text:
Adjust grading policy mid-course to improve attendance?
I'm teaching a math course and have traditionally not enforced attendance, instead allocating 5% of the course grade to in-class participation (questions and answers), which maintained satisfactory attendance levels. However, this semester, I eliminated the participation points to simplify grading, resulting in significantly lower attendance, possibly exacerbated by the class's early start time at 8:30 AM.
Given we're two-thirds through the semester, I'm contemplating reintroducing participation points to boost attendance but am concerned about the fairness and implications of changing the grading policy mid-course.
How should I navigate this situation? Is it advisable to alter the grading scheme now, or are there alternative strategies to encourage attendance without compromising fairness?

does lack of attendance correlate with poorer understanding of the material? Is it possible that the students who do attend get more out of it without others forced to be there?  In other words, do you have any evidence to suggest that increased attendance would be a net benefit?

Don't change the grading scheme mid-course...

"possibly exacerbated by the class's early start time at 8:30 AM." so, how do you know that the grading policy was the cause? If both of these things changed simultaneously, I (personally) would bet it's the start time :D

@Steve Good point! Maybe I should run the experiment next semester when my course starts at 10am.

@thegreatemu It's a bit late but I do note that the students who habitually skip the classes are often these who on the edge of failing the course.

@faceclean Be careful not to conflate groups with similar outwards behaviour: 1) Those who skip the course because they are failing anyway. 2) Those who are failing because of skipping the course. 3) Those who skip the course but aren’t failing. Only one of these groups will possibly benefit from forced attendance.

It is best to cut the losses and accept that this iteration of the course is going to play out the way it does. Even if you are formally allowed to make such a change, it would have drastic impact on the learning pace and style of students that is unlikely to be compatible with how they worked so far. Since you are already 2/3 through, there is little left to gain and a lot that you can accidentally sabotage.
Learn from the experience and start the next iteration on different terms.

Plus this iteration will be a good benchmark (if enough students) to see how attendance affects grades.

I agree, too late to change policy for a class that is too early!

Agree. A large change to the grading policy this late is clearly unfair, and a small change is still unfair but also probably won't even have much effect. Any change will draw some ire, the OP would be opening a big can of worms for the sake of adjusting grades by 1-2%.

Don't make a change in your grading policy in the middle of the semester.  It's unfair to students, will likely result in complaints, and could get you in trouble with your administration.

The other answers explain that changing course mid-stream is a bad idea. Indeed, my personal view is that if your teaching results in measurable improvements to learning, then failing to attend should result in lower grades anyway. And if not, why should students be forced to attend? (At least for “skills” courses like calculus, possible exception for more experiential courses.) Though I acknowledge that for many students, the attendance points are (rationally or otherwise) a stronger motivator than high-quality teaching.
But to make the answer to your actual question more concrete: consider me. I routinely had problems attending any class before 11 AM. Even now, I tend to start work around lunchtime and work late into the night. If I had signed up for an 8:30 AM class, I certainly would have dropped it if the syllabus announced a strict attendance policy. In this situation, I would find it very unfair for an attendance policy to be suddenly introduced after it is too late for me to make other arrangements.

Good point! Though I do find students who couldn't get up tend to lack a bit of motivation based on my experience.

@faceclean I can't speak for cultures besides the US, but here the culture certainly discriminates against people who are most productive late in the day and less in the morning. We use aphorisms to praise the virtues of early risers. The worst offenders are high schools, that open at very early hours to allow transportation for younger kids to start before their parents need to start work; the average high school start time is 8 am, many schools start at 7 or earlier, and many students aren't ready to learn at that time, but no one provides an alternative for them to attend at 8 pm.

I can't think of any reason that it's intrinsically virtuous to be productive early. There are certainly benefits to it, but that's not quite the same thing. University schedules are a lot better than high school, but I know from attending even a very large university that typically had many sections of courses throughout the day, I was still stuck picking some courses with earlier start times than I'd prefer because it was the only option available that fit the rest of my schedule.

I completely agree with your first paragraph. I vividly remember from my time as a university student that classes with attendance points were the classes during which I learned the least. Attending a good class with a good teacher is a huge gain of studying time, and students don't need extra motivation to attend; the only classes that had attendance points were the classes for which spending time in class was a loss of studying time, meaning we would have learned more by studying on our own that by listening to the teacher.

The course outline given to students at the beginning of the semester is a contract between you and them (possibly even a contract in the legal sense, but absolutely a contract in the ethical sense). Unilaterally changing a contract in the middle of its duration is extremely unethical. Don't do it.
If you believe that attendance is valuable for the students but that they don't understand its value, explain that to them (collectively) and hope that they will be motivated to alter their choices to increase their attendance. But be prepared to give an argument other than treating "boosting attendance" as its own goal; it's not.

While I agree with the others that it would be unethical to require attendance or participation now, and more generally agree with the answer by @MisterMiyagi, I will offer another option: you could give extra-credit points for attendance or participation now.  If there are students who have suffered because of their low attendance, then this could be just the motivation that they need.

I've been through NZ and Australian university courses, neither of them introduced the concept of 'extra' credit. As a concept it's quite foreign, can you please explain how it works?

@LamarLatrell Really? But if you're being serious, if the class is out of a hundred points, they would just tack on a few "extra points," sometimes in an assignment that is "worth" 0 points. So if you go into the end of class with 81 points, you could earn 2 extra credit points to get an 83 (in the american system this is a B- to a B).

@AzorAhai-him- I am an AU/NZ lecturer. Here a course's summary is "locked" at course start, including descriptions of all assessments and their relative weights. We expect students to map out their schedules accordingly -- for example leaving time for big assignments. Changing that assessment mid-course would pose serious fairness issues and invite massive complaints, rightfully so.

@ShernRenTee Sounds tough.

@AzorAhai-him- why? I am happy to overlook some lateness in hand-ins, students are free to ask for individual disability or hardship accommodations (from the university -- I simply administer whatever's approved), and I have some leeway to adjust difficulties as I write exams and assignments. But I've never had to change assessments mid-course, and I can't imagine why I would ever have to.

@shern Well, I just had to cancel class due to an emergency and had to rejigger assignments. Earlier, I pushed some due dates back because it’s the first time I’ve run the course.

Those are both fair actually. In my context if I'd had a "can't teach X" emergency, I'd probably be able to cancel one assignment and redistribute the marks among the remainder. The boundaries here would come down much harder on us if we tried to give students more work for essentially the same assessment percentage.

@AzorAhai-him- I'm serious. So take two students, for the sake of discussion say both got 100%, one did 2% extra credit, what would final thier marks be? Now add a third and fourth student that each got 98%, one did 2% extra credit. What are the four marks?

In every school I’ve been at, those would ceiling at 100% and be entered in the grade book as a 4.0.

@AzorAhai-him- Sounds to me like 100% doesn't mean 100%, and that 'extra' credit amounts to simply credit?

The student with 98% and no extra 2% gets a 98%. The other three students get 100%. In practice at most US universities, there's no functional difference between 98% and 100% and all four students would get an A+ (or A for schools that don't use A+).

@LamarLatrell :  Since you asked me, I'll clarify that I agree with Azor's description.  I'll also add that extra credit is quite common at American colleges and universities, from lowly community colleges to elite institutes.  It gives a way for marginally failing students to bring up their grade in exchange for extra work (often based on what they did poorly at), or for a teacher to offer extension assignments to advanced students (especially if you can only get an A+ for 100%).  People rarely complain, because it can't make any individual student's grade go down.

