text:
Is it unreasonable to change the rules of a quiz/exam one week in advance?
I am the course leader for an undergraduate course.
We have two quizzes each semester:
one around the middle of the semester, and one at the end.
For the first quiz,
students were allowed to bring a one-page "cheat sheet"
which could be either handwritten or printed.
Our original intention for the "cheat sheet"
was to encourage students to process the course material
and to summarize it for their own learning.
Unfortunately, I noticed that some of the students
had instead merely printed the lecture slides in really small font.
Instead of actively working through the material,
trying to understand it, select what was important, and write it down,
these students took the easy way out
by copy-and-pasting everything onto their "cheat sheet".
As I began planning for the second quiz,
I decided that students would gain more
from the process of preparing their "cheat sheets"
if they were forced to handwrite their "cheat sheet".
There seems to be some research that backs this up,
for example, this article says:

In the study published in Psychological Science, Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los Angeles sought to test how note-taking by hand or by computer affects learning.
"When people type their notes, they have this tendency to try to take verbatim notes and write down as much of the lecture as they can," Mueller tells NPR's Rachel Martin. "The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective — because you can't write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them."

Today, 10 days before the date of the quiz,
I made an announcement in class that for the second quiz,
only handwritten "cheat sheets" are allowed.
One of the students was extremely upset about this policy change.
He felt that:

Making such a change 10 days before the quiz/exam
is unfair and unprofessional
He had already spent hours preparing his digital "cheat sheet",
so changing the policy penalizes students like him
who prepared for their quizzes early.

The student was so annoyed that
he sent an e-mail to the department general office
to complain about this policy change.
I was quite surprised that the student feels so upset,
and I feel that the student is making a mountain out of a molehill.
However, this is my perspective as a course leader,
so I wanted to ask for an impartial and unbiased opinion.
Questions:

Am I being unreasonable/unprofessional
by changing the requirements for the quiz "cheat sheet" 10 days in advance?
Is the student overreacting?
Or are both of us in the wrong?

Response to comments

To be brutally honest, if an "open book" exam is made substantively easier by having reference to all the course/lecture material simply presented verbatim, then it's not a very good open book exam...
On the other hand, if the challenge posed by your exam wasn't really affected just because students brought in all the lecture materials, then what's the issue?

You raise a very good point that I hadn't considered earlier.
Personally, I don't think that bringing in all the lecture materials
would help a student significantly,
because our quizzes do test understanding and analysis
rather than rote memorization.
The reason why I would still nevertheless
prefer to require a handwritten cheat sheet
is because I feel that a significant proportion of students are lazy,
and without being prodded (by having to handwrite a "cheat sheet"),
they would just copy the lecture slides wholesale and hope for the best.

If the exam was in the middle of the semester,
  why didn't you bring up the change earlier?

This is a fair question.
The reason why I didn't think about this earlier
is because I was busy with research,
and I only work on what I need to do for the course in the next 1-2 weeks.
This incident has shown me that
there are teaching-related problems that I could avoid in the future
if I were to plan ahead work with a longer time horizon.
However, because I am an assistant professor who is not yet tenured,
to be brutally honest, teaching is not my highest priority.
Although it would be ideal
to announce the "cheat sheet" policy 6 weeks in advance,
I feel that announcing the policy 10 days in advance
gives the students enough time to prepare.
I do feel that if I only gave the students 1-2 days of notice,
that would be unfair because I am giving them very short notice.
What I decided to do in the end
I posted what I decided to do in the end,
and what I learned from the community,
in my answer below.
Editor's note: additional information provided in a comment:
There are about 600 students in the course. It just so happens that I am the "academic advisor" to 6 students, 4 of whom are taking the course. We have a WhatsApp group, where we can communicate casually about school-related stuff. (WhatsApp is an instant messaging app.) I've found that the fastest way to get feedback from students is not using e-mail but using WhatsApp. So I'm taking Solar Mike's advice to ask a select few students how they feel about this handwritten-only policy, to get an idea of what the broader student population thinks.

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

Quick comment about the "10 days is a long time" part. You're falling into the classical "my course in a vacuum" trap. 10 days is a long time if your students have nothing else to do; however, this is most likely not the case. They might have projects to finish, other exams, or who knows what, and prepared for your exam two weeks earlier.

As requested by the asker, I am making this an answer. I have collated and summarised my points in the comments and added an opinion that I feel more constructively answers the question posed.
First of all, I feel that if an "open book" exam is made substantively easier by having reference to all the course/lecture material simply presented verbatim, then it's not a very good open book exam. The point of allowing references into an open book exam is to de-emphasise the role of rote memorisation. But the counter-balance should be to emphasise the role of deep analysis and application. If the exam is made too easy because the students have access to the full set of lecture slides, one probably hasn't set an exam that's analytical enough.
If an exam is really testing "understanding and analysis" then its marking scheme will be penalising regurgitators. In fact, they'll be doubly penalised because if they've just copy-pasted the lecture materials without adequately digesting them, they'll be wasting time reading them all over again during the exam instead of thinking up a good answer. So, with a robustly set and marked exam, one shouldn't have concerns about students with "wholesale" cheat sheets getting away with anything.
I am not arguing that references should have no value at all (then what would be their point?). I'm merely advising that an open book exam has to be set differently (and often much more thoughtfully) than a closed book exam.
With that preamble out of the way, let's address the actual question posed. I agree with those who've said that springing this change in expectations this close to the exam is likely to be unfairly penalising those students who've started work earlier on their reference materials. This group of students would likely be the more industrious, conscientious and organised group. Even though only one student vocally protested, it is likely there are others who are adversely affected whom the asker is not aware of.
The asker wants the students to put more thought and work into digesting their material before preparing their reference sheets. Ironically, by demanding a format change (handwritten sheet) so close to the exam, the penalty is likely to be unduly placed on the shoulders of exactly those who've fulfilled the spirit of the examiner's expectation, by starting work early and painstakingly digesting and summarising the material. I think it's unlikely that the "lazy" students who've just copy-pasted the material wholesale would be too perturbed since they haven't really invested very much time and effort into the process. Neither would the "last-minute chaps" who wouldn't have been caught out by the late announcement. This sudden change in expectation is likely to affect those whose study behaviour the examiner is more likely to think of as exemplary, and that's the sad part.
How to address the situation? Apart from reviewing the format/difficulty of the exam (to make wholesale cheat sheets not only useless, but a time-wasting disadvantage, as I mentioned), one way would be to review what exactly the complainant has incorporated in his cheat sheet. If the student has just copy-pasted wholesale, then you can feel less bad about the whole thing as he's likely to "just a whinger". On the other hand, if he's actually taken pains and effort to collate, reorganise and summarise your material into his cheat sheet, then you seriously have to reconsider your demands as you could be affecting more than this one student.
On balance, I would say that you should let this requirement slide this time. If your expectations are going to be highly prescriptive, you should make them clear much earlier next time (then no one really has a serious basis for complaint).
There are still things you can do. You can ask for the (identified) cheat sheets to be handed in with the exam; this allows you to gauge exactly which route students are taking with preparing their cheat sheets (printed vs handwritten, wholesale vs summarised). Make it clear that this time the students won't be judged by their cheat sheets, it's merely for your own analysis to set future policy. To keep yourself honest, mark their exams first, finalise those marks and then do the cheat sheet review. That way, you'll have an unbiased opinion and any correlation you draw between how a particular student has done vs the quality of their cheat sheet will be more meaningful.
For future exams, announce your expectations early (months in advance would be best). You can even go so far as to require students to submit their finalised individual cheat sheets a week or so before the exam. This will ensure they've all worked early enough and also permit you to check that they've met your demands with regard to format and content. Inform that they will be allowed no other materials during the exam but for their pre-made cheat sheets, which will be distributed by the proctor prior to the start of the exam.
There are complications with my suggestion in the last paragraph - what if a subset of students have prepared sub-par cheat sheets? Should you let that count against them in the final grading? Should you let them revise their cheat sheets and do a final review (and is there enough time all around for this)? Remember that my suggestion is meant to accommodate your seeming desire to be highly prescriptive about what to allow in your cheat sheets, so this is one way to control their quality. It's up to you to navigate any potential complications.
But personally, I would just say allow any non-electronic reference into the examination, and make sure it's set in such a way that it still remains meaningful as a test of understanding.

