy specifically covering this case. For example, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications:

It is also possible to submit the journal and conference version at the same time.  Or the journal version can even be submitted first. The journal version should not have appeared, however, at the time of submission of a conference version of that paper.

That makes a lot of sense. That link was coincidentally very helpful, as I will likely be publishing in an IEEE ComSoc journal.


text:
How does a math degree help in electrical engineering graduate studies?
I am doing a double degree (bachelor of electrical engineering - bachelor of math) and I am in year 2 (my double degrees takes 5 years). My final goal is to enter electrical engineering graduate school. I love math and I am getting excellent grades for my bachelor of math degree but since my goal is entering electrical engineering graduate school, I feel that I am wasting my time by making my bachelor degree much longer. On the other hand, I think that I may forget the majority of my math theorems in a few years. I am thinking of dropping my math degree and just continue with my bachelor of electrical engineering but I can not decide for sure.
How would a double degree in math and electrical engineering help me in electrical engineering graduate school? Will I have any disadvantage if I just enter graduate school with a straight bachelor of electrical engineering? When it comes to graduate admission, does the graduate committee look more favorably to someone who has done a double degree in electrical engineering and math than someone with a straight electrical engineering degree? If you enter electrical graduate engineering school with just a straight electrical engineering degree, would then learning the required math be doable?
Edit: I am thinking of control theory and/or signal processing in graduate school.

If your target research area benefits from having a stronger math background, then your major in math could help strengthen your profile. Can you clarify your target EE research area?

This depends a lot on what you intend to specialize in when you get to grad school.  Some disciplines of electrical engineering use very complicated math; some disciplines just need vector calculus and Laplace transforms.  Since you're just in your second year, you probably haven't been exposed to all those areas yet.

There's always the possibility of minoring in mathematics if you prefer (at least for most institutions in the U.S.). Fewer required courses, but it'll still show up on your transcript.

Just as a passing comment, you might be interested in what Michael Robinson has been doing: http://www.drmichaelrobinson.net/. He started with Electrical Engineering and then moved into Applied Mathematics.

@MadJack: I edited my question now. My target EE research area is control theory and/or signal processing.

I am in the school of EE.   Many prominent researchers in my areas have a degree in mathematics; e.g., Stephen Boyd of Stanford Uni. is one prime example.   Another is Michael Neely of USC.  From my perspective, a math degree sharpens your logical thinking, and problem formulation and solving skills.  Also it equips you with proof techniques, which are critical if you want to do solid research in areas such as control.

What variety of grad school are you planning on applying for? A PhD? A Master’s Degree? An Engineer’s Degree, if you’re in a locale where those are a thing that exists?

I just acquired a bachelor of electrical engineering. In Brazil, engineering programs are 5 years by default. Next month I start my graduate studies and, from my experience, I think engineering programs should be more math-intensive (we do not have a mathematical analysis course, for example).
Let me explain why: I want to do research in computational electromagnetics and transients in transmission lines. I began studying more advanced topics in signal processing and numerical methods. I realised that I lacked the understanding of some mathematical concepts that appear in those topics (convergence, Lebesgue and Hilbert spaces). I also realised I did not have enough intelectual maturity because the mindset we learn in engineering is "do that to solve this problem", and not "show that this result is true and serves your purpose", which I think is more important; specially if you are going to publish a thesis and solve a problem no one ever did.
And as a side note: Claude Shannon, known for founding digital circuit design theory in 1937, did a double degree in electrical engineering and mathematics if I remember right.
To address your questions

How would a double degree in math and electrical engineering help me
  in electrical engineering graduate school?

Studying proof-writing mathematics gives you intelectual maturity.

Will I have any disadvantage if I just enter graduate school with a
  straight bachelor of electrical engineering?

I'd say yes IF you are going to a more math-intense area like signal processing. Because you will have to learn topics that are not present in engineering courses like convergence and Hilbert Spaces (at least in Brazil).

When it comes to graduate admission, does the graduate committee look
  more favorably to someone who has done a double degree in electrical
  engineering and math than someone with a straight electrical
  engineering degree?

I do not know. If I were from a graduate committee I would look more favourably to a student with a double degree in engineering and math.

If you enter electrical graduate engineering school with just a
  straight electrical engineering degree, would then learning the
  required math be doable?