@LamarLatrell again re ‘Sounds to me like 100% doesn't mean 100%, and that 'extra' credit amounts to simply credit?’:  That's certainly true as far as calculating the grade goes.  But the connotation in calling some of the credit ‘extra’ is that the extra-credit work is optional; if you do all of the regular assignments, then nobody can fault you for not turning in all of the work, even if you don't do the extra credit.  (So if you get 100% on that, then your grade is 100%, even though you didn't do 100% of the work.)

@LamarLatrell I'm not sure I understand your comment. Yes, you can earn "extra credit," but most universities do not have a system that allows you to exceed 100% for your final grade. So yes, it doesn't make sense for a person who is at a very high grade to do EC. I'm not sure what your second clause means. An EC point is indistinguishable for a regular point (I don't know how else it could work).

But it's basic arithmetic that EC could be useful for someone who has anything less than a near-perfect score ...

I usually tell my students, that I'll be much less lenient regarding extra circumstances (grievances about final grade) if they did not use the resources given to them.
I'd suggest to simply be honest, communicate them via email or course forum, that the lack of attendance might impact their grade. Say that you will not feel bad for anyone getting a bad grade, if that person did not take advantage of the classes given. I think students would agree this is a fair policy.


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Do I need to declare conflict of interest as a lower level contractor at the organization?
I am writing a paper about whether in the United States, referees in my sport are biased towards players with certain attributes.
I am also employed as a referee in this sport and have credentials from the American association for the sport. However, I am at a lower level than the referees in the dataset and I was not employed during the timeframe that the data looks at. Additionally, I am only employed as a contractor, and referee less than 20 days a year. My involvement as a referee did not impact at all how I did the research, besides giving me a better understanding of the sport.
Do I need to report this as a conflict of interest?

Rule of thumb: If you are asking if you should report a potential conflict of interest, the answer is "yes".

I would say yes.
The key point in such disclosures is to make clear any potential factors which someone may perceive to have influenced your research if it turns out later that you did not declare it. In this context, receiving pay from the organisation you're investigating would definitely seem to meet that condition.
This isn't the same as saying that it did influence your research, of course. 'Conflict of interest' sounds somewhat pejorative, so many organisations have moved to e.g. 'disclosure of interest' as a name for this process instead, to remove the implication that all such interests necessarily affect the quality of the research.

Oh I had never heard or thought hard about the distinction between "disclosure of interest" and "conflict of interest". The former is much better for the reason you state. There's an interest that people should be aware of, it could be a conflict, but it isn't necessarily one.

The general principle behind disclosures isn't that you objectively have a conflict of interest, but that a reasonable outside observer could perceive you to have a conflict of interest. As a consequence, if you wonder whether you should disclose something, you always should: That's because if you wonder, someone else may too, and that fits the "perception" test.

Basically the notice is to allow others to not be surprised when they later discover you might have a bias.  It's not a declaration that you have a bias and are writing an opinion piece.  As long as your paper stands on strong evidence, a reasonable audience would then see that your findings are based on the evidence and not the potential bias.

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Is such an internship considered to be normal?
I'm doing a PhD in Applied Mechanics specifically my topic is about porous heterogeneous electroactive material. There are two main things in my work which is modeling and Numerical simulation.
I'm required to do an internship during my PhD and since my supervisor would like me to understand experiments done with such materials, he told me that I'll be having an internship where I don't do the experiments myself but rather I understand how they are done.
I'm wondering if whether this is normal or not. To do an internship where you would only understand the experiments without doing them by yourself.
His claim is that I won't have enough time to do them by myself.
I don't know more information about the internship. He will tell me more details later.
My point is that I haven't heard about an internship where your job is to just understand and not do something yourself.
I have a feeling that he's underestimating me ..

How does an answer help you? It sounds like good advice, actually.

I think this needs more information to be answered intelligently

I edited my question

@Buffy yes I need an advice, please

Your advisor knows the field better than we do. Your advisor knows you better than we do. So why do you think we (= random people on the internet) could give you better advice than your advisor?

How long is the internship? It sounds like your only background is theoretical. It takes a long time to become adept at experimental materials science. Perhaps your advisor is just being realistic/reasonable.

@R1NaNo yes he knows I don't have experimental experience or skill. I'm just afraid if it might jeopardize my profile for the future. It is short, few months, probably 3 months or less.

@user134613 well your advisor is right, you won't be able to make any meaningful contribution experimentally in that time. In fact, your advisor is doing a great job. I find it's great practice to send students for 2-4 weeks to visit a collaborator doing something very different. They can at least see how the work is done, talk to the right people, and better understand how it works. I cannot see why you think this will harm you? What better way to understand applications/properties of the materials you are studying theoretically than to get a chance to interact with those doing experiment?

@R1NaNo Thank you. I see your point and it makes more sense to me now.

I am coming from a system where there are no required Ph.D. internships, even though it is common for students to do internships in industry.
First, if you choose an advisor (or a program that will assign you an advisor) you express that you agree (by the act of choosing) that you will be mentored. Mentoring is based on a differential between the experience and knowledge between mentor and mentoree. So, prima facie, the advise of your advisor is assumed to be good and to be followed.
Secondly, the rationale of your advisor makes perfect sense to me. Evaluation of experiments is important and often quite time consuming. It is now very common in many areas of science to analyze data that was not gathered by the analyzer.
Thirdly, maybe the real problem is your fear of being under-estimated. Without further input, it would seem that this is the core problem.

Yes, it makes more sense to me now. And I agree that I have this fear especially that my background before the PhD was diverse, general and not specific or related even to my PhD. And I have received criticism or doubt of my abilities by my advisor who is rather in my opinion a more pessimistic person. So, I see now that what he suggested is good for me. And my fear is a combination of the type of belief in myself and the way my advisor perceive me.

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My footnotes are too long and too many due to my anxiety. How to shorten/reduce them?
I am a historian and I have noticed over the last few years that my footnotes have become too long. It goes so far that for a recent article manuscript the word count of my footnotes is only slightly less than the word count of the main text. The main problem is that I have too many footnotes that are discursive instead of simply listing my sources. That, in turn, is due to two factors:

I am afraid that when readers look up the source they might interpret it differently from me or disagree with my interpretation and thus I often explain my interpretation in the footnote. That also goes for cases where there might be another source that slightly contradicts the source I am quoting. I often end up discussing that second source in the footnote.

I am afraid that someone might say that I am saying something similar to another scholar (even if it is a minor point) and so I often add extra footnotes that more or less simply say "X says something similar but my point is different in this or that way" or simply "also see" to make sure noone can say I don't acknowledge the work of others.

I always had a tendency to have longer/more footnotes than others, but I suffer from anxiety, in particular about the issues above and my academic work in general, and I feel like this has manifested itself in my longer/more numerous footnotes. A lot of them are simply there to reassure myself.
When I read the work of other scholars, I always admire how short/concise their footnotes are and I kind of hope that I can write like this at some point. But I am not quite sure how to get there. I am wondering whether anyone might have advice to offer on this?

Are the footnotes basically extended citations, explaining the work of others, or are they more expansions of  your own ideas?

Gibbon's Decline and Fall would be much less enjoyable without its footnotery. Perhaps study and learn from his presentation techniques?