Underwood Typewriters making a comeback?? Academia strikes again!

@Y12K I don't get it.

I am that kind of student, so here's my perspective:
For one, I expect the rules to be clear when I sign up for a course. If you decide to change the rules after the start of the semester, it is not allowed to do so at the university I am attending unless you make sure that the change is better for the students. But even if a lecturer decides to add something like "You can hand in your exercises for bonus points" or "There will be a midterm for bonus points", it gets me on the wrong side - mostly because those "bonus" points are just as important as the non-bonus points and thus no different.
Similarly, you think that you are helping the students by forcing them to learn the material, but no matter how you try to force them, it just will not be helpful for every and all students in your class. For people like me, a huge amount of the motivation comes from the freedom of how to study: If I feel like a computer-written cheat-sheet helps me more, but I am forced to use a hand-written one, I will definitely come to you to complain.
Why?

I like to do everything on the laptop, having every note always available, and if I have to do something by hand, I tend to scan it later. So handwritten just means more effort for me.
I will never have such a good layout on my handwritten notes as on my digital notes. One reason being that I can change the content easily when I decide to move, remove, or reformulate something
Typing is faster. If I already understand what I'm writing this is preferable. If I don't, I'd rather spend time on understanding first, and then write the notes - not thinking while writing and doing both only half as good.

What I would recommend you is to explain why you recommend handwritten notes, but still allow the students to decide. If you feel like it, you could state that their cheat-sheets need to be self-written - but neither this nor the handwriting is something that can easily be actually enforced. You won't be looking at every student's notes to check if they have one page too much, or if they plagiarized your slides and wikipedia for it, right? So why not just allow them to do it how they prefer - it's them who fail if they did it the wrong way. And they won't remember everything they have written by themselves either when they need to apply the knowledge in 3 years or so, so knowing where to look those informations up is also important.
To answer your questions:

Am I being unreasonable/unprofessional by changing the requirements
  for the quiz "cheat sheet" 10 days in advance?

I would say yes. Especially if the students have other midterms around the same time, preparing won't be done in just one week.

Is the student overreacting?

Possibly. Just by what you're saying, I would say not. But then again, I myself tend to overreact in such scenarios as well :)

Or are both of us in the wrong?

This student probably only considers his viewpoint, just like I only stated mine. Meanwhile, you only consider the students who need enforcements like self-written notes and who will never start with their cheat-sheets until a week before the midterm. I guess both are in the wrong, but it's probably a question of principle:
Do you want to put the self-disciplined students at a disadvantage because you want as many students as you manage to actually pass, or do you hand the responsibility for studying to the students?

We had to submit not just the exam but also the cheat-sheet... = enforcing self-made cheatsheet; I went so far I emailed LaTeX sources as well.

Typing is faster. And exactly for that reason handwritten notes are better for learning https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/

@VladimirF for learning. But I prefer to learn without writing anything at the same time, completely focusing on the process. Then maybe explain it to somebody else. Once I have learnt it and write the notes, I prefer to be fast and have a clean layout

Re your second bullet point: seriously? Have you ever tried to lay out a page during a scientific class (maths, algorithms, whatever) including text, formulas and plots all together, using a laptop? Pen and paper work significantly better.

@AndreaLazzarotto Yes I'm being serious. My handwriting is ugly to the point where I can sometimes hardly decypher it. Regarding formulas, handwriting would be faster, you're right. But writing it on the laptop results in cleaner and most importantly editable notes.
I am no fan of considering layouting during the lecture. My note-taking from during a lecture will usually just be a collection of short sentences, formulas and keywords. Maybe your workflow is different?
Edit:Regarding sketches and plots - I have a touchscreen. But for typing I prefer the keyboard (including formulas)

Probably. Well, technically not anymore because I graduated last year, but yes... I had a different workflow. I didn't have time to rewrite my "drafts" as "clean copy" so I took the clean copy directly during lectures... and that forced me to summarize stuff (which again gives better understanding). I have horrible cursive so I took all my notes in uppercase for 5 years (no joke). But at least I could draw plots, graphs and diagrams... which is close to impossible using a laptop during a class.

Oh, I'm not rewriting all my notes from classes after the classes. But there are always some minutes during which the lecture would be boring and in that time, I can refactor my notes. Anyways, my post above was more about the notes that you can take to the exam (cheatsheet), and these I'd always edit multiple times.

It should be obvious that students working all through the semester on their "cheat sheet" and have to redo the work are disadvantaged to those who spent their time differently and started their "cheat sheet" the week before the exam. Seems very unfair.

OP should definitely make sure the change is even allowed at his university. At the University where I study, the grading scheme has to be fully explained in the first hour of the lecture and then can't be changed anymore.

“I expect the rules to be clear when I sign up for a course” — This seems unreasonable. I never used to have minor exam modalities in the course signup information: neither as a student nor when teaching. They were given relatively shortly before the actual exam (in fact, 10 days sounds about right, although it was probably closer to 2 weeks). As far as I remember, nobody ever took umbrage.

@AndreaLazzarotto What I used to do (when I was in Calc I & II) was type the notes until a formula or example came up. Then I would type a placeholder like in example1, then take a sheet of normal paper and write the example with the label example1. That way I could go back to my typed notes later and add in the formulas and examples without losing pace with the lecture. I don't see why anything has to be black-and-white. You can mix note-taking styles.

@ChrisCirefice yes you can, and that double work is also double-distracting. We are not talking about what you can or can't do, we are talking about what is or isn't an effective way of taking notes. Typing isn't.

@AndreaLazzarotto Maybe you misunderstood I could go back to my typed notes later and add in the formulas and examples without losing pace with the lecture. Typing "example1" takes all of 0.5 seconds. Moving my hand to write "example1" on the paper takes all of 2 seconds. By later I mean at home, not in the lecture.
Typing works for some students (i.e. me). My handwriting is atrocious, especially when the lecturer is fast. I listen first, understand then type my own reformulation. If I have to write, I can't really listen; I'm merely transcribing what the lecturer is saying.

