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In case of in-lecture quizzes, is it unreasonable to fail students who are late or absent?
I am teaching a large undergraduate class this semester. One day a week (same day every week) we have a quiz. The syllabus doesn't specify at what moment of the class period the quiz will be given. It does say though that students who missed the quiz aren't allowed to make it up. So, I've had the following situation since the semester started. First and second week I gave the quiz at the end of the class. During week 3 I already had a few students coming more than 20 minutes late, but early enough not to miss the 15 min quiz, which I gave again at the end. So, this week (week 4) I gave the quiz 10 minutes after the start of the class. The actual time of the quiz wasn't announced in advance. And yes, I've had many students coming late and some came when the quiz was already over. These students couldn't have 15 minutes like others if any time at all. Now these students are claiming that I needed to tell them in advance at what time the quiz was supposed to be or emphasize that it can be at any time, or otherwise they follow the pattern.
All students who came in late were the ones who were late the previous week except one student.
I repeat that it's a big lecture hall, and I don't want to take notes when a specific student actually started his or her quiz and add 15 minutes to that time. Also, after quiz I want all of them to concentrate on the class material. And I don't want to give it at the end all the time as some students will come in late, and that disrupts the flow of a lecture, distracts other students and generally erodes class morale.
I drop quite a lot of lowest quiz grades at the end of the semester to meet those cases when students do have to be absent. So, a good student's grade won't be affected if he or she will miss a couple of quizzes.
I am currently facing lots of negative emails from students who were late and didn't get the grade they would get if they had the same time as everybody else. Do you think it's me being unreasonable? Their main argument is that it should be clearly stated when a quiz is given or emphasized that it can be given at any time, which I find unnecessary.

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Do you think it's me being unreasonable?

Sadly, yes. I see two problems here:

You said in a comment that the policy of "the quiz can happen at any time" was not articulated at all. You gave the quiz near the end of the class a couple of times, and the students naturally assumed that that's when you'll always have it. Now you are trying to argue legalistically that since you didn't say when the quiz will occur, you were reserving the right to hold it at any time. However, in my opinion if you are going to argue based on legalisms, the burden is on you to dot all your i's and cross all your t's and make sure that you gave your students such amazingly clear information that they couldn't even imagine arguing with you.
The thing to keep in mind here is that you are an educator, not a prosecutor trying to entrap a criminal in court. The students deserve to have clearly articulated rules so that they can focus their time and energy on the material; in particular, if there's a quiz, they deserve to know the precise time when it will be held, or at the very least to have an explicit announcement that the quiz can be held at variable times. Overall, your approach to dealing with the students who came late as I'm understanding it from your question seems to me to place you in an adversarial, combative position relative to your students, which is not where you want to be as a teacher - it can only serve to distract from your educational objectives and provides for a poor learning environment for your students.

A second problem is that I'm getting a strong feeling from reading your question that you're trying to use the quiz as a crowd control mechanism, which feels wrong to me (and partially as a result has gotten you into the current messy situation). You've devised an elaborate strategy that consists of holding a quiz at a randomly selected time during the class as a solution to the problem of making students come to class, and come on time. The problem of students coming in late may be a very real concern, but random quizzes are simply an inappropriate and ineffective way to address it (and one that can potentially be perceived quite negatively by the students).
A quiz is a form of assessment, and is a legitimate device to use for that purpose, but let's keep things in their right place: deal with the problem of disruptive late-coming students in the appropriate way, and have your assessment in the way that makes sense from an educational standpoint, whether it be quizzes, exams, homework, or even mandatory class attendance if that's important to you and your institution's policies allow it.

@DanRomik So, what about pop quizzes on the material being currently taught? They encourage students to be attentive during class. Is this also bad? Too controlling? I've had many great professors who taught me not only their subjects but also some values. Respect is one of them. It's inappropriate in my opinion to come to class late or leave it earlier on a regular basis without explaining the reason. It's inappropriate to use a cell phone when a lecturer delivers a lecture, etc. I understand there are differences in values, and different people employ different tools to promote theirs.

@Vika: Quizzing about the material being currently taught may encourage students to be attentive during class, but it also punishes (unfairly IMHO) those students who internalize the knowledge only after the class, which is likely the majority, unless the pace is very slow. Besides, Dan didn't say the quizzes should be at the beginning, only that they should know when they would happen. As for respect, your students are adults, it is not your place to teach them manners. In any event, I think it would be better to lead by example, rather than antagonize them.

And frankly, I see no problem when my students use cell phones or come in late for class, as long as they aren't too noisy (in which case I would remind them they may leave -- if they are not high schoolers...). If they don't learn something because they were busy doing something else, it's their loss. If anything, if they do that a lot, it might be my fault for not capturing their interest or setting a wrong pace. Or maybe they are simply brilliant enough that they easily get what you need to carefully explain to others. Either way, it's not my business.

@Vika I have no opinion about pop quizzes, and didn't say or imply that there was anything wrong with them. I only said you should provide clear information to the students about how and when they will be graded, and I said you shouldn't use quizzes for crowd control, but otherwise they're fine. I also didn't say that the disruptive students who come in late are not a problem - on the contrary, I acknowledged that they may be, and there's plenty of room for a discussion on how to deal with this issue. My answer may not offer all the answers for you, but I hope it is at least a bit helpful.

@tomasz Who should teach them some etiquette then? Parents? Many fail to do that. Or is it already too late and we should just give up? I am trying to explain them my perspective. Etiquette and good manners are fundamental to the sustainability of a civilized and law abiding society.

@Vika Regardless of whether they need to be taught manners or not, that's not what they're paying you to teach them. As far as pop quizzes, I would not recommend that at all, but, if you feel the need, you need to inform your students that it's a possibility beforehand. This is the same need to set clear expectations as needing to tell them that the quiz may be at any point in the period.

I agree. Students are adults and professors aren't there to teach values. You could tell them about what's considered ethical and unethical in your field (like how it's not good to submit a paper to two journals at the same time) but not how they should live their life. Because while you may call them inattentive, uncouth and rude. They may call you rigid, inflexible and petty. Either way, it's not productive. Everyone has different values. Practice acceptance. Let them know the exact time, like 10:45.

"or even mandatory class attendance if that's important to you and your institution's policies allow it" -- and if your institution's policies do not allow you to enforce mandatory class attendance by penalising grades, then the same institution won't allow you to achieve that forbidden effect using surprise examinations during classes.

@Vika Respect is always a two way street! If you want to teach them respect you should start by upholding these values on your own. Using tricks like random quizzes to penalize them like kids, doesn't treat them like peers. It is not something I would ever do in a professional environment to colleagues. All it teaches them is someone in a position with power above you can use it to enforce whatever rules they like by tricking you

I just want to voice my comment on pop quiz. Whether the quiz pops or not is not the concern, but rather if it is presented as a "low-risk assessment" (aka graded or not graded.) A quick low-risk quiz using paper or clicker technology (in-class polling) can serve to identify muddy points and let the lecturer to reinforce the weaker concepts. I would, as others have said, argue against graded pop-quizzes, they are threatening and can only help to instill extra anxiety.

It's very common to have quizzes at the start of class, and collect 5 or 10 minutes later. Just put it in the syllabus, that quizzes are on random days but will be at the beginning of class, and no makeups. If you miss it, you miss it and get a zero.

@tomasz that policy may seem fair to you, but think about the students sitting around the person using their phone or coming in late and shuffling down the isle bumping into everyone. It's very rude, and distracting. If there's a student 2 or three rows ahead, and they're just playing games on their laptop or phone, it's going to keep pulling my attention away to look at the blinking lights. I presumably paid a lot of money to attend your class - I'd prefer the professor ask these folks to leave if they insist on not paying attention.

@SnakeDoc: maybe I was too specific: obviously, noise is not the only way they can be troublesome. Other kinds of distraction are also bad. That said, I have no issue with texting or reading or doing problems for a different class. When coming it late, it is common sense to find a place to sit where you would not need everyone to leave their seats to let you take yours. I am not saying it doesn't matter what they are doing during my class -- just that it doesn't matter as long as they are not disrupting it too much.

@tomasz that's probably a fair stance. I've had professors request anyone using a laptop sit in the very back row against the wall, so as-to not distract anyone behind them (and then explicitly forbid laptop use in any other row). (just note, I was not only discussing noise, often students will watch video without volume, and that's horribly distracting to even the more attentive students).

@user230452  Having quizzes set to a very specific time like you suggest isn't always good in my opinion. Students may have questions about the material so I would prefer to answer them before the quiz and it's not always possible to day how much time that will take. So, I prefer to have some flexibility.

@user230452: a key part of the traditional liberal arts conception was that professors are indeed there to teach values such as professionalism, attendance, the value of hard work, etc.

-1 I think educating students involves also teaching them discipline and organization along with the technical material. No one's prosecuting anyone here.

