text:
Our teacher is encouraging us to use cracked software
I'm taking a course named Numerical and Computational Methods Based on Mathematica (Or in Chinese: "基于Mathematica的数值计算方法"), but Wolfram Mathematica is a bit expensive for me to afford. On the first lesson of this course, the teacher told us how to crack this software, and asked us to have Mathematica 11.0 installed on our computers by this Wednesday. However, I just don't want to use cracked softwares.
While it is true that software cracking is inappropriate and even illegal, almost everyone around me uses cracked softwares(such as PS, AE...). As far as I know, nobody in the rest of our class refuse to crack and install the software.
So what should I do? Having a talk with my teacher or simply quitting this course?

Follow-up:
Finally, I've decided to quit this course, because I think I can gain the same knowledge by learning Mathics, a free software recommended by some answers below.
Thank you for all the awesome answers!

Follow-up II:
I feel obliged to mention that now everyone can download the Free Wolfram Engine for Developers. From my understanding, the Wolfram Engine implements the Wolfram Language and is the very kernel of Mathematica, so this is basically a free full version of Mathematica, just without the notebook interface.

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There are genuine security concerns here - for example the cracked software may contain malware (viruses etc) - and these may not be immediately apparent.
If possible install the pirated software in a virtual machine - that way you are keeping the illegal potentially unsafe stuff away from your primary operating system.

Wolfram have a specific answer to this question, it is called STUDENT LICENSING. https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/students-individuals.php

What I like most about this question is that it doesn't have a provably best answer, as all answers will be subjective; yet it is very much a question worth asking, we can all learn from the question and possibly the answers.

Buy the software or from the course. If it's complicated to decide, just throw a die. If an even number pop up, buy it, else quit it.

Nothing wrong with the follow-up section, but note that you can indicate which answer you found most helpful by clicking the "accept" checkmark next to it - this will speed things up for future readers.

For an interesting related read, see the programmer's Q&A on pirated software. Opinions on morality, financial impacts to the developer/company, etc.

While it is true that software cracking is inappropriate and even illegal, almost everyone around me uses cracked software

That is really bad and I know it happens also in my country (Italy). However, I think there is a false dilemma in your question:

So what should I do? Having a talk with my teacher or simply quitting this course?

There are not the only options you have. There is a third one, which is using Mathematica (or the Wolfram Language) legally for free. Although I am a very happy SageMath user, I've been curious to find out what the options for Mathematica are. In the past it was impossible: you either paid for Mathematica or illegally cracked it, but nowadays there are more ways.
I will describe three of them, but bear in mind that some might be slow or have some limitations. Nevertheless, given that your class is called Numerical and Computational Methods Based on Mathematica I think these defects won't impact your learning.
Use the Wolfram Programming Cloud (online only)
Mathematica is basically a nice GUI for the Wolfram Language. Since January 2016, the Wolfram Cloud has been launched with two free options:

Wolfram Development Platform
Wolfram Programming Lab

You can launch the website at wolframcloud.com and you will need a free account which will give you limited deployment capabilities. But these capabilities are only needed if you want to deploy some code as a cloud API, not to perform computations.
Here I am using the Wolfram Cloud to plot a function:

Use Mathematica on the Raspberry Pi (slow)
If you happen to own a Raspberry Pi, you actually have the software as part of the Raspbian operating system. On my Linux computer, I can connect to the Raspberry Pi via SSH using the -X switch for GUI applications:
ssh -X pi@raspberrypi.local

Then, I can run Mathematica:
mathematica

Keep in mind that this will be slow, because while you are using the GUI via your computer, the computations are performed on the Raspberry Pi.
Here's a screenshot of a simple command and a Wolfram Alpha query, using the free Raspberry Pi version:

Emulate a Raspberry Pi (super slow!)
If you need to satisfy these two constraints:

no Raspberry Pi available
offline access needed

Then you can emulate an ARM architecture and install Raspbian on it. It is going to be very slow but it can be done. UnixMen.com has a nice tutorial about a recent version of Raspbian (from 2015) that should be enough to get you started.
Talk to your teacher
Finally, I think it's good to underline again the fact that you should really raise your concerns to your teacher and (at the very least) mention that you have to use one of these workarounds because they are not providing you with the needed tools.
Something similar happened to me in a few instances:

In high school a teacher wanted to give me a pirated copy of LabView. I refused, telling him "I do not use pirated software. Besides, this is a Windows program so I cannot run it".
Of course this was pretty easy because it was high school, so there were no classes to choose or to drop and I had to attend the lectures. Moreover it was just a suggestion to "study better" and it was not really required that students used the software at home.
During my MSc, we were required to use Matlab for assignments but the university won't provide licenses for personal machines, only for lab machines. I was living a bit far from the university, thus I discussed about this with the teacher and got to use Octave instead.
I made sure my code was Matlab compatible except for once when I used a shorthand operator not available in Matlab (it was a += b). Since I spoke with my professor beforehand, he was keen enough to correct the typo for me and grade the assignment. Basically, talking can help you solve a lot of things.

Along the lines of alternative software this might be useful: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/28162/alternatives-to-mathematica

I myself am a SageMath user, but if students are taking a class on Mathematica they will probably be required to code in the Wolfram Language, not in Python.

re: your last example: I don't think there's any mostly-compatible alternative to Mathematica, the way there is for Matlab (Octave), or SPlus (R).  So that part is useful for the general case of other commercial software, but not for the OP's case.

I didn't know Mathematica was part of Raspbian.  I wonder if you could run it in an ARM VM on a more powerful ARM CPU (hardware virtualization being much faster than emulation).

@PeterCordes sure, I think you can also run it on any Debian based distro since the DEB file is in the repos.

LabView is also available for Linux, so your point "this is a Windows program so I cannot run it" wasn't valid (unless you wanted to interface with external devices, which seems unsupported in Linux version).

@Ruslan except the proposed cracked version was the Windows one. Anyway it doesn't matter at all and this is not the point of the answer.

FWIW, I think this is the best answer. You gave several different alternatives to using the cracked software and you did a good job with your answer. +!

With the raspberry pi zero, a cheap $4 microsd card, and USB gadget mode (https://learn.adafruit.com/turning-your-raspberry-pi-zero-into-a-usb-gadget/serial-gadget?view=all#ethernet-gadget) the Raspberry Pi option would be only $9.

@JefréN. thanks. :) Luckily mathematical software is something that has always interested me and so I knew these options in advance. It looks like my first answer here is doing well.

@Merlin04 you are right. But how does it compare to the relative speed of a Pi 2, for example? I don't know if it would be very fast. :)

IIRC the Pi version of Mathematica does some hardware detection, so I wouldn't bet on emulation working.

@Peter thanks, actually my last suggestion was not tested although I know that some people got a Raspberry Pi emulated. It's possible it won't work.