Thanks for the comments. It can be both discussion of other literature and clarifications of the sources I use, often explaining the sources in detail, so that it is clear what my interpretation is and where it comes from. Often I also just feel I should describe every detail I can find in my sources so that noone can say I am leaving something out.

An issue that also contributes to longer footnotes is that when I cite primary/secondary sources for a point I make, I try to include every work/source that makes this point, even though I think that is not really necessary and just citing one source should be enough.

It seems like you know perfectly well what to do, it's just that you are uncomfortable with doing it because you are afraid that someone will then attack you for "leaving something out".

It seems to me that there are two different approaches to answering your question. The first is to focus on what the structure of a good footnote is, what information is suitable for conveying in a footnote versus the main text and what an appropriate length is for a footnote. Taking that approach, is, I think, unlikely to be useful to you. The fact that you can recognize well written, appropriate-length footnotes in the writing of other people suggests that the problem for you lies elsewhere. Hence the second approach to your problem ...
Your experience, in terms of your internal reaction to your own work, sounds very similar to the experience of people who more obviously have what is referred to in the psychology literature as "performance anxiety". Although performance anxiety is usually associated with such things as being on stage (hence the related term, "stage-fright"), its critical features have little to do with the specific situation. Rather, performance anxiety usually includes:

Negative appraisal of one's own performance
Anticipation that one's performance will result in negative appraisal from others
Concern that the negative appraisal from others will, in some way, have very bad consequences.

Your description of the feelings and concerns that you have as you elaborate your footnotes in ever greater detail suggests that your are trying to forestall the possibility of points 2 and 3 above. My reason for introducing the term "performance anxiety" is partly because it helps to structure an answer to your question, but also because you might find it useful to look for literature on the subject using those words.
Now to a how you might approach the problem ...
It is generally very difficult to deal with anxiety in the absence of accurate information about the outcome of a behaviour. In your case, you might have tried to write shorter footnotes but found it almost impossible when your whole being screams out that this will only lead to disaster (e.g., other people being critical of you). My guess is that you have tried to do too much, too quickly.
With those preparatory thoughts, I suggest two things ...

Find an editor you can trust, not only with your work but with your feelings and concerns about your work. By editor, I don't mean a professional editor; rather, I mean someone (perhaps a colleague or friend) whose judgement you trust and who (a) would be willing to work with you in overcoming the problem, and (b) can help you to tailor the footnotes in a way that fulfulls the requirements of the next ingredient in this two part list ...
Together with your editor friend, take a graded approach to overcoming your problem.
Begin by trying to trim down the length of the footnotes in something that you are not deeply invested in, either emotionally or intellectually; for example, look at where you have, in the past, written short footnotes (perhaps in class lecture notes) and see whether you can eliminate the footnotes entirely, or shorten them even more. You should be aiming for a length of footnote that leaves you with a slight tingle of apprehension about whether it's OK or not, but low enough apprehension that you can move ahead with your plan. After a while, I expect that you will not feel much apprehension about this at all.
Having experimented with a few low-stakes situations over a period of a few weeks, you should feel able (again with your editor) to experiment with shortening the footnotes in some pieces of work that are more serious. Ideally, if step 3 went well, then the apprehension you feel at this step will be no greater than it was initially for the previously situation. Once again, your aim should be to produce work where you feel some slight discomfiture about the shortness of the footnotes, but certainly not any feelings of dread.

My guess would be that within a few iterations, you'll be feeling a lot less anxious, and your work will more closely approximate that of the people whose work you admire.


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What's the difference between "with journal administrator" and "with editor?" in submission portal (Taylor and Francis)
Would I get desk rejected by the journal administrator, or the editor? What exactly is the difference between the two? (For Taylor and Francis journals)

see also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55665/what-does-the-typical-workflow-of-a-journal-look-like-how-should-i-interpret-a

Yes, these do answer it, thanks! I try not to ask redundant questions but unfortunately those didn't show up in Google search (I did spend about half an hour searching before asking).

As far as I know, the journal administrator checks if you have uploaded everything necessary, i.e., if there is a legible paper there. The check here is not academic but more to see if it is spam, if it makes sense.
The editor is the editor; they will make the first decision on your paper. From there, the editor can either desk reject it or send it to the reviewers.
Obligatory: do not spend time checking the status; you'll get an email when/if something worthwhile happens.

Odds are the journal administrator is an employee of the publisher, and the editor is a member of the editorial board.
An employee of the publisher probably does not have relevant subject expertise, but they can still perform some checks (below). Not all of these will be done, a lot will depend on their diligence & time they have available.

If your source files compile
If there are any missing figures
If the manuscript is written in comprehensible English
Your background (possibly via Google, possibly via internal databases)
If your manuscript is pseudoscientific
Self-citation rate

Since these checks are so basic, if your manuscript is desk-rejected by the journal administrator, it implies something is seriously wrong - but it can happen.


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Navigating Student Health Accommodations: A Delicate Balance
I occasionally encounter situations where students present medical notes from their doctors, citing conditions like headaches or general anxiety. These diagnoses often rely on the students' self-reported symptoms. While I'm inclined to question the authenticity of such claims, I'm also aware that the students might genuinely be struggling with physical or mental health issues. Given that our institution typically reserves accommodations for more severe cases (e.g., hospitalization), I'm seeking advice on how to approach these situations. Specifically, is it appropriate to offer minor adjustments or support, such as deadline extensions or quiz retake opportunities, to these students?

Does your institution have policy and offices to deal with these things?

Only that if student has severe illness.

At institutions I'm familiar with, this isn't really up to individual instructors: the specific accomodations for a student are specified by the office that handles these things, and that's the office to direct these notes to. Other things you do as an instructor to accommodate students should be for everyone, e.g. consider the (in)flexibility of your deadlines and retake opportunities while keeping in mind the various struggles any student may be facing at a given time. Does your institution do this?

Not really. The specific office in change of accommodation in general only grant special accommodations when it's severe case, such as these need hospitalization. Of course if I offer the opportunity to one student who comes with a medical note, I do the same things for everyone. I also only give minor helps in these cases.

If the uni does not have a good support system, you set up your own set of rules of policy and try to consistently employ it. You definitely want to decouple your policy-level decision-making from the concrete case as much as possible.

What is your country/jurisdiction?

I have a standard rule that the one lowest (possibly null) test and assignment will be dropped for each student. If a student has a "minor" problem, they can use this drop-item to cover it -- whether it's being sick for a day, or late from traffic, or whatever.
I don't read or assess doctor's notes. This policy triggers no added follow-up work on my part. Dropping an item is built into the digital LMS so it's convenient. Students always embrace this when I point it out in these situations.

In my opinion, if the students have a note from a medical professional, it is not my place to wonder about the "authenticity" of the condition (whether I believe it's based on self-reporting or not - I would assume that medical professionals have ethical standards that would prevent them from writing notes they thought were unreasonable. Further, cases like severe anxiety, which can be crippling, often can't be witnessed by the doctor but are genuine - I don't see how I can be judge of the authenticity or not).
I would lean on the side of accommodating the students and have been doing so. I have several students with anxiety and migraines that have been reported through the university's accommodations office; with each of them, I agree on what accommodations would be most reasonable for them - some of them, unfortunately, have to miss class regularly because of their condition and I say that's fine but we have an agreement that (1) they let me know at least 10 mins before class that they won't make it and (2) they make sure to catch up. This system has worked quite well for my students.