@ChrisCirefice typing is faster and that's precisely the reason why people who type do not think nor elaborate on what they listen, they just copy all of what is on the slides or what they hear. It's the exact opposite as what you stated in your final sentence. Writing slower forces you to understand because you need to summarize and write only the important stuff. You might want to read a couple of papers in the literature on this subject because they are quite interesting. Anyways, it seems atrocious handwriting is something we share. That's the exact reason practicing is a good idea. :)

@AndreaLazzarotto if you think while writing, being slower and thus forced to think about what to write and what not makes sense. If you first think and then write, you need the writing to be fast so you don't miss the next step the lecturer starts to explain. So you write your own words, then start listening again. You are right that there are nice papers on this, but not everybody is constantly writing notes while listening (even if it seems to be a huge majority)

Students preparing for finals are under a lot of stress. One way of coping with that stress is planning and visualization. A student may be boosting their confidence by thinking they have a really good cheat sheet already prepared for your test, and then you change the rules.
The notice seems unnecessarily short. Since the changed rule was a reaction to the mid-term, why not announce it immediately after the mid-term?
Handwriting-only is also an inherently unfortunate requirement for some students. I find it much easier to quickly locate information in a typeset printout than in anything handwritten. The more thought a student puts into organizing their cheat-sheet, the more they will lose by having to copy it out.

Ten days isn't enough time to recopy a cheat sheet into their own handwriting???  Ridiculous.

@NicoleHamilton of course it’s long enough - the point is they’ve already spent hours that they could have devoted to something else, and they’ve got other work to be going. For example, I had a coursework set on a Tuesday and I finished it that Friday, despite a 3 week deadline. If the module convener had emailed us saying that he’s changed the task, I’d be annoyed- and for good reason. Nobody should have their time wasted like that.

My answer would be, "I don't think it's unfair but even if you think it is, too bad."  As an instructor, one important attribute you have to have is a spine that enables you to stand up to students who whine when you know you're right.  Students should not be allowed to photocopy all the lectures slides onto their cheat sheet, no one usually allows this, and I'm pretty sure the students absolutely do know this, they're just hoping to get away with something.

@NicoleHamilton The point of requiring handwriting is that it forces changes in organization. If it didn't, the OP's decision would be simply a useless waste of the students' time. Reworking a typeset document into a clear, quickly referenced, handwritten document involves more than just copying.

My answer would still be, "Too bad."  My objective as an instructor is to teach the material and evaluate student performance to the best of my ability, even if that means some students are unhappy because I made them copy a cheat sheet into their own hand.  Realistically, I'd count them lucky if I allowed any cheat sheets at all; the only time I ever do is when I'm teaching one section of a course and the other sections do allow them.

@NicoleHamilton For me, the only difference between closed book and open book was whether I spent several hours over the last days before an exam memorizing the cheat sheet. Are you sure that sort of memorization exercise is the best possible use of your students' limited time? Given a choice, I would have spent the time rereading and thinking about the most difficult sections of the text book.

Are you speaking as a student or an instructor?  As an instructor, in my view, an exam that tests whether you've memorized the material is usually a poorly-constructed test.  You'll forget that stuff you've simply memorized pretty quickly anyway.  It should test your ability to understand, analyze and think about the subject material, which you'll have a better chance of retaining and using.

@NicoleHamilton I tend to agree, speaking as a student who rarely makes cheat sheets. However, I find myself agreeing with Shanahan when it comes to arbitrary changes in the syllabus. To the student, the cheat sheet is important, and an arbitrary change is frustrating.

It's not arbitrary.  There's a reason and it's a good one.

@NicoleHamilton So what is the purpose of limiting cheat sheets? When I was a student, the only effect was to force me to spend time memorizing when I would rather have been working on understanding.

If there were no limit, it would be the same as open book, open notes, wouldn't it?  Anyway, as I said, I don't normally allow cheat sheets at all because I think the whole idea is stupid.  And again, if all you're doing is memorizing for the exam either you or your instructor is doing something wrong.

@NicoleHamilton I think the thing my instructors were doing wrong was not making the exam fully open book. Real life and STEM jobs, are open book. For many exams, there were definitions I needed to not just understand, but to use exactly. If the exam was closed book, and I will not even consider cheating, what was I supposed to do other than memorize them?

The typical interview loop for a STEM job involves going from one office to another, working whiteboard problems.  How many of those do you think are open book?

I was employed continuously in the computer industry for my whole career, over 30 years, without ever needing to do the sort of memorization required for academic closed book tests. I never demanded it of job applicants I was interviewing.

So you're saying you gave open book job interviews?  Really?  Somehow, I doubt it.  Here's the simple answer:  In every course I've ever taken or taught, everything except the exams are open book.  It's not that unfair that part of your grade will be based on closed book exams.  If you disagree, fine.  If you take a job teaching in college, you will have the freedom to make all your exams open book.  Heck, let them use Google or phone a friend if you like.  As an instructor, it's your choice.

@NicoleHamilton: Students taking more than one course didn't occur to you, right?

@gnasher729  What makes you think it matters how many other courses a student is carrying?  They all get the same assignments and I grade them all the same.  No one gets a pass because they have other things to do.  There's a reason that as an UG adviser, I caution students about taking too heavy a load.

@NicoleHamilton so, you think requiring memorization is a waste of time, but you're against cheat sheets, whose pretty much whole purpose is to reduce required memorization? I don't get it

@mbrig A well-constructed closed book test does not test memorized details.  The only recall it should test is of the major themes.  Most of the test should be of their understanding of the material and their ability to apply what they've learned to analyze and discuss the material and use it to solve problems.  If you're still having trouble "getting it", it's possible you've only tried memorizing rather than actually learning or that  you've only had very poor instructors who did not know how to construct a proper closed book exam and have no idea what a proper closed book exam looks like.

I am grateful for the input from the community. In the end, I decided that it was not fair to the students to change the “cheat sheet” policy with only a one-week notice.
Here is a summary of what I learned from the answers and comments written by the community.

Timing is important
If I had wanted to change the rules of the exam, I should have done so as early as possible. In this case, the most appropriate time would have been immediately following the first quiz.
Is this battle worth fighting?
Although I think that requiring handwritten “cheat sheets” only would be beneficial to most students, it is not a “must do” change right now, one-week before the quiz.
Therefore, although I could use my "dictatorial" powers as a course leader to arbitrarily change the rules,
I would face opposition from some students,
and it is not wise to fight this battle.
The right time to make this change is the next time that I teach the course.
Should I create additional stress in students’ lives?
Many students feel stressed around the end of the semester,
when they are finishing assignments/projects and preparing for finals. Initially, I had thought that the handwritten only “cheat sheet” rule was a minor change, because I thought that it would take only one hour to copy your notes from a digital “cheat sheet” to a handwritten one. However, it was pointed out to me that to change the rules of the exam on short notice would create additional stress and frustration at an already difficult time.
Is it fair to penalize students who work early?
To change the rules 1-2 weeks before the exam would penalize the hard-working students who prepared early, while the student who work at the last minute would not be affected. Many of the students who prepared early will (rightfully) perceive this as being unfair towards them.
They would feel as if the teacher were destroying the product of their hours of work.

"I thought that it would take only one hour to copy your notes from a digital “cheat sheet” to a handwritten one." clearly, you have never done that! I've spent around 15 hours copying 20 pages of notes onto a one sided din a4 paper once, because a handwritten cheat sheet was allowed and a lot of plain knowledge was required. Even if it's not that much, writing - in readable handwriting - small enough to fit the same stuff a computer could, requires time. Hours of time. And maybe a second try because you misjudged the space you had available.

I've been amazed at what I've seen students fit onto a single sheet of paper. Whether you ultimately choose to allow e-sheets or force handwriting, be prepared for some of the more ambitious students to put virtually everything you say in class on a cheat sheet. If you don't like that notion, one alternative I've seen and used is to provide your own sheet. The primary motivation for allowing cheat sheets is making it so students don't need to memorize formulas and such. Just furnish it for them; that way, they don't have to memorize, and everyone is on an equal footing come exam time.