@Mehrdad I respect your opinion and vote, but where in my answer did I express an opinion that educating students should not involve teaching those things?

@DanRomik: You said "The thing to keep in mind here is that you are an educator, not a prosecutor trying to entrap a criminal in court."... what I'm saying is that what the instructor is doing is part of their education, and is not a criminal prosecution. They need to learn to dance to tunes they don't like, because that's part of life.

@DanRomik: And it's a great illusion to think that students wouldn't even "imagine" arguing with you if you dot all your i's and cross all your t's. In fact I've noticed that instructors who dotted their i's and crossed their t's had to put up with a lot more BS from their students than those who assumed people had common sense, because the more they dotted their i's and crossed their t's, the more students used that as an excuse to claim anything not explicitly prohibited must be somehow okay.

@Mehrdad thanks for the feedback. There will always be some amount of BS, but an instructor who is careful about providing clear and accurate information will stand on firmer moral ground when fighting against it. Anyway, it looks like the comments section has become rather overcrowded and may be deleted or transferred to chat by a moderator soon, so there isn't room to start a lengthy debate about these issues. However if you want to write your own answer is be happy to read your take on the OP's question.

So, @Vika your argument here is that you're trying to teach them etiquette or professionalism, and the concern is for the students that are regularly late without reaching out to you to talk about why.  You want to teach them how to handle the situation appropriately, but you are not doing that.  You are punishing them for handling the situation inappropriately without teaching them the proper thing to do.  You're giving them the punctuality test without doing any reaching out of your own to make sure they've understood the material.

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@Vika In our crowded undergrad classes (450 to 500 students), if everyone explained to the teacher why he has to come late or has to leave early, there would be no time for lectures left. But then, quizzes were to be held in tutoring groups of up to 35 students, and the exact time was to be announced a week in advance.

In my opinion, yes, you are being unreasonable.
I don't know the specific regulations of your institution, but I firmly believe that attending classes should not be mandatory, and students are entitled to do self-study or otherwise learn the material without your help. They may even be forced to do so by external factors (say, other classes taking place at the same time, or a day-time job). Either way, this is no business of the teacher.
In that spirit, I think it is just unfair to do the quiz without setting the time in advance, doubly so if you have not given them any sort of heads-up, and only decided to change a set schedule after a few weeks. Moreover, given the tone of your post, it seems like this change of schedule is intentional retaliation against the students for coming in late, and again, in my opinion, this is not the right way to prevent this sort of behaviour. Even if it is not the case, I would not be surprised if they felt that way.
I see how it can create a disturbance, especially in a big class. The simplest solution I can see is to do the quizzes at a set time (preferably at the very beginning or the very end of the class), and, if you are afraid of the disturbance, make a short (2-3 minutes would be enough) break before and after the quiz so that those students who only want to take the quiz can come and go without making too big a commotion.
This way, those who actually want to attend your class can do so without much of a hassle, while those who don't or can't will have a predictable schedule. As an added bonus, it makes for fewer students who would not be paying attention.
If late arrivals are still a concern even after that, you can try to simply explain, politely, how big a problem that is -- assuming that it is indeed such a big problem -- are a few people arriving late to take the back seats really a big deal? I am in no position to judge that, obviously, but if the only thing that suffers because of that is your pride, perhaps you should just swallow it.
If that fails as well, you may follow @DaveRose's suggestion and just keep the doors locked except during the test (after giving them a heads-up in advance). In my opinion, this is still excessive, but as long as it is completely clear to everyone involved, I guess it is an acceptable policy, if at all allowed/possible.

As a side comment, in this year, I've been asked to teach high school students instead of undergrads. The absolute worst part of the experience is probably the fact that attendance is mandatory, and I can't kick out those who are not paying attention.

I think at a lot of institutions locking the doors is not something instructors are physically allowed/capable of doing (in either direction).

@DanielR.Collins: Well, then I see no effective remedy other than simply asking politely, explaining how much of a problem it is (if it is indeed that much of a problem). In hindsight, maybe I should add this to my answer.

@DanielR.Collins: By the way, in my institute, half the classrooms are locked and the lecturer has to unlock them, including all the large ones. This is because apparently, there were some incidents of theft of overhead projectors.

IFC/IBC and OSHA compliance would dictate that fire route egress door may be locked from outside entry but must at all times allow for the exit of occupants with no special tools or knowledge. If your doors can't accomplish this they cannot be locked. Most institutions should have doors that are capable of this style of locking, however. IFC/IBC 1008.1.8 and OSHA 1910.36(d)(1)

Either way, this is no business of the teacher - If they just learn by self study, you are not their teacher.  Self study is great, but providing structure to students who need it is well within the role of being a teacher.  I think the importance of attendance depends a lot on the class and the student.

@Kimball: The way I see it, the point of having classes is twofold: to teach the students, and to verify whether they have learned. Being taught is either a service or a privilege, but either way, anyone is free to give it up, and it doesn't mean that they don't have the skills to be tested. I imagine it might be an issue if someone does not pay attention during the class or doesn't attend without any good reason, and then comes to office hours for you to teach him - in this case, he is clearly wasting your time. Otherwise, it is really up to the student to decide the importance of attendance.

@tomasz There was no "set schedule". They are future mathematicians by the way. They have to realize that having something happening 3 times at a certain time doesn't mean that it will always be happening at that time unless it's written somewhere :).

@tomasz it's in the policy of my school that "The University is committed to a culture of academic engagement between students and faculty. Part of this commitment involves taking responsibility for attending classes and exams, and informing instructors when you cannot attend." Students have an option to learn the subject by themselves and take a "proficiency test" in order to get credit.

@Vika: A mathematician ought to know that just because something is written somewhere doesn't mean it is necessarily true (for example, not every analytic set is Borel and not every limit of continuous functions is continuous). As I have said, I have had no knowledge of the policies of your school, and I am merely saying what (to me) is common sense. So in my opinion this policy is wrong, which is not to say that you can't enforce it - I'm not  talking about legality.

In any event, I think the burden of informing in advance is much greater on the part of the instructor than on the part of the students. Rules like times of quizzes and the like should be made clear in advance, particularly in a very large class.

@Vika Again, students can have very legitimate reasons to miss class. I have a circadian rhythm disorder, and missed about half my lectures in college because I was asleep. I did what I had to do to make it to classes I needed to get to, but if the instructor doesn't give me the information to make that decision, how am I supposed to know that I need to get to this particular lecture at this particular time, even if I've only had 20 minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours?

Ever seen language course requirements?  Attendance is (extremely) mandatory in those, to my experience.  Which is very reasonable in my opinion: part of the course evaluation is on your ability to utilize the language in conversation, which is most easily done during allotted course time.  Similarly, most any science course with a lab attached has an essentially mandatory attendance for the lab, which is again imminently sensible.

@zibadawatimmy I work at a place that accommodates my condition, because any employer worth a damn is going to give a rat's patootie about their employees' medical conditions. If they didn't, I would have to take addictive prescription medicine. The vast majority of college classes don't require attendance, and if they do then of course the student needs to have a conversation with the professor after the professor relates this requirement. The asker is clearly not requiring attendance in their class, or I expect they would have mentioned it.

@zibadawatimmy: Sure, if attendance is required to be properly evaluated, then the students ought to come. What I am saying is that the parts which are not included in the evaluation process should not be required of a student. Attendance itself should have no bearing on the grade (unlike, say, active participation).

@DCShannon I would tell your instructor about possible accommodations if you have health issues.

@Vika Yes, but a student wouldn't do that if they have no reason to think that they need accommodations. Hence the need for clear expectations.

Either attendance in lectures is a required and graded component of the course or it isn't.  If it is, then make sure everyone is aware of this, take attendance, and deduct grades from students who are late or absent.  If it is not, then simply do not expect students to be present during your lectures.  If there are lateness issues or if students coming late are disruptive then deal with this on its own merits.  It should have no bearing on when you schedule formal evaluations.
Frankly, giving students grades in a course simply for being present at a lecture (or deducting them for being absent) sounds insane to me.  It's easy to show up to a lecture and learn nothing.  It's also easy to not show up to a lecture and learn everything.
This isn't elementary school - the primary purpose of a higher-education course is to provide to the student an objective, quantifed, and certified evaluation of their competence concerning the material in scope.  Lectures are one of several services provided to assist students to that end, but they are just that - a means to an end.
If there are graded tests, quizzes, examinations, etc, you have a professional responsibility to let your students know in advance where and when they need to be to take that test.  How else can you expect them to organize their time?!
In most higher education I've ever seen, attendance at lectures is strictly optional.  Your lectures are there as a service to the students who feel that they help them learn the course material.  Many students do not.  Lectures consume a considerable amount of time and, quite often, are paced so slowly that for some they constitute an inefficient use of time.  For those who can teach themselves the material covered in a lecture in much less time, forcing them to attend is nothing short of forcing them to waste their time.
Playing ridiculous games of bait and switch with randomly timed tests feels rather unprofessional.  Your students are adults - treat them as such.