So the students still need to go through the university's accommodation office in order to make such agreement with you, is that correct?

@NonalcoholicBeer that is the default way to go for chronic conditions. It is in the students own interest to pursue this official channel


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Wrong Data, Wrong Direction, Career suicide
I am on a very weird situation once again. Being doing my phd in Europe since 2020. The field is computational multi-omics. I had a nice supervisor to work on a very interesting topic. After analysing data provided from my supervisor for a year, had a draft of my paper, we realised that the data we worked was an intermediate version of the final release. I was more into "together we rise, together we fall" mode and I just accepted waiting 4 months for the new data, and 6 more months to rerun the major analysis. It took me 8 more months to run additional analyses, building on top of the major analysis.
In the meantime, he publishes at least 7 papers, some of them on a very similar subject I am working on without helping his students getting extra publications. I don't blame him for that, but at the moment I don't have a single one.
Recently I realised an incredible simplistic mistake, where during the first months, I was benchmarking different methods for the input data, comparing them and delivered everything to my supervisor for discussion. Unfortunately, he made the wrong decision.
And now I am f****d up. Twice.
So I am starting over. I wish I would have done my own mistakes to blame.
Just not be sure how to move on, in terms of having a person guiding me who is incapable to keep track of things. Even last month, I gave him an abstract to check for submission into a conference, and he changed so many things, where in the end he mixed up everything that I couldn't understand what is happening in the project. So he clearly does not have a clue which analysis was performed on what, BUT I have a huge workflow chart in pdf, where everything is explained till the software, libraries and environments details.
It is too late to change department or PI now.
What shall I do? My stress levels are hitting red, every time I interact with him it's just a misery. As soon as I work alone, my mood is really good and I enjoy what I am doing.
I have tried to communicate issues with my committee members, and they showed clearly not interested getting on top of the situation.

I don't think your post is very clear, it takes several turns, and "what should I do?" isn't a very answerable thing to ask. What's the specific issue that you think people familiar with academia that are not directly working with you on research can help you with?

I've shared my situation because there seems to be an 'omertà' around discussing such matters within my institute and university. I need to determine whether my advisor is hindering my career. Should I accept it and pursue another path, even though I am passionate about what I am doing?

How can we help with that?

By sharing your experience, I guess. Is there a way out? Should I just drop out now, considering my academic career may be finished? Have you ever worked with a person you don't trust? How do you handle it? That was my intention; I am sure this has happened to another person, maybe not yourself.

I mean how do we know if your advisor is hindering your career? Some of the things you describe don't seem like their fault at all. Are you blaming them for it? Why? If you are doing benchmarking, what is your advisor making a decision about and what would make it wrong?

I will not get into details to secure the anonymity of the post, but if he did not know which method is correct or wrong, he should have let me choose what I consider the right one, rather than pushing me to take a particular path from an analysis perspective. He even acknowledged that it was his mistake to suggest the particular method.

From what you write, it seems to me that your trainer is abusing you, or even robbing you. So it will be best to change the trainer and, in this case, maybe even the whole workplace.

@blaha I don't find your post so incomprehensible. I would only depersonalize and generalize it. That means it wants to eliminate the sighs of screams and questions like "What should I do?". For some reason, some communities don't like personalized content, even though that content can provide an answer to others.

I am not sure what you should do, but your academic career is definitely not finished. I restarted my phd after having a very bad experience, now I am close to finish with quite a few publications, with a very good supervisor. Indeed, I so much enjoy it, I do not really want to finish :)
I felt very similarly when I stopped the previous one, as everything is over. It is not!

thank you @juandev and aqua for your answers :)


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Assigned to Review a Paper I Previously Reviewed
In a previous conference I was assigned a paper, which I rejected and the authors later withdrew with no comments. Now, in another conference, I was assigned the exact same paper. Choices:

Refuse to review it
Inform the Area Chair, proceed as normal, and append the previous review
Inform the Area Chair and then proceed as normal without mentioning previous review
Not mention my previous review at all to anyone

What would be the most ethically appropriate action?
Field: Machine Learning & Computer Vision, if it's relevant

Is it the exact same paper or did they make improvements?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/197156/should-i-agree-to-review-a-paper-that-ive-already-recommended-that-another-jour Does this (or links therein) answer your question?

I'm confused. What would be the point of options 3 and 4?

I experienced the same. I got the same bad manuscript, first from one then from another journal. I found your option 2 an easy choice.

Sometimes the English of the authors is so poor that they do not understand the comments. This is of course no valid excuse, but an explanation why authors, once a paper is "finished" with the help of others, do not dare to change anything.

I assume you recommended rejection due to flaws in the paper. But if it just wasn't notable enough to be worth publishing in the first venue, and this venue is less prestigious, then it's a bit of a different question.

Adding Context:

I'm sub-reviewing for my supervisor (I'm basically the go-to person in our lab for this very specific topic and the paper is indeed a perfect fit for my expertise), so I don't know yet if it has been changed, only that it's the same one. We'll see.
The last venue was CVPR and this one is ICML, so neither is "less prestigious" than the other.
I suggested options 3 and 4 because I wonder if reusing my prior review is a form of intellectual laziness per not carrying out my proper workload as a reviewer.

Thanks for the replies! My first silver badge on Academia.SE, yay! ;3 After looking through the suggestions I think I'll go with option 2. If the paper has changed I will write some new comments and then append the previous ones. Otherwise I'll just copy paste the previous one.

If the authors did not change their paper in response to your review (which I assume you mean by "I was assigned the exact same paper"), then:

Your review is still as relevant as it was when you first wrote and submitted it
The authors wasted the time you spent reviewing

Here is another point to keep in mind, which reinforces point 1 above:

You seem to be well-regarded in this community, since you got the same paper to review from two different conferences

In light of points 1 and 3 above, I would simply send in the exact same review you already submitted earlier. This way, you provide value at no cost to yourself.
In light of point 2 above, I personally would certainly call out the authors on this. Wasting your time by not even editing the paper in response to your comments is, in my opinion, contrary to the spirit of peer review and of the entire scientific publishing workflow. The authors should be made aware of this, and so should, in my opinion, be the Area Chair.
However, it is possible that your original review did not reach the authors - issues happen (although my subjective expectation is that it is far more likely they did get the review and simply decided to ignore it). So I would not cast my comments as "the authors wasted my time", but rather as "the authors seem not to have received my earlier review, which I am appending here, since it therefore is still as relevant as a while ago". Both the authors and the Area Chair will get the message.

Wow.  Sharing that the article was resubmitted unchanged without sharing what the earlier venue was balances clarity and confidentiality marvelously.

This is becoming incredibly common in Machine Learning and Computer Vision. Too many papers, too much interest in the area, not enough good reviewers, and no good second-tier or third-tier conferences that would act as a relief valve. The result is that the same potentially poor papers are getting resubmitted verbatim over and over again, potentially many times, in the hopes that they will eventually be stochastically accepted.
See the 2014 NeurIPS experiment, where the program committee sent some of their submitted papers through two separate reviews. The goal was to find out whether the accept/reject recommendations would be consistent. The greatly simplified explanation of their result is that really good papers will always be accepted, and really bad papers will always be rejected, but for the large bulk of the papers of middle quality that are rejected, there's a good chance your paper will be accepted if you just resubmit verbatim next time. Many authors have interpreted this as meaning that a rejected paper has about a 25% chance of being accepted if you just resubmit next time.
This is a problem that AI/ML/CV is dealing with right now. There's not much you can do about it. If the paper is unchanged, then copy/paste your review from last time and move on.