My advice is to just use the pirated software and not rock the boat, just like Drunken Code Monkey, for example, mentioned.
This issue isn't something that you're likely to solve yourself. Instead, you're most likely going to spend large amount of time and energy on nothing and produce no results. The fact that your teacher just expects you to get cracked Mathematica is a proof enough that it's something completely normal and accepted by your society. Now, I'm not going to preach to you about your own personal ethics or if you should feel bad about the situation or not. Others have given more than enough options.
Instead, I'm going to talk a bit about how things like this are resolved in other places. I myself am from Serbia, a country that has been recently opening itself to the idea of actually giving money for software, so I've seen a bit of how negotiations between foreign software companies and locals work.
Basically, on one hand, the "manufacturer" of the software is suffering what some might consider a loss, since you, your fellow students and the institution aren't paying for licenses.
On the other hand, keep in mind that they also have a direct benefit from you: You're increasing the user-base of their software.
 Mathematica isn't new and it's not going to disappear because you aren't paying for it. Instead, it has a chance to thrive: You're using Mathematica and not competitors. That means that you'll be most likely comfortable using Mathematica and not some other tool that take getting used to. At your future employer's place, you'll probably feel more comfortable again using Mathematica than alternatives.
This means that your area is a very interesting potential market for Wolfram. Sure, you're not paying now, but directly, that fact doesn't cost Wolfram anything. Keep in mind that software prices are not calculated by how much a license costs (because it costs pretty much nothing and the trend is to reduce physical costs as much as possible), instead they're calculated by how much potential customers want to pay for it. In some cases, the "normal" prices might be very far away from what you can normally afford.
The bottom line for software companies is that they want money, specifically, more money than they invested into the creation of software. Their user-base is a potential source of money. If the users are paying, that's great, if they're the non-paying type of users, you want to convert them eventually into paying type of users using various methods (student licenses come to mind, for example). If you spend resources to convert the non-paying users into non-users, you just wasted your own money for no profit at all.
The result is that, if Wolfram has a sufficiently large user base in China, and at the same time, the political situation in China changes to a point where Wolfram can start negotiations on licensing, the educational institutions could end up getting real licenses for their computers.
These licenses could be either payed individually, or through an agreement with your government for a form of collective licensing. They might even be "donated" as a show of "good will". There might be an agreement for a combination of donated and purchased licenses or a certain ratio of tolerated "non-purchased" and purchased licenses, eg. you'll buy 5 and we'll let you use up to 15 licenses or similar. There might be an agreement that a company could be allowed (or maybe even given government backing) to persecute or at least aggressively negotiate with commercial pirates in return for giving licenses to government and educational institutions. Sometimes, it's much easier to put pressure on a large for-profit company that has money to pay licenses than to put pressure on a smaller institution that in the end won't even be able to pay anything.
Possibilities are great, depending on what the company and relevant institutions manage to officially or unofficially negotiate. Do note that, if the political climate is ripe-enough, such negotiations can be very profitable for the company. After all, some money is much better than no money, as long as it doesn't take too much effort to obtain it.

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Don't do this,  for all those wondering China is party to the Berne Convention which means that cracking software (like Mathmatica) copyrighted in any other country party to the treaty, is Illegal.

^ The above comment is highly dubious. The Bernie Convention is mainly an agreement to recognize the copyrights of other countries the same as they recognize their own. It's questionable if the "minimal standards" of the agreement even covers software license restriction cracking. It also allows the relevant jurisdiction to apply certain limitations or restrictions. Basically, it seems it has little value compared to the laws of the local jurisdiction.

One thing you should absolutely avoid doing is cracking the software yourself. That opens you personally to a whole lot of legal issues (IANAL, but this is kind of obvious). If your computer is really yours, it should be possible to complete the course without one. Not as convenient, of course (e.g. you may have to stay after classes to use the classroom PCs), but still.
If your computer is a machine you were given by the institution to be used during the course, it should be provided with the software you need. Go to the IT department, tell them you are required to have Mathematica 11 for your course and ask them to install it. When confronted with the need of cracking the software themselves, IT guys may end up finding a license for you. At the very least, if they crack the software for you, you can still consider yourself a bona fide user in case your institution gets busted.

"bona fide user": Probably not any longer after this post ;-). As always it is a good idea to not leave any paper trail in preparation of illegal endeavors, let alone an electronic trail. (Of course I'm speaking in totally theoretical terms. I have never done anything illegal.)

@PeterA.Schneider I don't agree. The OP doesn't have to ask IT support to crack the software, only to install it. He also doesn't have to verify if he go the same fake license key as the rest of the class. The institution should bear full responsibility for their PCs, as long as users don't install anything on their own without permission.

@PeterA.Schneider "I have never done anything illegal." How do you know? Did you examine and understand all the million pages of legislature? Do you remember everything you ever did?

@David That was a self-referential joke.

The law does not matter in environments lacking controlling legal authorities (as I suspect OP is in).

I really like this. If the ability to run Mathematica is a requirement for this course, make it clear to university (or whatever else is offering this course) that it's their responsibility to provide it. You never asked for this software, so why should you provide it?

Let's see through this step for step:

Is this actually illegal? To give an extreme example: Homosexuality is in Scandinavia not only legal, but accepted in the culture including marriages while it is outlawed in many Islamic countries and punishable by death. So no, an argumentation that it is illegal because you personally think so does not hold water.
While most countries have now accepted universal human rights, cracked software is by no means an accepted universal law violation. And while I cannot claim innocent when visiting another country by pointing out that it is not illegal in my home country, just as little firms from abroad can claim a violation if the country in question does not accept copyright violation.
So check if there is a law that prohibits copyright violation.
While the practice may be "illegal" by law, it also depends how a culture stands to a specific law. Every country has laws which are completely ignored by their population for different reasons. They are hopelessly outdated, imposed by former colonialists, largely forgotten or seen as a petty offense.
How is the stance on authority? Believe it or not, in some cultures it is not allowed to openly criticize superiors even if you think they are doing wrong. Criticizing them may be perceived as a more severe violation than their law breaking.

If your country sees it as illegal, and it is a law which is actually enforced and it is allowed to speak openly, then the correct course of action would be to inform the superiors of the teacher. If the authority issue does not allow the direct course of action, you can try to speak with the teacher under four eyes and find a solution (below) or inform other independent authorities apart from university (can still backfire, inform yourself about precedents and how that worked out).
If this a non-issue (the law exists, but is not taken seriously) then you are on your own and you must decide how you will react (do not ever try to force the law or your opinion on it on others in this case except you like to have a bloody nose).
If you make the decision that it is immoral for you, your options are:

Buy a license. It does not have to be the actual license for the computer you are working on to be the ethical choice. The problem is if you are actually capable of buying the license (reminder: There are regions in Africa where people die because they have no money for vital medicine. "It's so cheap" may be right for your environment, but if you do not know how much money it comparably costs in other regions do not condemn).
Try to use free software. It depends really if your instructor allows you to use it as replacement (see above), if you have enough time to learn it and if the software as powerful enough to work as a replacement.
Do something to lessen the impact. You could do the choice to let someone install it so you don't need to do it yourself. You can make a vow that you will pay the software back (e.g. a lifetime license) once you have enough money. Or do something good in return (humanitarian deeds) to compensate your wrongdoing.
Drop the course if your pricks of conscience are too hurtful. The question is if someone depends on you and hopes for your education and leaving the course will cause trouble. Then you are ethically obliged to choose the lesser evil and if you have a family on one side which may need your help and on the other side a big software firm which could handle themselves...

Life is hard. Your decision.

This is an excellent answer, except for the statement "You could do the choice to let someone install it so you need to do it yourself." in item f. If nothing else, this means setting quite a bad precedent to oneself, psychologically.

@O.R.Mapper While you are right that it is a bad precedent if this is continous behavior, I see those as the inevitable quirks and "cheats" which allows us to save face for very uncomfortable decisions. Yes, exactly. It can also be used to answer uncomfortable comments.

This is an interesting answer (+1). Your first paragraph made me think about India which refused to pay the licence fees for some medicine, taking the stand that it is more important for them to get it to the poor rather than align with a philosophical "business practices". I take no stand in it as this is a complicated case but this is another aspect of your example.

Great cultural awareness here. But I think option f) is lame: more unethical than doing it yourself.

It's interesting to me that some commenters see having someone else install software is immoral. Would they also feel it were immoral to use software on a computer on which it had been set up? Even in a lab? To me, it seems like the whole premise of IP is fundamentally bankrupt, eventually, especially with so many computers whose basic function includes copying and sharing data. The real ultimate answer is to find new business models that fit computers, not to try to force physical ownership models impossibly/counterproductively/punitively onto data, IME.