Wish I could give this more upvotes.

Did you read my post? It looks like you didn't. Having graded quizzes is listed in the syllabus. Students also know that there are no make-ups if they missed them. It isn't stated that quizzes are at a specific time, just on which day of the week. If they are not there to write their quiz when everybody else is writing it, is that really my problem or theirs?

@Vika All I'm saying is that there will be students who will find more productive uses of their time than attending your lectures.  If there are formal evaluations that they must be present for you should tell them where and when it will be in advance.  If you insist on doing this randomly at some point during the lecture it should at least be clear so that students can arrange to be there. Assuming that students will be there, failing to set a clear schedule, and then changing the routine you establish without notice is just inconsiderate. You're making people guess and that is frustrating.

Could you state which country your experience is in? I am aware of some academic cultures that might view lectures as completely optional - but certainly not all.

@OswaldVeblen Canada, UK, primarily, but also incidentally in other places as well.  I'm willing to accept that some cultures may be different, but all culture aside, it is not even logical that lecture attendance should have a bearing on grades.  Managing to successfully sit in a chair for an appointed duration hardly seems like the stuff of merit...

+1 for this.  If you want the grade to be based on attendance, then just say in your syllabus that you grade on attendance.  If you want to quiz the students, then tell them when the quizzes will be.  If you insist on a pop-quiz, there's no reason that quiz needs to be at the beginning of the lecture.

@J... - many people would consider it logical that attendance would have a bearing on grades. I am personally mostly ambivalent about the benefit of counting attendance directly towards the grade. On the one hand, some research shows that students who attend more do better on average. On the other hand, it is not clear that attendance causes the higher grades, and some research suggests that mandatory attendance polices don't really raise the average grade. Still, I know many of my colleagues do require attendance. I think this is even more common in discussion-format courses.

@OswaldVeblen Discussion format is clearly different, I'll grant.  OP made reference to "a large lecture hall" - this is a rather typical sit-and-listen type of environment, I'm sure. And yes, for many students, attendance likely benefits their grades as the time is productively spent learning from the lecturer. That's not the point, nor can it be said to be universally true. The grade should reflect what they have learned, not the circumstances in which they learned it. If punctuality and schedule management are considered for the grade then the instructor needs to make clear what that means.

@J...  The when is "during the normally allotted course time" and the where is "in the normally reserved room".  The advanced notice is "this was in the syllabus given to you at the beginning of the course".  A teacher isn't required to give you a minute-by-minute breakdown of every result, example, or discussion topic for every lecture in advance.  It is implicit (and these days, very explicitly stated, due to litigious cultures) that the exact time/day and order of things will vary depending on innumerable uncontrollable factors. Why this belief that quiz times are set in stone, then?

@stacey It's a perfectly valid and relevant point - surely for some the lecture format is not ideal for other reasons, namely because they pace too quickly for some peoples' learning style.  Studying on your own or in a group where you pace things more slowly may actually be a better use of time and, I'm sure, there are students who also forego lectures to study more effectively in this way.  The lecture format, at any rate, is not universally an ideal learning tool for a variety of reasons.

In the US about 10-15% of my college courses required attendance in lectures. Invariably I found those courses to be led by poor professors. I imagine that in requiring attendance they were trying to paper over one symptom of their own inadequacy. Conversely, I can't remember ever being required to attend a lecture given by a professor I regarded as good.

While I agree with the substance, I think the tone of this post is unduly harsh. The OPs question clearly shows that he cares about being fair to his students.

@JørgenFogh He established a pattern for his class and then deliberately broke that pattern to "catch" people he felt were coming only for the quiz at the end.  That's a rather poor way for an educator to act, doubly so at this level.

Perhaps so. However, he also just asked a question about how to be fair to his students. This shows a) he cares about doing the right thing and b) he is willing to change unreasonable practices.

@JørgenFogh  That's fair.  I've taken the edge off.

I agree with the gist of this (+1) but the suggestion that higher education is primarily about receiving some evaluation (rather than training) sounds a bit cynical to me.

@henning It is cynical.  That doesn't make it wrong. ;)

My only concern about what you've done is how clearly the policy of "the quiz can happen at any time" was articulated. If you've not said that explicitly at some point, I would show a little bit of leeway—but not much. Students who are regularly tardy for class do impede the learning process for everyone, and therefore I don't have much sympathy for their claims.
What I would do in this case is let those students know that this bad grade will count against their allocation of dropped quizzes, but that in the future the quiz can occur at any point in class, and that there will be no prior announcement if the quiz will take place at the beginning or end of class.

the policy of "the quiz can happen at any time" was not articulated at all. Coming from a different country I didn't feel like I have to explain this.

@Vika As a US graduate, what I've come to determine is that students will expect to know everything they should expect for the course from start to finish from the course syllabus. Surprises are frowned upon, and it results in a shock upon transition into graduate school.

Students coming late for class only impede the class if they're loud, which is independent of coming in late, or if the teacher interrupts class to complain about it, which happens far too often.

@CMosychuk The syllabus isn't set in graduate school ? I ask because I plan on going to U.S. For grad school.

Students who are regularly tardy for class do impede the learning process for everyone — how?

This answer literally makes no sense to me. How are people being late, or even missing classes impeding on everyone's learning process? Also, what is the point of these quizzes? Demonstrating your ability to harass students?

@user230452, if all you do is take classes in graduate school, then the syllabus is often set. Some times very advanced classes can be more ad-hoc. That said, if you plan on doing research and writing a thesis, there is no syllabus for research.

Students coming late to class interfere with the learning process for everyone only if either: (1) They disturb the class by coming late (could be that the entrance door is by the blackboard, that they're noisy, etc.) (2) If the class is much interactive (think collaborative sessions, like theatre, but even maths, if you use to give the students a bunch or exercises and then crawl around them, helping to whoever needs it; late students then eat your time); however, this is not the case for lectures.

@Davor Students who come late disrupt my learning by opening the door (which is not a silent process) and climbing over me to get to the empty seats in the back. Students who miss class disrupt my learning by asking questions that were adequately answered in the lecture(s) they missed.

@Vika: unfortunately, in the U.S. at least, it is necessary to specify many things in the syllabus that "should" not need to be mentioned.  It is also unfortunate that this is often the most useful defense against unreasonable students - to point out that the syllabus already addresses their complaint. In an ideal world, perhaps this would not be needed, but as things stand the path of least resistance is often a detailed syllabus.

Unless there's some institutional policy against it, then you're well within your rights and you're fine. The fact that some quizzes get dropped give you additional buffer in this regard.
In the future you can consider refining your syllabus by mentioning "quizzes can happen at any time during the class meeting". That would give you a third layer of authorization/documentation for that fact, if it's something that students are disputing.
Edit: Here's some supporting documentation on the issue.
In Washington State, this issue rose to the level of asking for input from the State Attorney General on the advisability and legality of attendance and related grading policies. The 1989 advice was somewhat restrictive on faculty (suggested not penalizing grades until attendance was below 80%). The 1992 and 1996 guidance was relatively more empowering to instructors, in permitting dropping students from a course for not attending in the first two days, and recognizing faculty authority to set attendance policies.

[1992] ... faculty members should be free to adopt the attendance
  policy as they choose. Some faculty members may feel that a mandatory
  attendance policy interferes with their academic freedom. By allowing
  them to accept or reject the school's policy, this concern should be
  obviated.
[1996]... it is not discriminatory to reduce student grades for
  noncompliance with a standard of attendance, "provided that students
  are given advance notice of the policy; that the instructor applies
  the policy evenly to all students; and the instructor is reasonable in
  his/her application of the policy by allowing excused absences for
  good cause."

Some research in 2013 found overall increased results from having daily quizzes in a large lecture class, and considered increased attendance to be a desirable side effect. Note that while grades went up, students still complained about the practice. (A point that Daniel Willingham has made in the past; students usually dislike the style of pedagogy that they learn the most from.)

Most students hated it at first, Dr. Pennebaker said. “Sam and I
  usually get really high course evaluations” from the students, he
  said; “these were the lowest ever.”...
By the end of the course, however, the class had outperformed a
  previous Psych 301 class of 935 students that used midterm exams —
  scoring 10 percent higher on a subset of 17 questions that appeared on
  both classes’ tests. The quizzed group also got slightly higher
  grades, the study found.

Minnesota State's review of research on the topic found that class attendance was the most valuable of all time that students spent interacting with course materials, and correlated well with final grades. Item #4 on their list of "Conclusions and Recommendations" for the university was:

Certain course practices can be used to encourage attendance. Testing
  extensively from material presented in class rather than material from
  the text can encourage better attendance. The use of in-class quizzes
  and other exercises will reward attendance.

Will do that in the future for sure.

