Academic Advice (Professionals only Please)
Robocop
>> PLEASE REPLY I WOULD REALLY BE THANKFUL <<
I would extremely appreciate your advices, as it would help me make my
decisions. Please spare some time to read the following.
Here is what happened with me. We had to do an assignment worth only
2%. In it we had to make 7 classes one of them is below.
After spending hours I completed the entire assgn. and I had a little
bug in one of the class given below, so I decided to go to a forum.
There we discussed the problem and one person gave the code GIVEN
BELOW. So I ran it with my other classes and it worked, when I looked
at the code written by the person from the forum I quickly realized
what the _mistake_ in my code was and what changes it needed, as that
mistake was pretty much "trivial" and mediocre; I didn't bother to
correct that mistake in my code and I sent the code from the forum
given below as according to me it was no big deal as no one was ever
going to SEE the code and mark it and also the implementation of the
method in the code given by the person in the forum was pretty good
and no. of lines were few compared to MINE so I favored that code and
NOT mine . Moreover, the code was ONLY going to be marked by a
"TESTDRIVER" AUTOMATICALLY based on the OUTPUTS of the methods.
If you look at the code below (from the forum) and the one after it
(MINE). BOTH the codes will give SAME OUTPUTS if tested by the
TESTDRIVER, so it doesn't matter which code I used.
I've ALSO POSTED THE "method" (at the bottom) in the class written by
me which compelled me to take OUTSIDE HELP.
Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<< I don't know what to
do now. I thinks its just laughable to be charged for such simple
thing; also me being a first year student, I don't think its fair.
FOR 2% THIS MUCH? I have to lose 5% now because of this.
There were 7 classes and just due to ONE METHOD which accounts to
about 0.2% of the entire assignment.!!!
SO, for thing of 0.2% I've to LOSE 5%????
I could have avoided this whole thing had I known that "we have to add
the name and the address of the reference" from where the segment of
the class was taken from. But being a NOVICE I wasn't aware.
>>I think the Professor has OVERREACTED reading the CONVERSATIONS that
I had with the people in the FORUM and the few things I said about the
INSTITUTION.
SHOULD I GO FOR A FORMAL HEARING IN FRONT OF LOT MORE PEOPLE TO PROVE
MYSELF INNOCENT OR SHOULD I ACCEPT THE CHARGES AND PLEAD *GUILTY* AND
ACCEPT 5% DECREASE IN MY OVERALL RESULT???
PLEASE ADVICE.
/* Folowing is the code that I got from the FORUM*/
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
public class Train {
public static final String BERTH = "berth";
public static final String SEAT = "seat";
private Collection railCars = new ArrayList();
// yuck.
public Train(int numSaloonCars, int nSeats, int numSleepingCars,
int nBerths) {
if (numSaloonCars < 0 || nSeats < 0 || numSleepingCars < 0 ||
nBerths < 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("No values less than
zero allowed");
if (numSaloonCars + numSleepingCars == 0)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Gotta have railCars,
baby");
if (nSeats > SaloonCar.MAX_SEATS)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Too many seats");
if (nBerths > SleepingCar.MAX_BERTHS)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Too many berths");
railCars = new ArrayList();
for (int i = 0; i < numSaloonCars; i++) {
SaloonCar car = new SaloonCar(nSeats);
railCars.add(car);
}
for (int i = 0; i < numSleepingCars; i++) {
SleepingCar car = new SleepingCar(nBerths);
railCars.add(car);
}
}
// double yuck.
/*RELEVANT PART <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
public String reserveSpace(String spaceType, int numP) throws
TrainFullException {
if (!spaceType.equals(SEAT) && !spaceType.equals(BERTH))
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid spacetype");
if (numP < 1) throw new IllegalArgumentException("numP must be
> 0");
Iterator cars = railCars.iterator();
while (cars.hasNext()) {
RailCar car = (RailCar) cars.next();
if ( (spaceType.equals(SEAT) && car instanceof SaloonCar)
||
(spaceType.equals(BERTH) && car instanceof
SleepingCar) ) {
if (car.getAvailableSpace() >= numP) {
try {
return car.addPassengers(numP);
} catch (CarFullException cfe ) { /* not gonna
happen */ }
}
}
}
// if we get here, nothing's been allocated, so...