@Dronz: I think the point is not that "having someone else install software" is immoral as such; the feeling is rather that if you decide to consider installing an unlicensed copy is immoral, it would be just as (or even more) immoral to ask someone else to do the same. The problem is directly or indirectly causing the activity perceived as immoral, which may or may not be the case for a lab that is already set up. Note that I base this consideration entirely on the abstract notion of an action perceived as immoral, to prevent blurring with the wider issue about appropriateness of copyright.

In the general case that you disagree with an approach that your teacher is using I would just suggest that you speak to the teacher and raise your concerns.
However, as there's a legal issue involved here, I think it would be appropriate to raise this with someone who is senior to your teacher. As this could potentially get the institution into trouble, your teacher likely has superiors who would want to know about this and have it put to an end.
You should also remember that there may be others in your class who find this objectionable, but aren't prepared to stand out from the crowd by saying so.

It's polite, if it all possible, to try and talk to the teacher directly first. Going above someone's head can sometimes mean that things escalate very quickly when in fact a much simpler solution could have been found. If the teacher is unhelpful then consider pursuing the issue up the chain.

@user2390246 You could notify the teacher that you plan to go to an authority, but I feel like as the issue surrounds a legal matter it's not enough to only go to the teacher directly. Even if the teacher agrees and changes this "policy" they've still encouraged students to do something that is of at least dubious legality while acting as an employee of the institution.

In some cultures, especially in Asia, questioning or challenging those in positions of authority (like a professor) can have dramatically bad consequences. If this is true for the OP then this suggestion may be a bad idea.

@O.M.Y. That may be the case but given that the OP suggests it as an option they've presumably weighed up the consequences against the discomfort of doing something they find immoral (it was doing something they claimed was illegal when I answered - the waters have since muddied...)

@Ian_Fin Many young people in their quest for idealism sometimes blindly crash onto the shoals of reality. The OP sounds very upright and idealistic, but should still exercise caution if the local society norms would punish his/her idealism. Otherwise the victory over the bad old professor might be a Pyrrhic one, such as the professor being fired (for breaking the law) AND the student being demerited (for challenging authority). I've seen this kind of crap happen even in America.

Consider the question linked below, and always google for "open source (software name)" which can recommend alternative software for you. It won't be an exact replica but will do work for you. Sage is a nice alternative. I personally left pirated software use decade ago as it is exactly stealing. Best open-source Mathematica equivalent

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But Sage is a poor "equivalent". Last time I tried (about a year ago), Sage couldn't even solve simplest trigonometric equations to give answer in its general form — I only got two answers from countable infinity. Mathematica, on the other hand, gives you the full solutions or complains that it had to use inverse functions, suggesting to e.g. use Reduce instead of Solve — and then if you follow the suggestion, it may give you the complete solution. (Try Solve[Sin[x^2] == 1, x] for example — it's solvable completely by Solve alone.)

"Exactly stealing" I suggest care with words... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/australia-you-wouldnt-steal-dvd-you-would-block-websites-and-suspend-internet https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131130/15263725410/surprise-mpaa-told-it-cant-use-terms-piracy-theft-stealing-during-hotfile-trial.shtml https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-theft-ridiculous-lost-sales-they-dont-exist-says-minecraft-creator-110303/

If i make a software, and some use it illegally its my financial loss. And i consider the people stealing from me. I know the term piracy is too broad, and out of scope of this discussion.

I would not recommend using cracked Mathematica versions at the university. Cracking/ pirating software is illegal and that should be reason enough not to do that. Your professor should not encourage that.
Apart from that general aspect I know that Wolfram has means to detect pirated software. If you do not take further measures Mathematica searches for updates and for full operational capability Mathematica needs access to the Wolfram/WolframAlpha servers/database.
Extensive use of cracked Mathematica versions is pretty common among students and even in some work groups and I know of a case at a university that Wolfram reached out to a department demanding that they stop using cracked Mathematica versions. This is the best case scenario when getting caught but if the guys at Wolfram are not in a so generous mood things like that can get very expensive.
An annual license for the student edition of Mathematica costs not that much (about 50€) and is worth the money. If your university does not have licenses on pool computers, I would buy such an annual license to be save. Because once your university gets caught all involved parties will most likely be in trouble (I say that without being an expert on the law).
EDIT:
To clarify this answer a bit regarding the comments on it: @Ian_Fin gave a suggestion on how to improve the situation that can be one way to approach it. But even if one brings it to the attention of the department it might not improve at all or not very soon. I personally think it is unlikely that the department does not know about this issue and if they have not done something about it once they introduced that course I personally do not think they will do something now. The last sentence is my intuition to that case and might be completely wrong.  I am just saying: Wolfram has means to detect this and if a big group uses a crack from one location (maybe even the same serial/registration) it becomes easier for them to detect and it is a bigger issue to them than one single instance.
Even if your university/department gets licenses they will be in form of a license server or on pool computers. I would say it is not likely that they give out licenses to students to use on personal computers. Mathematica can become a very helpful tool for your studies and I can say from experience it is worth the money. Sure it is not cheap and there are alternatives like python, sage and more but if you have to use Mathematica for the course there is an option to get it for a reasonable price and it will belong to you and you can use it wherever and whenever you want.

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I feel important to remind that this situation is likely to be illegal, and should not be promoted. However, let us understand the complicated situation a student, and let us be proactive; depending on the degrees of freedom, you can try  proposition, or protection.
If you have degrees of freedom, you can propose to your teacher a workaround with a free or open-source solutions. For instance, you can, with his help, attend the lecture with another software. This could provide a solution for the next-year lecture. Interpreted languages are not so different, transposition from Mathematica seems possible. And learning novel languages is always beneficial. This could even be used as a project for which you could get the grade. Other answers have already proposed alternatives: Mathics (A free, lightweight alternative to Mathematica), SAGE, Python, Maxima...
You can find others at Best open-source Mathematica equivalent.
If you have no degree of freedom, it is important to protect yourself from potential consequences. Since software installation leaves traces on computers, there are options:

use a "shelled" environment for the installation: it may work like a bubble emulating or virtualizing  an operating system inside the main OS on your computer, in with you can install softwares in a protected manner. You can quite safely shoot the bubble when needed, without arming the main OS, at least more easily than clean uninstalling a software. Similar concepts are "sandboxes" or "jails" in FreeBSD.
use it portable: I seen a packaged version of Matlab or of Office that works on a portable USB drive. Very handy. This might exist for other software.

I would report it to Wolfram using their contact form. If concerned about privacy, I would do so anonymously using a newly created email account (gmail etc).
If it is possible, I would also report it to the legal department of your academic institution.
If you are comfortable with the possible consequences, you might first open a dialogue with your teacher asking whether the course can be taken using a free equivalent such as Sage, Maxima or some other product that does not require students to infringe copyrights and give rise to worries about legality.

@djechlin. You have a choice. If you see some rich person being mugged, you can think "she can afford it" or "not my problem" or you can act on your moral instinct in whatever way makes sense to you. I just wrote what I would (aspire to) do. Just identifying an available choice. YMMV.

All the answers and comments defending why cracked software isn't really stealing kind of crumble in the face of the question, "Would you want Wolfram to know that you're doing that?"  If you report it to Wolfram and they don't care, great!  I would take it up with other contacts at the University first, but if I got zero response I would certainly take it to Wolfram, and mention that fact (in writing) to the university officials.  I would also not write under the assumption that there is wrongdoing, but simply that it seems odd and I think they should get into communication.

@Wildcard: Stealing is a subset of wrongdoing; they are not synonymous. Agent X can dislike many things, not all stealing.

@DanielR.Collins, a fair point.

