text:
I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is this considered plagiarism?
I received help from a (online) tutor in a technical support capacity in my PhD thesis.
He was paid, and advised on math. notation, implementing a statistical technique (I suggested the technique) and plotting and statistical code to specification.
I did not acknowledge him in the thesis. (I asked about what to do in I didn't acknowledge someone who helped with my thesis, is there anything I can or should do now?)
Does the fact he is not acknowledged constitute plagiarism?

Is it a PHD thesis, MSc thesis or undergraduate thesis?

What did your supervisors say when you discussed this with them?

Taking into consideration your comment on the first answer, I think you are good. You would not acknowledge the teacher who taught you how to write, or the one who refined your grammar, or taught you addition, all of which were used in some form in your paper. Someone who taught you the notation to use in your thesis does not sound like the sort of thing you would acknowledge, to me as someone without any knowledge specific to thesises. But as EnergyNumbers writes, no reason not to discuss the situation with your supervisor.

There is no universal agreement on what plagiarism is and what the punishments for plagiarism should be. The viewpoint varies from person to person and organization to organization. There are multiple high-profile people in the media right now who have been accused of plagiarism. Punishments have be meted out differently and subjectively. There is no concrete legal standard. If I was ever accused of plagiarism by a university, I would immediately get a lawyer because a university could attempt to singlehandedly wipe out tens of thousands of dollars of one's education investment.

@Inquisitive OP didn't ask for advice on rationalizing away his or her behavior or weaseling out of its consequences, so I don't see what the point of your comment is besides expressing disdain for the concept of academic integrity.

@TrevorWilson The question in the title was "...is this considered plagiarism?" I answered that with "There is no universal agreement on what plagiarism is..." That is a fact. Then, I went on to state the very real fact that punishments for the ill-defined transgression are varied and subjective. This is real life. I would also add that anyone who is accused of such a transgression should get the advice of a lawyer if a university threatens to destroy tens of thousands of dollars worth of someone's education. People are paying top dollar for their educations. They need protection.

@Inquisitive It's true that there may be some disagreements about what constitutes plagiarism, but that hardly means that people like the OP should be discouraged from learning about which things do and do not tend to be considered plagiarism in most of academia.  Also, it seems to me that you have it backward: plagiarism tends to destroy the value of education, and universities that fight plagiarism are protecting the value of education (this is true even if value is measured in dollars.)

@TrevorWilson I'm certainly not discouraging anybody from learning about anything. I'm saying that, with regard to the clearly ill-defined concept of plagiarism, in real life, "some animals are more equal than others." There are some "big name" people in the world right now who are accused of plagiarism. Nothing seems to be happening to them. But universities seem to be gung ho about invalidating tens of thousands of dollars worth of college credits. This needs to be legally investigated in the courts. People need to be protected from university attacks.

@Inquisitive please take conversations to [chat].

What you are describing is more like a technical form of ghostwriting.  It is currently a matter of some debate whether ghostwriting ought to be also classified as plagiarism.  Whether or not it is plagiarism, however, it is most certainly academically dishonest to use this person's work without acknowledgement.  This is not a minor matter.
Moreover, if you did not disclose the help that you were getting to your supervisor and your committee, then it may be very serious indeed.  Knowing about external help that you were getting might affect their judgement of whether you have done sufficient work to qualify for a Ph.D.  In fact, if they did not know, and enough of your Ph.D. thesis was done by this tutor, it might even be appropriate for your degree to be retracted.

None of the thesis was written by the tutor; it is more that we discussed items e.g. a small amount of notation, and how to do plots in a certain way, I later used in the thesis. So it is more the technical knowledge I got from his tutoring I used, but did not acknowledge.

It is impossible to judge the magnitude of your tutor's contribution from what you have posted here.  You say the tutor "implemented a statistical technique" that you suggested, and provided "plotting and statistical code to specification."  That sounds like a lot more than discussion, and its level of importance cannot be judged without access to the technical document.

It certainly was more than discussion, as he showed me examples of how to run a particlar statistical test, suggested some notation, and create plots I had done in one language in a new language. I had assumed that this was all acceptable input from a tutor (as I learned these techniques and took it from there).

@jhunter These are entirely acceptable inputs from a tutor.  What's impossible to judge without actually seeing your thesis vs. those inputs is how much of your work they constituted.  If they were trivial, then you have committed no sins besides discourtesy; if they constituted a significant part of your technical contribution, then maybe your Ph.D. should be revoked.  In between is an incredibly huge grey area, which as I said, cannot be judged without actually seeing the two pieces of material.

Not acknowledging can actually be more than discourtesy, e.g. one of the standard declarations of having done the work ourselves that is used around here goes roughly "I did get help from other people than those listed in the acknowledgements".

@NateEldredge: thanks, yes of course it is "I did NOT get help..."

@jakebeal: The tutor input that is in the thesis was advice on a statistical test we decied upon jointly (example of running it given), defining new math. notation in 2 places, pseudocode formatting, advice on a data generation routine, and examples of plotting code which I adapted and used. I can see that acknowledgement should have been given; I'd be interested in views as to how far this strays into the grey area you correctly define.


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Is it reasonable and ethical to apply for two PhD positions with two different professors at the same faculty and the same institution?
Note: I saw this link, however I'm hoping to get wider range of opinions to help me make my decisions.
Problem statement: I sent an enquiry email to professor A of faculty X at university Y. Today, I saw another PhD offer posted on the web for another PhD position with professor B of same faculty X at same university Y.
Questions: Is it ethical to send enquiry email to professor B? Should I mention that I've sent an enquiry email to professor A earlier?

Yes, it's ethical. Everyone applies to multiple positions. Everyone knows this. At least this is my impression from the US. You don't say which country, so it's unclear who might be funding your position if you're eventually accepted. It's also unclear if you apply to the university, department, or professor directly. This might have some slight influence on whether you tell A and B about your cross applications. If they are going to be meeting together in committee to decide about applications, it might be better if everyone knows that you've applied to work with two different professors but really only once to the university. If each professor has sole discretion as to whom they hire, and only they see the application, then it probably doesn't matter.

Dear Bill Barth I'm applying to a university in Europe, Switzerland.

Is it also reasonable? If I mention that I've sent an email to the first professor A. How would affect my application with professor B?

@Alireza As Bill Barth implies, there should be no harm in telling the first professor that you've also applied for another position in the department. It's really just a courtesy so that paperwork doesn't get doubled up, and no one gets any surprises. If it comes to the interview stage, and you're travelling for an in-person interview, it will be a lot easier to schedule the interviews if both professors knew about this from the start, rather than having to say "oh, sorry if you didn't know already but I'm actually interviewing with Professor A on April 1st – are you free then?"

At my university you can only apply to two programs at the same time using the same application if they have a joint program already in place.
Otherwise, it is physically impossible. You can only file only one application to the university in any given year.

I believe you, but that policy is surprising and may be unusual.  While reading another recent question about application fees, I looked up the case at my own university.  In fact they give a discount for applications to multiple departments: see http://grad.uga.edu/index.php/prospective-students/domestic-application-information/requirements/application-fee/.

My university also allows simultaneous applications to any number of graduate programs, as long as you separately pay the application fee for each program.

Ethical and reasonable might be, but smart it is not. You will come across as someone who is "fishing" for an angle, rather than someone who is focused and understands the priorities of the department...

I disagree with the implication that this is an absolute fact. My own experience tells me: YMMV! I openly expressed interest in two different positions with different supervisors, had a simultaneous interview, and ended up with both offers. Remember that this is for a PhD position, not a postdoc: it's very likely that a candidate is equally qualified for (and interested in) more than one position. It's only fishing if you really are just fishing.

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text:
How to stay in touch with professor after graduating?
Disclaimer: I asked this question on academia since it is very much so a student/professor relationship despite both him and me being significantly more industry oriented.
About Me: I recently graduated from a degree (4-5 months ago) and am working in industry. I'm 20 years old.
Dilemma: I recently found out from a friend of mine that my lecturer at EIT and my supervisor/mentor throughout my degree was planning to develop a new paper. I sent him an email telling him how the paper sounds like it would be very useful because as a graduate I found X, Y, Z to be very critical in industry. I also mentioned my new job in the email and some other stuff about the paper.
He replied saying

Good to hear from you. Great that Company X has offered you a job that
  appreciates your skills; at least, that's what I understand.
blaablaaPaperRelatedStuff
I hope you like your current job, and that you keep challenging
  yourself. We should stay in touch. Cheers,

So my problem is, what does "staying in touch" mean? How do I properly stay in touch with him?
Other Questions:
The first answer to this question had the best answer I could find, however It did not help me.