@DonQuiKong the answer talks about a cheatsheet, not a 20 pages essay. One page is sufficient to write formulas and it takes less than an hour to copy in handwritten form.

@AndreaLazzarotto my 20 pages did fit on a one-sided din a4 paper. Thats what I said in my comment. If you don't believe that you can write 20 hrs onto a single side, by all means, try it out.

@DonQuiKong I believe you can and I believe you did. That's a nice job but by all means a 20 pages text is not a cheatsheet. A cheatsheet is a page or two containing the most fundamental formulas needed for an exam.

I'd be inclined to think that cheat sheets are a privilege, not a right, so anything relating to these should be at the discretion of the instructor. Having said that:

However, because I am an assistant professor who is not yet tenured, to be brutally honest, teaching is not my highest priority.

If teaching isn't your highest priority, and your exams are challenging enough such that lecture notes being put onto cheat sheets isn't a problem, then I'd say you goofed -- you have found yourself in a bizarro world where you have other more important obligations but decided to rock the boat with a cheat sheet policy change. And now, paradoxically, you are having to devote even more time to something that is not a high priority ...
Here is Lesson #1001 that I've learned since starting a tenure-track position: Gotta think things through a bit more before acting on them, even if the thing isn't a high priority (!).
Going forward, just set cheat sheet policies and the like in stone at the beginning of the course, and don't take action on something unless it really matters.

+1 I like this answer, but I'd allow the instructor to make a change partway through the course if it's well thought out and if it's not 10 days before the end of the semester. For example, right after the midterm would be reasonable. Also, I'd advise OP to find a teaching mentor or two and run his ideas past these colleagues.  However, note to OP: I'm glad you're thinking creatively about what would help your students be more successful. That augurs well for your future in teaching! // If you want to change the cheatsheet requirements next semester, I suggest a word limit, but allow typing.

I don't think you are in the wrong, but requiring handwriting will create additional problems for students with certain learning challenges.  Difficulty with handwriting can come from an injury, from a developmental issue that affects fine motor control, and from ADD.
I understand the desire to not have the open-notes reference sheets consist merely of small-font copied slides.  I also understand the benefit when students sort through and redact all the content you've presented, including the in-class verbal presentation, and develop their own condensation of salient information.
One practice allows digitally prepared notes but insists that they not be simply copies of slides, textbook, or handouts.  The professor spot checks the sheets before the exam and complements students for well-organized preparation.
In the larger view, this class comes around every year.  Only the students change.  Your mission is not only to educate this group but also to constantly improve the course and pedagogy to help the next group learn better.  Next year, you could put your new requirement for open notes in the syllabus.
For maximum inclusion, you could discuss your requirements with the special services department at the university to see what they would recommend -- or at least prepare them for your standards.

+1 for disability awareness.  Great suggestion to consult students with disability office.

Most universities have procedures in place for dealing with students with disabilities and it is the responsibility of the student to notify the university of their disabilities and seek necessary accommodations.  It is not up to the instructor to decide who has a disability and what accommodations are appropriate.

I agree completely with your comment.  It is often not the professor's responsibility.  But it is something to consider and can avoid a conversation with the disability office when the student approaches them for accommodation.

As an instructor, you should never offer accommodations for disabilities on your own.  You are inviting charges of doing it unfairly or contrary to policy or law.  You should ALWAYS get your disability office involved if a student asks for a disability accommodation, even if you think you know the answer.  You are an expert at what you teach, not at how to handle disabilities.  Your university employs other people who are experts in those matters.  Use them.

Point heard.  I was not suggesting that a specific accommodation be offered to a particular student, or as a specific change to the classroom in anticipation of a particular student, but I understand that drawing the distinction can be error prone, and could run afoul of policies.

Am I being unreasonable/unprofessional by changing the requirements for the quiz "cheat sheet" 10 days in advance?

That is debatable. You raise good arguments for your change. I think your students might benefit from your change. Others might think otherwise.
But keeping the quiz as it was would have been as well acceptable, it was not a "must do" change. Students won't have confidence in getting a stable teaching/quizzing environment from you after this. Doing this change in the next course would have been better in my opinion.

Is the student overreacting?

Students should be allowed to voice their opinions freely. He did raise his concerns to you first and wrote the e-mail to the department later (or so I infer from your question). Had he e-mailed the department without going through you first then he would have been overreacting and unpolite.

Or are both of us in the wrong?

You(plural) are in disagreement.

As for "not fair" 10 days notice is ample - generous in fact.
You can change the conditions : removing the cheat sheets totally with 10 days notice is fine as well...
You could get a sample of students whose opinion you respect (ie ones who give you honest feedback, not just what you want to hear...) and have a discussion with them...

Thank you for your suggestion to ask some trusted students what is their opinion. I decided to ask some of my "academic advising" students who taking the course what is their opinion...

"you can change the conditions": I strongly disagree! You may can define the conditions, but once they are defined, changing them is something extraordinary. Why do you think that he can just change the rules however he wishes to?

"A sample of students whose opinion you respect." Really? So, basically if one is a teacher's pet, then the rules can be altered at their will. Who is the professor to pick a sample to discuss something that concerns all students?

@padawan why would you pick a "teacher's pet" unless you want to hear the feedback that fits what you want to prove? I put "students whose opinions you respect" to get the student's view rapidly from those students who have shown themselves mature enough as to offer you a relevant, considered opinion...

"You can change the conditions : removing the cheat sheets totally with 10 days notice is fine as well..." Tell the students that they can have a cheat sheet, but it must be memorised and then left at home.

I think 10 days are quite generous too. I'm surprised to see many people opposed this. Having a cheat sheet is already generous. The purpose of cheat sheet according to the questioner is so that the students study the material by writing it themselves. If the student just copy paste digitally, then he does not satisfy the purpose. He is the reason why the questioner wants to change the rules. For me, he is overreacting.

It might be different if you were changing the rules at the last minute, e.g., the day before the exam, or if your actions were arbitrary or unreasonable.  That is not the case.
As an instructor at most universities, you have a lot of academic freedom to conduct your course in whatever way you like.  It is not unreasonable to explain that you had intended that cheat sheets should be handwritten and that for the next exam, that is what you will require.  I think that's what most of us require of cheat sheets anyway if we even allow them.  (Personally, I don't allow them at all unless I'm teaching just one section of a course where they're allowed in the other sections.)  Some students may complain and my answer would be that when they become faculty they can run their course however they like.  For the moment, you're the instructor, you make the rules and you reserve the right to change them if you find they're not working.  If they're dissatisfied, they can report that on the student evals (and you'll deal with the fallout.)
That said, to prevent future misunderstandings, it's helpful to remind students in your syllabus and in your first lecture that you reserve the right to make such changes to the course content, the assignments, the exams or the grading when appropriate.  Students who don't like that can choose a different course or a different instructor.