@Wildcard: 'All the answers and comments defending why cracked software isn't really stealing kind of crumble in the face of the question, "Would you want Wolfram to know that you're doing that?"  If you report it to Wolfram and they don't care, great!' - when asking such questions, or considering whether a company cares, virtually everything that is not in line with the company's business interests could "crumble". Hence, the opinion of a company cannot be the sole measure of things, either.

Get some Free alternative for Mathematica like SageMath or Maxima, for instance, and try to do the assigned tasks with it. Even if you fail because of some subtle requirements only Mathematica could match (questionable), your attempts may become known and attract much more attention than some (most likely) lazy student just dropping the course.
The course may be more difficult for you, but you will be ready to use the obtained skills anywhere, regardless if your employer has funds and intention to buy an expensive software or not. There are a couple of mathematical systems I know really well because I have learned in the university. I cannot use them, because the commercial licenses are so horribly expensive that my employers cannot afford them.
There are reasons why universities traditionally prefer Free software.

Apparently installing a cracked version of Mathematica 11.0 is part of the assignment here, so if you object to that on ethical grounds, you would need to quit your study at your present University and try to enroll in another University where they don't do this sort of a thing. While you could try to stay at your university over your ethical objections by sidestepping this particular issue by buying the license, you would likely face another such problem in the future. E.g. the next assignment may well be to crack the Maple license and a few weeks after that you may be asked to install Matlab.

Having to pay for a studend license is unethic as much as is unethic cracking software. Also note that cracked software may be a security issue, I would never install it in my barebone machine.

The teacher did not tell you to get the cracked version of the software
If I may interpret your description literally, this is what happened:

The teacher showed you how to do a crack
The teacher told you to have the software available

Surely step 1 is unethical, and probably immoral, but it is still your choice whether you want to use the crack, or whether you decide to get the student license (which is in fact not unreasonably priced from my perspective).

In response to some comments: In my university it was not the responsibility of the university to provide resources, but students were expected to buy their own books and software.
Teachers sometimes showed us how to use the copy machine, or how to perform a crack, but it was always our choice whether to follow their example.
As a courtesy most (not all) software was made available on a few computers, but that is besides the point.

In my opinion, it is a really sad sign of our times that the knowledge about using an everyday tool like a copy machine can be insinuated to be an instruction to wrongdoing. (In a wider sense, this might also apply to cracking a software, which - depending on the context - can have its legitimate applications.)


text:
How to start a talk about a topic that cannot be explained without some background information?
I am going to give a presentation of my research soon at an undergraduate conference. I have read that it is best to begin a presentation with the ‘thesis’, i.e. a brief explanation of the topic of my research.
However, I’m rather stuck as to how to explain it simply. It seems like it won’t make sense until I’ve explained the concepts behind it a little. To be more specific, the topic is a formalisation I’ve done in a proof verification system. But the students attending won’t know what a proof verification system is. Is it better to begin by explaining what mechanical proof verification is before explaining the topic?
Time parameters: 20 minutes for the talk, and 5 extra for questions.

How much time do you have for your presentation? Doing this in three minutes will be very different from doing in thirty minutes ..

It will be 20 minutes with 5 extra for questions.

As Wrzlprmft pointed out, you don't want to tell the audience things they don't understand. But sometimes that's the only audience you got and you have to make it work. Besides, this quote will keep bugging you if you give up:

If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it
  yourself.
― Albert Einstein

I would start with a heuristic. Compare it to something they do understand, something simple that everyone knows. For instance, when they explain software engineering, they often compare it to constructions of houses.
Some visual examples help. Yesterday I had to explain "statistical significance" to a friend of mine who has no idea about statistics. I flipped a coin, got heads and said that his coin had a 100% chance of rolling heads. He replied "Bull****!". I flipped it two more times and got heads and tails. I told him now it looked like it had a 67% chance of heads. He looked at me suspiciously. Then I said if I flipped it about 100 times, it would come to about 50% chance of heads, which is close to the truth. He got it after that presentation, even though I never even gave him a definition of "statistical significance". Inserting an easy-to-understand picture into the PowerPoint also does the trick.
Replace the technical lingo with common words whenever possible.
Also, trying to cover multiple difficult topics rarely works in any presentation. I usually pick the most important point and focus on it. If it is too broad, go a level higher. Zoom out and lose the details. Or pick a subtopic and dedicate your presentation to it. That's the trade-off you got to make.
But the most important thing is to do it. Practice, make mistakes, correct them, and improve. By the time someone wins a Nobel Prize, they are always able to explain their work to general public in a few minutes.

@NajibIdrissi I think the idea behind the quote is much older. I also think the main idea is to motivate us to always strive to deepen our understanding of everything, not to try to explain things to kids in an effort to prove our deep understanding of a concept. Although it is a pretty good test

I have read that it is best to begin a presentation with the 'thesis': i.e. a brief explanation of the topic of my research.

I would not consider this piece of advice generally applicable. For example, in my field many people are applying the field’s techniques to some application from another field. As most of the audience is not familiar with this application (at least beyond what is generally known), there is no point in telling it anything about your detailed approach, before making it familiar with the application. And this is what good talks do: They first introduce the application and then they explain how they approached some specific problem.
More generally, one fundamental rule for a good talk (and in fact, any communication) is:

Do not talk about something that you do not expect your audience to understand.

I think the best advice would be to try to explain it to other people first, get feedback and then rework it. I'm not sure myself what that topic includes. I prefer having a map first thing and then letting the discussion fill in the left and right details but if I don't know what a map is I would assume I would need a lesson on maps. But that analogy may be completely useless for your topic.

For a 20 minute presentation you must be concise. For organizational purposes, you can introduce yourself and thesis/focus, then simply state an outline for your presentation: "first I will explain x, then talk about y and follow up with z." Then the audience will expect the background and you don't spend a lot of time on it. Give them the bare minimum background they need.

I have read that it is best to begin a presentation with the ‘thesis’, i.e. a brief explanation of the topic of my research.

Let's generalize this.  Start with some hook or hint of what's to come.  Something to motivate them to listen to the background explanation you have to provide.
This approach is somewhat analogous to the lead paragraph in a news story.
Additional suggestion: I like talks that provide a brief outline of the talk, at the beginning, and then brief reminders of the outline when moving from one section to another.  This could be especially appreciated by your audience if your talk structure is a bit out of the ordinary.

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text:
Chose name for first publication (special characters and compound names)
I am submitting my first paper ever in a couple of months and I was wondering about my family name. The paper is in English and the conference is an international conference.
Assume my name is {Alan} {võn Neumann} {Chúrch}, so {first name} {family name father} and {family name mother} where {family name father has two words}. Note also the special characters (õ and ú) I added there on purpose (as I do have them in my real name).
If I had the choice, I would go with  {Alan} {võn Neumann} {Chúrch}, but I don't want to be cited as Chúrch or Võn. A proper citation would be võn Neumann Chúrch, but võn Neumann would be fine as well.
How can I ensure that I would be properly cited?
Also, should I keep the special characters? I really would rather keep them.
Best,
Not Alan von Neumann Church ;)

Have you considered using a pseudonym?

+1 for thinking about this before your first publication. Have you read through the other questions tagged personal-name? They may be helpful.
In your case, I’d go with Alan võn Neumann, or võn Neumann, Alan if your target journal uses this format.
If you include Chúrch, then I’ll guarantee that you will start being referenced as “Chúrch (2015)” - maybe not on this publication, but later. (You do plan on using a consistent name throughout your sciencific career, right?) Bibliographic databases may be smart enough to pick this up, but they will need to rely on journal editors including your correct name in their journal databases, and this is where noise will creep in.
Conversely, I wouldn’t worry too much about the diacritical characters, as long as their mapping to basic characters is straightforward. Search engines understand this, so it won’t make a difference whether your name is listed as võn Neumann or von Neumann. One exception would be German ß, where it is not obvious that this should be transcribed ss. IIRC, people have legally changed their names over this.