I grew up in what in the U.S. would be called a ghetto. Respect is a word and value that matters to you a lot there, and you go out of your way to retaliate to perceived slights. I had to dissuade a very intelligent and educated and caring friend with a similar background from filling the convertible of someone who had been hostile to him with sand, decades after leaving the ghetto. You are unlikely to go that far, but you used a quiz to teach those who didn't respect you a lesson.
It can be hard to lose that attitude, no matter where and how far you go in life; but it's very destructive for your own mental health. Some people are perennially late (certainly among mathematicians I know), but they don't "disrespect you." They're just late, that's all. Maybe it's cultural (despite the country's reputation to the contrary, people of my home country quite frequently are), maybe it's because they couldn't make it despite best efforts, or maybe it's just the way they are.
For your own success and happiness, try to work on learning to not relate other people's actions to you when they are not clearly targeting you (e.g., you don't have to put up with rude talkers). I suggest you mention in class that you appreciate reasonable punctuality, but if people don't follow suit, set a fixed time for quizzes, and shrug.

If the quiz is to test the students' academic abilities rather than their alarm clocks, then you should hold it during the last 15mins.

Being able to arrive on time is an academic ability too...

@MassimoOrtolano A very rare academic ability indeed.

@MassimoOrtolano - no, it literally has nothing to do with academia.

@Davor Many students deem this and other qualities unrelated to their academic abilities, and then they wonder why they can't get stellar recommendation letters, a position in a certain group etc. Guess why?

@MassimoOrtolano - because other things besides pure academic ability affect your employability? Do you consider not being a raging racist to be academic ability? Eating your food every day? Everything that can mess up your career?

@MassimoOrtolano Being able to arrive on time is an academic ability — [citation needed]

@JeffE Probably you're not involved in team work like experiments, otherwise you wouldn't need citations...

@MassimoOrtolano Getting the assigned teamwork done well and on time is an academic ability.  That does not imply that the good habits that support that ability—for example, showing up on time, showing up with a working pen, showing up sober, not harassing your teammates, sleeping the night before, wearing sufficiently warm clothes in the winter, eating well, getting enough exercise, and having a sense of humor—are themselves academic activities.

@JeffE I'm not talking of "assigned teamwork". If you have, e.g., one week to run a certain set of experiments, because then the equipment should be send to another lab, then all the team members should arrive on time every morning, because showing up late would mean spoiling the work of an entire group. So, yes, for me showing up on time is an academic ability.

@Massimo Ortolano, an important aspect of group activity is dealing with unexpected / unplanned events, lack of engagement by individuals, etc. The assessment scheme should be robust enough to handle these cases. However, this discussion is on a bit of a tangent, as the OP's question referred to a quiz, not group work. In regard to the quiz, it did seem as if this became a punishment rather than an assessment.

You are NOT being unreasonable. You never said the quiz would be at the end and I assume none of those students asked you if the quiz was going to always be at the end. You just need to clearly answer you never implied that the quiz was going to be at the end, that lowest scores will be dropped, and that if they have questions they should ask in advance, not complain later. Also, make sure they understand that they are responsible for doing well, and they cannot blame you for giving a quiz DURING class. Add that you do expect attendance, if that is important for you. Whether or not that is important for other teachers or the students it is irrelevant, YOU are giving that course and only you should decide what you want to expect from students.

Time for a little story?
I was teaching in a foreign country for a class with 55 students. Around 20 of them felt being gangster and they came like 15 minutes late. So calmly next week I closed the damn doors. So "gangsters" came late, and start knocking on the door, and the on time students start laughing. I repeatedly did the same and the number of "gangsters" dropped to none around week 4 or 5.
Note: Doors were closed but not locked.

Umm. That's a fire hazard, dude.

I took this story to mean that the doors had a press bar that opened the door from the inside, but was locked from the outside. It's a common design in the US. I don't see a fire hazard in this case.

Closing the doors is not something that can be done everywhere, and actually I'm wondering in how many countries this would be allowed. For instance in my country room doors cannot be locked from the inside and anyway professors usually don't have the keys: rooms are opened in the morning by the janitors and closed at night.

In the USA, these doors as @neontapir said, are usually push-to-open from inside, and the permanent unlocking action is achieved by use of a standard Alan Wrench. So typically, given this type of door, the Prof needs no key, but only an Alan wrench to lock the door to late students, while leaving on-time students free to escape.

@neontapir this is off-topic, but "fire hazard" in a U.S. context can also mean a more general "emergency hazard", which these days would (sadly) include things like an active shooter incident. Locking the doors from inside, even with a metal bar allowing rapid egress, may be perceived as a very problematic thing to do from the point of view of such generalized emergency situations.

I'd be asking you to pay back my massive tuition fees, and threatening with a lawsuit.

@Davor I would be completely supportive of your right to file a lawsuit, and I would look forward to our day in court.

@JeffE - yep, that is exactly the entitled and arrogant attitude of some academics that gives everyone a bad name.

I personally believe this drastically depends on what country you are based in and also what your Universities culture is like?
Coming from the U.K. and from my past experiences (though I graduated a few years ago now) The University set out a clear lecture structure timetable at the start of each semester and as students we were obliged to attend those lectures, and tutorials, at that specific time. This, as well as other University obligations were disclosed to us in a students handbook at the start of the year. Whether you hold the quiz at the start middle or end of the class does not matter and is entirely up to you, as long as you hold it within the planned time slot for that lecture I don't see how any student has the right to complain?
Perhaps in other countries, and quite possibly even other UK Universities, students obligations are not so stringent when it comes to attendance and punctuality and there could be many good reasons for this. Certainly in my University it was important and the way our lectures were structured, I fully understand this and completely agree. Do you have any (specific to your university) student handbooks or official guidelines which contain details of any obligations or suggestions around attendance and punctuality for students, that you could refer to to support you?
I understand that some have opinions around students flexibility, for those who undertake in part time work to support their studies for example, but I strongly believe that if a student is struggling to be on time for classes due to part time work then he or she needs to have a discussion with the lecturer and/or a student liaison to discuss the best course of action (if any is required).

I am currently in the US. They have so called "syllabus". In the syllabus it's stated that every week, on a specific day the students have a quiz in class.

I agree with this. Coming from the UK, to me it seems that the students are pushing boundaries for no good reason. They have been told that the class will contain a test, and it is their job to show up on time. However, I think this probably isn't an issue that is worth the battle.

Since this is an undergrad class, take a few minutes the next session and explain why we show the "politeness of kings" by being on time for a class and committing to stay until the end. You are not a TV show. I sometimes will stop talking entirely when latecomers enter, and wait until they are settled. This so irritates those who were on time, they let the latecomers know that they are being disruptive. Peer pressure is much more effective!

As a recently graduated student, I disagree. Students showing up late is only minimally disruptive to their peers, while the professor stopping is extremely disruptive to the entire class, and in my opinion unprofessional.

Peer pressure is much more effective! Highly depends on the culture. Also from my point of view as a student extremely cowardly from the professor's side. What am I supposed to do to those who are being troublesome? Break their bones? Find where they live and toss a brick through their window? Unless there is an established legal method for peers to provide pressure, don't try to assume that it can be effective.

I can't imagine a course in the undergraduate or graduate level where I would be anything but annoyed at the professor for an action like you suggest. The only time I've seen peer pressure work with a late or repeatedly absent student is when group work is required (so the grade depends on the late person) - even than I've seen groups just do that person's portion of the work in order to pass (not saying that is right)

The only peer pressure I ever use is if students talk so loudly that I would have to raise my voice, I lower it and get the others to shush them. I do not see that I have to lose my voice because someone wants to have a chat. But, other than that, I do not see any justification for peer pressure.

The main reason students coming in late disrupts class is because of professors who stop what they're doing when it happens. This is creating the problem, not solving it.

And the poor girl, coming back from a short toilet-break will probably hate you for the rest of her life, because you stopped the lecture to embarrass her in front of the class for the big disruption of leaving/entering the room to take a leak...

Falco, I assume that at college age students have control over their bladders. DCShannon, my stopping talking does not create the problem -- it's the latecomers. AndreajaKo, why not ask your peers why they come so late? You can also point out that it disturbs the entire class, you don't have to resort to violence.

@DeboraWeber-Wulff: I think what you do makes sense for habitual late-comers, but not for those who had legitimate reasons. Imagine (for example) a student having a medical appointment and having to be late to a lecture sometime. Or having a meeting with someone that you had no control over (e.g. organization president meets department) and which overflowed into lecture time. It's awful to get embarrassed like that, and I'd hate if you did that to me. But if I was habitually late and then you did that, I'd feel ashamed and make darn sure I never did that again.

In my experience as an undergraduate student, someone entering the class late is a 5-second distraction. The professor stopping the class to point it out sticks out as a distraction for far longer in many students' minds. I think you're not giving students enough credit if you believe their attention is so easily broken.