Yes. I think that most graduate engineering schools assume their students have an engineer-only degree.

Yes, it would help if you study Applied Mathematics.
However, how much it would help depends on your intended field of study. If you plan to go into Computational Electromagnetics or Digital Signal Processing or similiar fields, then it's great. If not, I advise you not to invest more than one semester in studying Math.
To give you a perspective: I graduated with a BS (GPA:3.5) and MS (GPA:3.5) in EE only. I took the subject Math GRE and scored in the 30% percentile.


text:
How do I follow famous authors in my field on arxiv and other venues?
To stay aware of the latest developments in my areas of interest, I'd like to be able to follow authors. I am quite unaware of any way to do this other than manually look them up on google scholar and subscribe to them. Is there something more effective out there that most people use?

There are some useful tips in the (as yet unanswered) question http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/81831/is-there-a-way-to-follow-particular-authors-on-arxiv

At the end of the day, you will have to manually subscribe to an author or something else to be notified about new submissions. Scopus has a notification service where you can subscribe to authors or even specific search tags. Then you can choose an interval to be notified in (like "every 4 weeks"). That way you can collect all new publications that are of interest for you in a relatively simple way. Caveats are that you have to have a Scopus account and you have to be really careful about your search terms or you will get hundreds of suggested papers per notification. The article must also be indexed by Scopus for it to show up.
Alternatively, you could of course go the old-fashioned way and subscribe to whole journals that are related to your scientific interests and read them. This is probably way too expensive and my first suggestion will be more reasonable.


text:
How to gain admission to a math PhD program when as an undergrad, I didn't do research, take pure math classes, or form relationships with professors?
I just graduated college in May, and I spent my entire college career convinced that I would never study again. I had a plan for my future, and it involved working- no more school. I had considered grad school, but never very seriously.
Now, however, I am very much considering a grad or PhD program. Unfortunately, because of my intentions before, I hadn't done much research in college, opting instead for leadership and work experience. I also didn't foster any significant relationships with my professors. I talked to them enough to learn the material and pass the class, but, in my opinion, not enough for a glowing recommendation.
Now, I feel like I wasted something. How can I get into grad school when I am unable to procure stellar recommendation or show that I took classes in pure, theoretical mathematics? (I took more classes that concerned mathematics applied, like statistics and practical life models and such)
Would it be necessary for me to take more classes? Go back to school? That seems unnecessary, since I already have a bachelor's degree in Math, but I don't know what I can do.

Not sure that this is the right place for the question, but surely, the key to getting a "glowing recommendation" is getting high marks/grades, rather than the relationship you had with your professors.

@Geoff,  I would argue that is not the case.  Recommendations are all about the relationships you build with advisors and the work you've done for/with them.  I would suggest you send some emails to professors at a nearby institution and ask if you can spend a summer/winter doing research for them.  It might be unpaid, but if you could get a stellar recommendation, that would really help.

@Hobbes: I can well imagine that your take on recommendations holds in some fields. But such is not the case in mathematics.

@Hobbes: Your take on recommendations is way off for mathematics.  As just one example: I did no work with/for any of my letter writers, and I was admitted to the top three math programs in the US.  Now I am the Graduate Coordinator of my PhD program in mathematics, and I feel the same way.

@PeteL.Clark While I generally agree that the norm in maths is not as Hobbes suggested, I think this is not entirely universal. When I was on the Grad Committee back in my Canadian job, it was very hard to know what to make of the grade transcripts especially if they came from other countries, and recommendations with some personal connection did mean a bit more to us. Now I am on the analogous committee in my UK job and a similar comment applies

@Yemon: Thanks for your comment.  I should have scoped my comments to math grad programs in the US.

You should also consider a PhD program in applied mathematics. Your background might be more suitable for that.

To expand what I began to say: I agree that obtaining good grades/marks is not the end of the story, but it is probably the most likely way to bring yourself to the attention of a professor/lecturer who might recognise your talent and therefore wish to help you to develop it.

How can I get into grad school when I am unable to procure stellar recommendation or show that I took classes in pure, theoretical mathematics? (I took more classes that concerned mathematics applied, like statistics and practical life models and such)

I think you need to take courses in pure, theoretical mathematics.  You can do so:

As a non-degree seeking student at a reputable university, probably self-funded.
As a master's student at a reputable university, possibly self-funded.