The easiest way is to keep working on projects with them. If that ship
  has sailed, then the next best way is to be friends with them on
  social media, which is to say, be friends with them in real life.
  Barring that, you have to work to communicate with them on a regular
  basis about topics relevant to your shared interests: go to
  conferences and strike up conversations with them, share interesting
  papers with them via email (i.e., "Did you see this new paper from
  prof X? What'd you think?"), propose joint projects and write joint
  grant proposals, etc. It's not hard, but it does take active work

I'm 20 and he is around 40+ and leads a very busy life (kids, own business on the side and etc), so I'm not sure the whole "friend" thing would work overly that well.
I'm in industry, he is in academia  so projects/proposals are not really viable. (however he is more teaching/interfaceWithIndustry sort of thing as I do not believe he does any research any more). Also, "side-projects" are a viable option as we are software developers, however I have my plateful with them already and he has his own company as a side project, so there is no time for them really.

Another Related Question: How does one maintain academic contacts?

As far as my experience goes, this 'we should stay in touch' with no concrete suggestion as to how you should stay in touch, means he does not expect you to actually stay in touch on an ongoing fashion.
The way I interpret the meaning of this phrase as it appears in the email you quoted, it means roughly the following: "I am a busy man, and I have no particular thing in mind that we should cooperate about at the moment. But I like you, I am thankful for your comments, and I am impressed with what you achieved so far and by your potential. So if at any point in the future you see a concrete way in which our relationship can be put to use please contact me, and I will do the same on my side."
So I would just answer back saying something like "I'm glad were helpful. I'd be happy to chat more if you ever want [more comments about the current paper or anything related to the it or the job that you are doing now]."

First off, let me say the sentence "We should stay in touch" probably has no specific expectations.  Based on your age, I guess this was an undergraduate advisor/professor.  Typically a PhD advisor has a rather close relationship with their students.  In your case, I don't know how close of a relationship you had, but if it was reasonably close then here are some situations where the professor might appreciate hearing from you:

[academic] If you do related research and want to let him know about it.  Similarly if you're going to a conference he is likely to attend, or you give a talk about your work with him, you might let him know.  (In the case of a really large conference where you might not run into each other, an email in advance may be useful so you can try to arrange to meet up.) You can also let him know if you want to be updated wiht further progress on this research.  Or if you decide you want to go to grad school or learn about something he's an expert in, you could ask him for advice.
[semi-academic] If there are signifcant ways in what you worked on with him/he taught you helped you in your work, you could tell him and thank him again for his help.  We usually appreciate hearing things are useful.
[professional] If you change your job, he might like to know where you've gone off to.  This is one way faculty maintain contacts in industry, through former students.  He may want to contact you at some point to talk to/about other students he knows who are looking for similar jobs, or tell other people where his students have gone.  To go along with this, if you change your email you should let him know.
[professional] Conversely, if you're in a position where your company is looking for talented students with preparation similar to you, you could contact him to encourage students to apply.
If you go back to visit your school, let him know in advance so you can try to drop in and say hi or have lunch with him to catch up and what not.
Depending on how close you were, you might update him on major life changes (marriage, kids).
If you both had some common nonacademic interest (again depending on your relationship), there are some options.  E.g., if you're both into mountain climbing and you talked about the Himalayas, and then you finally go, you could let him know and send him a picture.
Use an SNS.  Though try to avoid bombarding him with messages with inviations from linkedln.

That said, you don't want to force situations in which to contact him just to stay in contact with him.  It might be natural for you to contact him a couple times in a year, or maybe not at all for several years.  He may also contact you periodically (along the lines of 3/4 or with updates about your previous research project).

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Could appealing/advocating for mental illness/ADHD/disability rights count as volunteering?
TL;DR Applying for PhD and asked volunteer experience. I requested ADHD accommodations and am the first student in my alma mater to get extra time on exams. I didn't do it solely for other people such as representing or assisting a mentally ill friend, for instance. I did it for me but expect it would be beneficial to other/future ADHD students. Could that count as volunteering?
Super long version of events:
Happy ADHD Awareness Month!
Present:

I'm applying for a PhD government funding in country A which asks for volunteer work as part of social responsibility or something like that.

Past:

In January 2016, I took my final semester of masteral studies in applied maths in country B. I had finished all but one (as the then-chair of my department pointed out twice) class, including thesis and was mostly tutoring undergrads at a nearby tutorial center.
Still, I exercised my rights and appealed just in case (turns out useful for GRE). This was for extra time on exams (besides other accommodations) based on my ADHD that I discovered I had in August 2015, after 15 and a half years lack of treatment after my apparently having been diagnosed.
I had no idea about disability offices or whatever. Apparently I had asked about it on stackexchange but forgot about it. Then for certain reasons (privacy likely but might be forgetting something), I asked elsewhere instead of stackexchange about this.
I told my professor about my ADHD who suggested #2 in appeals below who referred me to #3 then #4, who surprisingly brought in #5 to the discussion. (Good to know #5 remembers I'm from country A (then again I'm the only in class who doesn't speak the language of country B) and #4 has a relative in country A.)
Result: I was denied extra time for my first exam.
(more details in revision history)
I went back to #2 and #3 below: They knew about disability offices but didn't tell me because of I guess strong arming or whatever was that term from House of Cards (not a political guy, but I guess I soon will/should be if I were to become a PhD student). (Also #3 said ADHD isn't a mental illness despite #3's son having ADHD. I suspect #3 has ADHD as well.)
Result: I was granted extra time on my second and third exams.
(more details in revision history)
Thus I was able to show my newfound empathy to my university as it had shown empathy to me throughout the course of my graduate studies.
Thus, I was able to contribute to neurodiversity, understanding, empathy, mental health stigma reduction and the development of the disability office: This may be the first country B disability office.

For the events above, I appealed to (in order):

my (one) class (left) professor,
the head of the university counselling/guidance office,
the head (and only member of) the (not yet set up) disability office,
the dean of the graduate students,
the chair of my department,
the former dean of student services (and then dean of something else)
the dean of sciences
the soon to be old vice president (ended after my graduation) in person and impromptu with mediation from #4
the new vice president (starting after my graduation) by email

(more details in revision history)

(Near) Future:
One university I'm applying requests a diversity essay.
Is it bad/unprofessional or something, besides redundant, to put these events in both volunteer work and (neurodiversity) essay?
Ignore if this doesn't count as volunteer work in the first place.

Glad to hear things worked out and it was interesting for me personally to ready your outline but you really should summarize here.  You can of course link to some blog or other site where you describe the process in more detail.

@aparente001 HAHA I remember you. I will eventually after I get around to my plan, 2 and a half years of procrastination of it, of telling or asking my grade school and high school friends about my ADHD. Thank you!

No, this really wouldn't fall under anybody's definition of "volunteer" work. If you were part of a larger group that was advocating such benefits for an entire group (or doing it on someone else's behalf), that might be different. But under the present circumstances—since you're doing it for your own benefit—it's not really volunteering.

The first part of the assumption might apply. Thank you aeismail! =)


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Does improving systems count as “research experience” in grad application?
Like What is exactly meant by “research experience” in grad application? but situation-specific:

Between graduating master's in 2016 and applying now for PhD admissions for 2018-9, I started teaching maths at a branch of a company that is something like Kumon.
During this time, I looked up Google Sheets and SQL programming to learn on my own supplemented by my experience with Excel in master's and then created paperless spreadsheet templates.
I wasn't guided, instructed, requested or paid to do this, but I did improve processes at work.

Could said looking up then creation count as "research" ? If so, how? If not, why?
From other post:

As a rule of thumb, the more that what you did was something other people could not have done

Additional comments based on aforementioned:

Well I think what I did would've been pretty simple for a/an CS/Engineering/IT/ICT person but not just any employee in my company could've developed the paperless systems I made.
Also, the IT department in my company didn't for reasons I guess I'm not allowed to disclose.

Just called it "improved processes for streamlining research" or something to that effect.

I did improve processes at work What is your company doing? Is it an R&D company?

@scaaahu Nothing like that. It's a competitor of Kumon.

What process did you improve? Did you add any new process steps so the students get better education? Or you just automated the process more?

@scaaahu 1. Just automated process/es but indirectly better education: I created soft copies of students' progress and records. To do this I "researched" (colloquial misuse to mean "looked up") Google Sheets, SQL, etc 2. (Oh hey I just realized my e-learning promotion was related to the automated processing. Thank you for helping me come to the realization!)  3. (One of my unrelated inquiries did get students to have better education. Oh wait I think that counts. Thank you!!)

No. Research is working towards creating new knowledge (not just knowledge that you didn't have, knowledge that is genuinely new to experts in your field, too) that advances the state of the art in your field.
Programming/IT/engineering work is not research, unless it is undertaken to create new knowledge.
Examples:

Writing code to simulate a physical system, so as to answer questions about its behavior that have not been addressed yet, is part of doing research.
Writing code to implement a new kind of wireless communication system, so as to evaluate its performance, is part of doing research.
Writing code to help me organize my students' homework submissions is useful work, but it's not research.