I certainly do not think it would be unethical to review it but my inclination, mostly in the interests of transparency, would be to tell the Area Chair and ask them to assign it to a different person. They might do as you ask, or make their own decision to reject it on the basis that they trust your viewpoint and do not see the need to waste the time of another reviewer.

I had this exact same situation happen to me (also in the same field, ML/CV): I reviewed a paper at conference A, recommended rejection, the authors withdrew with no rebuttal, and I was again assigned the same paper (which was in a near identical form) at a subsequent conference B.
What I did was write a private comment to the area chair informing them that I had already reviewed the paper and that the version I was being asked to review again was nearly identical. I was advised that submitting a similar review again was fine, as long as it reflected the current state of the paper, taking into account any changes that had been made between the two versions.
So in the end, I did something along the lines of option 2, without explicitly mentioning to anyone else (i.e. other reviewers, authors) that I was reviewing the paper for a second time.


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PhD supervisor complaining about not getting paid for supervision
I'm a PhD student and my supervisor complained several times before about me getting a bit more money than the rest of PhD students just because I'm a foreigner given the fact that the scholarship that I have is considered normal in Europe and in some other countries, students get paid double the amount. I got accepted with such a scholarship and the decision is from a higher position in the university.
What makes me upset is that my supervisor told me if it was up to him, he would have removed my scholarship. He also mentioned to me that I should be paying instead especially that I'm studying in English.
I try to just ignore that. He says that only rarely. But recently he was complaining that he's supposed to get paid for supervising me and I think he means that since I meet him normally once per week. He's very busy.
But he accepted me as his student so if he doesn't like that then he shouldn't have accepted me from the first place. And at the same time he doesn't like me to leave!
He's the type of person who is very direct and even though him saying all that doesn't change the situation - I will still get paid and he won't get money from supervision.
I was thinking about suggesting that he takes a small part from my scholarship but I don't think he or the university would accept that.
I'm just upset and feel disrespected to be spoken this way. In such situations, how should I behave? I know that arguing with him doesn't help.

I'm sorry this situation is happening to you. However, this question sounds like venting rather than eliciting a valuable response. What concrete question would you like us to address?

Ok, I will edit the question.

‘[M]y supervisor told me if it was up to him, he would have removed my scholarship.’ I wonder, like you do, whether this actually happened to anyone.

How is your supervision otherwise? Are you supported in your work? Are you progressing well?

I would presume that supervision of PhD candidates is a component of a professors own job duties - is it not?

@civitas The job duties and salary sources for a professor are sometimes a bit disconnected from each other, as are the concepts of what is required for the job versus what may come with some social expectations but no tangible incentives. Some people put in that position take on a lot of "extras" that they aren't really compensated for; others take advantage and do as little unrequired work as possible. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

Whatever you decide, get proof, it will help have a leverage if things go terrible.

Are you his only student that he has to teach in English ?

Are you sure there is not some misunderstanding or error in communication? Could your supervisor have said this as a poorly constructed joke? Sometimes a supervisor will say things they don't mean literally or even think will have a major impact, which which is a Really Big Think for the student. Surely, the answer is not to offer part of your scholarship.

This situation sucks, but if it's just some shitty comments, then you need to just ignore it. Unless it's so bad that you feel compelled to switch advisors or leave the position. It seems like those are your only two options.

I was thinking about suggesting that he takes a small part from my
scholarship but I don't think he or the university would accept that.

DO NOT DO THAT. Never, never, never even think about broaching that subject. There's so many things that could go wrong with that. It could look like you're offering a bribe. Worse, you could wind up actually paying a bribe. This is a third-rail issue that you must not touch.
Get your poker face on and absolutely ignore this kvetching.

It's probably worth emphasizing that the situation sucks and it's 100% the supervisor's fault that it sucks—the OP has done nothing wrong.

If the poster just tries to ignore the supervisor's bad behavior, which sounds like bullying, there's a very high chance that the behavior will be repeated or escalated over a period of years. That could have a number of serious impacts for the poster. I think it's wiser to get a new supervisor.

"third-rail issue" - excellent picture.

@Eggy OP is inexperienced, but clearly cool-headed. I think if it does not exceed the level of grumbling and the supervision is reasonably good, they can stay. But never, and I 265% agree with Daniel, never, ever offer to complement someone's flea-ridden budget. This is wrong on so many levels and in so many completely disparate situations, and certainly in the OP's.

My first thought reading your post is that this is a completely untenable situation and you should try to get out of it as quickly as possible by changing to a different supervisor. Someone who has contempt for you cannot be your advisor, you will rely on them for far too much: for day-to-day supervision, for recommendations for future jobs, for career and other advice, for support and encouragement to get through graduate school. Different supervisors provide each of these things at different levels and in different ways and there is no right balance for everyone, but I can't see how contempt is a useful ingredient for anyone. "Run, don't walk", to borrow a phrase from a long-time Academia.SE contributor that I haven't seen in awhile.
Another possibility is that this is indicative of some combination of social errors and perhaps even humor attempts. Maybe your supervisor is otherwise supportive of you but has just chosen a very very poor way of expressing discontent with a circumstance that is not really your fault. The inequity they point out - that different students receive different levels of support based on their home country - could be a legitimate complaint. You are the wrong person to issue that complaint to, but perhaps they're just a bit clueless about how this would affect you and don't mean any actual personal harm. Some of the other things you mention seem to support this possibility - that they've taken you on as a student, that they've expressed wanting you to stay, etc. You say arguing won't help, so I think if you believe this describes the situation I think your only option is to try your best to ignore it and focus on your work. You definitely should not offer any bit of your scholarship or any other compensation - as Daniel Collins points out this is too close to a bribe whether intended or not.

I agree with your well-phrased first paragraph. That's it in a nutshell.

I actually find him confusing. Sometimes he is encouraging and sometimes he's the opposite. I know he's not bad person. That's why I'm still with him. But he has problem with his personality. He says what's on his mind. For example, in my first year he told me that he doesn't think I'll be creative. This left me devastated for several days, thinking I'm stupid or something. So I confronted him and he replied he should have been diplomatic with me. I also again reminded him about it and he said I can do "standard work", so I think he means now there's no need to come up with something creative.

He wants me to be better and work better. Maybe it is his way to encourage me? But then the issue of money, I know it's unfair that I take more money than others in general, but the salarybis really normal. Especially that I pay for my own insurance and travel.. But then the issue of him wanting to get paid, it's not like he's making a lot of effort for me. I don't ask him to teach me. Almost most of the time, he gives me material to study it by myself. And this is fine, I'm a PhD student. He doesn't meet me on a daily basis. Mostly once per week. Sometimes our meetings are less than an hour.

My only solution is to be patient as he doesn't do this regularly at least. I learn to ignore this type of criticism/bullying. And just focus on my work.

@user134613 as one gets closer to graduation, one expects more help from a professor - discussions of the thesis topic and content, strategy for defense, paperwork to be signed and filed, (presumably enthusiastic) letters of recommendation to be written and sent in a timely manner (i.e. before a deadline) to future positions... Have previous Ph.D. students had favorable outcomes from this supervisor or do others (if you enquire discretely) report having been "burned" at the end? Or are you the first? This is not sounding good to me.

