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Why don't colleges make terms shorter and with fewer classes?
Instead of the typical 4 classes every 10 weeks, why not 2 classes every 5 weeks?
Condensed courses usually means:

Taking less courses at the same time which makes compartmentalization for memorization easier.
You (typically) take the same course every day, thus actively refreshing the neurons on that topic.
Taking the same course every day over a shorter time makes cumulative exams much less intimidating.
You see the same students everyday. This encourages a more natural stimulation of getting to know your classmates and seems to result in more collaboration outside of class.
If you're doing poorly in a class, for whatever reason, only the last 5 weeks of your academic life are wasted (as opposed to 10).

Overall, the same material is taught to students whether it's in 5 weeks or 10. The difference in that in the 5 week plan, students take half the classes they normally would per 5-week term, and the lecture for that class is everyday of the week.
An example being instead of taking intro to biology, chemistry, calculus, and psychology over 10 weeks, you take biology and psychology during the first 5 weeks and then calculus and chem the second 5 weeks.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. (Further discussion in comments will most likely be deleted, since I can't move comments twice.)

You criticize people making claims without justification.  But your question itself does just that.  "Taking less courses at the same time which makes compartmentalization for memorization easier."  Citation needed!

FYI, most of the University of California campuses use the quarter system, ~3 classes every 10 weeks

@drewmoore: I was about to write the same comment before I noticed yours :) But (in my brief impression) UC classes are not more frequent than classes elsewhere, so students aren't taking fewer classes per quarter than other students take per term (a class at UC Davis and a class at UMN both take 150 minutes per week), but instead, every single class contains less material and the material is spread across more different classes. So this is not actually condensation. (I personally would much prefer the UC quarters system.)

Are 4 classes per semester actually usual? This sounds like a seriously stressful workload to me.

@darijgrinberg no. At my alma mater (UCSC), most classes count for 5 credit-hours) and 15 hours per quarter is a standard course load. 12 is the minimum to be considered full-time, and students have to get special authorization to take >= 17 hours. So, 4 courses is in a quarter isn't unheard of, but also isn't common.

@darijgrinberg worth noting: The UC came to the conclusion that the semester system is superior to the quarter system some years back. This is why UC Merced and UC Riverside (the two schools established after they came to this conclusion) are semester-based. UC Berkeley was converted to a semester-based schedule because it's the flagship, but the others are only using quarters because they haven't made the investment to convert them yet. I don't have a reference for this off hand, but I'm sure Google can find it, and their conclusions are likely pertinent to the conversation here.

From an information processing perspective, it is much more beneficial to have four classes over ten weeks than two classes over five weeks. This is because the mind needs the extended time to digest the material that it is being exposed to.
The two class approach is highly beneficial in allowing students to focus. However, the reduction in exposure to the content over time makes it difficult for retention and to acquire in-depth mastery of the ideas of the curriculum.
I have worked at several institutions that offer "intensive" courses for working graduate students. The students will take one class over the course of one week (about 8 hours a day). In such an intense format the students remember very little and demonstrate limited mastery of the content. This is due to the rushed nature of the course. Even though the students were able to focus, the average individual just cannot digest that much content so fast.
Sadly, there is more to learning than just seat time. Students need time to discuss and apply the knowledge they are exposed to in a course. This only becomes more challenging as the number of weeks a course lasts is reduced, even if the number of hours stays the same.

Yes, very much this. I did my master's degree in Copenhagen where all courses were 7 weeks and you had two at a time. Looking back now, it is clear how inefficient this was for digesting the material.

This is very true for any course where you have to research and synthesize the information into a greater whole. In other words, any good class, be it physics (where you may have to wrestle with a concept for a while) or history, or foreign policy. It takes time for your brain to wrap itself around deep concepts.

Actually I'm pretty sure the evidence from cognitive science is that weekly classes are too far apart, and moving to 2 classes per week helps retention of information. Couldn't cite a source though...

"he students will take one class over the course of one week (about 8 hours a day)." That's dramatically different than what I wrote. Where is the research to back up your claims on the impact these differing schedules have on memory?

There are in fact two colleges (Cornell College in Iowa, not to be confused with Cornell University, and Colorado College in Colorado) that have students take one class at a time, with 9 3.5-week terms over the course of an academic year.
One reason more colleges don't do this is that most students seem to be not like you and tend not to like summer classes.  This is particularly true for students who are not well-prepared for the class they are taking and hence need more time to work on catching up, and also for students who want to be able to slack off for a few days once in a while without falling irretrievably behind.
Another reason is that this schedule is incredibly hard on professors.  At most universities, professors are teaching fewer classes than a full-time student is taking, because teaching a class (including all the grading) is usually more work than taking one.  When a student is taking one class at a time, the professor for that class has to work extra overtime.  Professors at both Colorado and Cornell get terms without teaching assignments, partly so they can do some preparation ahead of time, but there is only so much you can do ahead of time.  (Even with 4 terms a year and two classes at a time, it's still hard on professors since teaching a large class is frequently more than twice as much work as taking one.)

How is it more work? Theoretically the professor is still teaching the same number of classes; nothing has changed but the fact that instead of being dedicated to a course for X weeks, they're lecturing for the same course for X divided by 2 weeks. For example, instead of the professor having to teach for all of winter, they teach just for "early-winter" or "late-winter". Which gives them, technically, 5-weeks of teaching freedom or to teach another class if they so choose (which in that case would definitely be more work).

Working 80 hours a week for a month and then having a month off is not the same as working 40 hours a week for two months.

Wow, that makes sense. That would be pretty brutal now that I think about it :/ I feel insensitive for asking this.

@8protons the whole point of SE is to learn :-)

Not too mention that speaking full time in a classroom for 4 weeks probably does not leave you with much of a voice...

From a student's perspective: Missing one week of regular classes due to illness can be caught up on without major problems. One week of intensive classes, not as easily, especially with projects.

Just to give the counter-example: when I took classes during the summer, where we had two compressed "semesters" packed into one summer semester we had three hour/day classes, had information literally getting packed into our brains, two-to-three hours of homework per day - I got the best grades I ever got in college. Loved it. LOVED! IT! But doing this year-round would have been a major drag. You can only rev the engine up for so long - sooner or later it either explodes or you crash. :-)

Another reason you might add is that in the business world, you're going to be expected to juggle multiple projects at the same time. People who are dedicated to a single task have a tough time elevating out of that single task! And let's face it - most people who go to university continue on to business/industry.

Short answer: you can't teach some things if you have short terms.
Some colleges do that. The University of Chicago and Dartmouth, for example, are on the quarter system where classes are 10 weeks long, and students usually take 3-4 classes per quarter. Colorado College has a 3 week system where you only take a single class per week.
The main reason why schools have shorter classes is that it is amazing for research! You can get so much done during the remainder of the year, although that makes the time you are teaching insane with course prep. Most faculty I know love that schedule though, and I am on a similar schedule, and love it.
The main reason for not doing it, other than tradition, is that it is not good for a lot of kinds of learning. Many concepts require a little time to percolate for students to really understand. Things that are skills, such as language, mathematics or art also require practice which can be built into, and assumed, during longer periods, but the shorter the coursework, the less that you get outside.
The quarter system can be a happy medium, depending on how it is administered, but if you are taking a 5 course semester and one language course per semester than language learning is only 20% of your class time, and only needs to be 20% of your extra-course study and you are taking the course all year long. In order to get year long language training in the quarter system (or math, etc.) You'd need to bump up the level to 30% of your coursework, or go half the year without language training. It is essentially impossible to do under any shorter courses. That may seem desirable if all you want to do is that, but such focused training is not the point of a university education.

It's Colorado College, which is not at all the same as the University of Colarado.

@AlexanderWoo Noted and fixed.

Taking from when I was a student, there are a few reasons.

Connecting material covered in different courses is important
Each student found some courses harder than others, by taking 5 courses at the same time, it is possible to spend longer on what you find hard.
Some days I just did not feel like learning some subjects, so having flexibility on time planning is useful.
It is never nice having homework you must do for the next day, as it stops you being flexibly on how you use your time.

While I think there are a variety of great, more pedagogically-relevant reasons given in other answers, I also see a serious logistical reason. My own alma mater would, I think, be farcically inept at attempting to implement this, and I do not think it would be alone.
The problem I’m referring to is that developing schedules is exceptionally difficult. At my school, there were always numerous serious problems and no one wound up happy with the schedule, but there were just too many conflicts and it took an entire office devoted to the subject enormous amounts of time to even develop the poor schedules we ended up with.
If asked to do so twice as often, I don’t think they’d even know where to start. Simply hiring more staff isn’t an answer, because many of the delays come from conflicting needs outside their own office, and the various departments aren’t going to get twice as fast at arguing about why their needs are greater than others’.