Yes 2. No 3. No

or yes, slightly too late, sorry! unless you wanna break the students trust.
In the latter case: do whatever is legal in your department/country.
If the exam was midterm, you easily could have pointed that out then. That would not have been a problem for anyone. But now it is too late:
To address the debate whether 10 days are enough or not: It depends a lot on the course! But given the time-frame of half a semester, so months, 10 days is relatively short. Or "too short not to be clearly long enough"
Students are humans too, they have a lot of plans and preparation. They have to stick to strict rules (passing exams or byebye). Those rules are set like laws and, in general, cannot be changed in between (imagine a football play where the rules randomly change in between?!). If you slightly modify them early enough so that no one can really bring up a reason why this is to it's disadvantage, than you can change the rules. The student on the other hand brought up a very good reason why this close call is to is disadvantage.
(reason for 1 & 2)
And to 3: No, he is doing absolutely the right thing. Students are in a hierarchical way below you. But you cannot do whatever you want! You tried to, the student noticed, reached you, you didn't agree, so he escalated to a higher institution. Perfectly, as taken from a textbook of "how to properly deal with hierarchies".
My advide: ASAP (!) tell them that everything can be used and learn from it (1. say it earlier and 2. restrict the cheat sheets to handwritten ones). Even better, change the exam. If the students who have printed the whole course really have an advantage, than the exam isn't very good. Ask more questions where you have to know the general ideas, know how things are related. Ask enough questions in the time allowing the prepared students to answer a lot and not allowing to read through the whole course again.
Sidenote: yes, probably you can legally do that. It depends a lot on your country. But it is something I would avoid as much as possible.

Why did whoever it is give a -1 to this answer?

@ILiketoCode Unfortunately, people tend to side with the professor in case of a conflict, even though there is no rational reason. The tone might somewhat be disturbing, but this answer explains the situation plain and simple, IMHO.

-1 Evidences a fundamental misunderstanding of academic work. Faculty have flexibility; they are not in a suicide pact with a mistake on a first assignment. This is the danger of erroneous "syllabus is contract" talk in certain circles.

@DanielR.Collins, interesting. What do you mean by "academic work"? This is a course for students, not academic work. I fully agree with your comment about academic research! But do you have exams in academic research? Do you throw people out because they are not able to answer you a few questions withing 3 hours? Is that how academia works? No! I think you agree. Is that how courses for students work? Yes! The rules are different, the two things are different. It's a 600 stud course, not a PhD/Master small group course...

Make up your mind.

@NicoleHamilton, can you may explain more?

Okay, sorry, upon re-reading it, I realize I misread your answer.

@NicoleHamilton okey thanks! If you have some idea for improvements of the wording, please let me know or edit my answer accordingly.

You delve into the legal argument and state what is, IMO, false. The syllabus, by it's nature, becomes part of the contract under which the students have purchased enrollment in the course (paid tuition). Unless there's a school policy explicitly stating, or the syllabus explicitly states, that all terms in the syllabus are subject to change, then the terms in the syllabus are not something that the instructor gets to change on a whim. Without such statement, a student could bring successful suit to force the course to be taught to the syllabus and/or obtain damages for it not being so taught.

@Makyen  You're making a legal argument as if you're a lawyer and know what you're talking about.  But I'm pretty sure neither is true.

@NicoleHamilton, IANAL, which should be your default assumption for anyone on the internet. However, I do have experience with litigating the results of one party attempting to unilaterally change the terms of a contract after the contract is formed (doing so is usually invalid). Note: I'm commenting about (disagreeing with) a legal opinion expressed in this answer. Any actual legal opinion would have to take into account the jurisdiction in which this is occurring, which is unspecified, and the exact details of the situation (which are insufficiently specified).

@NicoleHamilton, The last line of the answer is: "Sidenote: yes, probably you can legally do that. It depends a lot on your country...", which is explicitly stating an opinion on legality. It specifically references that it varies by country, which further implies that they are talking actual legality, not analogy. It's certainly not a strain on credulity to take the words exactly as written.

@Makyen, yes... I state that from a legal nature, this depends on the country. Exactly what you are saying. You cannot do everything and there can be laws which prevent you from simply changing the rules, but there don't have to be. My answer clearly deprecates to change the rules, adding that even if it were legal in your country/school, rather don't do it. But  this is, as stated, country specific. Do you prefer "school specific" or where do we disagree? Even at the very beginning, it is stated that: if you only care about legality, do whatever is legal in your department/country.

Completely disagree: 10 days for such a relatively minor change is ample notice. And it is a minor change: if a student spent hours collating preprinted lecture slides then that’s their own fault (what they heck were they doing anyway?!). Else they should be able to transfer their cheat sheet into a hand-written format easily enouhg.

@KonradRudolph, consider two things: how urgent is the change and what is the damage done to students. It's not important to change the rules, open book exams are not a problem per se (and OP would have had the chance to announce it earlier). On the other hand, the student clearly showed his disadvantage. How he plans to pass the test is really up to him, just inside the rules. Blaming the student is like blaming a pedestrian who crosses the street if the light is green, does not look around (in civilized countries) and gets hit by a car. No, it is still not the pedestrians fault.

@KonradRudolph, or let us now, 1) why the change is so urgent (but was not announced earlier! <- very contradicting...) and 2) what would you consider a "too close timeframe" then?

I think the discussion about rules and timing for rule changes is good and important but missing a key aspect: Consider that the student may have spent a day's work or possibly more refining and perfecting his electronic cheat sheet. In his point of view, his work is tied to the sheet itself - he may not fully realize the additional value of the knowledge he gained during the preparation.

I was quite surprised that the student feels so upset

He is upset because from his point of view you destroyed hours of his work. For that it does not matter whether he could transcribe his digital sheet. It does not matter that he would be fine anyway given he is already well prepared. You might as well take a handwritten cheat sheet and literally rip that apart.
So to answer the question yes it is unreasonable to change the rules on short time, particularly with the given reason. And no I do not think the student is overreacting.
I don't like your reason, because I believe students should be given some flexibility to figure out how to learn effectively on their own - and that works differently for every student.
Edit: It seems to need clarification as it is not obvious to everyone. Creating a high quality original cheat sheet is a very time consuming process. Not only do you revisit in detail the entire course topic - which is why it is encouraged in the first place. It can also be very challenging to design the cheat sheet, e.g. compress the information and format it for easy retrieval - especially for a perfectionist.
This is something different than a copy-pasted cheat sheet. From the description it is almost certain, that the student in question did not just copy-paste his cheat sheet. Do not assume others use your own workflow and spend the same amount of time on preparation.

Hours of his work, copy pasting?

@kate I tried to address that in an edit.

Certainly if it was on the course syllabus, that printed or written 'cheat sheets' were allowed, you should stick to that.
If it was not on the syllabus, but you said at some point in class that the rules for quizzes would include that students could have printed or written 'cheat sheets', then you should stick with that.
If your rules for the first quiz were stated about a week or two before the first quiz (with no statement or implication that you would have the same rules for the second quiz), then I think it's fine to have different rules for the second quiz.
You said that the student complained to the department.  You may want to go to the department chair for guidance if you have not gotten any response from that person.
To be honest, for one course, I wouldn't necessarily worry about it too much either way.  Going forward, I would try to have relevant policies in the syllabus (even if they are: "Rules for each quiz/exam will be announced at least one week in advance of the quiz/exam.  The same rules may not apply to each quiz/exam.")
Finally, I put cheat sheet in quotes in my reply because if they are allowed, they are not cheating.

Good point about the terminology.  If allowed, it's probably better to describe them as, e.g., "one double-sided 8.5x11 sheet of hand-written notes".

Usually, it is a bad practice to alter the rules of anything discussed beforehand.
If students are aware of cheat sheet from the beginning of the semester, might might be prepared as they see fit, throughout the semester. I think the number of days does not matter, but the ratio of days do. For instance, if they knew that they could use cheat sheet 11 days ago, changing the policy in a day is not a big deal. However, if the students prepared their cheat sheets daily, for 60 days, then giving them 1/6th of the time to re-write them does not seem fair.
After all, students read the syllabus and then enroll the course. I find it like an agreement among three parties: the student, the professor, and the university. If it is written in the syllabus that students can use cheat sheet of their choice, better not to change anything. If a student who does not fulfill the attendance requirements must fail the class without exceptions, then the same thing goes for exams, quizzes, in terms of their dates, types and allowed materials.