For now I don't have a good alternative. His previous student also had problems with him, and she defended her thesis a bit late. She has been his student since her bachelor studies, and she told me I can't change him. Now she is his postdoc. I assume its possible to survive with him. I don't plan to stay working with him after my PhD.

@user134613 I see, well someone who is a pain in the ass in a steady, predictable, manageable way is much more tolerable/survivable than one who isn't. It's not necessary to disclose anything further here about the previous student, but you can wonder to yourself (or enquire) if she wanted to stay for a postdoc (certainly happens some times for several reasons) or if she tried to leave but he wrote her bad letters to keep her for himself. Anyway, beware of secondary fallout on your part, loss of spirit, self-esteem, happiness, enthusiasm, exercise, hair etc. or nail-biting & weight gain.

@user134613 I once had a "manageable" pain in the ass supervisor and gained 20 kg over 4 years, likely as a result. I did not recognize what was happening at the time. I survived, but it took a toll...

@uhoh if I consider applying for another PhD in a better place, do I mention my current position in my CV? And would they contact my current university?

@user134613 I think you should ask that as a new question post so you can get input from many people. My personal view is that CVs need to be accurate and truthful. If you were only there only a month, you might leave it out and when asked about it say the omission was to keep the length of your CV manageable. However, if it's a significant period of time, you should almost certainly include it. People move around, and it is really not uncommon to move when the situation is suboptimal. You can be creative in explaining why you left when asked (topic not what you are looking for for example)

I think if it's just ranting, there are such supervisors. However, if the supervisor seriously is trying to wheedle money out of a PhD student, that's utterly unacceptable.
Maybe your supervisor just has bad emotion regulation. But, understand: this is your money. You got it fair and square. If there is an imbalance in how much your supervisor has to work and how much they are paid - repeat after me - it's not your duty to fix that.
And, let's face it: a supervisor usually profits from a good PhD student. They are getting something out of the deal. Papers, results, progress. Your supervisor seems to have a freebie, a student with a scholarship. I assume so, since you did not mention that this scholarship was taken out of a pot that otherwise would have gone to, say, two other students of said supervisor.
Really, they have no reason to complain. If they just grumble, and it does not bother you too much, you may ignore it. But if it builds up, or leads to other and accumulating disadvantages, get out, and sooner rather than later!

Do you think pressure on you will go away when you invested more time of your own into it and try to get your thesis accepted?
Let there be no mistake: If He/She gets paid from University and tries to extort money from students it is corruption, nothing else. Indicating from a paid position that doing their job depends on a student giving me money has nothing to do with "getting paid".
Also, if you pay you may commit scientific misconduct by creating an undeclared conflict of interest into them being your coauthors.
Two options

Run. As soon as you can as fast as you can. - if you have another option and can take your scholarship with you. In case of doubt talk to the institution granting the scholarship on advice.

Report them to the corresponding place for misconduct at your university - if there are other people which are capable of supervising your thesis ask for swapping out your supervisor - if you think the overall structure is ethical enough.


text:
Should I respond to students who plead for increasing grade
I use GradeScope for grading exams and quizzes in my courses and ask students to submit regrade requests only for objective mistakes, such as misreading numbers. Despite this, I receive many requests that don't meet this criterion, and sometimes, students send long emails pleading their cases even after I've rejected their regrade requests. These situations can be frustrating, and while part of me wants to ignore these emails—many of which seem to be generated by AI like ChatGPT—I also strive to be empathetic.
Does anyone have guidelines or practices they follow when dealing with students who plead for better grades?
I'm considering creating an FAQ on my website to address this and direct students to it when faced with such situations. Would this be too cold?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/204792/appropriate-smart-ways-to-decline-students-requests-of-begging-for-better-grad Closely related, maybe duplicate.

"I […] ask students to submit regrade requests only for objective mistakes" How do you do so? Is this verbally at the start of the course, in some course description, the lecture material, ...?

It is in the syllabus and has been repeated in an email, announcement.

Are you asking about exams only, or more generally, such as required homework? And, is it for work during a term or only for final evaluations?

Exams. I don't give homework, only several quizzes and a final exam.

What scale are you asking about? 30 students? 300?

You object to ChatGPT, but isn't GradeScope, itself, driven by an AI?

@Buffy I don’t object to chatGPT.
But I do hope they ask chatGPT to make their emails a bit more concise.

You seem to already have everything1 needed, you just have to consistently use it. Always make sure to clearly communicate the rules you have set:

I'm sorry, but as announced in [the lecture/the syllabus/via email/...] regrade requests are only accepted for objective mistakes.

Your message is a simple one, an additional FAQ would only needlessly duplicate it or open room for interpretation.
Sticking to this message is important to be fair towards all your students, especially those that accept your rules from the get go. But also for those trying to bend the rules it is important to not get stringed along.
Now, if you have the interpersonal skills to also reach out to students, then if you feel they need your help by all means do so. There are a lot of situations in which grading is not the root problem, so you should be able to help out without muddying the line on your established rules. But do this only if you feel up for the task.

1 If your institution has an office for handling special circumstances (e.g. disabilities, illness, ...) you might want to note this as well.

In the past, I normally just give them the points. I've used GradeScope before and I hated seeing the responses. I would spend so much energy being angry and needing to justify my original assessment. The truth is, I don't care that much. Clearly the student cares, or they wouldn't be asking.
I dislike grading and work to move away from it. The students worrying about points distracts from learning the concepts. Now, I have them write a self-assessment and submit it. There's no argument, and I get a better understanding of each student's learning experience.
I recommend reading Alfie Kohn and Jessie Stommel. Those are who changed my approach to grades.

What is your field?

thanks for sharing the links. I was not aware of self-assessments before.

I was tempted to downvote after reading the first sentence, but after reading the whole thing, I will upvote instead. Not that I necessarily agree with you, but this is an interesting viewpoint.

I would get in trouble if I don’t give grades.

This is an interesting approach.  Do you see any gender/racial/socioeconomic patterns in which students advocate the hardest for higher grades?  Because other people give grades more importance than you do, are you inadvertently propagating existing discrimination? I'd hate to think that students with imposter syndrome get lower grades in your classes because they don't know to simply ask for a higher grade.

Not giving grade has a significant problem is that students need grade to apply for graduate schools. No graduate school admission officers will spend that time going through non-quantitative reports on a student's performance. Ranking students by grades is much easier.