I went to WPI, which runs on a system of four 7 week terms where the default load is 3 courses.  I loved it.
Advantages:
Only 3 courses, so it's easier to manage time between them.
More flexible to schedule pre-requisites.
A course that sucks is over soon.
Compressed time schedule makes reviewing for exams easier because you don't have to look back as far.
Disadvantage:
Workload can be heavy squeezing certain courses in to 7 weeks.
If you get the flu for a week, you're in deep trouble.

Just come in with the flu. Its not like you are doing manual labor. The tears of a stranger are just water.

I realize high school and college/university are very different levels of education and different age for most students.
I have been exposed to 2 to 3 different teaching periods.  In High school I started out with taking the same 8 course all year long with 3 classes in the morning 3 in the afternoon.  The next day the last class would not be taken, all classes would be shifted up a period and the classes that were not there were added to first period in the morning and after lunch.  Loved this system with classes being only about 45 minutes long, mid term exams at Christmas and end of year exams covered the full year with a bias towards second half of the year.
Later I switched to yet another high school and it was a semestered system.  4 classes for the first half of the year 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.  Then after Christmas it was 4 new courses.  I really hated this system.  The first problem was the length of classes being over an hour and a half.  Unfortunately for me my attention span does not last that long and I stopped absorbing information around the 1 hour mark.  The second problem I had with the system was if you took say MATH 1 in first term first year, you might not see math again for over a year when you take MATH 2 second term second year.  In my opinion, it was too long away from the topic and a lot of information gets forgotten.
My university was more of the later system with first semester and second semester.  However classes tended to be short in duration, about 1 hour long.  I think the worst case was a surveying class where the class was the entirety of Monday afternoon (3-4 hours straight).  This was incredibly tough on the staying focused part during the initial pure lectures, but was required for the outdoor labs.  The nice part about my university aside from being incredibly structured were the set class schedules.  Monday to Friday 0800-1600.  no evening or weekend lectures.
As an aside I also think my final class size of 11 (french class was 4) also gave really good interaction with the professors.
In addition to what other have said about the consequences of missing classes, the amount of homework your need to do, running your mind excessively with out, and more than a few other things, I think that longer classes over a shorter period of time CAN be harder for some people if they have difficulty staying focused for extended periods of times.  Would your really want to take it to the extreme and have 1 classe over 2.5 weeks?  I think I would eventually tune out.  Some people need variety.

There are many reasons why this won't work in general.

People have different learning abilities and shortened duration for a class would alienate those that have difficulties.  What if a student falls behind, with a longer semester it is possible to recover, and much less so with a shorter one.
This idea rules out classes where in-depth projects are necessary.  Some times it just takes time to perform the necessary tasks set out to the students.
You assume that the material taught by the professor is fully prepared before the semester starts.  While this may be possible for many courses, some courses reflect the real world and can't be pre-prepared, making it difficult for the professor to ensure a quality learning experience.  (Think current events, popular culture, technology, etc).
There are many non-taught educational experiences that are very difficult  or impossible without class overlap.  For instance, many STEM courses require math as a prerequisite for understanding the interesting material.  Without overlap, students would likely have to have a VERY math-heavy first two years.  Not really fun and doesn't allow the students to realize why they need to understand Calculus/Differential equations/Linear Algebra, etc.  At least until it is long forgotten or seemingly irrelevant.
Shortened semesters also seriously focus the students' perspective.  On the material, but also on their social interactions.  Part of college/university is to broaden your perspectives.
In order to have pre-requisites work, classes must be more carefully scheduled if there isn't any possibility of overlap.  This means that the institution is forcing a sequence of classes (and removing the possibility of the student to tailor their own education).  This in turn reduces the possibility of a broad educational experience, which in turn leads to the institution dictating how and what students will be learning. Breadth of education diminishes and we end up without students with varying knowledge making the workforce less imaginative.
College also teaches you some hidden skills such as time management and balancing conflicting workloads.  These skills are essential for real-world employment and not forcing students to learn to manage their time is a disservice for employment later.

#2 is not quite true. After all, nothing prevents projects to span more than one term (possibly involving several compulsory accompanying classes in the different terms); projects that take a year or that are not aligned with the normal term boundaries exist already nowadays at universities that otherwise organize classes in semesters, after all.

#1 is not quite true either. Some students have the opposite problem: they have some issues rendering them unable to work every once in a while (medical issues for example), and so, the longer a course takes, the more likely they miss out a few weeks in the course (which often leads to falling behind). With short courses, they can just retake them until the issue no longer arises.

I attended a University which offered (many of) the same courses in either a full-time study or part-time study program format.
The full-time option offered the course in 3 one-hour sessions over the semester.
The part-time option, depending on on the term came in either:

one 3-hour session one day a week
5 weekend sessions, typically, Sat and Sundays, 1/2 day each
1 full week (5 days) of full day (ie 8 hr day) instruction

In all cases, the total classroom time worked out to be the same. I experienced all the forms (different courses :) ). That did not make the classes equivalent by any means.  While the full-time program was essentially geared to "classical students", the part-time stream was typically geared to "professionals" looking for further education.
My experience reflects many of the other poster's comments.
There was simply no way to deliver a "term" project in 1 one week course, even the 5 wknds was a stretch.  There was also simply no was to truly absorb and comprehend the material in the span of a week and be properly tested on it.  The tests essentially get reduced down to memorization of the readings or constructed questions.
Was I was in first-year in another "classical" university, the professors suggested it was necessary to spend 3 hours outside the class for every hour inside in order to comprehend the material and succeed. Simple math says that is not viable when the course is now 8 hrs/day for 5 days straight.
Consider too,  Medicine is akin to applied biology, is to appl. chemistry, is to appl. physics, is to appl. calculus, etc. Taking these subjects in parallel strengthens the learning process. It is also very challenging to pick up where you left off after not studying that subject for some time (ie: skip a semester) vs the continuity of continuous learning.

Lots of great answers here already, just want to chime in with a point I'm surprised no one has mentioned.
Not all students are full time, or capable of taking a full courseload. Many students working part-time, or even full-time, need the ability to take a much lighter courseload. The closer you get to taking one intense class per quarter, the less that students (and faculty!) have the ability to control their schedule.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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Did my professor refuse to write me a letter of recommendation? (in Germany)
I asked my professor to write me a letter of recommendation for my PhD application, but his reply was "You are welcome to name me as a reference for any applications." Is it a turndown or did I get it wrong? He was my thesis supervisor and I got a good grade on it.
Update: Thank you all for your generous replies, I was worrying about bothering my professor by sending him another email. My concern has been relieved and I am now able to proceed to the next step.

Can someone explain how this can be interpreted as a negative response? It seems like a clear-cut positive response to me.

Yup! The professor is not going to give the OP the letter. Instead the other parties who are considering hiring the OP will request the letter from him directly.   I am not sure what is not clear about that reply. It is definitely a yes as in a positive response.

The possible issue is this scenario: "Student: I am applying for something at institution/agency Y. Will you write and send a letter of reference to Y to support my application? Advisor: Y can contact me if they're interested but I will not send something to Y unless they contact me."

This creates a problem if Y categorically will not contact the advisor in which case the supervisor's literal response given in the question effectively wrecks the student's application. I am not saying that is what happened / was intended! But I am explaining how the response is not 'definitely a yes' and everything is good to go.

Not really a downside. He wants to avoid to write a general letter of recommendation.

I believe there simply is a confusion of what exactly you asked for. In Germany, I believe it's less common to write letters of recommendation in the US style. Instead, what one typically does is list 2-3 contact persons in the application, and if the application is seriously considered some or all of these references may be directly contacted by the future employer (by phone, email, etc.).
Usually, this is seen as more of a sanity check than a deep evaluation - i.e., the referee will mostly be asked if the stuff that you list in your application is factually correct. Some people will also ask for a subjective evaluation, but most employers are rather unwilling to go there since you are by law not allowed to give a bad reference, so most people will stick to the facts.
That is to say, if what you want your professor to do is to write a detailed letter of recommendation you maybe should check if that's also ok (since that's a lot more work than what would be expected if one is listed as a reference in the German style).

Correct answer as far as the "employment in Germany" perspective is concerned. That said, academics in Germany are often aware that hiring practices differ between countries, and that a purely factual reference might be interpreted as a lack of enthusiasm, which might work against the candidate's chances to get the job.

In the UK this is often the truth too for academia at least.

Same in Netherlands and many western institutions, although I did once require and got an actual letter with evaluation for an academic internship abroad (in Switzerland).

If this was the UK, you might interpret this slight deflection of the answer as a roundabout way of giving a negative response. Germans tend to be a bit more direct than that. Given the context (thesis advisor, good grade), I would simply interpret this a positive response. They are happy to provide you with a reference. They are simply phrasing this in the way they expect references are given. (In some part of the application, the applicant gives contact details for one or more references, which are to be contacted.)
It may be that you need a letter send directly to place you are applying. If that is the case, you should simply ask them for that specifically. I see no reason that interpret their given response as a refusal to do so.