At best, this answer is appropriate only for certain locales. At my institution, students do not have syllabi available pre-registration (nor any institution I've ever experienced). The idea that a whole semester could be wasted due to being handcuffed to a known bad syllabus policy, without any flexibility mid-semester, is historically untrue.

@DanielR.Collins Taking courses and passing the classes is serious business and I strongly disagree on the "flexibility" part. The number of quizzes, number of exams, their overall percentages and the means of testing should be clear from the beginning. Else, nothing prevents the lecturers to alter some rules in favor of, or against to, some students. The alledgedly bad policy should be discussed with the board, hence each individual professor has their own good/bad practices.

I often have a statement like course policies are subject to change.  It's also not clear that the "cheat sheet" rules were spelled out on the syllabus.

Else, nothing prevents the lecturers to alter some rules in favor of, or against to, some students. — ...aside from basic fairness.  Yes, every change affects some students positively and others negatively.  But as long as the change is not made for that reason, mid-semester changes in course policies can be fair.  For exactly the same reason, changes in course policies or syllabi between semesters can be fair, despite the possibility that some students might plan their courses years in advance.

@JeffE Fair point. I forgot to use the word intentionally. However, planning to take the course is slightly different than taking the course and experiencing the change. Even if it is not fair between the semesters, the process is still deterministic.

These days, there are people who hardly ever write anything by hand, but use computers to do everything. Requiring a handwritten cheat sheet would seem to put an undue burden on these students. A better way of preventing the kind of cheating you describe is to require a minimum font size for printed cheat sheets.

I allow cheat sheets in an unrestricted format. However, I compose the exams/quizzes in such a way that if one tries just to look at the textbook/notes only when coming to the test instead of studying the material in advance, he will just have no time to both absorb the ideas from the notes and to apply them in the context of the problem he has to solve. So there is no need to change any policies. Just make sure that the "fool's way" to make a cheat sheet is inefficient and the students will figure it out after the first attempt themselves. Of course, this requires some thinking when composing the questions but in any subject that requires understanding rather than memorization (I'm teaching math) it is not too hard to make a question that distinguishes between the two. And if somebody still manages to both comprehend the text on the bad cheat sheet and to use it appropriately within 15 minutes, I just applaud him or her. I used to even allow open book/notes but found out that the results were on average lower this way and discontinued that practice. Of course, I tell the students on day one that there is a big difference between "a fool's cheat sheet" and "a smart person's cheat sheet" and emphasize that one needs to spend some time to make the cheat sheet an efficient tool, but what they write on that page and in what font is none of my business. The main reason for that is that no matter what formal restrictions you impose, they are smart enough to find a way around them, so I prefer to play the game with almost no rules exactly the way it is played in real life: you are given a problem and you are to solve it with whatever you have on your hands. If you can do it, fine. If not, I'm sorry for you. The only restriction is that you cannot communicate to other people, but that rule of the game has never been questioned, as far as I know.
So, if you still have those ten days, my advice is not to try to fight with the complaining students but to put a Machiavellian smile on your face and to say "OK, no rule changes. Just make sure that you understand the material well by the time you come to the test" and to think of how to compose the questions instead (I hope you haven't promised them anything like "your test questions will be exactly the same as your homework questions just with numbers changed". If you have, all I can say is that I'm sorry that you cornered yourself so thoroughly, but otherwise you have a huge space to outplay them without getting unfair, or giving a killer exam, or anything else that would be a pure revenge on your side).

But realistically speaking, take the time to address the student's complaints in class. There may be more who share the same sentiment but aren't vocal about it.
State your intent behind the policy (to have students review their notes and condense it) and how it did not turn out correctly (people were just minimizing slides verbatim), although it is poorly timed (versus right after the first quiz) 10 days is more than enough time for a student to properly create a written cheat sheet.
If they have additional complaints, state that you would be happy to discuss the matter with them one-on-one and that if they continued to disagree, they can bring the matter up the food chain.

I agree with this answer, but would like to add a point. When you address the issue in class, you can also take the time to make it a learning opportunity. You had given them the possibility to make a cheat sheet. This was clearly a pedagogical tool, intended for them to condense the lecture material for a better learning outcome. Some students took this to the limit (and beyond) by miniaturizing the course material.  The students who took unfair advantage of this, ruined it for the rest. It is as simple as that. This is not pre-school, and the students in question should be able to see that.

-1. The fact that the rules can be set as the instructor wishes is irrelevant. Once the rules have been announced, it is unprofessional to change them without significant warning. Ten days is nowhere near that.

@TobiasKildetoft I’m hoping you understood the part “in a sarcastic tone”. As for 10 days, that’s effectively two weeks. This is plenty of time. An unprofessional approach would be to announce the change the week of. I’ve had professors change due days on a whim, threaten students with Fs if they disagreed. I don’t know  how you came to that conclusion, but put yourself in the shoes of that student who cried fowl. Can you not find 1 hour in 240 hrs to hand write your notes?

10 days is more than sufficient.

@SolarMike It is a pity that you deleted your answer, because you did raise some good points. For example, I am now asking some of my other students (through WhatsApp) what is their opinion

@ILiketoCode wait, why are you using an app? Are you asking input from everyone effected, or just a select few?

@FrankFYC There are about 600 students in the course. It just so happens that I am the "academic advisor" to 6 students, 4 of whom are taking the course. We have a WhatsApp group, where we can communicate casually about school-related stuff. (WhatsApp is an instant messaging app) I've found that the fastest way to get feedback from students is not using e-mail but using WhatsApp. So I'm taking Solar Mike's advice to ask a select few students how they feel about this handwritten-only policy, to get an idea of what the broader student population thinks.

@ILiketoCode thankyou for your support, it is appreciated so I will re-instate the answer. Hopefully others might appreciate it as well.

@SolarMike While I think that there are some good points in your answer, I also recommend that you spend a bit of time to clean it up. The last few sentences are relevant, but the earlier part, not so much...

-1 for the sarcastic bits at the beginning.

-1 for assuming that 10 days is enough. I've had situations where I had 4 major exams in a week and I've had situations where where I had 4 exams in 3 days. In any of such situations, having one lecturer randomly change rules can affect everything else.

Yes it could, but at the end of the day you don't make the decisions. You have the right to file a complaint, you have the right to protest, but you don't make the decisions. Life is unfair sometimes, what matters is what you do about it. You are talking to someone who had a significant coursework in college. 24 units a semester (24 units per quarter), some professors change things on a whim, my job was to make it work. If something was egregious, I knew my options. But if something was benign as writing a cheat sheet in 10 days, I don't see how 10 days is too little.

10 days is in no way sufficient if the student had a completely filled plan what to do in the next ten days, and having to transfer notes from printed to handwritten means something else in their preparations must be thrown out.