throw new TrainFullException();
}
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END OF RELEVANT PART*/
public String toString() {
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer("Train[");
Iterator cars = railCars.iterator();
int count = 0;
while (cars.hasNext()) {
if (count++ > 0) buf.append(",");
buf.append(cars.next());
}
return buf.append("]").toString();
}
}
****FOLLOWING IS CODE WRITTEN BY ME, AFTER REVIEWING THE ABOVE CODE, I
JUST NEED TO ADDED >TRY AND CATCH< BLOCKS.
public class Train {
public Train(int numSaloonCars, int nSeats, int numSleepingCars,
int nBerths) {
if((numSaloonCars + numSleepingCars) <= 0
|| (nSeats + nBerths) <= 0 || numSaloonCars < 0 ||
numSleepingCars < 0) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("input valid data!");
} else {
for(int i = 0; i < numSaloonCars; i++) {
atotal.add(new SaloonCar(nSeats));
}
for(int m = 0; m < numSleepingCars; m++) {
btotal.add(new SleepingCar(nBerths));
}
}
}
/* RELEVANT PART<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
public String reserveSpace(String spaceType, int numP) {
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
if(( !spaceType.equals(BERTH) && !spaceType.equals(SEAT))
|| (numP <= 0)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("enter proper data!");
} else if(spaceType.equals(SEAT)) {
List train = new LinkedList(atotal);
int found = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < train.size(); i++) {
if(((SaloonCar) train.get(i)).getAvailableSpace()>=
numP)
{
found = i;
}
}
try{
buf.append(((SaloonCar)
train.get(found)).addPassengers(numP));
} catch (CarFullException e) {throw new
TrainFullException();}
}
else if(spaceType.equals(BERTH)) {
List train2 = new LinkedList(btotal);
int found2 = 0;
for(int m = 0; m < train2.size(); m++) {
if( ((SleepingCar) train2.get(m)).getAvailableSpace()
>= numP)
{
found2 = m;
}
}
try{
buf.append(((SleepingCar)
train2.get(found2)).addPassengers(numP));
} catch (CarFullException e) {throw new TrainFullException();}
}
return buf.toString();
}
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END OF RELEVANT PART
*/
public String toString() {
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer("Train [");
List list = new LinkedList(atotal);
List list2 = new LinkedList(btotal);
for(int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
buf.append(" SaloonCar[ ");
buf.append(((SaloonCar) list.get(i)).toString() + " ]");
}
for(int m = 0; m < list2.size(); m++) {
buf.append(" SleepingCar[ ");
buf.append(((SleepingCar) list2.get(m)).toString() + "
]");
}
return buf.toString();
}
private List atotal = new LinkedList();
private List btotal = new LinkedList();
public static final String BERTH = "berth";
public static final String SEAT = "seat";
}
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/*BELOW IS THE CODE WRITTEN BY ME *BEFORE* GOING TO THE FORUM*/
YOU CAN NOTICE THE ONLY ADDITION IS THE "TRY AND CATCH" BLOCKS.
public String reserveSpace(String spaceType, int numP) {
StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
if(( !spaceType.equals(BERTH) && !spaceType.equals(SEAT))
|| (numP <= 0)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("enter proper data!");
} else if(spaceType.equals(SEAT)) {
List train = new LinkedList(atotal);
for(int i = 0; i < train.size(); i++) {
if(numP == ((SaloonCar)
train.get(i)).getAvailableSpace()) {
buf.append(
((SaloonCar)
train.get(i)).addPassengers(numP));
} else if(numP
< ((SaloonCar)
train.get(i)).getAvailableSpace()) {
buf.append(((RailCar)
train.get(i)).addPassengers(numP));
} else {
throw new TrainFullException("Train's Full!");
}
}
} else if(spaceType.equals(BERTH)) {
List train2 = new LinkedList(btotal);
for(int m = 0; m < train2.size(); m++) {
if(numP == ((SleepingCar) train2.get(
m)).getAvailableSpace()) {
buf.append(
((SleepingCar)
train2.get(m)).addPassengers(numP));
} else if(numP
< ((SleepingCar) train2.get(
m)).getAvailableSpace()) {
buf.append(
((SleepingCar)
train2.get(m)).addPassengers(numP));
} else {
throw new TrainFullException("Train's Full!");
}
}
}
return buf.toString();
}
Andrew Thompson
> Re: Academic Advice (Professionals only Please)
So you don't want to hear from other students,
or yobs like me that don't 'earn a living'
from Java. Tough, you get what you get.