I agree in principle about the Bri'ish being substantially less direct in their communication than, e.g. Germans, but considering that references in the UK are also most commonly provided as a list of people, to be contacted during the interview process (usually some later stage), even from a UK academic I would just interpret this as a simple "yes".

I agree with @xLeitix mostly.
However, I see yet another possibility: What is common in Germany are  Arbeitszeugnisse (a particular type of letter to the employee certifying what they did, and usually also how well they did), which is again somewhat different from an LoR. This is written by the employer (it's their duty to provide one if asked). It may be that the professor said they'd be willing to act as reference because they are not in a position to provide an Arbeitszeugnis (e.g. the PhD was not accompanied by an employment contract or despite being supervisor, this professor was not the manager in an employment sense).
It may also be that the professor is reluctant to write the Arbeitszeugnis even though they must. Arbeitszeugnisse are far less used in academia (though public service research institutions in Germany have administrations that are more than likely to ask for them in my experience) than in industry, so they may think OP doesn't really need it and that they can get away skipping this duty.

@LSpice: thanks, corrected and added link

It could be yes or no as it is dependent on the nature of your application. If you apply to a university that requires you to provide the contact information of the referees for them, so they can directly get information about you (recommendation letter) from the referees, then NO, he did not refuse to do it, but if you asked him for a recommendation letter for a program that requires direct recommendation letters, then it could be true that he was reluctant. But it could also be the case that he will help you and he allows you to name him as a referee as he will write the letter later.
If he does not want to write a recommendation letter for some reasons (e.g. he is busy, he misread your email), you should try to get to your goal (i.e. having a reference letter from him) in some smart way. For example, you can send him an email along the line "Dear Professor, I am ... and I already name you as referee at this university. However, for the other university they require a direct letter from you. Can you please..."

Thanks! I haven't specified any positions that I am going to apply for yet

@Veeeemtaeee So there is also a chance that he did not know what you wanted

As usual, communication is key in any relationship! Make sure to communicate clearly and frequently about your plans and needs with your advisor.

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Leaving a Graduate Program in a Polite and Professional Manner
I'm a first-year PhD student and I plan to leave my current program in order to transfer to another program next year. If possible I will also ask for a master's degree from the program. I am looking for advice on how to bring up the issue with the graduate director in a manner which doesn't "burn any bridges;" I do not want to leave the salty impression that I am deeply unhappy about their program. Maybe I'm just overthinking the issue.
The approach which I'm considering is to just be honest as possible:

The program does not match my interests well because there is very little presence in my primary field of interest. I have searched thoroughly. I do not yet have an advisor.
Some secondary factors are also marginally involved, for instance I have felt suffocated with the general location and climate, and moreover I would like to move closer to my family.
I've gotten admission to a program which matches my interests and location preferences significantly better, and they will give me credit for the work I've done here.

However, I believe that the issue should be handled delicately and non-bluntly for the reason that my current program has given me quite a bit of flexibility and awards, I finished my exams, and I want them to give me a masters. I don't want to be rude or dismissive of these.
So what would be a good approach?

Possibly helpful: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2498/is-transferring-to-another-university-an-option-for-an-unhappy-phd-student and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44446/transferring-phd-programs-because-of-location?rq=1

@erfink Well, this is not a question of whether or not I should transfer, it's more of a question of "I've already accepted an offer from a different university and I want to get out of my current one politely."

Could you please specify which country? The answer clearly depends on this.

Absolutely, I agree that your question is not a duplicate of those. I simply found that those couple questions generated some good discussion that may or may not be helpful vis a vis potential difficulties

This goes the same for those leaving jobs for similar reasons- the more you can explain how there are personal reasons for your transfer and do not emphasize that there are deficits with your current program, a professional academic will understand even if he or she is disappointed.
Remember that not all academics and administrators are always professional and that despite your best efforts he or she might not be understanding. However, being professional and cordial is the best you can do to take the high road.

Thank you for your answer. I guess this is fairly obvious but I do not have much experience with these kinds of formalities.

Good answer. Definitely use the "moving closer to family" as the primary reason (or perhaps only reason you share with them).  // Also, please check what your department's requirements are for earning a Master's, in preparation for the conversation.

Glad to help! I actually left my faculty position right after getting tenure for personal reason and used this very advice. I'm still on very good terms with my former director and colleagues. So, it's good advice for now and the future! Best of luck!

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Other students can easily cheat on a test and the grading system is relative - should I cheat, and what else can I do?
Amid the pandemic, a test that has traditionally been in-class is now planned to be held as follows:

The examiner starts a Zoom conference.
The students join the conference from their homes, turning their webcams and microphones on.
The examiner sends the students a link to a Google form. The form comprises of test tasks and questions and is to be filled out with answers.
The students open the form and fill it out, keeping their webcams and microphones on. The examiner and his assistants watch the students via Zoom in an attempt to ensure than no cheating takes place. The students are not allowed to use any books or materials or get help from other people. A warning has been issued that if any kind of cheating is noticed, the cheater will face dire consequences. The entire session will be video recorded by the examiner.
The students submit the form, and that's it. The form will be closed at the end of the test.

It appears to me that it's very easy to get away with cheating on the test. A student can simply give the link to a friend and ask him or her to secretly fill out the form and submit it on behalf of the student. Alternatively, a student can ask a friend to sit nearby, just outside the camera's field of view, and help pass the test. Also, a student can easily cheat by using Internet resources, but this way of cheating will not be very helpful for this particular test, so my main concern is about the easiness of getting help from others.
I wouldn't even consider cheating, and I wouldn't care whether others cheated, but the grading system for this test is relative, and the test is important. The purpose of the test is to measure how good the students are relative to each other, and the results will be used to divide the students into small groups so that each group comprises of students of approximately the same level of knowledge. Then each group will be taught in accordance with the abilities of its students. The test won't count towards my final grade, but I want to end up being in a group of good students, and I don't want to end up being behind a heap of students who will simply elect to cheat, although I have no idea as to how many actually will.
Knowledge-wise, I think I am better than an overwhelming majority of the students who are to sit the test, so my first instinct was to openly raise my concerns in an attempt to change the way the test is conducted, but I'm afraid I will achieve nothing but a reputation of a student who openly questions the integrity of fellow students. Knowing the examiner personally, I'm afraid he will strongly dislike my suggestion that he make extra effort to organize the test in a different way (e.g., by separately interviewing each student). Moreover, it well may be not even in his power to change the procedure. I talked to a couple of coursemates, and they were not enthusiastic to personally participate in any action about how the test is conducted.
What would you advise me to do?

Should I cheat? A senior friend of mine encourages me to accept his help with the test. He is prepared to fill out the form and submit it on my behalf or, if I wish, to sit nearby and give hints. He doesn't want me to fall victim of cheating by others. I'm weighing ethical factors and also trying to figure out whether there's any chance I might accidentally get caught.
What else could I do to address this?

I would be grateful for advice and, in particular, for pointing out anything I may be overlooking in this situation.

UPDATE: I'd like to explain why it is important to end up in a good group. In a better group, you get a better instructor, a better and more stimulating environment, and an opportunity to make social connections with better students. The practice here is that best groups get best instructors. Whom would you give the best English teacher - a group of lazy students or a group of students highly passionate about the English language? And the environment does matter. If you are in a group of good students, you will invariably become like them. Students take this test very seriously, and I do expect that some will cheat. And I don't want my place in a good group to be stolen by a cheater.

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I think this needs a country tag (from the name I guess Japan?). If the OP says the best students receive large advantages in their system, we should take their word for it.

This is a question to the programme leader.
Frankly in a scenario where cheating is just waiting for an invitation, relative marking is grossly inappropriate. It is not just giving cheaters an unfair advantage, it gives the honest ones an unfair disadvantage.
Ask for guarantees that cheating by others will not directly disadvantage you.

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I would advise two things. First, take the exam honestly. But also complain to the university and the professor that you find the conditions to be conducive to cheating and you question the fairness and validity of the exam under these conditions.
But you have to do the second part early, perhaps now, before the test is given and certainly before you are given any grades. Then there can be no claim that you are grumbling because of a bad grade.
Use the same arguments you use here. Zoom itself isn't secure and the "observations" provided by it are very possibly insufficient to prevent cheating.
I would also object, myself, on privacy grounds, that no one has a right to video (and record) you in your home. If any of the students aren't legal adults, then it might even be illegal in some places to do so. But I'm very serious about my own privacy. You may have a different standard.
If they require you to actually register with zoom I would object on privacy grounds also, in that some of your private information is being given to a commercial entity.
If others also complain prior to the exam it will carry more weight, of course.
A poorly designed system shouldn't be used to disadvantage anyone.