By a "reputable university," I really mean one with a solid math PhD program or a very strong master's program.
Presumably you want to do this while still keeping gainful employment, so I would start slowly: maybe take one solid course, really try your best, and then reevaluate whether this is what you want to do.  If that goes well, repeat and intensify.  I would plan to spend at least two years doing so.
Once you start doing well in courses, make a point of talking to the instructors and getting advice from them.  Maybe they will encourage you to apply to the PhD program there, or maybe they will have other good suggestions for what to do next.

Massive edit: Structure of the question changed.
Old Answer:

Yes definitely, you can conceivably go to graduate school. However, if your application isn't competitive for the programs you wish, you might want to spend some time (perhaps a year or two) in an internship, job, or program that helps you build research experience and relationships with people in a position to write you informed letters of recommendation.

To make the most of that time, I would recommend you first reflect on why you've changed your mind and what you really want. Then, try to find job(s) that (1) give you first-hand experience working on the characteristics drawing you to graduate school, to see if that's actually what you want, and/or (2) help you build skills in the specific areas you're interested in, and/or broaden your skills in areas that are widely useful (e.g. computer science).
Some suggestions for how to do this, but these are vague because I'm in STEM but not math:
Check with your undergraduate school/program for career opportunities.
Many (US) schools have networks with alumni or corporate partners. Sometimes you can find a contact to talk to, sometimes you can post a resume. Your school may have resources to get you a job relevant to your degree, that could help you build your application to graduate schools. For many schools, career counselors will meet with you even after your graduate, and might be able to talk to you in person to discuss your situation and your options.
Check with the mathematical societies and associations
Such as the American Mathematical Society, Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, etc. Societies like these will often maintain a list of internship/program opportunities that you could apply to, and/or job listings.
Internet search big companies or universities that might be hiring
If the type of math you're interested in lends itself to application in data science, actuarial science, business management, information science, etc, there may be lots of job opportunities where you could apply directly with a Bachelors.
Cold-email professors who might be able to use your skills
Many professors at research-intensive universities will hire lab techs or researchers who are not students. Market yourself as a post-bach looking to build your research experience. (For some professors, this is an easier sell that graduate students, because you're cheaper--or maybe even free--than graduate students and postdocs.) For example, if you're willing to work with a social scientist or biologist, many research groups have lots of data they can't use to its potential, because they lack the mathematical skills to analyze it. (Pro-tip to increase the likelihood of a professor response, attach a CV, and very BRIEFLY state your skills and interest applying your skills to their research; show that you've read and (at least partially) understood the research discussed on their website and any recent publications if you can get ahold of them. Try to keep it as short as possible.)
Or: Apply now and see what happens
If you can afford it, you could apply to a couple schools and see if you get in, go on visits, etc. If you don't get in and choose to take some time and then reapply, keep in mind that some schools will take into consideration if you did apply before. Hence, if you go that route, I would address your background about undergrad, change of heart, applications, and intentional decision to spend time building your skills to make you more qualified for selective programs. This can show a dedication and initiative that many graduate schools in STEM look favorably upon.

I appreciate that you acknowledge that you come from STEM-but-not-math perspective, so I don't want to cavil too much: but do you really think the cold-emailing suggestion is going to help the questioner get into a math(s) PhD program(me)?


text:
How to turn a book chapter into a publishable paper?
I'm a PhD student in the field of operations management. I've just finished writing a chapter in a handbook and am thinking about rewriting it into a publishable paper.
How much of the content can be the same and what else do I need to consider - such as empirical data, new conceptual development, etc.?

What is your motivation in rewriting the book chapter into a paper? Note that a book chapter is a kind of publication, so if your only goal here is to score another publication using the same ideas and written material, this is the definition of self-plagiarism and should be avoided at all costs.

Hi Dan, thanks for your comments. Yes, the objective here is to score another publication. But instead of using exactly the same ideas and written material, I hope to further develop and build on them - such as collecting empirical data to validate the conceptual model in the book chapter, or further develop for application in a relevant field. The purpose is to be able to do so by avoiding self-plagiarism. Will this be acceptable? H

I think the answer depends strongly on the details of your work, and strangers on the internet cannot give a general answer.  Also, standards in this regard vary from field to field.