..
>>> PLEASE REPLY I WOULD REALLY BE THANKFUL <<
Please keep posts on topic.
> ..so I decided to go to a forum.
What forum? I can see no evidence of the thread
you refer to in the posts you have made here..
<http://www.google.com/groups?q=robocop+train&group=comp.lang.java.programmer>
So, we now have this conversation is about..
a) Academic misconduct, which, actual or imagined,
is off topic for this forum. (though their may be some
justification for it to be diuscussed on c.l.j.help)
b) In reference to a conversation that did not
occur here and to which you did not link.
I suggest you take it back to the group on which
it occured..
--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology
Liz
one of my homework problems in a book. I told the
teacher and asked if I could just copy it. He said ok.
I started to write it out and then thought that this
is too time consuming, so I Xeroxed it. He was pissed,
but since he said ok first, he gave me a full 10 points.
You should have known that teachers nowadays are
checking for student cheating via the computer.
It has been on TV even. You are guilty. Take your punishment.
Consider it a cost of learning something. If you argue,
you have not yet learned this lesson.
"Robocop" <rob...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:8da88f61.04080...@posting.google.com...
Thomas G. Marshall
Calmly fight it.
But I suspect that your reason for posting it here was so that your
professor could read your complaint.
But just calmly, and relentlessly, fight it.
Adam Maass
The academic world works a lot differently than the professional world.
In the professional world, what you did would be perfectly acceptable and
indeed, even preferable: you found a way to answer the problem posed, and
probably saved a good amount of time rather than trying to figure it out for
yourself.
But in the academic world, the point is not to solve the problem, but to
learn how to solve problems.
My recommendation: take your lumps. You'll be in the academic world for some
time to come; you need to know how it operates.
One guideline I've seen posted about academic honesty in computer science
courses: students may talk about the problems, may even point out where
mistakes are in other students' code. But students may not actually write or
modify other students' code.
-- Adam Maass
Hamilcar Barca
2004 19:32:06 -0700), Robocop wrote:
> I didn't bother to correct that mistake in my code and I sent the
> code from the forum
> [...]
> Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<<
It's called "plagiarism". You used somebody else's work without crediting
it.
> I could have avoided this whole thing had I known that "we have to add
> the name and the address of the reference" from where the segment of the
> class was taken from. But being a NOVICE I wasn't aware.
You should have known. Now you do. Ignorance of academic requirements
has never been a valid excuse.
> SHOULD I GO FOR A FORMAL HEARING
HELL NO.
> PLEASE ADVICE.
TAKE YOUR LUMPS AND GET ON WITH LIFE.
Hal Rosser
discussing code strategy is 'ok'
but you cross the line when someone is looking at your code - or you are
copying other's code.
Looking at other's code which is publicly available gives you an opportunity
to look at it, and to try to understand it.
then use the lessons learned (not the actual code)
The academic environment encourages learning and thinking for yourself - not
having others to do it for you.
After you graduate - the constraints are lifted.
my 2-cents
"Robocop" <rob...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:8da88f61.04080...@posting.google.com...
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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Damian Carrillo
> Dear Folks:
>
>>> PLEASE REPLY I WOULD REALLY BE THANKFUL <<
> I would extremely appreciate your advices, as it would help me make my
> decisions. Please spare some time to read the following.
> Here is what happened with me. We had to do an assignment worth only
> 2%. In it we had to make 7 classes one of them is below.
> After spending hours I completed the entire assgn. and I had a little
> bug in one of the class given below, so I decided to go to a forum.
> There we discussed the problem and one person gave the code GIVEN
>>> Snip. <<<
I'm a student too, so I know where you are coming from. Did the
person who helped you know that he was helping you with an assignment, and
if so, did you comment the code and say who it was authored by, or that it
at least was not your original work. I've done this many times, where I
take code snippets from here or there and I give them credit if I know
whow the author is or at least put where I got it from.