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I agree with @Captain Emacs.
My professor did something similar. The difference being he did not monitor us via webcam, and told us to simply sign a statement affirming we would not cheat.
I did not cheat, and suffered badly. I scored nearly the lowest grade in the entire class. I scored above average on exams before COVID-19. My assumption is that the grade was artificially inflated by cheating.
However, I would recommend not cheating, because somewhere along the chain of command someone will correct this. If you had an A average, like myself, before the exam, and you scored well below average on the online exam that is cause for suspicion. You can bring this up to your professor or department. Eventually you'll stumble upon someone who is rational along the chain of command. Student who were doing poorly then suddenly made A's would also be an abnormally to cite.
In summary, if you had an A before this exam, and did oddly poor after,  you can likely easily make a case for yourself. The easiest solution to advocate for would be for them to throw that grade out.

There may, of course, be few or no prior grades available.

This advice seems to contradict itself. You suffered. But you mention that somewhere someone will correct this. But you do not mention that this happened to you. Was it corrected in your case?

So how is your case coming?

So, for my case somewhere along the chain of command someone did notice. Corrective action was taken for me. I do not know what happened to my peers, but I would assume any significant change in performance would have also been investigated. This class is a graduate level course, so everyone generally makes (A's 70% or B's 30%) anyway. If you are taking a more completely graded course (A's 20%, B's 30%, C's 30%, D's 15%, F's 5%), then you should bring up the case @CaptainEmacs and others made with department sooner than later.

I think this same situation is about to happen to my girlfriend. Zero provisions against cheating, in an exam whose grade solely determines the course grade and which will likely be curved. I too advised her not to cheat but only because I think it's morally wrong. Absolutely nonsensical of the university not to postpone the exam.

If most students cheat and the grading is done in a relative way, then this disqualifies the test as a fair test. You should then cheat, as it's the instructor's responsibility to implement a fair system, it's not your duty to have to suffer the consequences of a broken system.
It's not any different from facing justice in a country where defendants bribe police officers, prosecutors and judges to get acquitted. Suppose you are arrested, e.g. by a corrupt police officer expecting a bribe. Would you then pay the bribe to get off or try to win, only to face more problems down the line when having to deal with corrupt prosecutors and judges?

I’m not sure I agree with your conclusion, but +1 for it’s the instructor’s responsibility to implement a fair system, and for the (very valid IMO) analogy in the second paragraph. This answer does a nice job of illustrating how corruption begets more corruption and dishonesty begets more dishonesty.

I will never agree to enter such a country, and if I lived in such a country I would leave as soon as possible regardless of the personal cost of doing so.

Speaking of your example, if you pay a bribe to a corrupt police officer to avoid prosecution and this becomes known, you'll have a damn hard time proving you were innocent in the first place even to an unbiased judge. Not to mention that bribing is a crime in itself.

@Ian: From your comment, it seems like you really never had to live in such a country. People from the Sovjet Union, GDR, North Korea, Syria etc. could/ cannot so easily leave.

"It's not any different" yes it is. It's entirely different. That is a systematic corruption from the top. The professor is not expecting a bribe. I promise if OP gets caught, screaming "well everyone else does it" is not going to be considered a valid excuse at the expulsion hearing. Actions have consequences, and this could literally ruin someone's entire future career. Tread lightly.

Disagree. Even if everyone around you is cheating, there is value in-and-of-itself to choosing the ethical path and not cheating. Do not cheat, on principle, by your own personal honour, even if that disadvantages you. So what if you end up in a lower set, you will know that you are someone who chooses not to do the wrong thing even when you could have done and even when others did. That has inherent value far more than this test, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Choose what sort of person you want to be and not because of reward or punishment, just because that's who you are.

@corsiKa The prof may have "good intentions", but if they implement a system that incentivizes corruption, they are as guilty (by stupidity if not intention) in the destruction of honesty. There are cases of not-really-corrupt governments/leaders that, through weakness or badly chosen governance structures caused the system to go off the rails. I think the comparison is valid. So, some originally honest people gone bad may be caught and punished, but still the original sin was setting the conditions for corruption in the first place.

@ Captain Emacs I disagree. There is inherent value in choosing the ethical path despite external factors. What you say comes close to the Nuremberg defence and this is not accepted. External factors do not generally excuse choosing the unethical action.

@croc7415 What Nuremberg defence? Comparing cheating in an exam to rounding up innocent co-citizens is really living on different levels of personal responsibility, even in a corrupt system. There is a huge qualitative step between opportunistic dishonesty and active systematic threatening and ending the lives of fellow citizens. I talked about a weak system, not an evil one.  A weak system incentivizes dishonesty by giving advantages to the dishonest; but people do not even feel directly the harm they do which is indirect. Thus, most of the responsibility is on the designer. Cont'd.

@croc7415 In an evil system, the system incentivizes evil behaviour. People engaging in it actively know precisely that they do harm. Despite the top leadership being responsible, the individual people are responsible, too, and know this because they make decisions which are not merely opportunistic anymore, but actively and directly harm others. If one wants people to internalise guilt, it's important to understand how it works. And yes, some people feel not guilty in any case. The more reason to disincentivize them from breaking the rules. This is the responsibility of the leadership.

@ Captain Emacs Interesting discussion but I guess we are digressing somewhat from the original question. For me the answer to the original question is that on a fundamental level there is value to choosing not to take the unethical choice in and of itself no matter what the external factors are and even if this disadvantages you

No, don’t cheat.
Here are some random thoughts why; some are perhaps more philosophical than the other comments/answers Ive seen so far:
live with courage and integrity. it takes courage to live with the consequences of other people taking advantage of the system.
when you are a student, you feel that the class or the test is high stakes or of vast importance, it will determine your entire future, or your future happiness, and failing or doing poorly is the end of the world. As I’ve aged/matured, I’ve encounter many failures and disappointments have come to make peace with them (easier said than done). but i also see that people who have had more success are not necessarily happier and have their own problems.
You might never end up seeing it yourself, but the people who cheat  - it will catch up to them sooner or later. (This has happened in my classes - students have  gotten away with cheating on a few exams, and then eventually (perhaps in classes year or two later) I find out they dont know anything and they end up failing. Of course many students have gotten away unnoticed.
I think most professors know that online tests are very easy to cheat on and there’s very little we can do (even with the system you described etc) - heck, we can’t even control cheating in in person tests.
Professors can be sneaky. They can put questions that they don’t expect students to solve, then if some students do, they can come back and ask the student to explain their answer. Maybe they are able to monitor IP addresses of where answers are being submitted. That being said, it’s impossible for the professor to make any foolproof system, except perhaps one-on-one oral exams, which for very large classes is not practical.
the senior “friend” who volunteered to help you cheat will then have the ability to blackmail you. i advise you to stop being friends with him (no need to explicitly have a conversation ending the friendship, just stop frequently communicating with him). friends can really influence ones behavior, and when you have friends who behave badly, you can end up behaving badly. even though he is acting in a way to help you in the short term, being dishonest is a huge red flag. run away. i recently dumped a close friend who had some bad habits that i ended up joining in on occasion even though i didnt really want to, and even still it was very hard for me to terminate the friendship. but i am feeling so much better now that she is  mostly out of my life.
life is so much easier living honestly. in the long run, you’ll sleep better at night.
students who cheat are mostly cheating themselves. (added in response to a comment that the previous sentence is not true: they are cheating themselves of learning the material, of the feedback on their level of mastery that exams provide)

To the last sentence: unfortunately not true.

@user111388 you’re right, so I’ve added a bit of an explanation. but it still might not be true, i accept that.

@user111388, your comment, fortunately, is not true. And dishonest people affect others besides themselves.

@Buffy: Why not? People write here all the time about cheaters who get advantages in jobs etc. Those people cheat others then themselves.

@user111388 "mostly... themselves", the answer never excluded cheating others, simply put the balance of harm on the cheater.  The distinction may be subtle and nuanced, but truth often is.

I never cheated in school but I absolutely would in this scenario, it would never catch up with me, and I'd not lose any sleep over it. I don't see it having anything to do with my integrity at that point because of how flawed the situation is.

@John K the ethical basis behind what you state would be your actions is completely flawed. There is inherent value to choosing an ethical path even if there is no punishment or reward and even if the external factors of the situation are flawed themselves.