Thanks David for your reply. I will discuss with my supervisors before taking this up, but before that I want to do some homework. Any other sources that I could possibly find some general guidance? Thanks. H

As pointed out before, self-plagiarism policies vary across fields (and target venues), so one cannot answer that question generally. What other kind of general guidance do you have in mind?

Hello Lighthouse Keeper - thanks. Since I'm pretty new in the academic community, I can't really specify what kind of general guidance I'm looking for. Maybe what I want to figure out is how to find a way to do this - say, for example, since I as the author still have the copyright for the conceptual frameworks that I propose in the chapter, I can use it in the paper to guide an empirical study, and use, say, 30% of similar writing? But since you all say it varies from field to field, I guess I will have to look for some examples and discuss with my supervisors. Thanks anyway!

Some general thing we can clarify here is that self-plagiarism is not a copyright issue - one can conduct self-plagiarism without violating anyone's copyright. The thing you want to do is OK if you respect the field- and venue-specific self-plagiarism policies. For one particular example, see my earlier answer to a related question.

Hi lighthouse keeper - thanks for the clarification and the link! H

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using research you've already published, whether in a book chapter or any other format, as a basis for further research that could lead to a new publication. However, it sounds to me like the way you are approaching this is a classic example of putting the cart before the horse.
Your goal should be to do new research that contributes something to your area, not to artificially boost your publication list by rehashing old material, which as I said in the comments is the definition of self-plagiarism. Once you have found something new to say beyond what you already wrote about in your book chapter, it will become naturally apparent to you when it makes sense to publish your findings, so the question you are asking here will likely never need to be asked. The point is that publishing is merely the last step of the process of doing research, and in some sense the least important step. It is the means to the end of communicating your research results, not the end unto itself.
As for the practical question of how much material from the book chapter you can include in a new publication, there are different schools of thought on this, with some people viewing any inclusion of substantially similar text from earlier publications, especially without an explicit citation and mention of the similarities, quite negatively. I advise you to consult your advisor or a senior colleague who is familiar with the norms in your area about such things.

Hi Dan, thanks for the advice and detailed comments - they are very helpful. I will talk to my supervisors about this sometime soon. H

I strongly believe, the best practice is to treat your published book chapter (or another published work by yourself) as if it was written by someone else. Use it in your new contribution to the same extent as you would reuse a work published by your colleague. So basically you should explicitly cite the source every time when you use any of your prior work in a new paper. ("HSC (2016) wrote so and so..." [this is the only permissible option if you anonymize your contribution for a double-blind peer review]; "as proposed elsewhere by the present author (HSC 2016)..."; "I earlier proposed (HSC 2016)..." etc..).
Even if your particular discipline may take a different stance on self-plagiarism as suggested in other comments and replies, it does not make it a good thing.
(Consider also that if your paper is subject to double-blind peer review, the reviewer will make no difference between self-plagiarism and plagiarism from another author).

Hi greenb - thank you for the advice and guidance. Very much appreciated! H

If your question was how to turn an article originally intended to be published as a book chapter (but not published at all) into a conference paper, that would make some reasonable discussions based on your field. Because this will lead us into discussing how book chapters differ from the conference papers or journal articles.
But your case is different. It has already been published as the book chapter! This makes the answer to the question flat and simple.
"How to turn a book chapter into a publishable paper?"
"You cannot turn an existing book chapter into a publishable paper".
If you must make a new paper on the same topic, it is going to be an entirely new one (citing previous work, as mentioned already by @greenb). It is not "turning a book chapter" as a new paper - like old wine in a new bottle.
@Dan Romik has answered in detail to your other sub questions.

Hi Pradeeban - thanks for your feedback. Appreciated. H


text:
Student leaving before completing PhD - how to write about his motivations for switching in recommendation letter?
I have a beginning PhD student who wants to enroll in a more prestigious PhD program elsewhere. He has done good research work here, both with my group and with a group at the university he wants to join. He is currently supported from my grant. He also wants to switch fields to something he always wanted to do.
In his recommendation letter, I want to write the things above and motivate why he wants to switch fields.