+1 for the nice answer and, especially, for mentioning of being consistent - an important point that I missed to note in my answer.

Thanks, yes I saw three other answers that were related to the problem (including changing maiden names etc) but none about having two family names.
I also think they will mess up the two family names indeed... I'll probably go for the Alan võn Neumann I guess, to be pragmatic...
Thanks again!
And yes, of course I plan on being consistent! :)

To add to the last point: The biggest problem with the ß is if the author’s list of a paper is given in all-caps or small caps, in which case it usually is converted to SS (and it will take some time for the capital ß to be established). It is impossible for the reader to say from this whether, e.g., somebody whose name is given as MUSSMANN is actually named Mußmann or Mussmann – even native speakers of German won’t be able to do this.

In another note, while I agree with you that somebody will get the compound surname wrong, the likelihood of this is somewhat lower than with a normal double surname thanks to the surname prefix võn: When I read something like Alan võn Neumann Chúrch, I can be pretty certain that a surname starts at võn. With Alan Neumann Chúrch, it is more difficult to tell whether Neumann is part of the surname or a middle name.

Actually, thats an interesting point. When I submit a paper its anonymous, if they do accpet it, I have to send the camera ready version. At what point do I tell them what my name is? Or do they usually take it from the camera ready version and they are suposed to be smart enough to figure it out? Because I know someone with the case "Alan Church vonNeuman" and he got "von Neumann'ed", but as you say my case could posibly "save itself" lol

@excalibur1491: Usually, right upon the initial submission. The paper is anonymous (i.e. does not contain your name and affiliation) toward the reviewers, but all of that metadata usually has to be entered during the initial submission in forms in the submission system and editors can access it all the time.

@Wrzlprmft: I agree with your assessment concerning võn, however capitalization plays into this, and in styles that fully capitalize the surname (which is rare in the paper styleguides I am familiar with, but, in other contexts such as names in e-mails/letters, at least seems to be reasonably commonplace in French and sometimes also Spanish), it might once again be tricky to tell whether VÕN NEUMANN is the prefixed name "võn Neumann", or a name composed of two individual names, "Võn" and "Neumann".

@O.R.Mapper, double-blind review is really only common in Computer Science. It's much less common in other fields.

@BillBarth: double-blind review is the norm in psychology, and I am just revising an OR paper that was double-blinded. But we may be getting off topic here...

@BillBarth: As the OP wrote "When I submit a paper its anonymous", I took it for granted that they are subject to double-blind review.

Having the mother's surname as second surname is a South American thing. It will get people confused.
In most countries the father's surname is used (where there's equality you can choose the mother's too), in some you can have your kids get both surnames with a dash in the middle (it's still one surname), but I think it's still dangerous as it's not a standard.
The father's surname is used as default in the whole world, and it's the one that comes first in your name and would probably get assigned to you in foreign countries if you had to choose only one.

@O.R.Mapper As you can imagine from the fake name I chose in this post, I am indeed in the CS field and the submission is double-blinded. (The conference is AAAI, if that gives you more info, but I guess I'll submit to other in my life hehe)

@Formagella: More precisely, having two surnames, one from each parent, is customary wherever Spanish or Portuguese are spoken, not just in South America.

@StephanKolassa, Hi again. Today I was reviewing my paper and found that BibTex does tricky things with diacritical characters as one of my citations was missing a letter with a diacriticala ccent because in the original bibtex from the editor they used the leter like è instead of \`{e}. Is it possibel to force editors to automatically do this when submitting your paper? Thanks again

@excalibur1491: yes, that's something I often struggle with, too. Possibly the problem is not with BibTeX but with your main document. Try including an encoding that would allow you to use these diacritics in your main document. (Or, in the interest of maximum foolproofness, search-replace with '{} in your .bib file.) Otherwise, look through TeX.SE.

Another option is to write your pen name with a dash: võn Neumann-Chúrch. This could be a reasonable compromise: On the one hand, you can keep both of your actual surnames. On the other hand, the risk of being misquoted is slightly greater than if you drop the second surname (but it is smaller than if you keep both and write them without a dash).

I can confirm that a dash-version would work (i.e. is recognized and cited correctly by automatic programs). Surnames with dashes are quite common at least in some contries.

@jofel Yes, they are common in certain countries where you can chose to have a double surname (with dash) after marriage.

I'm not someone (or from a country) with father/mother names - so I don't know if that would be a bastardisation or not - but to me that appears as though "von" applies to both, not "von Neumann"-"Church". Whether that matters or not I presume depends on whether it offends (or just seems wrong to) someone with that form of name.

Won't someone think there are two authors, instead? Like, you know, Gay-Lussac, Boyle-Mariotte or similar.

@Lohoris unlikely, since these would be separated either by a slash (/) or a comma on a paper. (if you are lucky enough to have a law or conjecture etc. named after you, well than you are probably famous enough not to care about the correct citation of your name,)

@Lohoris Sometimes, to avoid confusion, a hyphen is used to separate two names of the same author while an en dash is used to separate the names of two people. This subtlety has become particularly well known in number theory, because of a famous open problem called the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture (that's two people, not three).

I use such a compound, hypen-separated surname myself and I've always been cited correctly. As an added benefit, the resulting surname is so rare it makes it extremely easy to find my publications.

Despite Stephan's comments on diacritical characters, I would still worry somehow about them. I do not know what the state of the art is today, but I saw in horror once an article of mine being from Mylasterrorame instead of Mylastname, with n being a diacritical character.
And yes, Google still finds the wrong version.
I do not care about that anymore (having left the academics world) but, should I have known, I would have dropped anything which is not ASCII in my name immediately.

Here's my opinion on the topic. Firstly, a proper citation for a paper is more of a function of a particular publishing style (APA, Chicago, etc.) than your naming preferences. Secondly, while I can totally understand your desire to keep the original alphabet's letters with diacritical marks, I see a potential problem with that. What I mean is that citations, including such letters, for some people (audience), might be difficult to reproduce (cite), search for and (for authors) get proper attribution.
Therefore, I guess, this problem requires making a trade-off between desiring to present information most accurately in terms of naming and more pragmatic aspects (convenience for authors and their audience as well as better accuracy in terms of attribution).

Thanks Aleksandr. What is your opinion in the compound names then (2 family names)?
As for the diacritical marks, I am not so much concerned, I have come accross papers from Brazilans, Spaniards etc. Google Scholar finds those authors with no problem (you can try names as Gómez, Núñez, García, etc, they all work well)

@excalibur1491: You're welcome. In regard to compound names, I think that the best advice is to choose one arrangement and use it consistently, as mentioned by Stephan. As for diacritical marks, I would be more careful. My point was not concerned about their handling by Google Scholar and similar systems, but rather potential problems due to people's inability (non- or differently-internationalized keyboards) or impatience for typing those letters as well as potential for accidental omission of citations in a search because of letter similarity in appearance (i.e., García vs. Garcia).

@AleksandrBlekh If people don't cite names with diacritical marks correctly then that reflects badly on the person doing the citation. Why should someone mangle their own name to allow others not to use symbols.... heck, a copy and paste would do. - Search engines are generally fine with those not being in the search term.
(I've seen a few papers with names that have diacritical marks and if they are a part of the name they should be printed.)

@DetlevCM: I agree with you. However, when rightly blaming someone, who cited a paper inaccurately, you're missing my point that, in such scenario, e-repositories and/or citation indices might fail to provide the authors proper (or any) attribution, thus, negatively affecting both parties.