What's new and what's not, what's useful and what's not, are hard to be differentiated I think. Does creating out of the box understandings with basic knowledge are considered research?

Edited question. same answer? Thank you ff524

@Jack Same answer.


text:
Lying about date accessed so people don't think you procrastinated
Is it generally a big case of academic integrity/plagiarism to lie about the date accessed of a certain document or whatever when making citations, at least in the following case?
The case: The idea is for procrastinators/crammers who do work at the last minute to change the date accessed to, a day earlier so they don't get judged by whomever/whoever is reading the citations and comparing with the date of the publishing of whatever document the citation is going to be in.
Notes:

I'm not asking if it can be a big case. The answer to that is obvious. Just make up some really wild thing in a case where precise date and maybe even precise time is highly sensitive.

I'm not asking if it is a case. Again, obvious. But we don't give the death penalty to case of, oh say, 'take a penny, leave a penny.'

Haha I don't think changing it a day would affect the grader's judgment.

In various cases one might well be doing the right thing to re-access and re-check the source right before turning in the material. You are waaaaay overthinking this.

Generally people will know you procrastinated based on the actual work itself, not some date-of-access in a reference.

Why would they care whether or not you procrastinated, while they're looking at the work you actually did? Anyway, procrastinating... but still getting things done on time... is a very minor "sin" in comparison to lying or faking timestamps, etc. Also, in a professional context, even more so!

@paulgarrett thanks for commenting. 1 - do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_1811812 - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation?(note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

I do not disagree with @Buffy's point that there's "no need to lie". But I would want to be clear that, despite that, if you do lie, fake timestamps, etc., that's ... "bad".

@paulgarrett ok there's no need to lie. so i won't lie. thanks. in the future if there is a need to lie, then i guess i'll make another post on academia se :)

I don't understand what the question is. What do you mean with "is it a big case"? What would you like to know? This seems worded as a "please discuss" question, which is a bad fit for the SE format (and the answers that arrived up to now seem to confirm it). I voted to close so that you can edit the question before the answers come in.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Lying is horrible, with whatever reason the lair does it and no matter how successful they hide it. Lie is a lie, do not do it.

@enthu Disagree with whom? I'm not making any claims, or at least that was my intention. My intention is to ask not to claim. You can't then 'disagree' unless you disagree with some assumption of my question. In this case what's the assumption you disagree with you? And otherwise, what am I missing?

Lying is a bad habit to get in to. Slippery slope and all that. It is also unnecessary in a case like this, but there won't be a penalty as no one but you will know. There are even good reasons to use a late date for some things like web resources, since you point to the most recent resource.
And, it has nothing to do with plagiarism.

thanks Buffy! what do you mean by 'There are even good reasons to use a late date for some things like web resources, since you point to the most recent resource.' please?

Web links used in research publications need to be dated as to access since they can change. Or disappear.

aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you mean like if i have to submit something on jan15 and even if i access something on jan13 6pm it is more beneficial to, say, double check the thingy on jan14 3pm to see if it's the same so i can write really jan14 and so date accessed of jan14 is not necessarily a sign of procrastination but actually a sign of diligence in double checking the material and consequently there is no incentive to lie at all?

I always check links as late as possible before press time and mark citations with a "last accessed [date]".

@EthanBolker thanks! to finish this question, i'm waiting for buffy's reply to my 2nd comment

Right, no incentive.

As cases of academic misconduct go, falsifying the date of access to a resource for such a stupid reason certainly would not be the biggest case ever, but it would still be a considered to be misconduct.  Intentionally falsifying information about sources is a giant red flag for more general academic dishonesty --- it shows that the researcher is willing to lie in their research to gain something they perceive to be a benefit to themselves.  The stupid/trivial reason for the lie might arguably make it worse, since it shows that they're willing to lie for the most marginal possible gains.
In practice it might be difficult to show that the erroneous access date was an intentional falsification (as opposed to an error) so an actual misconduct case might involve some complex trade-offs relating to evidentiary matters.  Nevertheless, if intentional falsification was established, I think this would generally be a reasonably big case and would be likely to lead to a fairly severe reprimand/punishment for the researcher.

thanks for answering. 1 - ' since it shows that they're willing to lie for the most marginal possible gains.' --> well if it's only a marginal gain then why would you consider the lie a big deal? i suppose it's not very christian/catholic of me to think in this utilitarian sense and so i'm not arguing that it's not unethical just because the effects are small. i'm instead wondering why ultimately this is gonna be severe reprimand/punishment if the gain is marginal. 2 - i suppose the same would apply to those 'lies' people write on their resume or linkedin? don't really see much of a difference

3 - 'if intentional falsification...reprimand/punishment for the researcher.' hypothetically what if i actually did do this just because someone on stackexchange said the preceding quote? like i make a paper and then a week after submission i tell my instructor/adviser/professor/teacher about it. not about fear of date accessed but really to prove a point to some user on stackexchange. so, what, i'd really get severe reprimand/punishment instead of cringe and eyeroll?  and i'll make sure the only lie here is that i accessed something (at 12:01am) on jan14 but i'll write jan13

4 - do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_181181 5 - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation? (note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

"i'm instead wondering why ultimately this is gonna be severe reprimand/punishment if the gain is marginal." if you can't be trusted when the stakes are low, why would you expect to be trusted on important issues.  It largely isn't about the magnitude of the gain, it is about the persons attitude towards truth and truth is important in academia.

Do not lie.
If you are an academic, people will assume you procrastinated until they see you work ahead many times.
Access dates in references are among the least important things about your academic writing.

2nd follow up question - do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_181181 3rd follow up - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation? (note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

If you are spending much time on this issue, I suggest you discuss it with a mental health professional.

thanks for answering. Anonymous Physicist, ok never mind the 1st follow up question. just the 2nd. i deleted my other comment. p.s. yeah of course i have ADHD as you can tell from my other posts on stackexchange.

Your question is very specific in a way that makes it unlikely to be useful to anyone but yourself, so let’s generalize it a bit. You are really asking whether it’s a big deal in an academic context to lie a pointless lie about a matter that has no significance whatsoever. For example, if I submit an assignment and write my name as “Dan Balthasar Romik III”, will there be any negative consequences?
The answer is, no, not officially, because no one is likely to care enough to accuse me of misbehavior, and also likely no one will understand why I’m even lying about such a thing.
That does not mean that there is no cost to the lie. In my opinion this is a case where someone developing a negative opinion of you is the main form of punishment for the act. It may not even be an effect that you are aware of or that you notice happening, but people thinking that you are an immature or untrustworthy person is something that can have a pretty negative effect on your career, so I’d advise you to avoid actions that cause this effect.

thanks for answering. 1 - do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_181181 [based on 'If they do notice, they are not going to conclude that you procrastinated.' i think you agree with buffy but not necessarily for the same reasons]2 - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation?(note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

@BCLC I have no opinion other than that no one cares when you accessed a file. If there’s a deadline and you meet it, that’s all anyone will ever care about. You seem to share a common misconception I see around here that professors spend a lot of time thinking about you and analyzing your every move and personality trait. They don’t, they are far too busy to even notice things like a file access time, let alone spend time thinking about it. Besides, plenty of very successful people are terrible procrastinators, and still get things done on time, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

As for “need to lie”, that’s another misconception. There is never a “need” to lie (well, setting aside hostage negotiation situations, and other unusual situations involving matters of life and death), only people who feel a misguided need to lie because they haven’t yet learned that that’s a terrible way to address their problems.

Here’s an awesome article about procrastination and what causes it. There’s also a TED talk by the same guy - highly recommended (and a good way to waste some time when you have a looming deadline and don’t feel like working :-)).

The underlying issue here seems to be that you either (a) are engaging in this thought exercise over a trifling matter as a way of further procrastinating, or (b) have an outsized fear of being judged for procrastination. In reality, no-one is going to notice. If they do notice, they are not going to conclude that you procrastinated. And finally and most importantly, if they do notice and conclude that you procrastinated, so what?
I submit that the best course of action here is to get over your fear of being judged for procrastion. Not that I have a psychological study to base this on, but I am going to go out on a limb and conjecture that this fear of being judged for procrastination, far from pushing you to do things in time, is something that might very well contribute to your actual procrastination.
I suggest that you:

Leave the dates as they are.
Submit your assignment.
Observe that nothing horrible happened as a result.
Pat yourself on the back for having one less irrational fear in your life now.

thanks for answering. 1 - do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_181181 [based on 'If they do notice, they are not going to conclude that you procrastinated.' i think you agree with buffy but not necessarily for the same reasons]2 - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation?(note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

Re 'this fear of being judged for procrastination, far from pushing you to do things in time, is something that might very well contribute to your actual procrastination' --> nah not really it's just something i saw in an old post of someone on facebook over half a decade ago and i thought to ask about it on stackexchange out of curiousity/curiosity

I agree with Buffy. Obviously, if this is not your actual situation, then my answer is irrelevant.