@DeboraWeber-Wulff DCShannon, my stopping talking does not create the problem -- it's the latecomers. — Oh, come on.  You are in a position of authority; the students are not.  Your actions have significantly more impact than any student.  In particular, your decision to interrupt class is far more distracting to the majority of students who are paying respectful attention than a student's decision to enter the room late.

@JeffE, there is also the slight problem that constant opening and shutting of the door interrupts MY thought processes. I am not a movie that can be put on hold while you are out getting a beer. I plan an introduction to the topic, have a structure for the class and a planned ending. Both students coming late and leaving early disturb me - and others.

Some answers to this question have been amazingly different than others.  Clearly this issue demonstrates a deep split in culture, with most answers seeming to support students being permitted to make their own decisions.
The opposing view is that students do not have a "right" to be late, and there is no reason to honor that.  For instance, tomasz's comment, "Either way, this is no business of the teacher."
That stance seems to not take into account that different teachers have different requirements, and it very well may be the business of the teacher.  At the college where I had my first job, the college made a commitment to train students a certain number of hours, and there were major financial repercussions if students were absent.  The college imposed rules on teachers, so attendance absolutely was the teacher's business.
I was also trained to use quizzes to effectively motivate attendance.  Always pop a quiz if attendance was low.  It could be a simple quiz, like "is it sunny outside today?" (in a windowed classroom).
We were, interestingly, forbidden from grading based on attendance.  However, our grading methods were required to consider things like attitude and professionalism, and we could certainly use quizzes.
Since this was impressed upon me by my department chair (who was involved in hiring me), and later on by the new president of the college, it certainly wasn't unreasonable for me, as an employee, to follow the instructions provided by my supervisors.
Regarding the question poster (Vika)'s comment about dropping the lowest quizzes, these quizzes could simply be in a different category.
Regarding the comment by "J...", "This isn't elementary school - the primary purpose of a higher-education course is to provide to the student an objective, quantifed, and certified evaluation of their competence concerning the material in scope."  If that is your goal, then using quizzes to track attendance is wrong.  However, if your goal is to train people, preparing them to be ready to be useful members of a productive workforce, then abusing quizzes in this way is a way to achieve those means.  Some people will not appreciate the approach's harshness, but this type of method may be more effective at achieving the ultimate aim.  So, the desired goal may be a worthy consideration, and the answer might be different among different educational institutions.
Letting people know what to expect is a great idea for multiple reasons.  One is because some people may feel entitled to sufficient warning, and I think that some legal actions (court cases) may back up that attitude.  Another reason is to do the decent humanitarian thing.  In America where I'm at, many of the young people are genuinely so unfamiliar with the expectations of older professional culture that the ideas seem unreasonable, which I've determined from reading numerous public postings on websites.  The humanitarian thing is to, at very minimum, make sure that you close the cultural gap in a way that is clearly fair, by making sure that expectations are clearly communicated.  Let people know things in writing, so that if anyone does come late, then they can see the note on the syllabus even if they miss in-class comments.
Once you let them know, then it's fair game (which is my concise answer, in case that wasn't clear among the other commentary).  The instructor (and certainly not the students) should have control over how the class sessions operate.  They (the students) might not like you (the teacher) doing things like scoring based on attendance.  Heck, for that matter, even you (the teacher) might not like doing such things.  However, in the interests of achieving the ultimate goal, demonstrating successful application of authority may be worth the discomfort of the students, and even yourself.  Sometimes a good person simply has to do what's right, even when it isn't very pleasant (for them, or for you).

If your institution has a good LMS like Canvas, consider offering the quiz online.  You'll want to make sure it's (1) reasonably timed, (2) ensured to close within a reasonable time frame, and (3) the grade and answers to questions don't become available until the quiz closes.
So say 10-15 questions, 15min limit, ~48hr to complete. You'd basically let them know at the end of the relevant lecture that the quiz will be open after class until the start of the next lecture, or what have you.
If this isn't possible, you do need to clearly state your intentions regardless if it's reasonable or not because especially undergrad students, they take advantage of a lot of the leeway they get and fall into habits (sometimes it's bad habits, we get it). The effect of being ambiguous is they're going to reluctantly accept that failure and learn from it, or they're just going to give you a bad rating as an instructor.

I think it's one of the system's weak points that instructors actually care about their rankings. Eventually this leads to the situation when students behave as the ones who set up rules, not instructors. Evaluations are useful to get feedback, but quite misleading as well. There are too many instructors in my school with perfect "5/5" due to being "nice, funny and easy" and some excellent educators with much worse rankings. I do care about my teaching. But as I am quite strict with my students, my evaluations usually fall into two categories: excellent (overwhelming majority) and really bad.

The point of quizzes is that we have them in class. Take-home quizzes usually don't demonstrate what students really know.

I think that this is a hurdle your students are going to need to learn how to jump, then. No foul on you, it's poor habits on the student's part. There is an impact being late for any obligation. A good policy I've seen: Tell them that you will have a quiz on [day], and that late students will have until the first student completes and submits their quiz to show up, otherwise they will not be allowed to take it.

Eventually this leads to the situation when students behave as the ones who set up rules, not instructors. — Speaking as someone with both very specific and moderately unpopular rules and high teaching evaluations: [citation needed]

Part of the inherent agreement of a class is that the student attends during the time of the class and fulfills all learning obligations determined by the instructor. In return the student receives the benefit and gain of knowledge as specified by the class. The students who do not attend the entire class abrogate this contract and therefore have no claim when they are not present for the quiz.
This is reflected also in real life and should also be viewed as one of the added instructions a student receives that adds up to far more than the classroom instruction.
Simply tell your students that you will give half the quiz at the beginning of the period and half at the end!! This should absolve you from any misunderstanding or claims of unfairness.
For those of you who may have misunderstood the penultimate paragraph I mean that if a quiz is 10 questions, 5 are to be posed at the beginning of class and 5 at the end!

One concern of this: "half the quiz at the beginning of the period and half at the end!!" -- that sounds neat.  Until I think about it enough to realize that's really not any different than giving two quizzes in one day.  You could just say you're giving two quizzes every day.  Once students figure this out, they may despise the unnecessary confusion of the word games even more than the quizzes.

I drop quite a lot of lowest quiz grades at the end of the semester to
  meet those cases when students do have to be absent. So, a good
  student's grade won't be affected if he or she will miss a couple of
  quizzes.

I assume they don't know that yet.
Concede that you were wrong not to tell them in advance about the time.
Then tell them that because of this, at the end of the course, you will allow everyone to drop that grade (or if they elect to keep that particular grade, that you'll allow them to drop a different quiz grade of their choosing).

Why make it complicated? Just tell them you'll drop the lowest x grades and don't let their choices enter into it at all. Any reasonable person would pick the lowest grades anyway.

@StephanBranczyk They know the policy about dropping lowest grades. It's on the syllabus.

They know the policy about dropping lowest grades. It's on the syllabus. — Alas, the first sentence does not follow from the second.

I'd like to have you see yourself through the eyes of the student. The student may or may not know all about your classes and about all the things you're teaching. So I can imagine why they would want to stay away from your classes as it doesn't seem to be introducing anything new to them. However at the same time they still need to "prove" that they possess the skills and competences needed to complete the course. And that's where the tests, essays, papers, and other stuff come into play.
Now that see the great outline we can look a bit deeper into what a student would do in class if they are forced to attend. They will get in class, listen to whatever you're explaining and then get bored as they already know the material (This obviously doesn't go for everyone). There was a good picture I read saw before that pictured this in an entertaining way. Here : http://oddlydevelopedtypes.com/content/potential
What a school should want to do is assess the student based on their skills and competences. This is also where things get a bit complicated, depending on the school you will want to have the student be very independent. If the school wants to encourage students being independent, you'd want to give them the option to just show up for the tests and then get out. If they fail, then they themselves are to blame for it as they have had ample opportunity to get help if needed.
However, in order to do this, they need to know when the tests are. Is it the responsibility of the teacher to tell the students when these tests are "exactly"? No. The student is responsible for their classes and made the unjust assumption that the tests would be at the end of the classes. The kicker here being that they made an "assumption". The first thing you should learn is to NEVER take assumptions if you can help it. These students should have "ASKED" you when those tests would be held. I believe they had not done this. As a teacher you can expect a student to attend your whole class unless the student indicates otherwise.
If a student wants to not attend classes and just take tests. I don't see much of a problem. However it should still be the student's responsibility to ASK.
If a student wants to take responsibility of their own time allocation, then they should take FULL responsibility for it. Not half-ass this and then point fingers towards the teacher when they themselves don't plan their time correctly.
Also, this is coming from a student, Not a teacher. And as a student I feel you're being taken advantage of if these students can get away with something like this.