Unfairness Prevails
Suppose you are working for a large corporation, and your team is assigned a project.  Many of your coworkers could cheat and take shortcuts to appear to produce more output, and the manager would not necessarily notice.  Furthermore the manager is inclined to give bonuses and promotions based on each team member's output.  Should you: A) do your work honestly, like a sucker, knowing full well that many of your coworkers are going to game the system to make it look like they did much more work? or B) claw your way to the top by pulling every cheat you think your coworkers will try, and then some?
I hate to break it to you, but the above scenario is much less hypothetical than we would like to admit.  The world is not fair.  Sometimes, people will cheat and get away with it.  Sometimes that will affect you directly.  At some point, you will be asked to put a literal price on your morals and values.  This process has already begun, before you have entered the workplace in earnest.  You must decide what price you will set, because nobody else can set that price for you.
Choose Your Destiny
What you will find is that while you cannot catch and expose every cheat in the world, nor can you avoid every situation in which you are asked to pay that price for your morals and ethics, you can decide which of those cheats you choose to continue working with, and which you will avoid.  With diligence, you can find like-minded folks who will not put you in those no-win situations, and can prosper.
At the end of the day, a hiring manager or Ph.D adviser will want to see what you know and what you can do--not just what grades you achieved.  If you end up with an unfair black mark on your academic record, don't think of it as a personal failure or injustice of the universe.  Think of it as a test for those who would judge you.  if they are so shallow that they would dismiss you on the basis of such a small thing, then they are surely not the kind of people you really want to work with/for.
This is a test of your professor, too.  If the grades really turn out to be wildly unfair, then challenge your professor: "I believe the outcome of this test indicates rampant cheating, and I believe if you spend a few minutes talking with some of the anomalous high test scorers about the relevant material, you will find that my accusation is not without merit."  If the professor brushes you off, then you are free to make a personal judgment about that person.  Accept that some people do not care so much for integrity and are just there to collect a paycheck.  This, too, is a bitter lesson that we must all learn at some point.
What Doesn't Kill You...
On the other hand, a little adversity makes you stronger.  Nobody can say definitively why more than half of "unicorns" are founded by immigrants, but I don't think anyone will say: "Obviously, it's because they have it so easy."  On the contrary, second- and third-generation immigrants do worse than their first-generation ancestors, quite likely because they do "have it easy" relative to struggling to make it in a new country.  Obviously, a lot of adversity can weigh you down with an unescapable burden.  Hence, why folks in the bottom quintile struggle to get out of it.
Yes, this is a fancy way of saying that suffering some headwind might give you some fire which helps propel you past your cheating classmates in the long game.  Instead of wasting your energy holding grudges and simmering with resentment, channel it into getting so good that no amount of cheating will hold you back.  What you learn in your classes, and how you learn it is far more important to your future than what grade you get.

Yes, the best mental picture...

Of course, at some point one actual has to get that PhD advisor. In some fields, this is done almost entirely on the basis of undergraduate grades...

While I think your corporate view on colleagues cheating their way up is mostly correct, keep in mind that people boast the merits publicly, while performance reviews are private. This means that a certain amount of cheating and over-advertising about performance should be getting caught by decent managers and accounted for. Particularly, when numerically grading performance, a good manager needs to normalize for "humbleness". People with nearly the same performance may self-all evaluate with 5/10, 8/10 or 10/10 depending on how humble or conceited they are.

Regarding unicorns being founded by immigrants. Immigrants are, by nature, risk takers. Which is basically a requirement to found a start-up company. You need courage to leave your home country for a foreign land, where you might face language, culture and prejudice barriers. Second-generation immigrants are more usually people who had no say in the immigration decision, hence their risk appetite is not much observable from the isolated fact of being a second generation immigrant.

@KevinCarlson I don't have a post-grad degree, so I will take your word for it. But I thought that tests like the GRE give additional data points that would be taken into consideration.  I would also hope that letters of recommendation might make a difference.  I personally have a low opinion of any field which would rely on such narrow data.

@Mefitico While I agree that good managers do not rely on the public self-evaluation of workers, I would like to point out that the majority of managers are "average", not good. ;) And even worse, they tend to rely on their personal relationship with the worker moreso than their objective work output, leading to the unfortunate fact that in many situations, networking is more valuable than good work. As far as selection bias goes, you're assuming that most first-generation immigrants chose to immigrate, rather than were dragged along by their parents.  I think there's a strong mix of both.

@LawnmowerMan Do you think that the GRE is less narrow than course grades? I'm in pure math, a field in which the general GRE is beyond irrelevant; the subject GRE can't do anything but screen out people who are totally unqualified; and few undergrads get serious research experience due to the nature of the field. Of course recommendation letters are important, but it's most often necessary to have earned top grades in an advanced course to get a strong recommendation letter. And that's basically it, grades and recommendations. You almost certainly can't get away without both.

@KevinCarlson I can see why grades are much more important in that context, but would assume that at the highest levels, the professors would have smaller classes and a correspondingly better understanding of each student's strengths and weaknesses (and could thus identify anomalously high grades). Hopefully, they would not gamble on the honor system when high stakes are in play. At the same time, if it is easy to cheat your way into high marks and get strong recommendations, then I'd say there are deeper problems at work.

@LawnmowerMan No, I don’t claim that someone can readily cheat their way into a good grad school, just that inaccurately low grades could conceivably block a good candidate.

The answer really depends on the consequences of a lower relative mark.
If the mark counts towards your degree, final school exam grade, ability to pass the year, or other long-term consequences, then consider formally escalating this within your school or university.
Your teacher should be receptive to ideas of ways in which their exam can be cheated.  If they aren't, your school or university should have an appeals process.  Whether you involve this process now, or whether you involve this process when all your classmates get unexpectedly higher results, that's something you need to think about.  If you're under 18, you may need to talk to your parents about this, because they may be the ones who would need to raise it with the school.
If the mark doesn't count towards your long-term result, and there are no other real consequences, then don't sweat it.
Yes, you may be graded lower than your classmates on this exam.  Perhaps you finish the year a few places down the class from where you expected to be.  But if it doesn't make any long-term difference to the outcome of your education and grades, then it doesn't really matter.  You know that you played fair.  And more than that, the work you've done this year will benefit you next year, where your classmates who relied on cheating will fall further behind you.
Based on your name, I would make the assumption that you're in Japan.  And based on that assumption, I would certainly mention this to your parents as soon as you can.  A lower grade achieved honourably is better than a higher grade achieved dishonourably.

"where you classmates who relied on cheatinf will fall Further behind" A big NO! Cheating does not neccessarily mean "studying nothing". "Cheaters" I know study extremly hard like the others except that they look their missing knowledge up at the test. So they profited the same from the lecture but got a better grade.

First of all. Don't cheat, and study more than you'd usually would to compensate for any unfairness.
Second, while a complaint is well in place before the test even takes place, as suggested by Buffy, keep in mind a few things:

This is a temporary fix for a temporary problem. Because people simply didn't do tests this way, there is hardly any field-proven cheating methods. Meaning, people don't really know their chances of getting caught, and a severe punishment is on it's way to cheaters. Hence, this should deter a generalized cheating behavior for the short term. Meanwhile, the school should find other methods of preventing cheating.
There are tests where it's easier and those where it's barely feasible to cheat. The teachers should likely design the test so cheating is pointless. A question such as "1+2+3+...+99+100=?" is simple to cheat. But a question like "write a code that performs X action" has known methods for finding copied solutions. Further, giving little time for the answer to be conceived, making it open ended or adding variations like "chose an example you like" make it hard to adapt something you know little about, but allows identifying the students who know what they're doing. Have some faith that the test will be adapted to this reality and that there are tools to tell cheaters from honest students, even if those tools are fallible. Keep in mind this might not be the case for the next test you'll be taking, but should be increasingly more prevalent as these remote tests continue.
I'm betting that despite any normalization that may be required by the university, most likely the grading system will be calibrated such that every student passes the course, unless someone really deserved failing. So, if you want to be a top student (and people inclined to cheat are hardly aiming at being top students, but rather just being lazy), then you should study hard and prepare well (as you always should). This should be enough to grant you a satisfactory grade for your goals and sacrifices, even if not the best one you'll get through the programme.

I am an instructor at a university and talked to some collegues about the cheating issue. A lot of them said basically  "I know there will be cheating but I don't want to deal with this." So, your points are not neccessarily true.

@user111388 : Are grades normalized where you work? I.e. could a student get a passing grade on a test, but due to curving he actually ends up with a failing grade? Do this same people actually care/deal with when students cheat on normal test conditions? Also, not wanting to deal might imply "I know I should handle this, but I'm procrastinating until it becomes urgent or a solution falls on my lap" instead of "I refuse taking any action to prevent cheating, or wasting time thinking or talking about the subject whatsoever".

@Metifico: Grades are not normalized. It is the "lazy" attitude (more precisely "I am tenured and a great researcher and I can be a bad teacher without consequences" attitude (which I find horrible)). But the reason why they don't care is - unfortunately - not important for the student, they just don't care. I think point 1 and 2 are true in an ideal world, but not in mine.

@user111388 : To be fair, if grades were not normalized, and also assuming there is no ranking based reward-punishment system. OP should make a better point on why does he care if other students cheat.

@Metifico: I agree. My point is that it is not unthinkable (for me) that a prof makes a bad policy out of lazyness and there will be no consequences for cheaters. Your answer sounds like after suspious exam results there will always be an investigation and the problem will always solve itself. I disagree with that. (I am sorry if I misunderstood your point.)

@user111388 : I'm not saying the problem will always solve itself. Realistically, I think very few people will cheat on this first exam,and maybe one will get caught and punished. To the point where the amount of cheaters is not relevant at first. Over time, the numbers of cheaters may grow, but so would counter measures, so it should reach some equilibrium. Notice that I'm not claiming that zero people will cheat or that 100% cheaters will be caught. But if a small enough number of cheaters are in place with high enough chances of getting caught, the problem exists but is minor.