Let me say first that I think you should strive for integrity in any academic work. Lying is never acceptable, regardless of whether or not there are any consequences.
Having said that, I think you are worried about the wrong thing here. Procrastinating is not necessarily a problem in itself, as long as one is meeting deadlines and producing quality work. The issue is that leaving things to the last minute tends to diminish the quality of one's work.
It is much more likely that whoever is reviewing a work will be able to tell that it was written hastily or sloppily than it is that anyone will catch anything fishy about citation access times. And if the work is excellent, nobody is going to care about the timestamps. So your proposal is not only unethical but very likely to also be pointless and ineffectual.

thanks for answering. 1 -  do you disagree with buffy? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181179/lying-about-date-accessed-so-people-dont-think-you-procrastinated#comment486267_181181 2 - i interpret buffy's answer to say there's no need to lie at all. do you disagree with my interpretation? (note that the conclusion of my interpretation is that i will not lie. basically i'd be doing the right thing [but for the wrong reasons])

Personally, I wouldn't spend any time thinking about this at all. I would just record the actual time I accessed the reference and move on. Any time spent thinking about this is time that could have be spent doing work that actually matters.

ok i'll just assume buffy is right and my interpretation is right.

@BCLC Please slow down a little and re-examine this answer. Yes, technically there is no reason to worry, for plenty of reasons (just this week, I've reviewed a paper where authors confused two terms and put a bogus reference as a result no one else even bothered to examine... Do you REALLY think people would check the reference list going "ah yes, as expected, procrastinated to the last minute"? Do you REALLY think they will care?). Truly, let what d_b said sink in. If you've been thinking hard for months and only wrote the thing in two hours prior to deadline, no one cares.

...Long as it's a good work - without re-reading and editing, it rarely is. Some people compile the list of references as the last editing pass prior to proofreading. Personally, I often produce final plots only while writing. Learn about how you work and how much time you need to do different things. No one is going to judge you because of how late you put your pen to the paper - but they will judge you for failing to meet deadlines or sloppy writing.

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Is taking a year or so off between master's and PhD to self-study or do independent research a common practice in Europe?
So from my previous questions and from what I heard, I found out (iirc) that people who apply for a PhD in the US make a personal statement or statement of purpose while those in the UK, and I infer most of Europe, make a PhD proposal.
From what I understand, this involves reading several textbooks or journals (IMHO, there's a lot more reading to be done if one is changing fields).
So, is that what students intending to study in Europe commonly do? How long does this take? I mean, should much of one's PhD proposal research have been done in masteral studies?

"and I infer most of Europe" - I doubt that inference is valid. From what I've seen with respect to unstructured doctoral candidacies in Germany, neither "statements of purpose" nor "PhD proposals" seem to stand at the beginning of becoming a doctoral candidate.

@O.R.Mapper What is the PhD application procedure there then?

You get in touch with the professor from a group some of whose members work on topics you are interested in. You then ask which projects/grants will soon provide open positions in that group, while also providing some very early and very vague ideas for extending upon existing research from the group, or providing new input for the upcoming projects (even though these ideas will likely be discarded, as they are usually unrealistic and/or not novel, given that in that stage, you hardly have a good overview of the existing related work - this is mostly to show you have the necessary fantasy ...

... and motivation to find possibly interesting things to look into yourself). Then, you write an application letter (highlighting your preferences and special skills, as for any job) and a short CV to the head of the group you talked to in order to formally apply for the job. Preferrably, most of this happens during the last few months of the Master thesis, or the first few months right after submitting the Master thesis. At least that's a common way to go for a CS PhD in Germany.

@O.R.Mapper Thanks, but um, that sounds a lot like the US ?

@O.R.Mapper I heard in Europe, I may need to read a whole book first: Apparently I may need to read a whole book first: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42304/with-a-background-in-mathematical-finance-and-desire-to-apply-for-a-mathematics/42497#comment96148_42497

"that sounds a lot like the US?" - which aspects in particular do you think are very similar (though note that this may rather belong into a new question)? In short, you write in your question that in the U.S., you have to write a statement of purpose, and the linked questions imply that it needs to be accompanied with recommendation letters, and that all of this needs to be submitted to an admission committee. What I described does not involve any letters of reference, the first contact with the group is often established informally (with the application being only a later step), ...

... the statement of purpose seems to be expected to fill 1.5 to 2 pages in the U.S., whereas the application I mentioned would rather involve a brief letter (not more than one page, including salutation and letter head etc.) (with the information on possible directions of research being discussed in personal meetings or per e-mail), and the application is not submitted to a committee, but directly to the head of the group you apply to, who will then decide on ...

... their own, or after some discussion with the postdocs in the group or other colleagues (doctoral candidates etc.) who are going to work closely with the applicant, based on the project the open position is funded from. As I said, if you want more details, please ask in a separate question.

As for the book, I am not sure reading the book is the requirement Nate wanted to imply in that comment. If the book in question is a "default book" for the field you are interested in, it is more like the contents of that book will be covered in the Master's degree, which is a precondition for starting the doctoral degree in the system I described.

@O.R.Mapper Thanks very much! :) I'll ask another question soon then. Also, not quite sure what I meant at the time. I don't think it's like the US in terms of contacting the faculty before the admissions, but it does seem like the US in terms of the shortness of the letter. Probably varies a lot. Are you sure Germany doesn't have PhD proposals that include methodologies, abstracts and all that?

Things may be different for structured doctorates, but for unstructured ones, oftentimes, the general goals are defined by a project that funds the doctoral candidate's position. These funded positions were indeed applied for by a proposal, but rarely so by the person who will occupy them (at least not if the person freshly starts their doctoral studies). A "generational" model is quite common, in which a doctoral candidate is funded by a grant applied for by someone else, and during their doctoral studies, the candidate will apply for one or more grants to fund future doctoral candidates.

As far as I can tell there is no one single commonly accepted application process in Europe, despite what you might have read/heard/interpreted.
In my experience there are 3 ways to get enrolled in a PhD program in continental Europe:

You find a job advert at a uni where they are looking for a candidate to carry out (parts of) a project. In this case you are practically applying for a pre-determined job, and they assess you based on your skills, education and personality (for group chemistry)
You find a group you want to work for, based on your interests. You get in touch with a group leader/PI regarding your interest in doing graduate studies in that group/lab. If they have the money to recruit you and a project of common interest (a project that appeals to you and the direction that particular group is going with their research) you start there, often on a short term "trial period" initially (the actual/formal name of this period varies widely across the universities and countries)
You get invited to do a project at a group, with people you know previously. This occurs often if you do your master thesis/diploma work at that group, or if you know one of the prof.s at the department.

Beyond that, the formalities of what you need to write/submit in your official application would be specific to each uni I would guess.
EDIT: I have to actually correct myself, I do know people that had to pitch project proposals for graduate studies, however it still fits more into Option #2 above, where they got in contact with a group that worked on the field of interest and given that there's money for recruitment they were asked to formulate a short project proposal.
These people were applying for PhD positions in more humanitarian sciences however, one was going for behavioural/organizational economics and the other was more towards sociology I think.

Seriously? I heard in the US you give some one or two page statement of purpose but in Europe you have to give like a 10-page proposal including abstract, background, methodology, expectations, bibliography, etc. You mean to say people just show up just after they finish a master's just like a job interview? I heard people even talk with faculty members by Skype about their proposal before they apply to the university itself. Thanks posdef Why are US PhDs different from European PhDs?

Many people just show up, the PI already knows them. They apply for the position and get the job.  The downside of the medal might be that your PI does not talk with you much about your methods, plans etc. In the US you have to plan much more and usually they are stricter regarding safety.

@JackBauer Nobody I know, in Sweden or otherwise, have done that 10-page proposal that you mention, AFAIK. It's however possible that the (prospective) PhD student gets involved in project proposal for applying to funds or ethical permits, although I have to say it's rather unlikely.. (PS: did you want me to comment on that other question, or?)

@JackBauer I have applied to many places all over Europe, and never had to write more than half a page on future research (mostly stating what have you done, and what are you interested in). It is true that some universities do use the same application system for PhD and postdoc/research/faculty positions (that do require extensive research proposals), but they usually note that for PhD that field is not required.

@posdef Oh sorry, I forgot another link: What is common in most PhD application procedures in the UK? While we're at it, here What kind of PhD proposals should I read?. I was under the impression that European PhDs are shorter than US ones because of the heavier focus on research than coursework and thus a need for a proposal. You mean Sweden is like the US? Also, thanks :)

posdef and @Moritz What is PI?

@posdef "To start a European-style PhD, you are expected to be ready to begin working on research. You should have completed graduate-level courses in algebra and analysis, and be very familiar with fundamental material in your subfield. For an area like stochastic analysis, for example, I'd say you'd want to know the majority of the material in a textbook like Karatzas and Shreve, and be able to work through the proofs and solve the exercises."