If you can answer yes to both of the above questions, I would say you
should fight it and have a good chance of having the issue dropped.
That's how coding works in real life, right? Otherwise, I'd say it is
academic dishonesty and you should be lucky that you are getting such a
small punishment. They've kicked people out of the univ. I'm from for
stuff like that.
--
Damian Carrillo
=====================================
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/damian
dam...@cs.utexas.edu
Phlip
> Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<< I don't know what to
> do now. I thinks its just laughable to be charged for such simple
> thing; also me being a first year student, I don't think its fair.
You will go far in the corporate world.
--
Phlip
http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/TestFirstUserInterfaces
Vincent Cantin
Ok, thank me for what I will say ...
> I would extremely appreciate your advices
My only advice is :
If you think that your teacher is wrong, then it is your opinion. Why do you
ask the opinion of the others ? It won't change anything. Do you have your
own personality ? Do you really have doubts ?? Don't wait that the other act
or think for you.
karma
Ps: this forum is not related to fights between teachers and students.
jenniferyiu
the 1st honour.
No one like to care about how many academic grade point you gott
exactly, just would like to care about how you are going to solve a
problem, if you are able to solve a problem, how much time you use to
complete this or how much energy you would like to contribute to solve
a problem if you are going to work in IT in technical positions, or
engineering posts.
or ... IT job vacancies are moving to India and China, and you would
not work in any jobs related IT field after your graduation .....
"Vincent Cantin" <MY_EMAIL...@astrocorp.com.tw> wrote in message news:<2ne379F...@uni-berlin.de>...
FISH
[snipped...]
> I didn't bother to
> correct that mistake in my code and I sent the code from the forum
> given below as according to me it was no big deal as no one was ever
> going to SEE the code and mark it and also the implementation of the
> method in the code given by the person in the forum was pretty good
> and no. of lines were few compared to MINE so I favored that code and
> NOT mine .
In other words the code from the forum was superior to your own.
Not only did it work, but it was better written and more efficient.
If you'd simply studied the forum code, realised your mistake and
corrected your own work, perhaps then I might have some sympathy
for you. Your teacher is less interested in what your code does,
more *how* it does it - the *how* is what he/she is actually trying
to teach you. Not asking for the source code does not mean you're
free to copy. If you are struggling to design your own handglider,
and someone shows you the plans to a jet aircraft, you cannot simply
claim the jet plane as your own merely because it also happens to be
a winged flying machine. ;-)
-FISH- ><>
Anon Amous
Thomas G. Marshall
> Of course their is nothing wrong with plagiarism, ask M$,
Not sure if your statement was limited to this, but regardling the notion of
MS copying Apple:
Many of the ideas implemented on both sides have been around a lonnnnng
time. Consider that it's possible that perhaps MS has a more difficult time
implementing anything, because of how far back they have to reach with their
compatibility to prior revs.
Not to defend them everywhere of course. I myself call them /MafiaSoft/. :)
--
It'salwaysbeenmygoalinlifetocreateasignaturethatendedwiththeword"blarphoogy"
.
Robocop
situation that I am in.
Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of it.
The purpose of the assign. was to understand the concepts which I
obviously & certainly DO.
I've got 2 class codes doing SAME thing. SAME OUTPUT.
I've also got a PROOF that making few CHANGES in MY CODE, it will work
PRECISELY as it SHOULD. (I've already posted MY code and the code from
the FORUM)
"few changes" were so mediocre that I didn't feel like doing them.
Had I known that this would result in such a big CHAOS, am I a moron
to send others code just to get 0.1% increase? LOL
I think the professor himself knows that its NOT A BIG DEAL even then
instead of giving a verbal warning (since its my FIRST TIME and the
assign. was only worth 2% & pretty SIMPLE; and the code which was
taken from the forum accounted for only 0.1%) he's opting for 5%
decrease and wants me to plead GUILTY.
Darrell Grainger
Did you hand the other person's code in and mislead or openly claim that
it was your code? If you did then you where being dishonest.
If on the other hand you openly stated what you have told us here. If the
school was aware you were using someone else's code then you were not
dishonest.
> FOR 2% THIS MUCH? I have to lose 5% now because of this.