What your process seems to be missing is a procedure that deals with exceptional circumstances. So your students are using the procedure that is closest to it. That is bad, mainly because it encourages students with special circumstances to wait until after the grades are in, while special circumstances need to be discussed as quickly as possible. That way there are many more options open to let that student participate and learn to the maximum that those special circumstances allow, rather than just "adjust the grade" after the course is done.
So I would suggest that you add to the syllabus that students need to come to your office hours if they t think they need special accommodation on top of what the university normally allows for disabilities etc. They need to do so as soon as that special circumstance occurs. You will allow for some reasonable delay (you don't have to discharge yourself from hospital), but waiting till after the grades are in or a deadline has passed is too late. The purpose of the accommodation is to allow you to participate. Once the course is over, you obviously can no longer participate and the accommodation would serve no purpose.


text:
How to transition from biology (evolutionary/computational) to governance/policy?
I have a BSc in nature conservation with an initial major in social science and policy (focused on biodiversity and conservation). I felt unsure about whether to continue in social science or biology, so I then did an ecology and evolution minor to figure it out. I still had some doubts but I then went on to a master's in evolutionary biology, where I did some ecology and genetics lab work, and am now writing my thesis in computational evolutionary ecology (agent-based modelling).
I thought I wanted to continue to a PhD, but I am falling out of love with "doing science". I love using maths and computation in biology, but I feel isolated and like I really don't fit into the "geek" culture around me (nothing wrong with it, of course!). I'm a bit more socially inclined than most of my colleagues and I tend to get bored/distracted in low-stress environments. I'm realizing that I don't enjoy working on the same thing alone/quietly behind my computer every day, nor do I like the rote work of experimental/field biology. When I look at those further along in their scientific career, their job and daily tasks just don't seem much more enjoyable than mine right now. So while I think the topic I work on is incredibly interesting, I guess my rose-coloured academia glasses are falling off...
I think I would enjoy a more dynamic & social work environment, and I'd also love to do something more societally relevant than the very abstract work I do right now (even if it tickles my brain in a nice way). I think I could find this by going into social science (perhaps international environmental governance) as I really loved those courses in my bachelor's as well, but I don't know what the smartest way is to make that transition, or if there are any options to bring these interests together. Any advice would be appreciated!

I'm not sure this is on-topic here because it isn't about an academic career. I would caution that I don't think the move you suggest will fix the problems you describe socially.

Find a job posting that looks interesting. Apply. Get hired.

I suggest leaving academia and getting a job with an NGO or GO whose mission you agree with you.


text:
Whom to take recommendation letter from if master thesis advisor never replied?
I am from a poor country in Asia . I will apply for PhD positions in pure mathematics in USA in the upcoming year. I completed my masters in mathematics in June 2020 but I am still not able to find a PhD position. I am not applying for PhD positions in my home country due to systematic racism by seniors and peers in my masters and bachelors. It is heartbreaking!
My masters thesis advisor never replied to my e-mails after giving me a research paper to study. She was from another institute than the institute from which I did masters and I contacted her because no one in my institute was specialized in the branch I wanted to study further. So, I did my thesis by myself and got 9 grade out of maximum 10. I visited her institute in January 2020 and she gave me a research paper to study and after that she never replied to any of my e-mails or calls. It was very much stressful.
I have learnt on this site only( I was reading some old posts about 6 months ago) that if someone doesn't has a recommendation letter from their master thesis supervisor then it can be very difficult for them to get a PhD admission( It is considered a very big red flag), much less in a country like $USA$. I can take a recommendation letter from a professor who taught me in Bachelors degree and she taught me 4 different courses and she replied in affirmatively that she can write a strong recommendation letter.
So, should I consider applying to USA, Poland and Chechia without having a recommendation from a master thesis advisor or it will be a complete waste of time?
Kindly let me know!

Do you have the opportunity to visit your masters advisor in person?

What you describe as you advisor, doesn't sound to me like she really 'advised' you or had anything to do with completing your masters. Is that correct? If so, I don't understand how you were able to complete the degree. Can you clarify? Someone must have given you advice and/or signed off on your completion.

@Buffy Another professor but from my maths department was made the dummy supervisor and he told me that I should write his name as thesis advisor while giving to the committee . But he neither advised me for the thesis or had a look at it.

So you were given a degree without anyone looking at your thesis?

@BryanKrause The thesis  committee had a look at it and gave me a grade 9/10.

@XZYZ How did they assess the quality of your thesis if they are so unfamiliar with your branch that none of them could supervise you?

For those reading: possibly related https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/206000/am-i-chasing-an-obsession-or-should-i-apply-3rd-time-to-complete-my-2nd-masters

There may be no solution that involves your (not) advisor. She doesn't know enough about you to give a convincing letter. Hopefully there are other faculty at your own institution that you have worked with and can honestly make a prediction about the likelihood of your success in doctoral study and thereafter. That is more important, actually, than that it come from your advisor. While the situation is a bit odd, others who have been successful have some odd circumstances as well.
But, it is what it is. There is no reason not to make application. If other things are good then it may not be a serious issue. Be prepared to discuss the circumstances when asked, however. And if someone can attest to your explanation, such as a department head/chair, all the better.


text:
The data vs the plot
I've just recently had a discussion with a coauthor while I was preparing an article for submission. For comparison between two effects, I had wished to use an image (a simple line graph) from another article (after getting the required permission), but my coauthor seemed to disagree. They said that we should simply use a digitizer to sample the points of the graph, as the image has copyright, but the data exists within the public domain once published, then we replot and publish with a citation.
This seems odd to me, and raises the question, to what end could this work? I see this making sense if we are constructing a plot with multiple components, but here we would just be reconstructing a plot nearly verbatim. Further, if we had an automated digitizer and ploted the retreived data with similar axes, this method would approach a simple copy and paste, which obviously requires copyright permissions.
So, in general, is this a true statement, and valid opinion, or would copyright still be required?

This needs clarity. Is your co-author suggesting digitizing the graph itself or is the data available otherwise. If the former, you are creating a derived work which also requires copyright permission.

The question seems to be more appropriate for a  lawyer specializing in the copyright law of your jurisdiction. In general, don't trust legal advise given by someone (or something) on the internet.

I know this is not what you're asking, but what exactly is the downside of using their image? Why is your co-author so desperate to deprive other people of credit for their work? It's not like citing their graph would in any way diminish your contribution.

given that this isn't legaladvice but academia: you'd still be plagiarizing imho

@Hobbamok " then we replot and publish with a citation." this part remove most of the concerns about the plagiarizing. They are simply replotting a line graph somewhere on their plots...

It depends on the copyright laws of the country. Apparently in the US the plot is copyrighted, the underlying data not (and with good reasons and argumentations).
Automated digitizers exist and are widely available (I’ll let others chip in about the goodness of the values obtained).

Value goodness indeed. In what situation would we • find it important to have numerical data but • think it's adequate to get that numerical data from a pixel counter??