@Jack Your supervisor

@JackBauer PI stands for "Principal Investigator" and is more or less synonymous with Group Leader. I am not sure what you want me to comment on the (numerous) links you have provided; the level subject expertise you are expected to have prior to and the amount of credits you are expected to take during PhD studies varies immensely, even on at a department level, let alone faculties, universities and countries.

@posdef Ah, academia varies a lot and all that. Okay thanks :)

While your background (education, skills, experience) should fit for a PhD vacancy, it is generally not necessary to write your own PhD proposal.
Many (most) universities in Europe have a section on their website that lists open PhD vacancies (either on the top level of the university website, or at the individual institutes).
It is best to find a vacancy that fits with your interests and background, and simply apply for it (by sending an application letter + CV).
There are some websites that list open PhD vacancies for multiple universities, e.g.

for the Netherlands: https://www.academictransfer.com/?language=en
internationally: http://www.careeredu.eu/

You can have a look there whether you find any position that suits you.

Seriously?  I heard in the US you give some one or two page statement of purpose but in Europe you have to give like a 10-page proposal including abstract, background, methodology, expectations, bibliography, etc. You mean to say people just show up just after they finish a master's just like a job interview? I heard people even talk with faculty members by Skype about their proposal before they apply to the university itself. Thanks Danny Why are US PhDs different from European PhDs?

Most of the people I know (in biotechnology, Austria) applied for a PhD position similar to a normal job offer. If they fit into the team, they are hired for 30h. It is on you to finish your PhD courses at university.
About 50 % of the PhD students in our university are hired by external companies which itself are spin-offs from different universities with the purpose of collaborating with company partners from industry.
About two third of the PhD students just inscribe at the desired university (which is free of charge and usually not a problem). The rest applies for a certain PhD program. Usually people start looking in their last year of the masters degree.

Thanks Moritz. Job offer. Interesting. And what kind of preparation is needed for the job offer? I was told that I have to write a proposal. It seems more than writing a resume. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42377/what-is-common-in-most-phd-application-procedures-in-the-uk http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43313/why-are-us-phds-different-from-european-phds http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43784/in-places-outside-the-us-and-europe-how-do-i-know-if-the-standard-is-that-one-a

Apparently I may need to read a whole book first: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42304/with-a-background-in-mathematical-finance-and-desire-to-apply-for-a-mathematics/42497#comment96148_42497

http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42918/does-one-need-a-masters-in-math-before-taking-a-phd-in-math#comment96265_42943

I would google the working group, the company. Try to find out what they are into to and what are their visions. Tell them why you are the man. Maybe your knowledge fits into the team (by complementing theirs)

What about writing a proposal? I heard in the US you give some one or two page statement of purpose and that in Europe you have to give like a 10-page proposal including abstract, background, methodology, expectations, bibliography, etc. You mean to say people just show up just after they finish a master's really just like a job interview?

I heard people even talk with faculty members by Skype about their proposal before they apply to the university itself

Why are US PhDs different from European PhDs?

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Why does or did Elsevier make PDFs grey and therefore unfit for printing?
My university subscribes to various online journals. Sometimes I print off articles that I know I will read over and over again. (I'm all for saving paper, but some things I do prefer reading on paper. I print on recycled paper and I bind the articles, so they will last a lifetime.)
Now I tried to print an article from Advances in Mathematics (published by Elsevier) and it took me a while to figure out why part of the text was blurry: The PDF has seemingly random snippets that are not black (#000000), but in a dark grey (#231F20). On screen the difference is hardly noticeable

especially if it is text:

However, when trying to print it, the printer is trying to make it less than black, which results in blurry text:

As most other publishers manage to produce pure black PDFs, I must assume that this is intentional (it's not just "all italic text" or "all math mode symbols", the colour changes mid-sentence). The question is just why?
I doubt that this is an anti-piracy measure: surely there must be a less intrusive way of marking a PDF file digitally to record the IP from which a particular copy was downloaded. (Some journals add text like "downloaded from [this IP], [university name]", which I don't like, but at least the text itself is not blurry.)
I also doubt that it is to promote their offprint sales: Elsevier sells offprints of their articles, but only 25 copies or more and only to the original authors of the article (or someone acting on their behalf). In other words, it's not to "encourage" me to buy "quality" offprints of a single article of which I am not the author.
(Of course, it can't be to encourage purchasing of physical volumes/issues of the journal. It is entirely unreasonable to assume that researchers buy an actual volume/issue of the journal just for one article, if only because a single issue contains so many unrelated articles and researchers typically live in small offices.)
What benefit do publishers have from mutilating their PDF files?
Making a printable (= pure black) PDF would also have benefits: I'd be convinced that Elsevier is a great publishing company, publishing high-quality research papers in a good format for everyone's benefit and, as an author, would be more likely to consider publishing in Advances in Mathematics.
This also makes me wonder:

Just to check, I am allowed to print PDF files (for use in research) of online journals, right?
Am I allowed to open the PDF in some other software, modifying the file so that it prints in pure black?
Am I allowed to use another method of getting a pure black printout of the PDF (e.g. by loading a special printer colour profile that treats the dark grey as black¹)?

¹ Unfortunately, I haven't found out if this is actually possible.
Note. I have not tried to investigate this issue systematically, but I observed this in 3 articles from Advances in Mathematics (Elsevier) from around 2005–2006.

@NajibIdrissi So you are saying that changing the text colour mid-sentence is easier on the eye?

@NajibIdrissi OK, I removed the part about the Springer article. Maybe it was intended only for online reading.

I am not saying that this is what happened, but in theory it could be a watermarking technique. By making different portions of the text gray, they can secretly identify which specific downloader of their papers is illegally sharing them. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography, for an example to prove that these techniques are not seen only in spy movies.

The version of Acrobat that I have allows my to print in black/white only (overrides greyscale). Or check your printer options. Why they do it? One would have to ask them I suppose...

@JonCuster Could you share your Acrobat version number? I tried both Acrobat Reader 9.5.5 and Acrobat Reader DC 2015.010.20056, which only have a greyscale option.

I use Acrobat Pro. It has proven useful enough to be worth the cost, not just for this issue.

"I'd be convinced that Elsevier is a great publishing company" –– err...

Many printer's drivers have the option to adjust the conversion of RGB color values in various ways. These options are usually located somewhere under Print Quality, perhaps an advanced tab (specifics depend on you driver and OS). These settings can often be used to produce a black/white print, or at least one that is much more readable, in many situations.

@JonCuster It's likely your printer driver, not Acrobat itself, that gives you the option to print in black & white.

If you're using Linux, you can try converting PDF to some image file, then run regex replace(sed) to replace all gray with black. My friend did similar thing to get rid of pink watermark :)

This often happens when a document uses the CMYK color space and the black is set as (0,0,0,100).
When you go print in a monochrome environment, the document's color information is converted to grayscale first. Because black ink on white paper can't actually create gray, a halftoning process is applied, where the shades of gray are hinted at by using a circular-like pattern.
Because CMYK (0,0,0,100) black isn't seen as being as black as it gets, in the conversion process, it gets turned into something more like 90% dark gray, and the halftone pattern appears.
Probably somewhere along the production process, someone got their blacks mixed up, and if it's consistent with all their PDFs it could be in the scripted part of the process, there's an issue either between color spaces (CMYK vs RGB) or a conflict between the source documents and the imported parts.

There are many blacks in CMYK space. One notable one is "Registration" which is (100,100,100,100). There is a list of several popular blacks at the bottom of (this article)[http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-designing-with-black] and I'm sure you can find more blacks by googling

OK, so it's making my life harder, but at least there is a good chance that is was unintentional. If it's the way you suggest, then it must have been a curious error in their processing for it to only affect random snippets of text (mid-sentence, from one paragraph to the next, etc.)...

@Earthliŋ Check with your campus library or the publisher - they are probably best placed to know what licenses are in place with different publishers. In my experience (see below), free access to content is fairly easy, but doesn't confer unlimited redistribution rights.

@Oxinabox indeed, and each printer will have generally have its own recommended black rich black CMYK definition. sigh color calibration is such an annoyance at times.

guifa is correct in their analysis of why this happens, but I would like to note that there is often an easy fix available once you know what is going on and so long as the PDF is saved as text rather than as a scanned image.
When you go to print from the PDF, click Properties from the Print menu, and on the advanced tab hopefully you'll see something like this:

Under your printer you'll hopefully see Document Options -> Printer Features. If so, you may have a "Print All Text as Black" option (hopefully you do), and this is Disabled by default. Turn it to Enabled and try printing an example of the dotty-page you were getting before.
If the page is actually text and not just a scanned image, you will now hopefully enjoy a print of pure monochrome, crisp black text. This problem is quite common especially with older monochrome laser printers, as they attempted to accurately print the "less than 100% pure black" using the only tool it had available - black toner. With this option enabled your smarter monochrome printers will understand that you don't want an accurate portrayal of the text - you want a readable one!
This option will cause a problem for text effects that use a gradient, but honestly outside of the print-proofing world I've always turned this feature to on by default to produce nicer text prints.