> There were 7 classes and just due to ONE METHOD which accounts to
> about 0.2% of the entire assignment.!!!
>
> SO, for thing of 0.2% I've to LOSE 5%????
No, you would not lose 5% for something really worth 0.2%. You would lose
5% for being dishonest. You seem to be failing to see things from the
school's point of view. They want honesty.
If an employee came to me and said, "I found this piece of code in the
Internet and it does exactly what we want. I am going to use it rather
than re-invent the code." I'd be okay with that (assuming the code was not
copyrighted). If on the other hand an employee was getting solutions from
the Internet and claiming to have created them, I'd have a problem with
that. I want to know I can trust my employees.
> I could have avoided this whole thing had I known that "we have to add
> the name and the address of the reference" from where the segment of
> the class was taken from. But being a NOVICE I wasn't aware.
Live and learn. Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is to learn
from them. If you attempt to fight this you will probably have to prove
that no one made you aware of the rules. Did you receive them and fail to
read it? The university I attended put this information in the book used
for picking your program and courses. The fact that I signed up for
courses meant I had the book with the codes. I would not be able to claim
ignorance on the issue of plagiarism.
> >>I think the Professor has OVERREACTED reading the CONVERSATIONS that
> I had with the people in the FORUM and the few things I said about the
> INSTITUTION.
>
> SHOULD I GO FOR A FORMAL HEARING IN FRONT OF LOT MORE PEOPLE TO PROVE
> MYSELF INNOCENT OR SHOULD I ACCEPT THE CHARGES AND PLEAD *GUILTY* AND
> ACCEPT 5% DECREASE IN MY OVERALL RESULT???
You have to do what is best for you. What are the consequence of a formal
hearing? I have seen someone who was obviously guilty of plagiarism deny
it to the Undergraduate Secretary. Without an admission of guilt it had to
go to the Dean. The Dean talked with the student and still no admission of
guilt. It went to a formal hearing. The student was found guilty and
kicked out of school. If he admitted guilt to the Undergraduate Secretary,
he would have received a zero for the assignment and lost 5%.
This case was different. He attempted to purchase the answer to the
assignment and had already been expelled from one program for a similar
offense. Still, things could be worse for you if you fight it and lose.
You have to see what are the consequence for you fighting this. If you are
going to lose nothing then fight it.
I snipped the code examples. The point the school is trying to make is not
how different the code you submitted was compared to the code you created.
It is the fact that you lied that is at issue. If you fight this you will
have to a) prove you did not lie or b) prove you did not realize what you
did was wrong.
John C. Bollinger
> I would extremely appreciate your advices, as it would help me make my
> decisions. Please spare some time to read the following.
> Here is what happened with me. We had to do an assignment worth only
> 2%. In it we had to make 7 classes one of them is below.
> After spending hours I completed the entire assgn. and I had a little
> bug in one of the class given below, so I decided to go to a forum.
> There we discussed the problem and one person gave the code GIVEN
> BELOW. So I ran it with my other classes and it worked, when I looked
> at the code written by the person from the forum I quickly realized
> what the _mistake_ in my code was and what changes it needed, as that
> mistake was pretty much "trivial" and mediocre; I didn't bother to
> correct that mistake in my code and I sent the code from the forum
(1)
> given below as according to me it was no big deal as no one was ever
> going to SEE the code and mark it and also the implementation of the
(2a)
> method in the code given by the person in the forum was pretty good
> and no. of lines were few compared to MINE so I favored that code and
> NOT mine .
(3)
> Moreover, the code was ONLY going to be marked by a
> "TESTDRIVER" AUTOMATICALLY based on the OUTPUTS of the methods.
(2b)
> If you look at the code below (from the forum) and the one after it
> (MINE). BOTH the codes will give SAME OUTPUTS if tested by the
> TESTDRIVER, so it doesn't matter which code I used.
> I've ALSO POSTED THE "method" (at the bottom) in the class written by
> me which compelled me to take OUTSIDE HELP.
>
> Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<< I don't know what to
> do now. I thinks its just laughable to be charged for such simple
> thing; also me being a first year student, I don't think its fair.
>
> FOR 2% THIS MUCH? I have to lose 5% now because of this.