Honestly, this is a pretty simple question and not really academia-specific.
If you made a (legal, etc.) promise, you need to stick by it as long as you reasonably can.
The answer is the same regardless of whether you promised lollipops, cheat sheets, or Ferraris.
If, on the other hand, you did not make the promise (e.g. if you made it clear that the policy might change closer to the exam), then you can change the policy and the student is overreacting.
In this case, though, note that this disclaimer needs to be made clear at every mention of the policy, not merely once at the beginning of the semester.
The question of whether the student is overreacting is, honestly, orthogonal to this.
It is very possible for someone to overreact to something and still be in the right about it.
I could see this being an overreaction depending on how much work the student put into it, but it doesn't really affect your response.
If the question was whether this is a good policy, that'd be a different story, but it's not.

Contrary opinion: you should (and at many universities, must) stick to whatever you wrote in the course syllabus. Everything else is up to you. You're the expert on how to make your course as pedagogically rewarding as possible, not your students. (Of course, prepare to accept any consequences to your teaching evaluation scores.)
You've decided to make the course more valuable overall to your students, while slightly(*) penalizing good time management (a desirable trait) and slightly rewarding flexibility and adaptability (also desirable traits). Every decision you make in your class will have winners and losers; even by deciding to give an exam, you've rewarded students who test well, and penalized those who would have preferred assessment via a term paper or project. You must avoid discrimination and favoritism, and strive to be just, but rigorous, objective "fairness" is neither achievable nor desirable.
(*): Slightly. I have to say that 10 days seems more than ample for the task of transferring notes from typed to handwritten form. The real world will rarely show the students even this much structure and consideration.

It is unreasonable to change the established conditions of the course, if this disadvantages any student.  Obviously this change falls under this description.  Apart from time spent in preparing the typed "cheat sheet", students have planned their time (including study time for this course) already, perhaps including a work schedule etc.  Forcing them to devote additional study time, compared to previous norms, is a significant disadvantage, and they are right to complain.  The right time to make this change is before the next time the course is taught.
All the above notwithstanding, it is still possible to make the desired change, by leaning in (rather than running away) from the undesired behavior.  Get a copy of the typed, miniaturized, "cheat sheet", of all the course slides.  Include a copy with every exam yourself!  Allow students a second "cheat sheet", but handwritten only.  Surely there are materials not in the slides that is worth knowing -- from homework, other distributed materials, etc.  Then write the exams in a manner that is not trivialized by the tiny writing.

Those students that simply photocopied lecture notes or textbook pages will do worse on the test in average, because they are very likely not well prepared.
Not your fault, let them have their bad grades.
You can still change the rules next semester.

The purpose is not to disallow printed cheat sheets, but cheat sheets that are nothing more than copies of generally available materials. The idea is that creating a cheat sheet should force a student to study the material again and put it into a form they can write down; with my learning style writing the cheat sheet would be very valuable, but it wouldn't matter if I left it at home before the exam.
I suggest you disallow cheat sheets that are just copies of available materials and that the student's mum could create by going on the internet, collect materials, put them into a document and print in a really small font. And you allow anything that the student actually spent work on creating. Handwriting is quite pointless.

I would not force them, I would just say "FYI: Statistically students who take handwritten notes do 20% better." (or whatever %) If they choose not to take your advice that isn't your problem.

I had always meet this type of cheatsheet only to be handwritten. Otherwise, students will exploit it.  Even now, as lecturer, we are accepting only handwritten protocols preparation. Its absolutely fair and the purpose of the cheatsheet is to make student prioritize what will be written down. Well, stand up for your decision, and face complaints. Its a good decision. They exploited the original purpose and made you change your mind.

The argument isn't about handwritten or not, but changing the rules 10 days before the. exam. And most students didn't exploit anything.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

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text:
Is it a bad idea to buy plane tickets before the conference schedule is announced?
I will be attending a conference to give a presentation
in approximately two months.
I would like to buy plane tickets to and from the conference location,
especially because I am living outside the US
and the conference is in the US,
so travel to the conference is not an easy thing.
Unfortunately, the conference organizers
have yet to confirm and announce the conference schedule.
I do know that the last possible presentation session ends at 2 pm on Tuesday,
so if I wanted to book plane tickets now,
the earliest flight that I could catch would leave at 4 pm.
However, if my presentation is on Monday,
I might prefer to book a flight that leaves early on Tuesday morning,
skipping some of the sessions at the conference.
Question:
Should I book my flight tickets now at "safe" times?
Or should I book my flight tickets,
leaving early on the last day,
hoping that I don't get scheduled for the very last presentation slot?
Response to answers/comments:
I don't need to leave early.
I have just often observed that
at every conference which I have attended in the past,
the attendance at the last few sessions is rather low,
and it just seemed to be "normal" to leave early.
Based on the answers/comments,
it seems that just because many others leave early
doesn't mean that I need to when I can stay at the conference,
learning things and meeting people.

How much risk are you willing to tolerate?

Don't forget Murphy's law.

Response to response to answers/comments: People leave early because they have to. Don't leave early just because other people do.

First, I would ask whether you think you really should skip part of the conference---you're going such a long way, and presumably it's a community that you care about, so are you sure you want to abandon part of it?
If you really do want to skip, though, I would recommend a third path that I have often seen work: contact the conference program chairs, let them know your travel dilemma, and ask them if they can schedule you on the prior day.  If they are likely to be flexible, this will let them be flexible now and let you book; if not, you'll know they're unlikely to be flexible at other times either and thus know that it's not safe to plan to skip until the schedule is announced.

+1 for the first paragraph in particular. If the last session is on Tuesday, just after lunch, that suggests to me that the conference is only a couple of days long anyway. So skipping the whole of the last day is a significant fraction of the conference.

I actually like the second paragraph better. Ask first, then you know what you need to do.

Should I book my flight tickets now at "safe" times? Or should I book my flight tickets, leaving early on the last day, hoping that I don't get scheduled for the very last presentation slot?

There is certainly a risk to this, but in practice it seems like a small one. The question is, what is the worst that can realistically happen? You get scheduled to the last session, and you have to send the PC chairs an email with an apology and a notice that you can't make this session and request to be scheduled sometime earlier. They may or may not be annoyed by this request, but ultimately will have to schedule you earlier (what else is there to do for them?).
I assume that even the risk for them to be more than slightly annoyed is not very big - I can tell from experience that special requests w.r.t. to speaking time are so common when planning a conference that it seems unlikely that they will remember your request longer than what it takes to find an alternate slot for you.

Depending on the conference (and if the schedule is not clear, it's probably not that big), it's worthwhile contacting the organisers and ask.

@CaptainEmacs This seems like one of those cases where I would pragmatically suggest to apologize rather than ask.

And get your talk scheduled in the wrong slot? ;-)

A plausible solution to your problem
There is nothing wrong with contacting the conference organisers confirming your part of the schedule.
As your reason is perfectly legit, you may state the same details as you posted here to the organising committee. Even if the total schedule isn't  finalised, you could at least request your part of the schedule to be fixed. Of course you may not be the only one to make the request, the expected numbers of people making such a request would presumably small considering the number of people selected.
Why do conference committee delay the schedule announcement?
I know this isn't part of the question but I thought this might help. A conference may consist of several papers which may be grouped into several fields as mentioned in the scope of the conference. A good conference ought to have domain experts pertaining to those certain fields to be at the corresponding panel. It is getting their appointment that might take time to allot the slot of the schedule for groups at their convenience.

Send an e-mail to the organizers, and ask for your talk to be scheduled on Monday because you need to leave early on Tuesday. Apologize for the trouble, and cite personal reasons or whatever you feel appropriate to divulge about the motivation.