If the text is changing fonts mid sentence it's more likely to be deliberate. You could convert the PDF to PostScript and then look at it in a text editor to see if there's a systematic and unnecessary change in the font where you are seeing this issue.
If it is deliberate, I can think of why. Elsevier may be wanting to track down those leaking their credentials to sci-hub to shut them down http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/the-research-pirates-of-the-dark-web/461829/

I would argue the opposite. If it only applies to some of the sentences, and a simple sed -i -e 's/231F20/000000/g' some.pdf fixes it, then it is more likely to be a mistake. When big distribution companies try to apply copyright, they don't mess about with SOME of the works.

@J.J Unfortunately it's not quite as easy to fix as you suggest. sed leaves the text with colour #231F20 as it is.

It may be deliberate redistribution control. I recently did work on an eLearning system for a university where the content provider wanted visible per-student watermarking as part of the licensing process. Given the permissible tools (maintenance overhead), document sizes, and the number of students, it wasn't possible to produce a workable solution (too resource intensive when on-demand, too storage intensive to pre-calculate).
In your case, the publisher may be using an old technique for protecting against a lecturer printing one copy, then photocopying (which historically was faster than multiple prints and enjoyed analogue degradation). That's reminiscent of some copy protection mechanisms used in the 8-bit home computer/monochrome copier days, which would need a word typed in from a printed manual. By chosing colours that had very close luminance values, a photocopy became fairly useless making pirated software useless.
Individual academics and their supply chain can be slow to update their thinking - and indeed, since mutual trust is largely respected (both parties trading on reputation), there's no real driver either.
It's equally possible that some of the source material for the PDF came from a low-quality scan of typed or printed materials (or a high-quality scan of a low-quality source).

Regarding your last point ("scan"), this definitely wasn't the case. The text in question (see example above) was perfect vector graphics, not the kind reconstructed from a scan.

I miss reading black text on red paper...


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Is it ethical to give a final exam after the professor has quit before teaching the remaining chapters of the course?
I am enrolled in a lpn nursing program, and the professor teaching the pharmacology course announced to the class last week that he wont be here the following week, due to a "conference in California", and that another teacher would come and teach us the remaining chapters for the final exam.
Today no one showed up to teach the class, and the director is now claiming she had no idea he wasn't going to be here to finish the course. The director told us to read the rest of the chapters on our own before Wednesday (basically teach ourselves 6 chapters worth of pharmacology)... oh and there is also a HESI examination that they are saying we still have to take on Wednesday even though we haven't covered all of the material. I feel like the school is setting everyone up to fail at this point so we have to pay 3,000 to take the course again. I really need to know if this is ethical??

Seem to remember this question from a while back - obviously can’t find it - wonder why...

In my experience such cases end up easier for students. The examinations are usually not as strict. Of course, you miss part of the education. But it's usually taken into account in the test.

@Džuris HESI is an external body; it's a standardized test that the institution has no control over.

how many chapters do you normally cover in 1 lesson? 6 chapters seems like an awful lot left.

@daisy If it's an external exam run by a certifying body, that's doubtful. It seems likely that they will just fail and have to retake the course.

I've had classes where we were told we were responsible for knowing everything in the book, and that class was extraneous (it would cover advanced topics not in the book for only those that were interested). Seems crazy nowadays.

How were they planning on teaching 6 chapters of pharmacology in a single week?

Are you sure you need all six chapters for the exam? I don't think I ever took a university course where they didn't skip like a third of the textbook.

Can you clarify where the professor actually went?  Did he actually go to a conference and just didn't make appropriate arrangements for the class in his absence?  Or he did make arrangements, but without notifying the chair, and his arrangements fell through somehow (the substitute didn't show up for some reason)? Or have you confirmed that he actually quit his job, and the explanation about a conference was a lie?

Remember Hanlon’s Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
I doubt that any of the staff at the university are deliberately trying to make you fail so that they can make more money by forcing you to redo the course; it’s much more likely that someone just put things off, failed to read their emails, or something similar because they were busy with other things.
Complain to the student ombudsman at your university if you feel like a failure by the staff to properly follow procedures has disadvantaged you.

It's one thing to say that "the director is now claiming she had no idea he wasn't going to be here" is attributable to stupidity, but "the director told us to read the rest of the chapters on our own before Wednesday" is the director's deliberate choice to "resolve" the situation by simply leaving students without the teaching they paid for and administering an exam for which they haven't been offered all the promised preparation. This is what's arguably unethical. The school should be figuring out how students can take the HESI and final at a later date after the class time can be made up.

@nanoman Are you sure that the director is aware that 6 chapters of pharmacology still had to be taught in a single session? I can totally see him saying "Just learn that one week's worth of material by yourself" without him being aware that it's actually way too much.

@sgf Well, if the director is not aware of all the relevant facts, informing her would be the obvious next step for OP. It sounded like she was informed and chose to do nothing to help. Also, the professor (the main one who was absent, not the one who was supposed to fill in) still retains primary responsibility for the course and should at least be a concerned advocate for the students, regardless of how this happened and whether the professor is at fault. While at this conference, the professor may be reachable and could emphasize "this needs some mitigation, don't make the students suffer".

@nanoman Absolutely. But the main benefit of Hanlon's Razor is that you actually think of informing the director instead of feeding your confirmation bias about the cruelty of the world. And anyways, why does the professor have 6 chapters of pharmacology to teach in one session? Or does the final exam maybe not cover the whole book? Or did the students know it covers the whole book but hope for the professor to magically teach them the last 6 chapters at once when they've obviously been lagging behind so far? There's a lot that's strange here.

@nanoman What's the director going to do? The test is on Wedesday and can't be changed in time or content, since it's standardized. Monday is already gone. The options are to hold an emergency class on Tuesday, leaving zero time for study, or asking the students to study themselves. The latter seems to have the best chance for success.

@nanoman The test on Wednesday is a test done by an outside company (search HESI exam); so it's not obvious if it's even possible to reschedule.

@JMac I saw that, but still thought the school should allow (and help) students to switch to a later scheduled administration of the HESI exam if they wish. OP said "There is also a HESI examination that they are saying we still have to take on Wednesday". Basically, the school should be acting with urgency and creativity to minimize the damage to students that's within its control.

What's supporting the Hanlon's Razor theory here is that while the school would get money for doing the course again, they also would get the statistics of utterly failing to educate a whole course. Like a company, they could make a quick buck by screwing over their "customers" once, but it would probably do more damage to their future business.

@user71659 The director "could" offer the students a new set of classes and pay for a repeat exam and pay for lost wages for those whose career starts later due to the school's screw up.  Or they could say "too bad so sad".  Both are possible options, one of them screws students, one of them screws the school.  I'm sure there are many options between them.

@R.Schmitz It seems like that view could define malice out of existence, except for masterminds who cover their tracks expertly. An action can be both stupid and malicious. For example, crime that doesn't pay is still crime. "My client didn't know he could get so much prison time for holding up that store, so it's explained by stupidity, thus no malice by Hanlon's Razor!" Someone's action can be ethically wrong even if they stupidly ignore likely consequences to themselves.

Consider the alternative, not letting you take that exam.
Would that really be better?  I am sure many students think that would be worse.  They just want their exam papers and start working as soon as possible.
So, try to prepare for the exam on your own and take it.  Having to read one chapter on your own is not a big disadvantage.
Then, as nick012000 suggested, complain.  The university messed up and should fix things.
A reasonable fix would be for the university to give you another chance if you fail, free of charge.  Another possibility is for the grades to be adjusted.

The big potential for failing is that many nursing programs are run in lock-step wtih a cohort.  Additionally, there may be requirements to pass all classes or you are removed from the program.

@ivanivan "Additionally, there may be requirements to pass all classes or you are removed from the program." That is exactly the sort of requirement that the school could waive (allowing a redo) because of the exceptional circumstances caused by its messup.

@nanoman definitely.  but i've also seen a nursing program or at least some of the faculty in charge of the program try their best to get rid of students they just didn't like.  "sorry your grandpa died, no you can't swap clinical weeks with someone else, you miss clinicals you are out of program" type stuff.

@nanoman It's not that easy. Programs like nursing are highly regulated, thus waiving requirements may not be possible. You wouldn't want it either: "I'm sorry you're having a stroke? I don't know what to do since we skipped that section due to excuse here."

@user71659: Perhaps you missed the allowing a redo in nanoman's comment.  I don't see anyone suggesting that the material should be skipped, only that the students should be given proper instruction, and be tested on it after the instruction is complete.

@BenVoigt And allowing a retake is exactly what is highly regulated. It's normally a sign that they are incompetent. Do you want a doctor that took 15 tries to pass a class? I've seen our med school's exam policy, its 20 pages long and covers things down to bathroom breaks. There is very little room for discretion, by design.