> There were 7 classes and just due to ONE METHOD which accounts to
> about 0.2% of the entire assignment.!!!
>
> SO, for thing of 0.2% I've to LOSE 5%????
>
> I could have avoided this whole thing had I known that "we have to add
> the name and the address of the reference" from where the segment of
> the class was taken from. But being a NOVICE I wasn't aware.
(4)
>
>
>>>I think the Professor has OVERREACTED reading the CONVERSATIONS that
>
> I had with the people in the FORUM and the few things I said about the
> INSTITUTION.
>
>
>
> SHOULD I GO FOR A FORMAL HEARING IN FRONT OF LOT MORE PEOPLE TO PROVE
> MYSELF INNOCENT OR SHOULD I ACCEPT THE CHARGES AND PLEAD *GUILTY* AND
> ACCEPT 5% DECREASE IN MY OVERALL RESULT???
By submitting work that did not assign any credit to other authors [4]
you claimed that the work was all your own. It wasn't. [1] Your stated
reasons for that is that the code given to you was better than your own
[3] (which is all the more reason for you to give appropriate credit to
the author) and that you didn't want to "bother" to fix your own code
[1]. You thought you could get away with your actions because no one
would scrutinize the code you submitted [2a, 2b], but you were caught
anyway.
As a student at your institution you are responsible for knowing all the
relevant university, department, and class policies, including
especially those pertaining to academic conduct. Typically these are
included in student handbooks and/or class syllabi, which very likely
you received but did not read.I don't see where you have any viable
defense on this. The actions you have taken fall within the applicable
definition of academic dishonesty at your institution. You ARE guilty.
Whether or not the penalty is appropriate is a different question, but I
could see anything from receiving a zero on the assignment to expulsion
from the institution. If a 5% reduction in your overall course score is
the penalty dictated by published policy then you have no alternative
but to take it. If there is no specific penalty established by policy
then you have little alternative but to accept the instructor's choice
of penalty. It doesn't seem excessive to me.
You will improve the outlook of the remainder of your academic career at
that institution by claiming ignorance (as you have done), apologizing,
and accepting your lumps. You earned them. Taking a defiant stance,
especially when you have no ground to stand on, will only be detrimental
to you.
I will also note that contrary to some other respondents' comments, such
behavior is not necessarily acceptable in industry. The difference
there is that rights to source code are generally owned by companies
rather than by individuals. It may be perfectly acceptable to borrow
code from elsewhere in your company's code base or to get help from
another employee in writing code. It is rarely acceptable, however, to
use code in your company's products that is not owned by the company and
is not in the public domain, as that is a violation of the author's
rights, which, if discovered, could lead to legal action and a financial
judgment against the company. That's what the SCO vs. IBM case is all
about (the actual merits of SCO's claims notwithstanding).
John Bollinger
jobo...@indiana.edu
Sam
You should definitely fight it. Your mark doesn't matter. It is your
integrity and reputation that are the concern. You are being harshly
dealt with for no good reason. To save time, you just plugged the
corrected class, believing it to be the better solution, otherwise you
would've just plugged your own, which you had already written and
developed and where you understood where the bug was.
People tend to be very judgemental. Practice you arguments in front of
a mirror. You did nothing wrong, except maybe not being overly
diligent in attributing a source. Fight it with everything you have.
If YOU don't think you did anything wrong, niether will anybody else.
Be defiant.
Regards,
Sam90
John
Plead GUILTY. Since you took someone else's code and copied it into
yours, you submitted work that was not your own. Did you sign or agree
to a declaration that the code was all your own? If you did, then you
have been dishonest and deserve an absolute minimum of a 5% decrease.
If I were your lecturer I would have hammered you with 25% and put you
in front of the head of department and personal tutor (it happened to me
as an undergraduate and I was cleared).
If you take this further or appeal, I would like to see your lecturer
fail you (the whole course) in order to disuade you in the long run.
You must be struggling in Logic as well as Java to think that the
difficulty of the assignment or a vague similarity of your code to the
plagiarised code has any bearing whatsoever on this.
John
Rene
> Just addition of few comments in the code would have avoided the
> situation that I am in.
> Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of it.
Yes that's the main problem here. The question is, why were you not aware
of it and how were the others made aware of this fact?