@user111388 : Which is totally different than OP's fear that (almost) everyone will cheat, to the point where due to the normalization of grades, he is on serious danger of failing the class due to an unfair disadvantage of taking the test honestly.

@Metifico: I do agree that the problem is different. My point, however, is that this special situation occurs only once and many people will not bother to investigate (this may be different if online exams are held every year due to more pandemics). While in my system, students don't suffer so much consequences, people are probably not more or less lazy as in my system in systems where students suffer more consequences.

Unless I'm missing something, from what you've described, you could have google running alongside Zoom and no one would notice you were looking up answers on your browser. If that is true, then you need to point this out to the tutor. That will presumably be enough that they won't run the exam in this format.

From what I know from my collegues, no, this is not enough.

Yes, a student can cheat on this test by using Internet resources, but this way of cheating is not very useful for this particular test. My biggest concern is that anyone can secretly pass the test on behalf of anyone. I will update my question to reflect this.

I would not cheat, as I take classes to learn things, and I tend to take my voluntary agreements and academic relationships seriously, and cheating would be violating my agreements and relationships.
As for getting selected into a group with the "best students", I would prefer the outcome I would expect from not cheating, especially if the cheaters really have a great score advantage. That way, given enough honest students, I'd tend to expect to place into a group of honest students near my knowledge level. If I cheated and got an inflated score, I'd expect to be grouped with cheaters, which I wouldn't want.
I'd also let my instructor know about any concerns I had.

There is no reason for me that cheaters would all be in the same group (the better or worser). Not every cheater autimatically gets the best grade.

@user111388 True... that why I wrote "if the cheaters really have a great score advantage"... maybe I should put that part in bold, too.

@user111388 ... (Thought continued:) ...  If the cheaters don't have a great score advantage, then the significance of the original question, and the idea of cheating too, is pretty marginal, but the OP seems pretty convinced it cheating will have a big effect even on his assumed-strong natural scoring ability, and that's the context of the question. Practically any way I slice it, I think it's pretty silly to cheat in this situation, but I was trying to frame my answer to the OP's own idea of the situation.

I don't quite understand. Say there are 5 spots in the best group, OP is the 5th best student and there is one cheater who takes 5th place because of cheating. Then OP is in the second group with the other cheaters or what I am misunderstanding?

@user111388 What OP seems to firmly believe is that he is a top student yet the effect of cheating in this case will put all the cheaters above him unless he too cheats. My suggestion is that, if that's true, the top group will be full of cheaters, so I'd prefer to be placed below all the cheaters, hopefully with the knowledgable but honest students. Now, I don't think OP is likely correct or that it's really that predictable, but I think his logic for cheating is flawed, which I tried to point out by the strategy I might use to try to get in the smart honest group, if I did think that.

From the post, I understand that he believes he is better than the majority (and not necessarily the best student). I don't see why the top group must be full of cheaters to place him in a worse group. See my example above - the honest student is misplaced while no group is full of cheaters. I don't see how his logic is inconsistent with my example. From experience, I believe that cheaters never get the top marks but rather top 3, top 4 - enough to misplace at least one honest student who is not top 1 (which, I think OP doesn't claim to be).

@user111388 I think your view is probably more realistic than the OP's. I wrote my answer from what I took to be the OP's view of the situation, to try to show the OP how I felt OP's idea wouldn't necessarily do him any good even if his view of the situation were accurate. Really I think it's an all-around terrible, terrible idea to cheat for many reasons, but I thought directly challenging that might be less effective, and has already been covered by other answers.

As far as I understand, this "exam" is not graded. It is a performance test to allocate students into groups according to their needs and abilities. Even from a purely egoistic perspective, cheating would thus be ill-advised, because it is in each student's rational interest to end up in a group that is a good fit, i.e. that is neither over- nor under-challenging.
There may be some students who mistake the test for an exam and try to cheat their way into a "stronger" group, although the stronger group would be worse for them. If that is so, the average group will in fact be "weaker" than the test results suggest. Yet there may also be students who understand the nature of the test and willingly perform worse than they could, because they prefer to be among the strongest in a weak group (big fish in a small pond).
Both scenarios may cancel each other out, but both are also completely hypothetical. My advice is not to sweat it and just answer the questions honestly.

From the comments, I understand that the better group has better teachers and better learning conditions. Also, I would consider the fact that being in the better group has advantages for grading or admission in later courses.

Suppose it's permissible to cheat if you think others are cheating.
If everyone followed this rule, if anyone had any doubt that anyone else was cheating (you seem to be saying because it's possible to cheat, it's logical to assume that someone will), everyone will cheat (to avoid getting a worse score than the "original" cheaters).
Everyone will get an A (except those without the means to cheat-- what about them?), so examinations will be pointless (and unfair to those who cannot cheat) unless the instructor can make it absolutely impossible to cheat, which isn't always practical, as is the case for your class now.

You seem to assume that everybody always behaves "mathematically" and rational in the sense of Game Theory. In my experiences with humans, this is usually not the case. Also, not every cheater autimatically gets an A. Where did you get this idea from? Moreover, if one single exam is pointless, this does not mean it will be discarded or investigated, especially in a situation like now where profs probably have much more work (I know I do.)

@user111388, I think you misinterpreted the intent here. The writer is pointing out the bad long term consequences of cheating, not recommending it. The tone may be a bit ironic, though.

You have to decide yourself to cheat or not to cheat. Make sure that your risk assessment is right.
Instead of passing the entire test to someone else, you can simply communicate with a friend through some internet communicator when in doubt in case of a particular question. Moreover, you could use remote desktop software such as Team Viewer to solve the test together with your friend. Or even you could solve the test yourself and then ask your friend to correct your faulty answers.
Beware that the instructors during the test may ask you to share your screen with them through zoom to inspect if you are not cheating that way. That is also the reason why passing the entire test to someone else is risky. Also it may be impossible for both you and your friend to log in to the test, or even you could log in twice with the same credentials, but that could lead to the detection of your fraud.

Instruction on how to be academically dishonest have no place here, I hope.

@Buffy - That's what downvoting is for :) For what its worth, the OP already listed these as known problem, so this doesn't really add much.

@eykanal, so honesty/dishonesty is now just a matter of voting. Color me disappointed.

@Buffy - Please take it to [Meta] if you disagree. Speaking for myself, I try to really limit mod intervention to where something is obviously wrong (TOS, policy violations). I'm happy to do otherwise, as posts like this bother me just as much as you.

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


text:
Should I 'admit' a weakness of a paper even if it's 'obvious'?
Example: I have a simulation to run that requires social media data sets. The data sets that actually matter are too big to be able to simulate anything useful on. Instead, I picked a data set that's much smaller that had similar properties and I (hoped) would therefore have similar behavior.
One thing I discovered was that different data sets, even when they're of a similar size, can behave radically different in ways that I'm not exactly able to predict from those properties.
Obviously this is a major weakness of the paper, because now I don't have a way to even guarantee that those 'similar properties' even matter anymore.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what sort of "obvious" weakness this is; it seems too undefined to be "obvious". An example of something that I would think of as an "obvious" weakness is one that is already clear from the sample; for example, if your sample is clearly described as coming from medical practice in the United States, it probably isn't necessary to state that your results may not hold in medical practice in the UK: you've already covered that by describing your sample. Your issue, however, sounds much more insidious and methodological.

Have you explored the reasons for variation in the data sets?  Maybe you are looking at rare events? Or maybe (social media) there's a troll in there in some sets?  For example, if there is somebody playing silly games on one social media platform, the interactions may poison the data on that platform.

I wonder if your research is ready for prime time. Not getting consistent results and not knowing why is a fault. Maybe you should continue work for a bit.
But for the question itself, it is better that any shortcomings come from you rather than from someone else.
At a minimum, you have an interesting "future research" section to write. Maybe you should find a way to look at the larger data sets or others that will give you better insight into what is really going on.

Example: I have a simulation to run that requires social media data-sets. The data-sets that actually matter are too big to be able to simulate anything useful on. Instead, I picked a data-set that's much smaller that had similar properties and I (hoped) would therefor have similar behavior.
One thing I discovered was that different data-sets, even when they're of a similar size, can behave radically different in ways that I'm not exactly able to predict from those properties.

I would say you have an interesting discovery there: datasets X and Y which seemed similar actually aren't all that similar. There's some kind of difference between them that your simulation technique can bring to light.
Since you say the datasets you originally wanted to study are intractably large and your smaller datasets can't be trusted to generalize, your research has hit an obstacle. But you also have interesting new research avenues:

Can you find out what difference in the datasets causes them to behave differently in the simulation?
Now that you know what difference you're looking for, can you come up with a more focused, efficient test to figure out which class a given dataset belongs to?
Can you use your efficient test to figure out which of your smaller datasets is most similar to your big datasets?