@user71659: But in this situation, it would not be the "normally applicable" sign of incompetence.  This is exactly the scenario for making a limited exception to the rule.

@BenVoigt You missed comment. It's often out of the school's hands. Their exam policy was set as part of accreditation and ignoring it may cause an issue. Accreditation boards are going to ask if they are ignoring any other part of the policy. It certainly is feasible in a normal university class, but medical, nursing, and law schools are a different matter.

@user71659: Accreditation is more flexible than you seem to think.  I went through an accredited program of study, in a field where mistakes kill far more people at a time than an nurse's mistake would, and although the projects I work on are not generally in the life-critical category, I have the license and skills to do them. The school is not going to lose accreditation for letting students retake a course and exam when the first administration ended partway through. Any accreditation body that were that strict would already be revoking this school just for the inconsistent instruction.

@BenVoigt Engineering accreditation is very different. As ivanivan mentioned, competence is one part of medical (and law) accreditation, the other part is constraining the supply.

@user71659: Also note that, according to OP, "pay tuition again and repeat the whole course" is an option.  If that is an option without violating accreditation, then surely so is "repeat the whole course at the school's expense".

First, I suggest checking the course syllabus. At higher levels of education it becomes increasingly likely that the student will ultimately be held responsible for acquiring the requisite information for tests like HESI, graduate school qualifying examinations, etc.   I've had mathematics graduate courses, the subject matter of which would be covered by mandatory qualifying examinations, specify in their syllabus that the course may not cover everything that may appear on the qualifying examinations, and that it is left to the student to study such material. Practical realities may simply not leave enough time to cover everything, and as you advance up the educational and professional ladders the more it is expected that you will have the intelligence, drive, and time management skills necessary to acquire broad swathes of information and skill sets on your own.  Classes become increasingly less about telling you exactly what to do, and covering everything you need to know, and more about providing you the basic direction and fundamental skills necessary for you to figure out what you need to do and know on your own.
As such, "6 chapters in one week" may be more like "6 chapters you knew you would have to know since the beginning, but were explicitly told we may not have the time to cover during lectures, and you have to figure out how to deal with that on your own."  In which case your burden is noticeably less than you think it is.  Not that "lecturer disappearing" is normally accounted for in class structures, so there's still a problem here, but you may already have been expected to deal with several of these chapters entirely on your own.
Following Nick's suggestion to complain to the ombudsman is a good follow-up step.  This is definitely a situation that should never happen.  An instructor who will be absent for lecture days is responsible for securing a replacement instructor for those days, and for clearing his absence and replacement with the department head (or whoever else serves as a supervisor). This situation appears to be a multi-tier failure where either the usual instructor or replacement instructor failed to execute their part of the arrangement, and also the department head/supervisor failed to properly monitor the situation and make sure the students experienced minimal disruptions. At least one of them is probably getting disciplined behind the scenes and being made to feel very uncomfortable thanks to this failure.
If this provides an unsatisfactory resolution, you might even go so far as to pass this story on to local news agencies. While this doesn't sound like a state-wide or greater interest story, it may be worth it for local news channels, newspapers, school newspapers and newsletters, etc. to report on it. An unfavorable report, or even an interview request to discuss the matter, would elevate the pressure on the school to make PR-friendly amends and accommodations to affected students.  No school wants to start developing a public reputation for condoning disappearing instructors and lax administration.

I have similar thoughts. The responsibility to learn is the students.

"These six chapters might not get covered so you'd better figure out how to study them on your own" would be a ridiculous way to structure a course. The later chapters almost always depend on the earlier ones so, the students can't study chapters 7-12 until they've done chapters 1-6. So what do they do? If they wait for those chapters to be covered in class, there's a huge rush to cram in six chapters right at the end. If they study them before they're covered in class, there's not much point in having the classes. (Or, at least, the classes need to be designed around that exact scenario.)

@MishaLavrov That's a good point. My "random" choice of the six chapters being half the course makes things look very extreme. Nonetheless, it's a silly way to design a course that's supposed to cover chapters 1-100, too. Probably chapters 95-100 don't depend on every previous chapter, so the "when do I study this?" problem becomes easier. But, in this case, surely the correct solution is to cover chapters 1-94 just a little bit faster so that there's room to lecture the last few chapters, too.

@DavidRicherby: There was room in the schedule.  The instructor didn't show up to class, and neither did the substitute.

@BenVoigt I was addressing this answer's second paragraph.

@DavidRicherby Even if you attempt to learn something yourself, there is point in having classes; they make sure you didn't miss or misunderstand things, give yet another context where the information can stick in your brain, etc.  It isn't in my experience that rare that you'd read over the text before you attend a lecture on the material (and it often makes the lecture more valuable, not the other way around).

@Yakk Sure but there's a big difference between reviewing the material before the lecture and having to learn it well enough to give a basis for understanding later material well enough to be examined on it.

Faculty Responsibilities
I take first the potentially wrong assumption that "quit" is not meant literally.
To the question of (ethics) violations by the instructor ...
A faculty member may have to file written forms before he/she goes away from teaching duties for a situation known in advance. The forms should document what is to be done in the course(s) that will be missed. They should be signed off by the department and perhaps all the way up through the college level before the trip is taken.
--> Ask your SGA representative and/or the Student Affairs Office to establish what protocols are required of faculty who will be absent from teaching duties. When forms are to have been filed, the director's claim of ignorance means either that he/she is lying or that the faculty member failed to follow protocols. One or the other deserves an administrative rebuke. Otherwise, when no official policy is in place for this case, your student organization needs to fight to establish one.
--> The next step is to file a strongly worded statement with your representative student organization and/or through your student evaluations. Regardless of whether an official form was or was not to have been filed before the trip, the instructor of record bears full responsibility in this case to assure that his/her teaching duties are properly handled in his/her absence, especially when the absence was planned in advance. The department chair, the college dean, and the university provost should hear in writing from the entire class about his/her negligence to fulfill this responsibility.
You may instead mean "quit" literally, as in "The instructor pretended to be going to a conference but actually was resigning without telling us the truth".
--> This case is entirely out of your hands. The administration above, starting the the director and finishing at the provost, have to handle the violations.
Preparation for Exams
The director is telling you to do something different than what you expected would happen. The best you can do is do as requested. I cannot attest to whether the requirement is or is not excessive. To address this, you could determine whether it would have been any different had your instructor been present. Ask students from last year's or last semester's class for insights. I will add however, the director has the responsibility to not leave your class just hanging to learn it on your own. Your class can/should petition for a make up session to cover the material when it is to be required on an exam (the final exam) for the course.
By comparison, your class cannot rightfully petition to have a make up session to cover content on (national and professional preparation) exams that are not part of the course syllabus. You can only request to have a preparation session for such exams at the graces of the department.
Being Set Up for Failure
Is the university (purposely) setting up your class to fail? ... Most assuredly not (on purpose). At worst, the university has set itself up to fail because it does not have a way to assure a responsibility of its faculty to their core mission. This is a longer discussion for a different thread.
Unfortunately what has happened instead is, the instructor of record has set up your class to fail. While Hanlon's razor is invoked, I do not see stupidity at play in his/her case. When the instructor is truly only gone on a conference trip and was to have followed a formal protocol to file forms before the trip, this is a most glaring case of official negligence of duties. Even absent that he/she had official requirements to file forms, the instructor has neglected his/her contractual obligations by not handling the responsibilities for his/her teaching duties completely and with all due attention.
When the instructor just quit and had kept that plan hidden (from everyone), he/she bears the full brunt of the blame--the university is just a bystander to the destruction. Even as a bystander though, they have a responsibility to clean up the mess fairly and equitably.

"I cannot imagine that a faculty member does not have to file a set of written forms before he/she goes away from teaching duties."  Really?  It may be different in a professional program, but the most intensive requirement in any program I've been in is notifying the chair when one is missing a class, and most programs haven't even required that.  Missing some teaching to attend conferences is standard in many fields, and the only expectation is that the instructor will make sure the class is taught appropriately (which obviously failed in this case.

All the reasons in the world why you think it's a bad idea will not chance the fact that it is, in fact, utterly routine at many universities.

Again, I'm merely reporting on my actual experiences at every university I've worked at. I'm not making any claims about the propriety of the practice. What you imagine a state legislature might think of it does not, in any way, "challenge" the fact that the practice exists. I'm prepared to believe your report that some schools require specific forms before a faculty member misses class to go to a conference, though I've never seen such a practice. I don't understand why you have such difficulty believing my report that some schools are different.

Just to back up Henry here: I have taught at two state universities.  At one, we were supposed to tell the chair when missing class to go to a conference, but in practice nobody ever did.  At the other, there was no such requirement.  The first time I took a trip I told the chair, and he was mystified and couldn't figure out why I thought he would care about my trip.