Students who are late should be allowed to start late, and take the quiz at a disadvantage. (The quiz ends at a certain time but no one says that you have to start on time.)
Students who are absent should be excused if they have a reasonable excuse, such as illness or death in the family. They should fail if they have no reasonable excuse for being absent.

Why should this be allowed?  The word "should" causes the statement to have an ethical slant.  I had a college president describe how he implemented college-wide policy (at another location) to have all doors be locked at class start time.  Students who were late would get an absence.  This quickly led to fewer instances of students entering late, which distracts other people (who may be taking a quiz).  I'm not saying whether this example was the best approach, but am showing an actual other perspective that was done.  Why should students have a right to cause such distraction?


text:
Am I being dishonest with my advisor by not being open about my future goals?
At my undergrad I was living only with research in my mind. I had great professors and I did very well academically, maybe overperformed is the right word. Then I did Master's also decently. I didn't have a single doubt that I want to squeeze everything from myself to get a shot at being a professor and doing research all the time in the future. Starting with phD my interests started scattering, not professionally but just my curiosity went hungry at other disciplines (that I'm not ready to seek professionally just as a hobby). It's good to have hobbies but intellectual energy is very limited so I started doing less research. More and more often I doubt if I want to stay in academia. Maybe I should try industry after phD.
I'm still doing good with my phD, my advisor is very helpful and eager to get me to postdoc. And this is a problem. Because I don't exclude academia I don't mention to him that I'm doubtful. If I share my doubts, I will get less support and will not have as good chances in academia after phD. But by not sharing my doubts I'm knowingly misleading my advisor, since my background and current position (and SoP from 3 years ago) assert that I'm a research person. My advisor's time and energy are also limited so this information would definitely clear up things in a long term for him.
Is it ethical in academia (mathematics) to not speak up about your future plans or concerns? I know that staying silent is selfish and beneficial. But somehow for the greater good of a community I feel sharing it even though it could jeopardize my postdoc. We have very good human relationship with my advisor and this puts an additional pressure.
Am I overthinking it?

When I did my PhD I had no doubt in my mind that after my PhD I intended to go into industry. Why would I try to hide that from anyone? Not that my supervisor cared one way or the other.

@MichaelKay I'm glad you had a supportive supervisor. But PhD supervisors can and sometimes do treat students differently when they reveal that they are not interested in remaining in academia after graduation. Presumably, this what OP is trying to avoid.

I'd only answer if directly asked.  Don't make any lying or misleading comments, however.  This could go a number of ways, but you want to make sure you get your PhD and any needed support (e.g. RA work, etc.) until then.

There is nothing unethical or wrong about your feelings, nor about any action you take or don't take in deciding to speak to the advisor or not or in your career choices. Your life is your own. It isn't even particularly unusual to have doubts along the way.
However, I suggest that you do talk to your advisor, and perhaps other professors, about your future options. They may have some interesting and helpful things for you to consider. They may have had similar feelings in their own past. You aren't on a treadmill.
As an undergraduate there was another math student with a tremendous potential in my department. He wound up as a musician, not a mathematician, and maintained a strong relationship with our mutual mentor and professor.
Of course, you should first make a judgement about their personality. There are some who it might not be best to discuss doubts. But if they are ethical then there should be no negative repercussions about your future. You may need help to work through doubts. You may need help to find an alternate path. Worry about it isn't as likely to make progress as speaking to someone experienced.

"There is nothing unethical or wrong about ... any action you take or don't take." This is obviously not true. And even if we are only talking about career choice, there is such a thing as wasting your talents. But I agree that PhD students do not have an obligation to choose a career in academia.

@toby544, edited to clarify.

Note that the OP seems to be actively "knowingly misleading" the advisor and letting them think the OP will be pursuing a post doc when they seem increasingly sure they won't actually do so. That is both dishonest and unethical. Choosing not to share is one thing, it is indeed the OP's life. However, sharing, but choosing to share misleading information is a very different thing.

@terdon I'm not sure that I won't do postdoc. Some days it feels 90/10 pro-academia. Some days it feels 30/70 pro-industry.

@toby544 their talents are theirs to 'waste', nothing unethical about that. Nobody is entitled to the fruits of another persons endeavors, with no entitlement should come no expectation, and from that it should follow that there is no ethical bearing on the matter. Even from a strictly utilitarian perspective, you cannot determine whether or not there is more "greater good" that follows from 'wasting' ones talents, other talents with more societal value might surface.

@hallundbæk I don't agree with that at all. I think we have responsibilities towards each other.

"Honesty" is not the same thing as uninhibited openness. It means you should not actively say things that are untrue; it does not mean you have to say every possible thing you can. For example, being an honest PhD student does not mean you have to tell your advisor your favourite music, your email password, or what you had for lunch.
Thus, there are other standards that you use to determine what you do tell your advisor, and in this case, you should be thinking about what you'd like your supervisor to do. That is:

List all the options you are considering post-PhD -- and the likelihood of each.
For each option, write down what you think your advisor must or can do to help you, and how long each action will take. Do you need:

Introductions?
Letters of recommendation?
Help exploring new fields?

Now you know exactly what to tell your advisor: everything they need to know so that they can help you in your future career path. All the best!

Honesty is not the same as saying truths. You can even say truth and be dishonest in it. (I.e. - are you cheating on me? - haha, yeah, of course sarcastically). Here, second character tells a truth, but dishonestly.
I believe that the best definition of honesty is doing your best not to mislead on purpose. But you are right that it doesn't imply telling everything you can.

In short:
yes, to both questions (title and end of your question).

Short but not so short:

share openly your doubts with your advisor.
no one cares what you have been, not even if you were the bright bachelor star, not even if you could have been the next Erdős. Life is too short, especially to carry the not-existing burden of not fullfilling your math potential. So stop caring about it yourself ;)

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text:
Is it a cheating if I used a formula I found online in homework without citing the course (math class)?
A student used a formula in math homework that they found online. They didn't cite the source.
The formula wasn't covered in the class and the method is different from what was covered in the class. The student didn't provide the derivation of the formula and couldn't explain why the formula is valid. They admitted they found it online.
Is this considered cheating? This is in the US undergraduate institution. The syllabus says "You are not allowed to search for specific homework questions parts online".
I believe the situation is not the same as in Is it fair to use techniques I found on the web to solve my assignment?
because the student doesn't understand where the formulas came from.

Rules and expectations differ. It is a local question.

I edited the post. I believe the situation is different.

The title says "Is it a cheating if I used a formula", the body refers to "A student". While I understand some interest in ambiguity to try to answer a general question, I don't think it's an usefully answerable one. What is and is not cheating is very dependent on context. In many cases its up to the instructor to determine. Are you an instructor looking for help on how to decide what is and isn't cheating in your class? Are you a student trying to interpret your instructor's guidelines? If so, why not ask your instructor?

Also possibly relevant: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem

Researching different method rather than regurgitating lecture method: +15 marks. Not being able to explain: -5 marks. Not knowing why it works: -5 marks. Not citing the method: if it is considered general knowledge - no cheating; if it is a method specialized to the problem at hand - cheating. There, enjoy the flow diagram...

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text:
My PhD advisor writes funding proposals based on my ideas without involving me
My PhD advisor writes funding proposals based on my research ideas without involving me in them. The first time he wanted to use my idea he asked me if it is okay for him to write a proposal on the idea. He also mentioned that he will involve me in it. At that time I very happily agreed to his proposition. However, he did not involve me at all in the proposal and later just mentioned that it just happened that he couldn't involve me. Recently, I again came up with another good idea and shared a written document with the details. He asked me to share the source file of the document and mentioned that he will use it for a funding proposal without mentioning about my involvement. Is it a common practice for advisors to steal their students' ideas and write proposals without involving them at all in it? Is there anything I can do to get myself involved in the proposal? Would it be wise to request my professor to involve me in the proposal?

In global academic society such practices are uncommon but unfortunately not completely unheard of.  Anyway, how common it is seems less important than understanding that such practices are strongly denigrated.  I am sorry to hear about your situation...but is that your entire question?

Thanks Pete. Is there anything I can do to get myself involved in the proposal? I am not sure if asking my professor to involve me in the proposal would be wise?

Ah, yes, that's a deeper question.  I don't really have a great answer at the moment (maybe someone else will).  Very roughly I would say: you should almost certainly try to get involved in the proposal, or at least have a careful, thorough discussion of the prospect of that.  I would begin by trying to get an understanding of what "it just happened that he couldn't involve me" might mean: as it stands, that's a kind of impenetrable downer.

Thanks Pete. I think my advisor saw my reaction and understood that it didn't affect my behavior or research output, the first time he did that. And so he is repeating it. I do not want my relationship with my advisor to become sour over this issue. However, I wanted to write proposals soon upon graduation on a more developed and matured idea, which I believe I can't if part of it is already funded.