It's always a good thing to be open to surprise discoveries instead of rigidly only sticking to your original research question.

Obviously this is a major weakness of the paper, because now I don't have a way to even guarantee that those 'similar properties' even matter anymore.

Well, you now know that it's not safe to assume you can generalize your results on the small datasets to the larger ones. If you don't point this out you would be misleading your readers, and producing bad science.
Another option is to discuss with your supervisor if it's possible to access heavy-duty computing resources that will enable you to process the original large datasets, given that you've shown that you can't properly substitute in the smaller datasets.

Should I 'admit' a weakness of a paper even if it's 'obvious'?

Yes, as per Buffy's answer.
Delving deeper: You discovered...different data-sets...can behave radically different[ly and unpredictably]. You acknowledge this is a major weakness of the paper. So, a better title might be "Should I 'admit' a major weakness of a paper even if it's 'obvious'?" Given that you did not expect the weakness, perhaps even

Should I 'admit' a major weakness of a paper?

Again, yes.
You should consider whether a paper with major weaknesses is publishable. If you can establish why results are radically different between datasets / you can predict when differences will arise, then you can perhaps change a major weakness into a strength, simply by explaining that your simulation works for data sets that produce predictable results and defer consideration of other data sets to future work. That said,

data-sets that actually matter are too big to be able to simulate anything useful on

You also need to explain why your simulations are interesting, given that meaningful data sets cannot be considered.

Not a weakness but a ‘limitation’. All research has limitations due to reductionism. It’s a feature not a failure.


text:
about starting date of postdoc
I have been accepted for postdoc position. According the detail of postdoc

the successful candidate will begin in January 2019

What does it mean? Can I start my work at any time of January? Am I right?

It may be flexible, esp. given the phrasing, but the best course of action is I think to ask whoever is your point of contact in the institution.

I would presume that you have to inquire with the lab/director/hiring manager/program manager to fix the actual start date by mutual agreement. You can't normally just choose unilaterally, and they may have a fixed date in mind. In general, the hiring entity decides on the employee's start date.

In my experience (Western Europe), this means "on the first working day in January". You could try to discuss with the professor if you can start at a later day — this may or may not be possible. (In my experience, some professors also give you the first days "unofficially" off — for relocation, which is sadly often necessary for postdoc positions.)
Good luck!

It could be "first eligible working day" too. Some places have mandatory onboarding/safety training, which isn't necessarily offered every week.

Interesting, I've never heard about this in the context of university employees. Thank you for the comment!


text:
What are diplomas, postgraduate courses, specialization, training courses?
I am going to apply for some faculty positions. In the application form they need some information in the category titled: postgraduate courses, specialization and training courses and diploma. I have already attended several summer schools, workshops and also took several online courses (MOOC) as well as knowledge booster courses. Can these events be considered as one of the elements of mentioned category? Need to say, there exists another category for degrees obtained such as Master and Doctoral.

They surely can be considered for that, yes. Don't ask me which is a postgrad course and which a training one though. :)

@Dirk None of them are postgraduate courses and none of them are likely to be training courses, but that depends.

@user40491, what country is this for? It might help us to understand what the category means. In the UK, none of what you listed would really fit that category but if you aren't talking about the UK my UK response wouldn't help you.


text:
How to prepare lessons as a visiting professor?
Preliminaries
I got an invitation by a university to be a visiting professor in the summer term this year. I will do this non-profit, since it will be overseas, not in a western country, and the university would not be able to pay me. I am taking unpaid leave from my industry job to do this. Also, I do not have a PhD, but I am kind of an expert in my field (mostly because my field is very young and there aren't that many in my field). It's a block semester so I will give 2 hours lectures each day for 4 weeks. It will be in Computer Science.
My question(s)
Since I work full time in industry before I leave to teach, I am rather limited in preparing my lectures. So I have to be very efficient during preparation.

What recommendations to you have to quickly prepare good lecture material (slides) for the lecture?
What can be pitfalls I should avoid in preparation?
I was told (though I am not sure whether this is going to be true) that the students will have computers at their disposal. Would you prepare exercises? Is it more efficient to prepare exercises in terms of the ratio me preparing / they being occupied and engaged or does it take a lot of time to prepare exercises?

I do have experience in giving presentations in front of all kinds of audiences and I have been teaching - but never in this particular setting and for so many consecutive hours.
To clarify: Of course I want to do a good job teaching. Obviously I will spend my free time prior in the evening for preparation. But it still will be little time I have, and it is better I have not-so-ideal material, then no material at all.

Biggest pitfall: trying to "cover" all the material you planned and leaving half the class behind, instead of adjusting your pace according to what your students are learning. Also see: Efficiency of teaching is measured by mutual information between you and your audience. Not by entropy of your blackboard nor entropy your created in their minds. Both are poor upper bounds.

"the university would not be able to pay me."  A visiting professor should be paid.

In most cases, yes. But it is either that or I am not teaching. I am doing this pro-bono: https://imgflip.com/i/12d8vk

@AnonymousPhysicist: forgot to name you, so you get the message ;-).

I was thinking from the point of view of local academics who might view you as competition.

This is ultimately a very broad question, but I will give you some starting points.

Since I work full time in industry before I leave to teach, I am rather limited in preparing my lectures. So I have to be very efficient during preparation.

You are doing this pro bono, so I am assuming that you also want to do a good job teaching. Unfortunately, there is an obvious tradeoff between "being efficient" and teaching well - the material that you can prepare quickly is not necessarily the one that will work best didactically, especially if you start factoring in the "ratio of them being occupied versus you preparing" (a pretty bad metric to go by when it comes to prepare a good course, especially since it may lead to you assigning some sort of "busy work" to students to make the lecture time go by). Hence, my first suggestion is that you try to shift your focus away from trying to be efficient about your preparation, and more towards how to teach your subject in the most effective way. This may also mean that you need to prepare a bit in the evenings prior to leaving (or in the evenings while you are there).

What recommendations to you have to quickly prepare good lecture material (slides) for the lecture?

I feel the best way to do this, both in terms of efficiency and quality, is to find a good set of teaching materials (this can include book(s), slide sets, papers, or even online material in form of blog posts or video tutorials - there will be something useful out there for pretty much any topic) and reuse it. Many lecturers, myself included, have a fatal tendency to always want to do everything anew from scratch, because clearly no prebaked material will cover exactly what you want to teach in exactly the way you would teach it. I consider this a fallacy, especially if preparation time is of the essence. Do not be afraid to use all resources that are at your disposal, and enrich them with your industrial experience. You get no teaching brownie points for creating all your material from scratch. That being said, consider that collecting, screening, compiling, and annotating this material will take considerable time as well, so start early.

What can be pitfalls I should avoid in preparation?

Depending on your background and personality, there are many potential pitfalls. Teaching is after all an activity that you get better in with experience. Generally speaking, and based on the pieces of info you provide, you should at least watch out for the following.

Your material needs to be suitable to the audience. Find out early the level of prior knowledge of your students, and adjust your material accordingly.
Make sure that the amount of material you prepare is in line with the length of the course. Don't try to shove 10 years of industrial experience into a two-week course.
Make sure that your course is not just a string of related industry talks that you have given previously. Especially if you have given talks before and time for preparation is short, there is a temptation to just re-give talks that you had prepared for other occasions. This will almost certainly not result in a compelling lecture.

I was told (though I am not sure whether this is going to be true) that the students will have computers at their disposal. Would you prepare exercises?

This depends on your topic, but for most topics I would say you should definitely prepare exercises. Not because exercises are more efficient in terms of preparation time (although they may be), but because, for many subjects, a good mix of lectures and exercises work much better in terms of retention than just lectures alone.
However, the fact that you don't even know whether there will be computers or not suggests to me that you will need to find out a bit more reliable information about the university where you will teach, its students, and the environment. It is hard to prepare a good course when you don't even have this basic information at the ready.

I asked and I was told they will have computers. My experience (I have been abroad quite a bit - also in that country) is that no information shall be trusted until it is already over ;-).

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


text:
My colleague took my teaching materials to use as their own. What should I do?
I am a postdoc and for the past several years I have been teaching a course for which I have designed all of the lectures, seminars, reading lists, etc. A new colleague joined our faculty last year as an adjunct. This colleague is very competitive and ambitious and, unfortunately, appears to see me as a rival for any future tenure-track jobs in our faculty.
Our university uses an online virtual learning environment where we are required to post all teaching materials (slides, recordings of classes, etc.). The platform also tracks the activities of enrolled instructors and students. Faculty staff can auto-enroll in a given course for admin reasons.
I noticed that I had a new enrollment mid-semester, the new colleague. I checked the activity records. That colleague has watched all of the lectures and downloaded all of the slides, reading materials, etc. I was informed by a friend in the faculty that this new colleague now claims to have designed a course on exactly the topic I teach. This is what this new colleague has told the Dean, who will be heading up the hiring committee for a tenure-track job soon (for which teaching this course is a requirement).
Should I report this to somebody? For example, the Dean? Can I even be justified in doing that? I feel that I do not have enough evidence, since I do not know for sure whether this colleague is using my materials or the extent to which they are modified. I do not want to confront the new colleague about it as, based on my very limited interactions, they are quite unpleasant to deal with and would surely twist the narrative somehow.
For context: At my university and in my country, we retain intellectual property over our own teaching materials. Especially for early career academics (most of whom teach, like me, on an hourly paid 'adjunct' basis), our teaching materials are regarded as an important part of our portfolio.