@excalibur1491: Pah, Brazilians, Spaniards, ... Latvian names is where things get interesting ;)

A search for "von Neumann Church" or "Garcia" will almost always now match "võn Neumann Chúrch" or "García". This is part of the Unicode standard, and all big search engines will comply. This might have been an issue some years ago, but I don't think it will be now.

@MJeffryes: I'm assuming that your comment is targeting me. I'm sure that you're correct about major search engines. However, I'm pretty sure that e-repositories, citation indices and other services, such as ResearcherID and ORCID, are not that smart at the moment, which potentially might result in serious authors attribution issues.

@AleksandrBlekh Right, you can't be certain it won't cause issues (although at least for ORCID you can list multiple names, eg with and without accents), so it depends how much value you put in having your name correctly rendered.

@MJeffryes: I agree - it's a balancing act (trade-off).

@AleksandrBlekh In that case I'd extend the blame to the repository as having and "too narrow English mindset" focussed around only the characters found in the English language. Given how international science is, it would seem fairly obvious that support should exist for all kinds of diacritical marks - including the algorithms to identify common misspellings.

@AleksandrBlekh: Attribution issues? I'm afraid I don't understand the use case. Either, I know of a paper, but I don't know who wrote it. In that case, I will have some identifying information, such as title, year, and/or DOI. I can enter that information in some digital library, and I will get to the paper and thus find out who wrote it - but in this case, it is irrelevant whether or not the digital library supports soft matching of Unicode characters. Or, I already know the name of the author. However, in that case, attribution is already clear, I don't need the digital library ...

... to determine it. Hence, where is the attribution issue? On the contrary, I rather see an attribution issue caused by normalizing to ASCII, given that this means some people whose name is García end up being written the same as other people whose name is Garcia, and thus are easier to confuse.

@DetlevCM: My point is concerned not about who to extend the blame to, but, rather, assessing whether there is a risk of negative side effects and what parties are prone to that risk. Blaming repositories wouldn't help authors with dealing with the fact of losing attribution for their work.

@O.R.Mapper: Re: understanding the use case. You write: "I can enter that information in some digital library...", which really means "I can search information in some digital library". That's the point: you don't enter the information, but, rather search - it is someone else, who entered that information earlier; and, if that information is entered incorrectly or not accurately, you simply will not be able to find that paper in that digital library, which I refer to above as e-repository, hence the attribution problem. The ASCII-related issue is just another potential related problem.

@AleksandrBlekh: "you simply will not be able to find that paper" - yes, I will, as I am searching by DOI, or by paper title, or something else, if I want to find out author names. As I said, if I already know author names, attribution is already clear, hence I do not need to search for them.

I am honestly not too concerned about the diacritical characters. I'm in the computer science field and pretty much all goes through Google Scholar and it finds perfectly, as a matter of fact I happen to cite two brazilian papers where names have ão at the end, and had no problem (even University of São Paolo has it..). Also, my family name is that uncommon that I doubt it will ever be atributed to another person (garcia and garcía could happen, but I guarantee mine wouldn't, no one that I found on Google Scholar has my family name).

But thank all of you for your comments, I obviously take them into account and I'll end up deciding something when I submit in a couple months based on your advice :)

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text:
Measuring Teaching Effectivness
I'm a tenure track professor in computer science at a teaching-oriented university. I still have a number of years before I go up for tenure, but want to start preparing early. One of the metrics I will be judged on is teaching effectiveness; namely, some objective, quantitative measure of student learning. I've talked to my (recently tenured) colleagues about this, and it sounds like no one has any idea of best ways to measure it; everyone kind of offered some discussion of test scores, called it a day, and got tenure. I would like to be a bit more principled in my approach, but am unsure how. A pretest seems like the most obvious, since it seems that you would need a baseline to measure effectiveness over the course of the semester. But, I primarily teach intro programming, where students have no background knowledge (those who do are in another class), so giving a pretest seems pointless.
In particular, I have honed in on wanting to teach critical thinking skills (somewhat in line with "How to Think Like a Programmer") and have slowly changed my approach in that direction, but am even more mystified about how to measure that.
In general, looking for recommendations on how to go about assessing teaching effectiveness in a quantitative way in the computer science field.

Is this some new policy for which they have not established a procedure?  Did you talk to the department chair?

Yes, I have. Our department (which I love and have a good relationship with) is cynical about all the bureaucratic red tape, including promotion and tenure. My departmental reviews have gone very well, but I'd like to do better for the tenure committee. We've had faculty sit on those committees, and I've talked to them, but they don't have a high opinion for the criteria some other members of those committees use (pre/post tests seem popular in other depts). So, I would like to do something that will not only be convincing for the committee, but also something that I'm proud of/find useful.

Do you mean principled in your approach, or systematic?

In that case, my suggestions are to (1) talk to people from other departments who have been on tenure committees and/or (2) contact the current head of that committee.  (You can say something like no one in your department is quite clear how teaching is evaluated.)  Also read the faculty handbook if you haven't already.

Related question that I asked some time back (still haven't received any good answers on that one, unfortunately): Alternatives to relying solely on student evaluations of teaching to help administrators more accurately assess teaching effectiveness

@MadJack I think the main issue is that there is no good objective solution to your question (though I think the asking the question is worthwhile).  There are various goals in teaching, some of which are long term and some of which are impossible to measure objectively, particularly if you want to apply it to all courses.

"students have no background knowledge so giving a pretest seems pointless." You need evidence of effectiveness.  Give a pretest to prove students have no background knowledge.  Personally I do not believe your students have no background knowledge.  Do they know boolean?  Do they know how to turn on a computer?  You should give a pretest to find out.  The first time I did that in an intro class, I discovered most students didn't know about radians (which they should have learned about years earlier), but a few knew almost the complete course content.

Since this is computer science, you could also ask this question in the Computer Science Educators SE. Maybe some of the more teaching-focused people have good suggestions.

objective, quantitative measure of student learning

This is impossible today and probably always will be.  "Learning" is too broad for a single metric.  Form a specific hypothesis, then test it using a pre-test and post-test.  Ideally, you should use two groups of students, one of which receives an intervention.  The other group is a control.
You can get free training courses here: https://www.cirtl.net/p/cirtl-programming#Courses (see "Teaching-as-Research")
Do not forget to include qualitative information and feedback from peer faculty.

In addition, you can do this with several hypotheses and just report the results that turn out positive for you.  I.e., a good metric for you is one that makes you look good.

Consider using a "program assessment" approach to your self-study. Program assessment is normally meant to investigate what students know overall after a complete course of study (degree program). But I think the approach can give some useful information about individual courses, without the wierdness of pre-testing students on a subject they haven't been taught yet.
Basically: Draft a few concrete goals for the course that you teach, and then turn those into specific test questions that you always carry on your final exams. Ideally, you'd draft those goals and questions with input from other faculty members. Record statistics from those final questions each semester. Be on the lookout for any questions where the students are weaker/struggling more than others, and use that as an opportunity to modify or re-focus your course content. If scores go up in semesters after that, then you can hold that up to the tenure committee as an example of your commitment, awareness, and self-improvement in teaching methods. The fact that you have some years before tenure means that you have time for this long-term approach.
Information on program assessment in general can be found here (UMass, "Program-Based Review and Assessment", 2001):
http://www.umass.edu/oapa/oapa/publications/online_handbooks/program_based.pdf
Information on assessment for Computer Science in particular can be found here (U. Pittsburgh, 2014):
http://www.dbserc.pitt.edu/Assessment/Assessments-Computer-Science

I think this is not a bad idea (+1), but just want to point out there are some obvious drawbacks.  To give meaningful results, it assumes: (1) you teach the same course with the same focus many times, (2) the quality of students/student support is roughly the same, (3) students don't find out you're using the same questions year after year.  In my particular situation, I don't think any of those hold at present.