Maybe your advisor is up to something... but I wonder if it's just poor communication between the two of you. Let me explain how my advisors and I work, and it might give you a different perspective on the situation. Or at least a starting point for talking to your advisor.
I have more ideas than I could personally work on, and some of those ideas led to funding for MSc students to build upon my research. That's great for me, because it means more citations of my papers, possible co-authorship on their papers, and the satisfaction of seeing my research go in multiple directions. Perhaps your advisor is thinking along those lines, but hasn't communicated that to you or asked what you want.
My advisors typically write the proposals without me, apart from asking me a technical question now and then, or asking me to review the proposal. I'm glad, because I'm trying to finish up my PhD and don't need any extra work right now. But if I did want to be more involved in the proposal writing, I know that all I would need to do is ask.
My advisors do keep me informed of all the proposals they are writing or even thinking of writing based on my ideas. If one of the ideas was important to me and I wanted to work on it personally after my PhD, I have no doubt that they would respect that. Either they'd drop the idea, or they might suggest that an MsC student work on one aspect of the problem, while I focussed on the main idea. We'd talk about it, and work out the best solution for all concerned.
If you have shared an idea with your advisor, but haven't told him that you want to work on it yourself, maybe he doesn't realise it. So maybe all you need is to have a good talk.

Thanks mhwombat! I see your point. I am not sure if a PhD student can be a Co-PI on a grant and also how the funding works out if the PhD student graduate and be either a post-doc or a faculty? Could you please share some details on this?

I have seen instances of my professor wanting to spin-off a company out of another student's PhD work without giving him fair credit (basically asked him to be an employee in the company) and trying to sell his patent to another company, when he realized that he could not be a part of the company while being a professor at the university.

In the past, I have asked him to write a proposal on an idea related to my PhD work to which he agreed initially and later told me that the program isn't that lucrative and is not worth the time. However, later asked the other PhD student to be part of a proposal to the same program. So, I am not sure if what you suggest is the case with my professor.

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How to provide letters of reference for a Postdoc Application
I am applying for postdoc positions in the area of Mechanical Engineering (Robotics) in US and Europe. Often times I see that the reference letters are required to be submitted at the time of application and it is mentioned that only complete applications will be evaluated. Does this mean that I am expected to collect electronic versions of reference letters from professors, which I would need to submit along with my application? How can I waive my right to not review these letters?
What is the typical way of submitting reference letters for a postdoc application in the area of Mechanical Engineering (Robotics), since the application process is not so structured?

This depends on your field, the country in which you are applying for jobs in, and other particular factors. Please edit your question to add more detail, and someone knowledgeable about your specific situation might be able to help you.

Frequently "reference letter are required to be submitted at the time of application" simply means that "get your letter writers to send their reference letters to e-mail address xxx@yyy.zzz before the submission deadline" (or upload to an appropriate website if the process is more organized).
This is in contrast to the situation in many faculty hires where the reference letters are solicited: in those situations you provide only the names and contact information of your letter writers and the hiring committee, after sifting through the files to narrow down the choices somewhat, then writes to the candidates' recommenders and ask for letters to be sent

That said, if you are applying for a PostDoc you are supposed to be young and naive and not know any better, so there's absolutely no harm in writing to the department/head of lab/hiring committee asking for clarification when you are not sure what the expectation is.

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Undergraduate Interviewing for Research Assistant Jobs- Tips?
So, after having an interest in pursuing a full time position in research to live and breathe research without class commitments in hopes of building a strong skillset, I decided to pursue job opportunities at research facilities and research heavy academic institutions. After initially getting rejected by HR for open positions, I started "cold e-mailing" PIs at various locations around my general location who advertised open slots on their lab websites. I got a reply from a big shot PI who was interested in my resume and conducts research at a top 10 university...which was ridiculously unexpected. He wanted an interview the day he comes back from a conference.

I've always thought a strong suit of mine was eloquently illustrating passion, and I do believe that was the bulk of my application's success (he mentioned this in his reply, which was a response like 1 hour after I e-mailed him). I'm not lacking confidence in myself, but I am slightly confused and personally believe my background does not warrant a top 10 reply (my university is not even in the top 100, lack of publications, no in depth experience, 1.5 years of research at my uni and 2 REUs at his alma matar for his MS and PhD, and I'm about to only receive an undergraduate degree). That being said, I'm both nervous and excited- this is a dream position. I've never been in this position, and I wanted to ask for advice on what to do during an interview.

How do I not ruin this job? What do most PIs look for? What "studying" should I do in my free time between now and the interview (~1 month)? Any tips?

Congrats on scoring an interview, you sound really excited and I hope it goes well for you :)

Related answer for the person on the other side of the interview

I had an interview in high school for a summer position I totally messed up because I wasn't familiar enough with the details of their projects. You should be prepared to answer very clearly "what do you want to do with us and why?"

How was the result though?


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Inferentials in Non-hypothesis Testing Research. How fitting?
If a researcher conducted a research study with research questions, of course, but no hypotheses to test, would it be fine to carry out inferential statistics, e.g., a correlation test, a Kruskal-Wallis test, etc., maybe to add to the significance of the study? How harmful would it be to do so if it was adjudged not fine?

Both types of tests you name involve hypotheses. What does "adjudged not fine" mean?

@BryanKrause it means that if it was decided by participants in this discussion that it would not be fine to perform these statistical analyses in such a situation.

I don't see how anyone could judge harm without understanding the situation, and the situation as you describe it does not make much sense.

@BryanKrause others do, though.

Others do judge harm without understanding the situation? Well, good for them, then.

@BryanKrause a normal guy would get the situation if they read the post well. How non-normanl of you! Unbelievable!

I am sorry, but i to do not understand your question. If you perform the test you mention, then you have hypotheses, but you claim to have no hypotheses. Those two statements cannot both be true. Also who is judging you? A random person on the street, a teacher grading your work, a reviewer. The harm depends on the situation, and if you don't tell us, then we cannot help you.

I can guess what the situation might be, but I cannot "get" it from what you have written. As Maarten and I have each pointed out, you are naming tests that involve hypotheses; one possibility is that the situation is you do not understand what a hypothesis is. Another possibility is that the situation is that you do not understand what these tests are. Yet another possibility is that you mean these tests were not pre-planned (that is, no a priori hypotheses), but after looking at the data you have some hypotheses to test - this would be a common situation but not clearly described.

I voted to close for "needs clarity or details". I agree with the other comments here that although we can guess what you probably mean (exploratory study done with no specific hypotheses, now you want to do statistical tests of some hypotheses, probably developed by looking at the responses), we don't know that --  asking you to edit and improve your question is better than guessing. (Also, the "adjudged not fine" part is extremely unclear, I couldn't guess what that meant ...) (Also, insulting people who are trying to understand what you're asking is not helpful ...)

If a researcher conducted a research study with research questions, of
course, but no hypotheses to test, would it be fine to carry out
inferential statistics, e.g., a correlation test, a Kruskal-Wallis
test, etc.,

Statistical tests test a hypothesis. So even if you say you don't have a hypothesis, you still do when you perform a test. So the statement "I don't have a hypothesis" and "I performed a test" just don't go together.

maybe to add to the significance of the study?

The word significance has many meanings. You probably hear about significance in relation to test. That has absolutely nothing to do with the significance (importance) of a study. It is a highly technical and very limited concept. I teach this stuff right now, and if any of my students would utter that sentence then that would be a HUGE red flag. It would tell me they understood nothing about what I tried to teach them, and I would have to start over again.

How harmful would it be to do so if it was adjudged not fine?

When you report about your research you build an argument: This is what I want to know, this is how and where I have looked, this is what I have seen, and therefore I think this and that is a likely answer to my question. If you perform a statistical test, it becomes part of that argument. What you have told us, tells us very clearly that you don't understand what a statistical test is. So you don't understand your own argument. That does not build confidence in your argument...
As to the consequences, that depends on the role of the person who is reading your report:

If I were to read that report as reader, I would probably stop reading that report and dismiss it as something written by someone who does not know what they are doing.

If I am on a committee deciding whether or not to hire you and you submitted that report as a recent publication, then that mistake would probably cost you my vote (depending on the level of the job).

If I were to read that report as a reviewer, I would recommend that that paper be rejected

If I were to read that report as a teacher, I would stop reading and invite the student to my office hours and explain why I am not grading that and invite them to resubmit with an appropriate subtraction of points.


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What indicates instructors' experience in online technology?
My research is qualitative; it aims to explore the experience of EFL instructors about online teaching. What potential semi-structured interview questions about experience towards online technology can I make to gather data that will achieve the research aims?
I am particularly seeking experience indicators in this post; in other words, how to ask experience-grasping questions to participants is what I am trying to do.
Thank you.

This is off topic as it is about the content of your research. It is a question for your advisor. See the help center: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help


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Is it common for professors to use questions from the internet on an exam?
I'm in Western Europe doing a Master's degree, and I expected the education quality to be much higher then what I've seen in my previous school which was in the Middle East, but some professors here still do this (taking exam and exercise questions from the internet) and they don't seem to understand the subject very well.
Now how common is this in European and North American universities? Is it even considered an accepted practice?