text:
Quitting a post-doc
A while ago I had to pick between a few post-doc offers. I ended up choosing one in a modestly interesting project hosted by what you'd call a high-profile university, with seemingly strong PIs (decent citation counts, many annual publications in top-tier conferences) that I did not, however, know in person.
From the very get go of my employment, I got weird vibes from my host university and the local group. I found no group cohesion, common research agenda (other than vaguely following the latest research trend), or basis for collaboration. There was an excessive amount of less senior colleagues working basically on their own, with the local PI being at times unable to even recall individuals' names.
With respect to the project itself, I quickly realized there was very little idea (if any) on what to actually do, what the challenges and/or the opportunities were and how go about them. Despite this, there was an almost immediate push for publishing "something". Meetings between myself and other project affiliates quickly started going sour, with ill-guided suggestions, condescending tones, etc. This strongly demotivated me, at which point I started pursuing other (external) collaborations while tying loose knots. This proved relatively fruitful and gave me peace of mind for a while (subduing both the impostor syndrome and the feeling of "wasting my post-doc").
However, this didn't sit well with my superiors, who are dissatisfied with my work (or lack thereof), and reasonably so. I tried finding ways to make ends meet (intermediating between the people that actually want to work with me and the people that just expect something of me), but to no avail. It seems to me that such collaboration prospects are being dismissed for purely punitive reasons regardless of their possible merits. It was communicated to me from my PIs that I am to work alone from now on, except for their supervision.
At this point I'm wondering what's the best way forward. I am strongly in favor of quitting ASAP. This won't deprive me of income, as I have secured a number of (far better paying) industry offers as a backup plan, at least until I get to find another academic position. Meanwhile, a part-time industry job should allow me some time and the "liberty" to keep some lines of research open (done of my own volition at my own time with people of my own choice). Ethically this is absolutely in line with my personal moral compass; I think this is the "honest" thing to do, and have a strong disdain for the kind of work conditions that I am subjected to. I don't see the potential of feeling any kind of remorse/guilt from a work-ethics perspective. I'm wondering, however, whether this might bite me in the ass a few months/years down the line (even though I can't exactly imagine how). Another, more sinister/cynical, part of me believes that I should keep this going, pursuing any opportunity for fruitful collaboration/investigation I currently have or may stumble upon in the future, while doing the bare minimum to justify my contract not being terminated -- thus no odd timings on the cv, plus a constant stream of publications bearing my name. I'm certain that the latter option will however be difficult for me to manage in the long run, and might backfire in multiple ways. What should I do?

"This won't deprive me of income, as I have secured a number of (far better paying) industry offers as a backup plan. It should also allow me more "liberty" with respect to my research endeavors (done of my own volition at my own time with people of my own choice)." This sounds like you don't actually want to work in academia, only do some research on the side. Is this correct?

Not necessarily, unless any senior academic job entails the job conditions I am experiencing.

For many senior academics (professors) a big part of their day will be filled with management and teaching responsibility. Even the little time they have left for research is spent more on managing/supervising/helping others then own research. This may be a slight exaggeration, but not much.

This much I know, but this has little to do with the working conditions I have described.

I've known a few people who did postdocs after stints in industry. It's field dependent, but not impossible. Regardless, getting out of the current gig ASAP seems like a priority.

"There was an excessive amount of less senior colleagues working basically on their own, with the local PI being at times unable to even recall individuals' names. [...] It was communicated to me from my PIs that I am to work alone from now on, except for their supervision."
So now you are fully integrated in the group ;) . Enjoy the freedom, take what you can and do your best, you are not working for/with the group, you are on your own. Good luck!

@EarlGrey Thank you, really. I appreciate the affirmation.

It sounds like you've got four options:

Accept an industry offer. Sounds like you're OK with this -- you mention several upsides and no downsides.
Keep doing what you're doing. Sounds like this is risky, neither you nor your supervisors are happy with this arrangement.
Try to salvage your post-doc: commit to working on the specified project without other collaborators. I agree this also seems risky, and not particularly healthy, based on the story you told.
Look for a different post-doc.

Only you can choose between these four options.

I'm wondering, however, whether [option #1] might bite me in the ass a few months/years down the line

Nope. You'll probably burn the bridge with your current supervisors, but the world is a big place; unless you're working in an extremely niche area, it's hard to imagine that this would matter long-term. The biggest drawback (or upside, depending on your point of view) is that it's unlikely you'll be able to maintain a competitive research cadence if research is not your full-time job, so option #1 will probably close the door to post-docs or professorships.

I appreciate your input. I should've mentioned that option 1 is a temporary backup plan that would buy me time to look for a different post-doc, hence my doubts. I'll reword the question to clarify my intent.

So it seems like your real question is quite different, and mostly independent of the backstory: you want to know if you'll be in a weaker position applying for post-docs if you take an ostensibly permanent industry position for a few months while you continue your search. You might consider making a new post with this question.

I don't see why you would assume the 'ostensibly permanent' part, neither the 'few month' part. All I'm saying is that from a monetary perspective I am not dependent on this current post-doc, and that I would like to pursue another (assuming I find one which meets my standards). I think the backstory is very relevant; I thought it was obvious I am looking for guidance and perspective on my situation, which I have no access to other than the SE hivemind. I don't believe my situation can be summarized as "can I find another post-doc if I quit my current one for a temp industry position?".

Okay then, good luck.

Academics is a poison on society, drunk daily by people that fetishize the ersatz moral supremacy bestowed by knowing a few extra things than others makes them "better".
Life is not that.
The problem with thinking that academics is life betrays the obvious contradiction.
If you are at a university you should really, um, read some philosophers.
Wittgenstein was one of the few honest academics.
Wittgenstein pointed out that philosophers didn't solve anything real, they spend their time making "strawman arguments" with artificial definitional boundaries and then parading around their hollow victories against arbitrary problems, and then seeking plaudits they feel they deserved. The sound of one hand back clapping. (My sum of Late Wittgenstein)
Proving nothing. Tell me you don't recognize his observations within that place you inhabit. Lots of hot air. No tractive effort.
So, treating university as a situational clinging game may work for you but it's not without pitfalls. Your life specifically.
How many people will read your work in academics? Is that the number you want?
Few people on earth read what's in their libraries - sitting there for free.
In contrast, all academics is absurd, so imagine how many people walking around you will care what you wrote?
The real number that's important is how many years have you got?
Most people that survive universities learn some stuff, make some novel augmentations, and then get out and improve life. For themselves and others.
Do yourself a favour, go to some faculty party and observe some of the permanent inmates that lived their whole life cocooned in a university. Beclowned describes more of them than "successful".
Your life, you only get one.


text:
What are the consequences of letting my advisor be the first author on my work when I have done it all?
My advisor suggested to implement an approach X on problem Y and he suspected that this is a fruitful approach. (This approach is not original but was done in the literature and no one uses it now in contrast to others approaches because there are others that are more efficient and superior (provable)). Convincing him of this even when given evidence was not fruitful at all.
It gave me the impression that he knows that I am correct but doesn't want to appear that he doesn't know in front of the department because in this department it is the norm that advisors define the problems for grad students and grad students do the work. This is because advisors want always to be the first author as it gives them career benefits, prestige and should not take a big time from the students who come on scholarships.
I took an independent approach and stopped visiting because I would gain nothing but "I am not convinced of your ideas" "I am not interested", and implicitly telling me "Do anything and I will graduate you". He did the same to all the other grad students who he gave problems in my particular field which he is not expert in but new to.
I didn't want to do trash and graduate so I spent years going on tangents on my own, going to conferences, poster sessions in well-known conferences, losing hope and crying, and trying to find another problem in the field to write my thesis in, and finally in my last year in the program (7th year now). I managed to implement a modification to circumvent the disadvantages of the neglected approach that could revive it back. And I am writing the thesis and soon the paper. Now after the work is done, he blames me for taking an independent approach and wants to be a first author for the upcoming paper and says that "it is a joint work".
What are the consequences of letting my advisor be the first author on my work vs I refuse and continue on my own?

It honestly sounds like you have not been prioritizing your academic/professional development, but rather have been sabotaging it. Get it published and graduate so you can start your career, and stop with the pointless fights with your advisor, they will only set you back.

The title of the post has very little to do with the body. Try to focus on one specific, answerable question that is of general usefulness to others that might be in a similar situation.

Your assertion that the first author gets career benefits is incorrect. The first author is the person that did most of the work and presumably wrote the manuscript. The last author is the person who supervised the project (normally the PI). There is no real benefit for an advisor to take the first authorship.