Teaching effectiveness is often boiled down to some measurement of observable change in the behavior of students. As such, you should be seeking to find some behavior that you can observe in your students that have changed in part due to your instructional practices.
I believe that a pre-test post-test approach can work in your intro to programming classes if you compare different teaching styles/methodologies either used in the same class (within group) or different sections of the same course (between group). You first search for different ways to teach your content, run the experiment, and you will then have clear-cut evidence of the best way to teach your own students in the context that you work in. This would be an example of action research.
When it is time to discuss teaching at your tenure interview you discuss your findings and share how you know what is effective teaching for the classes you teach.
In relation to critical thinking, this is really messy to operationalized and measure quantitatively. How to measure a students ability to compare/contrast, synthesize/analyze, and or evaluate is exceedingly difficult as these are actions that take place within the mind intuitively and cannot be observed. Often, we know critical thinking when we see it but can't measure it with numbers because critical thinking is about developing an opinion which is difficult to measure objectively. Documenting this qualitatively is reasonable but may not be acceptable since your department is requiring numerical evidence.
As such, teaching critical thinking skills but perhaps leaving it out of the discussion for tenure would benefit students without complicating your employment

You still have some years and you teach your students not only what is needed to get through your exam but also critical thinking and skills that will get useful later on. Taking both together, you might be able to get nice statistical results if you keep an eye on your students. Can you maybe find out that the average GPA of students who visited your course went up after that? Can you get access to the number/percentage of your students that got a degree after passing your course (maybe with honors) and compare it to the average?
Of course there might be no significant difference here, but you should still keep an eye on it, as teaching thinking skills often only pays off later; but is still just as important.
Note that this should not be your only argument, as it might not be a good one. But if you can get the standard test scores and also add something here, showing how your special teaching approach was beneficial to the students in the long run, I would go for it.


text:
Group reviewing a manuscript sent our for review. Ethical?
Is it ethical to "group review" a un-published manuscript sent out for review?
For example, you received a manuscript for review and you shared it with your lab group or group of colleagues, with the permission of the journal but not the permission of the authors. Is this ok?

Did the editor gave permission to distribute the paper to your colleagues? But the editor did not get the permission of the author? That sounds very strange because, since the paper is under review, the journal does not have the copyright of the paper to allow free distribution. So, no it's not OK.

Editor gave permission to group review the manuscript, but the authors were never informed.

It is not clear. What does it mean "gave permission"? Did you ask for it and the Editor gave? Or from the beginning editor suggested that it's fine if you do a group review?

Was given manuscript to review as an individual. Asked permission from editor/journal to review as a group. Permission was given by the journal/editor. Authors informed in comments afterwards.

I doubt that in this case it is OK. I do not think that the editor has the "right" to give such permission, even if cases where confidentiality is guaranteed.

Grey area, leaning towards unethical. Confidentiality is an important value in the peer review process, and the usual understanding of confidentiality is that the paper will be distributed to the minimum number of people required to perform the reviews. Therefore, your case, where a group of people replaces a single person, can be seen as a violation of confidentiality.

The answer below, meant for a comment. I deleted it. Here it is: I agree. Unless for unknown reasons this was the case from the review invitation, then the editor does not have the right to give permission for a group review.

IMO this depends a lot on the field. In mathematics, if the article is already posted on a repository like arxiv, I would see a group review as a positive thing.

@NickS Even in this case, the point is: Does the Editor has the right to give permission to a group review? As lighthouse keeper said, it's probably very borderline case unless the authors are informed.

@PsySp Again, this is probably area dependent, but as long as confidentiality is not compromised, the editor doesn't have to let the author know if adding extra reviewers. Keep in mind though that in my area, almost every paper appears on an online repository when submitted, which makes many of the points around "keeping the number of people who review the manuscript minimal" irrelevant. And also, typically the review is much longer than in other areas, most of the times because of technical proofs and many very very subtle points which take a lot of time to think over..... The possibility of

a group review would make the review process much faster and better, at no downside to the author...But again, this is field dependent.

I agree that confidentiality is not so big an issue when the paper is already publicly available, of course. I also agree that group review may have certain benefits, but that's a different discussion, since it applies regardless of possible violations of the author's confidentiality.

Downvote, it's not leaning towards unethical, it is blatantly unethical without the editor's permission.  Dirk's answer is correct.  The question does not state permission was given, but it is mentioned in the comments.

Still not enough detail for a definitive answer, but here goes:
Confidentiality is fundamental for the review process and especially the authors who submit their papers expect that their manuscript is treated confidential. Hence, all reviewers have to treat the manuscript as such (and usually the editors informs the authors of the general review guidelines). If you as a reviewer asks the editor if other may help you with the review, this is totally OK. The editor may decide what to do, especially he may decide to allow this procedure but all members of the group performing the review have to adhere to the review guidelines, especially treating the whole review process confidential. Also the editor should know all members of the group who is performing the review. If all this is the case, there is nothing wrong with a group review.
Of course, you may not extend the group of reviewer at will.

Good answer. The important things here are (1) Did the authors knew about the change in the review process? NO (only in retrospect). (2) Did the editor knew the whole group that is going to review the paper (so it might seem like a collective review invitation? NOT CLEAR. In any case, I do not think that the editor played well in this case.

It boils down to the definition of "confidentiality". In my answer, I assume a more conservative definition, where authors can expect that their manuscripts are only distributed to a minimal number of people, which is not the case for a group review. Unfortunately, there's no single clear-cut definition of "confidentiality" in this matter, but In doubt, it seems appropriate to apply the most conservative one.


text:
Should I explain my poor performance during undergrad, due to mental illness, when applying for PhD?
I was mentally ill for the first three years of my undergraduate studies (altogether, I had the diagnoses of severe depression and anxiety disorder for about five years). The diseases delayed my progress considerably. However, I recovered, and have done extremely well after that.
Two programs, both top-ten globally, are interested in hiring me. I have not listed my grades on my CV to avoid giving a bad first impression; I have instead highlighted my achievements: publications, prizes, research experience, etc.
How / when should I mention this? My BSc is average and MSc very good. I hope they do not care about the undergrad grades. If there is an "other information" box in the applications, should I state something along the lines

My performance during my undergraduate studies was not good due to severe illness. However, I have fully recovered, and done very well since

I know there is a previous question about getting a bad transcript past admission committees. However, I think my qualifications are really good without the bad beginning. Also, I would like not to mention I was mentally ill. What to do here?

Check the other questions tagged graduation-admissions and health-issues, one or more of them may address this question.

Along with what @ff524 said and I think you're good. It's very easy to pin an excuse on something (what they'll think) so I would omit what you want to say in the other box. If they ask, which they probably won't you can say the above. If you have solid test scores, great references and did well in your graduate study they won't care about your early years. I doubt you would've gotten accepted to MS with an abysmal GPA. You're good

You do not need to disclose the nature of your illness if you do not wish to.  It was your illness, and you get to decide how you handle it.
The short explanation you propose is fine.  You might want to specify that it was the first three years:

My performance during the first three years of my undergraduate studies was not representative of my abilities, and was due to illness. However, I am glad to say that I have fully recovered, and as my transcripts show, I was able to overcome those early difficulties.

I would advise you to be upfront about it in your SoP; the level of detail as to the cause is up to you. I think if I read in a statement of purpose that someone had gone through clinical anxiety/depression; that it affected his/her early grades; that he/she tackled the problem head-on; and that he/she is doing "extremely well" (backed up by his/her academic record), I'd likely be impressed.