Will switching fields be seen as a negative by a graduate admission committee? He's done it already twice, mostly because funding and availability of diploma and master's advisers.
Will the graduate committee feel it is better to give the PhD position to a candidate who is not currently financially supported?
Will leaving a PhD program before completion be seen as a negative? We simply do not have specialists in the field of his choice at my institution.

I might be overthinking this, but given the quality of his work, so far, I think it would be a shame for him to miss out on a much better opportunity to (re)start a career. I also think he will perform well in that PhD program.

I think you probably are overthinking this somewhat.  I have written a number of letters for students in similar situations--wanting to leave my department's doctoral program (sometimes after earning a masters, sometimes not) for a better one (sometimes in a different area)--and they have generally been successful in getting into excellent programs.  (These students, naturally, tend to be among the best who are enrolled in our program.  On the one hand, I hate to lose them, but for the students themselves, moving is probably the best choice for their careers.)  In my letters, I try to give a modest amount of context for why the students are leaving, but mostly I just try to write them a conventional very strong letter.
I don't have any firsthand knowledge of what the admissions committee at a top institution would think of a student who has switched areas multiple times, but if you explain that the student wants to switch fields and that the new field has always been his real passion (and explain why he has been unable to pursue that area previously), I imagine that would go a long way.  The people reading the application might still look a bit askance of somebody who has changed subject areas repeatedly, but I don't think there's much more you can do to address that point specifically.  Just make the overall letter strong.
I seriously doubt that the admissions committee is going to refuse admission to somebody who already has a funded position elsewhere.  They want to get the best people for their program, and if the student has a valid reason to want to move, I think that ought to be enough.  Even my own (middle-ranked) department gets some applications from people who are already funded in graduate programs at other institutions, and this has never been an issue in our decision making process.
In the long term, I don't think anybody is going to look back over a student's record and be concerned that he jumped around a few times before completing a strong Ph.D. at a good institution.  People transfer between programs fairly frequently.  (Most people don't move, obviously, but movers are not rare either.)  And again, moving should not hurt his admission chances right now, provided he (and you) give a good explanation of why he wants to move.
So I think the most important thing you can do is to write a strong letter.  Emphasize that the student already had demonstrated skill in research working with you and that you believe he has excellent potential in the new area he wants to work in.  Explain why the student wants to move and that you support the decision, but don't let that be the main focus of your letter.  That's just there to assure the admissions committee that the student doesn't have some problem.  The core should be your strong evaluation of the student, just like in any strong recommendation letter.

Credit to you for helping your student get to where he wants to be.
Toward questions 1 and 3, without knowing more specifics (which I'm not asking you to provide, by the way), the student will need to quash some red flags in his application package.  Switching fields, in and of itself, is not a red flag.  Switching fields and looking indecisive is.  Switching 3 times is.    The appearance of a preponderance to not finish what you started is.  If I were serving on an admissions committee, those would be my concerns for a student with that package.
There seem to be many factors that alleviate these concerns -- the most important to me would be that he has already been working with the group he would like to join.  Obviously, your letter should work toward alleviating the committee's concerns.
Negatives are harder to discern, but if the student is right on the edge of earning the Ph.D where he is now, switching would look like odd behavior.  If he has low grades on his transcript that you don't know about, that would probably torpedo his application.
if he's just at the end of his first year, he hasn't really switched twice already -- he's just had some false starts at being placed in a group, which is fairly common. You should entirely ignore this since, if you write a letter with the idea that he's repeatedly switched in your mind, it will come through between the lines.

Actually, he has just completed his first year. For many reasons, the main being that the other place offers him an appropriate environment, I advised him to apply. At the new place, he will get to work on his favorite subject, on which he already has a paper.

@Magicsowon -- if he's just at the end of his first year, he hasn't really switched twice already -- he's just had some false starts at being placed in a group, which is fairly common.  You should entirely ignore this, as if you write a letter with the idea that he's repeatedly switched in your mind, it will come through between the lines.

Yes, false starts and moving around are definitely unremarkable at that early stage.

I think the false starts were more due to the funding issues -- the research here is seriously underfunded. He had to work with people who could support him.

Please add your comment to your answer.  Very helpful addition.

@aparente001  done.  thanks for the suggestion