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sort: votes


text:
Can I update my DBLP profile, or connect it to Google Scholar?
I find my Google Scholar profile to be more updated and accurate than DBLP. Is there any way I can update DBLP accordingly or connect it to Google Scholar?

DBLP has two FAQ entries that roughly correspond to your question:

Correcting inaccurate entries: you can submit error reports
Updating information (new entries): you can't enter publications directly, but the DBLP team is open to suggestions

The latter also describes how their indexing process works in general, which indirectely explains why it won't be possible to synchronize your Scholar profile with DBLP automatically, In essence, they consider a much more restricted set of sources than Google does.

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text:
Does modifying the grades multiple times make me look unprepared/unprofessional?
As a TA, I have to grade students' assignments.
The main instructor usually has requirements regarding the minimum average grade for the class.
At the same time, it is tricky to predict the class' performance until I have graded about one third of the students' papers (for larger classes, and one half for smaller classes).
Even then, unexpected things can come up. To ensure fairness as well as fulfill the minimum average grade required by the instructor, I often have to re-grade their papers multiple times. For example, when first grading Josh's work, I gave him 4/5 pts for question 1. After finding out some others did better than him (but still not entirely correct), I gave the other students 4/5 and take one more point from Josh, and this process keeps going on and on. As a result, when I return the assignments to the class, their papers are full of my corrections for their previously assigned points.
I did mention curving to the instructor, but he didn't seem to be OK with that. In fact, he manually re-graded the first HW instead of curving it, which made me feel bad (and insulted).
It doesn't seem like the students have an issue with the way I grade, but I still wonder whether modifying the grades multiple times make me look unprepared/unprofessional?*

What the instructor is making you do is among the worst, most time-wasting mistakes one can make.

To ensure fairness as well as fulfill the minimum average grade required by the instructor

The section I boldfaced seems completely illogical to me. If there is any concern about the difficulty of an assignment, this should be handled by adjusting the final grades, rather than the assignment-by-assignment grades. This can be handled by stating at the beginning of the semester something as simple as:

The instructor reserves the right to adjust the grading points downward on a uniformly sliding scale.

This allows the instructor to adjust for any roadbumps in the difficulty of assignments without having to making too many adjustments in the grades of individual assignments. This also gives students a truer sense of their performance than having grades arbitrarily raised to ensure an artificial minimum average. Also, because grades are uniformly adjusted (e.g., if an A was 90/100 and B was 80/100, and an A becomes 84/100, then B becomes 74/100), there's no room to complain about arbitrary curving of grades, except for the single selection of the D/F or A/B transition that would drive the process).
If there is no option but to change the grading rubric, I would instead use the following approach. If you know what the general flow of the problem is, take a random cross-sample of the students' papers—say 8 or 10—and compare their results with the standards. If you feel comfortable with the agreement between your standard and the homeworks you use, go ahead and grade the rest. If not, then make adjustments, add a few more papers, and repeat until you're satisfied. But regarding dozens of papers every time seems like a waste of everybody's time.
If you want to avoid looking unprofessional doing so, I'd mark lightly in pencil until you decide the final grading scheme. Once it's locked in, you can switch over to whatever you use and it will look "final," saving you from any potential embarrassment. But really, it's understood that people make mistakes and changes when grading, so I wouldn't worry too much about it overall.

I did mention curving to him, but he didn't seem to be ok with that. In fact, he manually re-graded the first HW instead of curving it, which makes me feel bad (and insulted). Another point is, many times, I feel that adjusting the points for a specific question in the HW, instead of curving the total grade, is more appropriate.

I've tried to add an approach which might help you in that case. However, like I said, I think it's silly to curve or regrade individual assignments. It's a waste of time and doesn't actually give students a fair sense of their performance.

Thank you. My main question in the OP is that whether the way I grade makes me look unprepared/unprofessional in the eyes of the students? I don't mind spending a bit more time grading as my classes for now are relatively small in size.

It's possible to mark up the student's work (identifying mistakes, suggesting corrections, etc.) without scoring it.  I generally do this for enough papers to get a sense of what the students are doing well, what are common mistakes, and whether there's some problem with my initial scoring scheme.  Then I go back and score the initial sample of papers and finally grade the rest of the stack.  Another advantage is that if I've made some mistake in writing the question or in my solution to the problem it will quickly become apparent.

@ASlowLearner: Okay, see the last paragraph. Ultimately, it's not a big deal.

@ASlowLearner You may just have a case where your philosophy of education is different from the professor's.  Which is probably a good thing here, as what the professor seems to be doing are things that would be wildly unethical in research: forcing data to conform to a prior bias. I have done what Brian suggests, though: sampling a collection of papers/exams to see how reality compares with expectations so I can decide if an adjustment has to be made before grading in earnest; mostly with an eye towards identifying my own mistakes in constructing the question (awful, but it happens).

Thank you, everyone. As long as modifying their grades is not a very big issue and should not make me look unprepared in their eyes, then I feel much better now. I will adopt the recommended strategy when grading the next assignments though.

I'll add that nearly all of my grading these days is done on .pdf submissions using a stylus and keyboard.  If I discover an issue with my grading of a paper that I've already graded, I can simply start over with the original submission.  The only papers that I grade with actual red ink are exams that have been taken in person.

If you're grading on paper, post it notes can be helpful if you're concerned about needing to make adjustments. Make all the adjustments you need on the note, then add the final grade on the actual test.

Modifying the grades consumes extra time and effort in addition to that required by the grading itself, so regardless of professionality, you should try to avoid it. I assume that you have all (or large number) of assignments to grade available at once.
Your problem is that you start to grade to early.
First, read all the answers, mark mistakes, write comments, or whatever the standard procedure is. Do not assign any points except full points or no points, and those only in the situation where you are certain that that will be the final score. (Empty answer, total nonsense, perfect answer.)
You'll have to do this anyway, so it does not slow the process of grading. It gives you a good sense of the answers of the students, and so makes it easier to come up with the grading scheme (rubric, I guess, is the jargon here).
The next step is to write your grading scheme. Be as precise as you can, considering the successes and mistakes of the students. Ideally, this should so accurate that the actually grading would be merely comparing the assignment with the grading scheme, but this never happens in practice.
Before you start to grade, check a number of papers and which grades they would get. Check that this is appropriate. If yes, then grade the papers. If no, then revise your scheme and retry.

I don't like the first sentence: "X consumes time and effort, so you should not do it". In teaching, many good things take time and effort, and you should do them nonetheless if you want to be a good teacher. Otherwise a good answer, though.

@lighthousekeeper Thanks, the first sentence was poorly worded. I of course meant that modifying the grades takes extra time and effort, in addition to what is required by grading itself. Edited.


text:
Classification framework in conceptual paper
I would like to ask you for a piece of advice concerning the justification of the classification framework in a systematic review article.
I am writing an article in a retailing context and I want to classify from a marketing perspective. I managed to classify some of the articles. However, I do not know what approaches I can use for the classification.
I was thinking to categorize the articles into sub-disciplines such as consumer behaviour, innovations etc. but I am not sure if there is a way to justify the subjective criteria.
Moreover, probably similar categorizations have been already used even it is in regards to other concepts, not those that I want to explore, so I am afraid if I can prove my contribution in my paper.
How should I proceed?

Read more of the articles. Or at least read more of the article abstracts, before you begin classification. If a similar classification has already been used, just re-use that--it's already been demonstrated once. For a systematic review, the classification methods are analogous to the 'methods'--replication is a virtue. The papers you review are the data. If you bring new data, apply a good method, you will make a useful contribution.