What's wrong with taking exam and exercise questions from the Internet?

Well, to me it seems to reflect the incompetence of the teacher. I mean, come on, in all these years, and all the grey hair, he can't come up with a single original question?

If your question is: are there universities in western Europe that have low hiring standards for professors, or do not value good teaching when hiring professors, the answer is yes. There are very good and very bad academic institutions in Europe.

Yeah, but it doesn't seem like a bad school. It's one of the main universities in the city, but it's mainly known for 2-3 of its departments; I guess mathematics and theoretical computer science is not one of them.

@Tampere100: "come on, in all these years, and all the grey hair, he can't come up with a single original question?" - how do you know they cannot? I mean, come on, in all these years, and all the grey hair, and they are still not maintaining their custom slide template or providing their own "standard" books for each lecture they teach? A part of their experience consists in knowing when to reuse existing things and thereby save one"s time for other activities, and how to integrate one's own knowledge with someone else's way of presenting related knowledge.

they don't seem to understand the subject very well.
You sound like you are in a level of expertise that you could judge the quality of the lectures. You may then ideally speak to the professor about your allegation they still do this. I am ignoring the regional limitations and considering the question in a general context.

Is it even considered an accepted practice?

Assuming that there are no institutional guidelines that goes against assembling questions from the internet(which you must check if you haven't done already!), from a logical perspective viewing this as a student, the practice is similar to posting questions from the text book or peer reviewed journals. The professor in any case is responsible for the question and its relevance can be questioned with supporting evidence.
From the point of view of a student, you could also do a student peer review about the quality and relevance of the question supported by discussions and critical reasoning. If the result of such an assessment goes against the question, you could then report him/her with proof your views about the practice.
NOTE - This is not limited to internet based questions but also any questions even from the sources you think are authentic.

Well, I can't claim to be an expert in the area, but I arrived at this conclusion based on my experience with him. 1. Throughout the course, there was no original content (previous exam, second exam, and the exercises). 2. He never (literally) had anything in the lecture slides that was not from the book. 3. He rarely says anything during a lecture apart from reading the slides. I asked him a very elementary question about one of the basic topics in the course, and he could not answer it no matter how I tried to state my question; instead he would give me an "answer" to something I didn't ask.

The course is Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures, and he is "specialized" in the area of mathematics and theoretical computer science, for which this course forms the basis of many of the topics in these areas. Most importantly, at the beginning of the course, he explicitly said that he will not use questions from the book (which he did) on the exam because "those questions have already been answered since it's the most widely used book for this course."

Well, many of us work very hard to come up with obscure questions which are not widely known, but it is very hard to be original. Good coursework/exam questions (which should be expressive, but not impossible) are difficult and time-consuming to formulate. Once I found that a question which I formulated was popular on the internet, and had to completely redesign the task. I own a trove of obscure quizzes which I use. Our job in teaching is not to be original, but to provide a good learning/assessment regime for the students. In that sense, I believe the OPs question is wrongly posed.

@CaptainEmacs Incidentally, I heard a complaint from a CS student in my location recently. The student is taking Algorithms class taught by a supposedly good university professor. The student asked the professor a question: how to devise an algorithm to measure the popularity of a social network user (I don't know the details of that question). The professor could not answer the question because he does not use social network at all. If the OP is having that kind of complaint, I can't say he is wrong. The current generation is sometimes ahead of the previous one.

@scaaahu Looking down at others just because they happen to focus on different activities, depending on their context, is a disagreeable attitude (not just in students). I have an excellent orientation, but I wouldn't look down at the "current generation" for being unable to navigate without a smart device; they have the right to choose where to invest their priorities. I expect this to work the other way round, too. Did your student talk to the prof? Did the prof perhaps ask him to formulate his question in a more general, abstract context? The prof needs to get a chance to have a stab at it.

@Tampere100 Your reasons 1 and 2 shouldn't be flags for thinking the instructor doesn't know the material.  For reason 3, it depends.  Questions you think are basic may actually be hard or subtle or just not widely studied.

You get questions (and ideas for questions) from many places. Some you cook up yourself, others you water down from a step in a paper (even a very old one), or filch from a published exam, or a textbook, or even adapted from StackExchange. It varies. One of the selling points of textbooks is precisely that they provide lots of questions.
You should make up an exam by combining questions that (more or less, probably weighted by importance) evaluate the material covered. In my case of some 5 questions 2 or 3 are self made (probably inspired by previous ones or external sources), while the others come from different sources, often severely modified.


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Is it acceptable for a student to hire a tutor to explain and fix homework mistakes?
In a course we have a lot of hard homework. We are allowed to share solutions etc, as long as each student's doesn't just copy but understands what he/she writes.
Is this acceptable to hire a tutor help me solve the homework I can't solve?

I think the answer depends entirely on what you mean by "help".  If the tutor is explaining concepts but letting you figure out how to apply them, it's not only appropriate but recommended.  If the tutor is telling you what words to write on the page, it's straightforward cheating.

@JeffE: If you show to the tutor what you did and he fixes your mistakes?

Identifying your mistakes would be fine, in my opinion.  Fixing your mistakes is unambiguously cheating.  You said it yourself: "as long as each student's doesn't just copy but understands what he/she writes".  There's a built-in requirement that the student writes every word they submit.

@JeffE: If the tutor fixes the mistakes but I understand them and do well (e.g. as good as the homework) on the exam... Isn't that okay? It's not cheating (e.g just copying the text without understanding anything). If the tutor was a classmate it will be acceptable for him to tell me the solutions as long as I understand them.

No. Having someone else fix your homework mistakes before you submit your homework is cheating.

"It is unethical and everybody does it" - someone who never did it

Does the homework count for the course's grade?

Would it be OK for Mom or Dad to explain and fix your homework mistakes?

There is only one person who knows whether it is acceptable, the instructor for the course who is the one doing the accepting or rejecting. Ask them, explaining clearly what sort of help you would be getting from the tutor.
There are big differences between students discussing a homework and hiring a pro. When processing suggestions from another student, you have to apply your own judgement to determine whether you agree, you can't count on them being right. To continue to get help from fellow students you would also have to supply help to others, not just consume help the way you could with a paid tutor.
I think you are aware there is a significant difference. If not, why waste money on a paid tutor rather than discussing the homework with one or more of you fellow students?

In a well designed course there shouldn't be a problem. What matters is that the performance at the exam won't be a lot worse than how you did on your homework assignments. The instructor has no way of checking if you stick to any rules, other than to measure your performance at doing the homework exercises and at the exam. So, all you need to do is make sure you have mastered the topic of the homework exercises well enough to be able to reproduce whatever you hand in all by yourself.
Just imagine not sticking to this rule. The instructor may notice that STUDENTZ who looked like such a brilliant student who should become his/her new Ph.D student, flunked the exam. For all the instructor knows, there can be many causes, like illness, even extreme nervousness for which there are remedies. So, such students who unexpectedly flunked the exam can be asked to meet with the instructor. By talking things over in a relaxed setting, the instructor can get an idea of what is going on. If the instructor notices that you have not mastered the topic to a degree that is remotely consistent with your homework performance, then you will be in trouble.
In contrast, if you choked up during the exam while during the meeting it is clear that you have completely mastered the subject, the instructor may be inclined to give you another opportunity to pass the exam, e.g. an oral examination right during that meeting itself.


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Can you present an image without knowing who originally created it?
I would like to present the image located on this website during a presentation I am giving next week.
http://www.taopatch.com/blog/quantum-dots-entangled-with-single-photons/
The image does not say anything earthshattering, it is well accepted that the structure of a CdSe/CdS core-shell quantum dot is as they depict in the image, but the image does a great job of illustrating it. I do not believe the website was the original creator of the image, after all they refer to a certain paper that was published and in no way reference it. I believe this is the paper: doi:10.1038/nature11573  The image that they use is not in that paper.
edit: Here is another website containing the same image: http://en.rusnano.com/press-centre/news/88604
Can I present this image without knowing where it originally came from? I suppose I could cite the website as a source, but since it appears that they took the image without citing the original creators, I do not want to list them as the source.

You can always try Google reverse image search. In this case it turns up a couple of pages that attribute the image to rusnano and a number of pages I cannot read.

Best Case Scenario: As one commented, you can use reverse image search on Google; or just use other search engines and see who created it. If you find it, then you can use the link to the original artist as a reference.
Worst Case Scenario: The good thing is that there is a link for it! So if you couldn't find the graphical artist (the worst case scenario) add the picture and its reference (its related link) in the slide's footnote. To be on the safe side, use the popular link (one of the links on the first page).

While the usage might be covered under fair use, there may also be copyright issues and licensing issues.