I agree with aparante001 about what you might write and would add that it is important that at least one of your letters of reference corroborate what you say.
When preparing to write letters, I often ask students if there is anything that would sound better coming from me rather than from them, such as that their poor grades one year were due to working 20 hours/week in addition to being a full-time student.
Your advisor's assurance that you heroically overcame your problems, which are now fully behind you, would be a big help.
Good luck!


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Academic dishonest: Possession of unauthorized materials during an exam that you didn't even know existed
So unfortunately during an exam, I had the misfortune of using an eraser (with cover) that was not mine and had a small amount of words inside it unknown to me. I did not know this was the case, as I don't have a habit of unraveling erasers or looking at them closely?
However, now I face the problem in trying to defend myself against the accusation of me cheating.
I'm specifically concerned on my university's blank statement of "possession of unauthorized materials during an exam" is considered academic dishonesty. Seems like student conduct has all the power in trying to prove academic dishonesty, despite none of my test containing any of what to me is  unreadable, small notes.

What is a standalone eraser? The results of a Google search do not seem to be things you would normally have during an exam

Why did someone lend you forbidden material? Were they trying yo set you up? The answer might depend on this.

just a common white rubber eraser thats about as long as a finger with some type of paper/plastic cover to grip it with. Also I picked up the eraser after a class along with some material I had forgotten.

https://www.google.com/search?q=white+rubber+eraser

If you do not know whose the eraser is, it is going to be difficult to defend your case. It is your responsibility to make sure that everything you bring is allowed... However, I would say that an exam in which you can get a significant advantage by writing a few words on an eraser is a poorly designed exam. Let us see if someone comes up with a good answer. Welcome to Academia.SE!

Thanks. I was considering telling that to my student conduct officer vs my teacher as they haven't even bothered to read my 600 + essay.

now I face the problem in trying to defend myself against the accusation of me cheating When were you accused?

You omitted quite important aspects: How was the supposed cheating detected? What were the notes on the eraser about? What was your exam about? How did the text end up on the eraser?

One standard rule in many exams is “you are not allowed to borrow materials from other candidates” - for obvious reasons...

I am involved with both sides of issues like this; both in prosecuting students for academic misconduct and also in advising and defending students who are facing such accusations. I am therefore in a position to see it from both sides.
One thing I always tell students when facing such situations is to take advice. Universities usually have a Student's Union, Student Association or Student Advice Service. They can help you with the details of such a procedure in your individual institution. You may also have been allocated a personal tutor or supervisor who may also advise of procedures and processes you need to know about.
Now, to answer your particular point, you need to see the situation from the perspective of those who found the "unauthorised material". In these situations almost every student who intended to cheat will also have no problem with lying either. They will also say "it is not my eraser, I only borrowed it". We get something approaching the "Liars Paradox" in trying to find the truth. It will be  hard for you to prove that your version is the truth. They have to work with the evidence at hand.
This situation can occur in University Exams for foreign language students, where they are permitted to use a translating dictionary. These being expensive, they borrow one from a friend, only to have themselves being accused of cheating when annotations are discovered written inside. I advise my students to never borrow exam equipment and retain special clean unused items of dictionaries, erasers, pencils, calculators etc. that they reserve for exam use only.
For those that think we need more details about the incident to answer this question: we do not. Those details are for the body that investigates the accusation of cheating. We should only advise on what the student should be able to do in such cases, and we have enough detail for that.

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Should I write my name with an already gained bachelor title in another bachelor thesis?
I am writing my second bachelor thesis for a completely different degree and don't know if I should put my name with my already gained title(B.Sc) onto the title page. I live in a country where even bachelor titles are added to the name most of the time, but am not sure if I should/could do that for my  other bachelor thesis. The thesis is written in english, if that's important.

I personally wouldn't (although I think I was formally required to put the M.Sc. on the PhD. thesis, but then again, the PhD. title-page kind of has a special status in Germany). In my opinion, a thesis should stand on its own and not be related to any previous merits. But you should check other thesis in your country, specifically master theses, where there definitely is a preexisting title, to see how they do it.

@mlk Good the idea with master theses, they all have the bachelor title in them. Austria just loves their titles...

I don't think anyone can answer this as it's entirely dependent on the thesis regulations of the institution where you are studying. These regulations will usually define what should be on the title page, fonts, margins and how any academic titles should appear.

The good news is that it doesn't matter. Very few people will read the thesis. If it is normative in your country to add B.Sc after a name, then you have the right to add it wherever you choose. This is not normative in the US or UK, where I have worked. However, there's no requirement that all titles be used, even in formal contexts. In sum: you can choose.

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What exactly happens when a department head is contacted about a specific instructor in a specific course?
Related, but not what  I'm getting at
In one of my courses at a University, I overheard some of my classmates talking before a very difficult test (we knew it was going to be hard beforehand based upon the practice exam). The students were assuring each other that the department head "knows about the [stuff] going on [in this course]."
Apparently, several of them emailed or were planning to email the department head claiming, among other things, that the course material was too hard (grad level), the professor wasn't doing a good job, etc...
DISCLAIMER: I personally believe these claims are bunk. If any of these students actually attended the class on a regular basis, they may find themselves in a better position, IMHO.
My question is this: What, if anything, might the department head reasonably do? I ask because he's certainly getting a skewed, although loud, representation of the course. Our professor is new to the University, and I think is undeserving of such remarks.
EDIT:
Changed asking what the department head might reasonably do so that an answer doesn't have to read his mind. :) @thecomments

Department chairs get these kind of complaints all the time, and they are used to having to figure out which ones are legit and which ones are students not taking responsibility for having to actually do some work to learn something.

@Buffy I considered making it an answer, but I didn't answer the actual question of what the chair will do.

Department chairs are adept at dealing with that whining and entitled subset of undergrads who cannot digest the fact that they have to actually earn their degrees (shock! horror!) and that some courses demand serious effort. As it is, what used to be rigorous coursework has already been Disneyfied beyond recognition in many mid-tier schools.

Expanding on my comment to make it an answer.
Department chairs deal with this all the time, and have to figure out which complaints are legit and which are students complaining as an excuse. I've seen several courses of action.

Do nothing. If the student's complaints don't seem reasonable or seem out of character for that instructor, it's a waste of time to worry about it.
Meet with the student to find out more information. I've seen this happen when a complaint is delivered by email, but at my university it's rare because most student feedback happens via anonymous surveys at the end of the semester.
If it's a one-time event, talk with the instructor involved. Students provide one side of the story; an instructor might provide a different side. I had this happen when a student complained about my grading of an assignment -- turns out they had received a mandatory 0 for plagiarism and were hoping a complaint would get them a better grade. If the complaint is that the material or exams are too hard, it would be appropriate for the chair to review the material (perhaps with a professor familiar with the subject). For example, my courses have a course co-ordinator who could impartially review any questions about my lectures, assignments, tests, or grading.
If it's a pattern of legitimate complaints, the chair can take either mentoring or disciplinary actions as allowed by the university. My university has a faculty mentoring program where other faculty members will sit in on classes and offer help with improving teaching styles. Non-tenured faculty can also be progressively disciplined in a number of ways -- tenured faculty are obviously harder to discipline. Ideally someone doesn't get tenure if they have obvious problems in the classroom, but we all know it does happen. I've seen department chairs "punish" tenured faculty by giving them less desirable teaching assignments, but it also doesn't seem really effective.

Ultimately, it's going to be a combination of how credible the complaint is, how many complaints there have been, how motivated the chair is, and what options are legally available to the chair.

Indeed, nice summary. Of course, giving hard tests isn't an issue - failing people because of too-hard tests might be. I had one physics professor whose theory was that the homework and tests should show you the limits of your knowledge, so there was no expectation of getting any question even near 100% correct. My overall average was in the low 30% range, which translated into an A. I learned a whole lot about how to analyze complex problems, and none of us ever thought of complaining to the department chair.