Do you have any evidence that they are actually using your slides at all? The title talks about them taking your slides, but there's nothing in the body that directly evidences that. Could they not, for example, have looked at your course to compare to their own and decide whether they thought their own was worth bringing up to the dean?

You mention the fact that they designed a course on "exactly the topic you teach" as though it is something suspicious, but if I understand correctly teaching this course is a requirement to be considered for tenure. Wouldn't it be totally normal and expected for any potential candidate for this job to prepare a version of the course? Is there anything to suggest they've done anything beyond simply looking at your slides?

In any event, keep as much of a record as possible- i.e. including screen snapshots etc.- of the fact that the colleague worked through your course in detail.

Would you not check your teaching materials against the current standard? You might be right or wrong, but you definitely don't have enough information.

These are all important notes to the question. As specified in the question, I don't have enough evidence or know for sure what the colleague is doing with the materials. @NuclearHoagie, based on your comment I added some extra contextual details to the question as follows: At my university and in my country, we retain intellectual property over our own teaching materials. Especially for early career academics (most of whom teach, like me, on an hourly paid 'adjunct' basis), our teaching materials are regarded as an important part of our portfolio.

Everyone's got a different take on politics, including office politics, so for what it's worth:
It's extremely common for members of the same department to share materials for a particular course. It is right to provide a brief acknowledgement during the lecture if one is reusing assets someone else made, but hard to track. You can email your "unpleasant" colleague and try to confirm they used your materials in their run of the course, but their response is likely to be meaningless. They say, "yes", and then what?
Instead: Presumably you report to a faculty member or the chair. If I were in your position, I'd arrange to talk with either your direct boss or the chair. Tell them that, as you think about your future job applications, having (re)designed this course from scratch will be a significant asset. Request an acknowledgement that you did so as part of an annual performance evaluation or some other official memo format.
This may be seen as a somewhat strange request, but I don't think acutely strange. Postdocs should always be thinking about how they're going to land their next job. Once you have this in hand, if you ever apply for other jobs at the place you currently work and are competing against your colleague, there will be little doubt about your contributions to the curriculum.

Agreed. It's unknown how this person is utilizing the OP's materials. The OP should ask them first.

I believe this is the best answer. It clarifies both that I do not have enough evidence to make any accusation of wrongdoing (if this could even be classed as wrongdoing) but also that I have to be careful with this particular colleague. For context (now added to the question), at my university/country, we retain intellectual property over our own teaching materials and for early career academics (most of whom teach on an hourly paid 'adjunct' basis), teaching materials are regarded as a part of our portfolio which we 'bring' to a permanent job ('my special course' NOT the department course).

While you can complain about it to the dean or others, I doubt that you will get much satisfaction except for one point described below.
The "work product" of an employee is often regarded as the property of the employer, and so specified in contracts, not the employee. That seems to be your situation. You were directed to prepare for and teach the course. It would be different if you were an outside consultant brought in to teach a course already developed by yourself. A complaint that the colleague shouldn't use your course materials would probably be a mark against yourself, not them.
The one troubling aspect however, is your statement seeming to imply that they have claimed to have developed this course themself, along with its materials. This would be clearly dishonest and easily disproven. However, redesigning a course based on existing materials is pretty common and accepted. In some fields some courses need redesign constantly.
And, if the colleague were scheduled to teach the course in the future, it would be natural for them to sit in and look at what is available (your work) as part of their preparation.
You seem to be fighting the wrong fight. If you make it clear that you developed the materials and, thus, contributed to the university and its students, that should be a strong point in your favor going forward whether there or elsewhere. Saying it is yours and only yours gives the opposite impression. You aren't a university of one.
If you seem selfish and self-centered to those doing hiring it won't be helpful. If you are generous with your contributions it will be helpful.
I haven't considered copyright in the above, but, employers generally claim copyright and even patent rights (for such things) for work product of their employees. Your contract may have a clause about this, in fact. Most universities won't complain if you take a course elsewhere, I expect. But if you try to put your own copyright on a work product, I expect the university to complain if it comes to their attention.
Writing a book that might be used in a course is a different matter as the university didn't direct that the book be written, nor do they consider it work product, so the author(s) hold copyright.
Plagiarism would only occur if they took your creative ideas and claimed them as their own. That would assume some things such as that the ideas (not just the materials) were initially yours. That is seldom the case in course materials. Most course ideas have been in existence for a while even when newer pedagogy is used.
You could, of course, properly ask for credit be given to your work in things derived from it. Few would object to that, I think. It would make things cleaner, even in the case of work product done for an employer.

From the OP: "For context: At my university and in my country, we retain intellectual property over our own teaching materials. Especially for early career academics (most of whom teach, like me, on an hourly paid 'adjunct' basis), our teaching materials are regarded as an important part of our portfolio." Your answer doesn't seem to be consistent with the OP's statement re: ownership of the materials in question.

@Sharpenologist, the information you note was added after I made this answer. And for adjuncts, who are treated somewhat like consultants, I'd agree that the rules might not be the same as for regular faculty.

Copycats exist and abound. Unlike research, plagiarism is not so much a topic in teaching, as much of the material is not considered original or rich in fresh ideas.
That is not to say (!) that it is ok to use other people's lecture design without attribution. It just means that there is far less enforcement of citation standards.
You could add a slide to your material stating that you are the author of the material and its design, with the year it was made, similar to copyright. The idea is not to enforce, but to document. Not that it will help much with a truly dishonest colleague (we do not know if this is the case), but it creates a kind of scaffold from which you can work.
Your colleague is competitive. So be it. You do not compete with them,  just use the opportunity to reflect if your own self-promotion strategies are up to scratch. Probably they need revamping. People need to know what you are doing and achieving.
When you are in a running competition, it is good to be aware of your surrounding and the runners around you, but it will seriously hamper your performance if you keep nervously looking to the side to see where they are. As in that competition, in the end, you should focus on running your own sprint.
As in the running competition, though, it will be good to have some situational awareness; it will not hurt to be a bit circumspect with your research, strategy, etc., since your colleague's ambition may not be limited to copying your teaching.
This is not invitation to paranoia, but to develop a balance of focus vs. general awareness.

I doubt you'll find any satisfaction pursuing this.  In fact, when your chair approaches you and lets you know that a new person will be teaching a course you've taught in the past, and directly asks you  to make your teaching materials available to that person, the answer is usually, "yes, of course". This is pretty much true regardless of academic rank
A department has resources, and it uses those resources to accomplish its mission.  You are one of those resources, by virtue of your teaching (not necessarily a "typical" postdoc responsibility, but that's beside the point), and a new faculty member would be one of those resources.  Not sharing teaching materials when teaching assignments are shifted is simply a waste of resources, and impedes the mission of educating students.

I agree with this comment and your sentiment. I would like to note a cultural difference for my context, which I will add to my question. At my university and in my country, we retain intellectual property over our own teaching materials. Especially for early career academics (most of whom teach, like me, on an hourly paid 'adjunct' basis), our teaching materials are regarded as an important part of our portfolio.

If you retain ownership in the intellectual property, I'm hoping that means that you included explicit copyright statements on the documents.  If that's the case, then it seems like even a casual observer could notice that the course materials were yours and not the other instructor's.  Removing the copyright notice to obscure authorship would be plagiarism and likely a violation of copyright law.  Using your work as a basis for their own may also classify as creating a "derivative work" in some cases and jurisdictions, which can run afoul of copyright law unless you've given them an explicit license to do so.
These things apply even if you didn't include explicit copyright notices, but explicit notices make it much easier to prove.
If this instructor can see your course materials then I'm assuming that you can see his.  Take a look through his courses and if you see something of yours, have a quick chat with him.  Nothing confrontational, just a friendly offer to help them do things the right way. Perhaps something like: "just so you know, the university gets very serious about copyright. If you want to use my materials, we'll have to work out some sort of licensing agreement to ensure we both cover all our bases."  You can use that license to require him to acknowledge your work in a way that would eliminate the issues that you are concerned about.  If they continue to use your materials without permission, then I would take up the matter with whichever office handles copyright issues at your institution.
I wouldn't be too worried about this other person trying to use your materials to compete against you for a tenured position.  It would be pretty obvious when two candidates present the same material.  Your content management system has all the logs and timestamps that you need to prove that you created it, in some cases before the other instructor was even hired.