If the professor has in fact "quit", as the title suggests, then much of this answer is moot.

@NateEldredge Yes. I would still address other concerns of the OP. I've (again) modified my post accordingly.

@NateEldredge While the title says "quit", the body of the post only indicates that they went to attend a conference.  "Quitting" just seems to be part of the OP's emotional reaction to the situation, rather than a statement of fact.

@zibadawatimmy: I understood the scare quotes around "conference in California" to indicate that this was not in fact the truth, and that the professor actually walked off the job without making arrangements as he had claimed.  But perhaps OP ought to clarify.

@NateEldredge I assumed that was OP assuming ill-intent on the instructor's part, so that the stated reason of going to a conference gets twisted into a malicious lie constructed entirely to make his absence more painful.  I think that's why the highest up-voted answer is about not attributing things to malice. OP seems intent on the idea that people are out to get him and the other students. But, yes, a clarification on his usage of "quit" would be in order, as that does rather change the situation.

Where I did my undergrad (in the 1990s), it was was not uncommon for the final exam to be about the chapters of the book that were not covered in class. It generally went like this:

We students arrive on the last day of class, awaiting information about the contents of the final exam
The professor looks at the syllabus, and says "hmmm, we only seem to have made it to chapter 8 in the lectures. But the course requires that we cover through to chapter 12. So let's make the final exam about chapters 9 through 12."
The professor then spends the class paging through the textbook, saying "this section is important, learn this" or "ignore this part".
We students studied like crazy to learn the material, cursing the instructor for having some 20% or 40% of our grade based on material that we didn't learn through our homework. Stress allowed us to learn very quickly.
We students took the exam.

That's it. So, your question is: "Is this ethical?"
My answer is "Yes, it is ethical".
Here is why I think it is ok. In high school, it is the job of the teacher to ensure that each and every student learns the material. In a University setting, this is not the case - it is the job of the student to learn the material, with guidance from the instructor. This is especially true for graduate school.
Here is a counter-question. Did you read the text prior to class, in preparation for the lectures? Did you arrive with questions about content that was unclear? Is it ethical to arrive to class unprepared? This is your job as a student. While it is nice to receive this information in a palatable, spoon-fed format, it is not required.
Perhaps your entire post-secondary education was a mere extension of high school, where the responsibility of learning was cast upon the instructor. That is lucky! Good for you. I suggest working to learn how to learn independently.
Addendum:
Does your University have a required number of hours of instruction per course? Did the cancellation of classes brings the number of instruction hours below this limit? If so, the University has breeched its contract. This is most certainly un-ethical.

The fact that professors do this sometimes does not make it ethical or right for a professor to cover 2/3rds of a course and demand that they learn the final third on their own between the last day and the final exam. It is certainly a student's job in higher education to learn on their own, but it's not, in my opinion, ethical to charge students thousands of dollars (or tens of thousands) and fail to provide them with the guidance, in some sort of reasonably coherent fashion, they need to learn the material. That your undergrad professors did this to you doesn't make it right.

@ZachLipton Perhaps we got more out of learning those few chapters independently than we got from the rest of the course? And the structure of the final certainly helped. However, it turns out this is different than HESI; it isn't a final exam but a board exam of some sort. Probably my answer needs to be modified.

So your "argument" is that, since you were abused, the asker can put up with being abused, too. Great.

@DavidRicherby Not at  all. My argument is that it is the student's responsibility to learn the material. Is my writing so unclear?

By this logic the professor could say "well, I'm taking the semester off.  The final exam will be on everything.  It is, after all, your responsibility to learn it all."

@Beska You're being extreme in your argument. If I were to argue with you, I would say "By your logic, the students are not responsible for learning, instead it is the sole responsibility of the instructor to make sure the students learn." Instead of bickering, I want to emphasize that the fact is that instructors have a responsibility, but ...

... the expectation of spoon feeding should end during graduate school. (or before)

@axsvl77 "You're being extreme in your argument": granted, but for a purpose.  If I were to argue with you I would counter that it is the purpose of the instructor to present all of the material in a way that is conducive to learning it (while agreeing that it is ultimately the student's responsibility to do so.)  Good thing we're not arguing!

@Beska I think we're in agreement, with a different boundary about what it appropriate. It might be field dependent - in my experience, in Engineering, Math, and Physics, instructors very rarely are able to cover all the material that was required. Whether it is ethical for them "to test or not test" on it is another, more philosophical question.

I stand firm in saying that when graduating with a PhD, students should be mostly able learn on their own, with minimal guidance.


text:
What is the equivalent of the laboratory notebook in the humanities?
As a scientist, the idea of a "research notebook," or its functional equivalent, has been well ingrained into me. However, it's not clear to me if this is a universal phenomenon, or if it's limited to the sciences.
For students working in the humanities and other fields—such as literature, economics, or philosophy—what is the working equivalent of the laboratory notebook? If not, what is the preferred method of keeping records in those fields?

This isn't really an answer to your question as written, since I can't address what happens in the humanities, but I see the tradition of lab notebooks as being very specific to experimental sciences.  For example, in pure math (and most of applied math) there is no professional obligation or tradition of keeping detailed records of research activities.  The research papers are themselves the primary research output, rather than just descriptions of experiments carried out in the lab.  Any record keeping beyond the published materials is completely at the discretion of the researcher.

I asked my wife, which works in art history/egyptology. So first, "it depends of how the person works" ;).
However, it seems that many people are making a large number of thematic reading synthesis, research notes (as we do) and she also pointed out the importance of her personal database, where she stores archaeological artefacts, their descriptions, the related bibliography, personal notes about them, their relations, etc. According to her, this is THE most important thing for her work.

From my impression, the nearest equivalent would be an academics' text source repository.  This could be a library of theoretical works personally owned (and almost certainly monographic rather than papers).  It could be a set of commonly referenced canon texts spread across four or five libraries in their region that they consult.  It could be the items above plus documentary series such as archives, cultural texts.
The objects manipulated, day to day, in conducting humanities research are texts; whether these are straight texts, or the meanings developed from physical records, or the meanings developed reflecting on terse problem statements.
In my experience, some scholars keep detailed notes, and others don't.  I try and keep my notes and sources in a deep text searchable database with what meta-data I can cheaply acquire.  There is no standard for keeping a repository, and the way in which a scholar learns to keep an adequate repository is idiosyncratic.
There isn't a disciplinary standard for keeping a repository, above and beyond "study skills" type courses which aren't mandatory or systematised.  To evidence of the adequacy of the "experiment" equivalent scholars demonstrate their mastery over the relevant texts by providing evidence of firmly supportable readings through citation and footnoting, or by quality argument.

Thanks for sharing. Can you elaborate on what platform you use to maintain the deep text searchable database or how did you set it up? I find it a constant issue that the software around isn't designed for a open notebook portable uses. Any references you can recommend on this?

Personally I've not heard of a dedicated "research notebook" in my discipline history, as may be used in the sciences. Like Sylvain Peyronnet's answer it very much depends on how a person works.
In history, as Samuel Russell's answer alludes to, most of a person's ideas or arguments are gleaned from primary documents. Because of this it becomes very important to be able to keep a track of the primary documents that may be relevant to your area of research. Personally I use Mendeley to keep track of everything and the notes/annotations I make in that go someway towards forming my research arguments later. I note though that even the use of software like Mendeley is not common in my department.
I believe one of the advantages of the research notebook is that it can keep track of when work was conducted by date, something that I have never heard mentioned in the Humanities. The disadvantage of this is that there is no way of proving when you may have had an idea based on your readings.

With respect to the last paragraph, the plot of Ian McEwan's novel Solar revolves around a physicist that falsifies a research notebook to backdate certain results and claim priority on them. So, even in the hard sciences, research notebooks are mostly used as a record of what you did on a specific date (which can be helpful when trying to replicate experiments or write up results), rather than as a notarized register of activities open to everybody for inspection. People in the humanities (at least the ones I'm familiar with) keep track of their day-to-day activities in other ways.

I think you really need to understand research methods humanities, and this varies field to field.
One (but not the only) approach are Qualitative Data Analysis(QDA) methodologies used widely enough to support a small industry of software vendors delivering (often very expensive) QDA tools. Examples include Atlas-Ti, NVIVO, QDA Miner and Tinderbox.
These tools provide the closest thing I can think of to a 'research notebook' for academics in the humanities.
Understanding what people say is a QDA example in Tinderbox, representative of the sort of work done in QDA tools.

I don't understand how this answers the question. Could you please expand your answer?

A labbook is not first and foremost a place to calculate: it's a log of activities.

I've provided an example of what I believe to be the nearest functional equivalent to a "research notebook", bearing mind that how researchers work can vary depending on what the project requires.

@dmckee the tools listed do log activities, hopefully sufficiently to make the research reproducible.

@massimo-ortolano Does my update help?

@dmckee but you are right - the tools listed are about analysis.