> The purpose of the assign. was to understand the concepts which I
> obviously & certainly DO.
>
> I've got 2 class codes doing SAME thing. SAME OUTPUT.
>
> I've also got a PROOF that making few CHANGES in MY CODE, it will work
> PRECISELY as it SHOULD. (I've already posted MY code and the code from
> the FORUM)
>
> "few changes" were so mediocre that I didn't feel like doing them.
There are a lot of things that become easy once you saw the solution but
are hard when you haven't and need to find it yourself. If your university
is worth something, they teach you how to get to solutions and not
solutions themselves.
You've basically violated that. No matter if it's a small thing or you
would have known it in advance, you copied some stuff without referencing
the origin and that is violating a rule (you were not aware of).
> Had I known that this would result in such a big CHAOS, am I a moron
> to send others code just to get 0.1% increase? LOL
Hopefully not. But such people do exist.
> I think the professor himself knows that its NOT A BIG DEAL even then
> instead of giving a verbal warning (since its my FIRST TIME and the
> assign. was only worth 2% & pretty SIMPLE; and the code which was
> taken from the forum accounted for only 0.1%) he's opting for 5%
> decrease and wants me to plead GUILTY.
You *are* guilty. You violated the rule. What is or may be debateable is
the amount of punishment and who did not do his job to make you aware of
this. Problem is: Should you challenge it and but possess one single piece
of paper where it is described, then you'll probably lose a lot more than
just gnawing your teeth and accept it.
I wouldn't fight it unless everybody had to sign a paper saying that the
handed-in work was ones own and no undocumented outside help was used and
they would have all those signed papers but yours. Everything else depends
on what you guess your chances are and if you are able to live comfortably
if it doesn't turn out in your favor.
FWIW, at my university we had small papers that had to be signed were such
stuff was written on.
CU
René
--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB
Andrew Thompson
> The purpose of the assign.
What, this one?
<http://www.cs.yorku.ca/course/1030/assign/a2/>
> Just addition of few comments in the code would have avoided the
> situation that I am in.
> Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of it.
Are you gonna' stick to the statement that
<http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/index.htm>
failed to provide you with information on
academic misconduct and plagiarism?
It is usually prominently mentioned in the
induction/orientation materials supplied to
1st year students.
Now, I'll take you back to something I asked
previously..
>> ..so I decided to go to a forum.
> What forum? I can see no evidence of the thread
> you refer to in the posts you have made here..
> <http://www.google.com/groups?q=robocop+train&group=comp.lang.java.programmer>
You failed to answer that, so I searched further..
<http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=54&thread=532604&start=135&range=15&hilite=false&q=>
Ahh, yes. It seems Peter Cribb is the gent
with the objection to people posting code.
So, straight up. Did you post *here* in the hope
that you could get some 'ammunition' for your
hearing, and guessing that if it came to no good,
none the harm?
It would seem in that case, that you have not learned
the fundamental lesson at the heart of the issue.
"Accurate information properly referenced and credited."
It's not rocket science.
If you choose to go behind the Prof's back in
the wild of Usenet to 'fight' the well deserved
lumps you are getting, it indicates you are still
willing to tell whoever asks, whatever they want to
hear, in order to get what you want.
In that case I feel the 5% punishment *is* unfair..
to the person who *should* be occupying the spot
vacated when you are expelled.
<dripping with sarcasm>
Was that what you wanted to hear?
Shall I drop the URL to the prof?
</dripping with sarcasm>
Andrew Thompson
> Be defiant.
Post over 250 lines of irrelevent quotes.
[ Properly attributed, of course. We
don't want to be *that* defiant.. ;-) ]
Robocop
> Not only did it work, but it was better written and more efficient.
>
> If you'd simply studied the forum code, realised your mistake and
> corrected your own work, perhaps then I might have some sympathy
> for you. Your teacher is less interested in what your code does,
> more *how* it does it - the *how* is what he/she is actually trying
> to teach you. Not asking for the source code does not mean you're
> free to copy. If you are struggling to design your own handglider,
> and someone shows you the plans to a jet aircraft, you cannot simply
> claim the jet plane as your own merely because it also happens to be
> a winged flying machine. ;-)
>
What do you mean by *HOW*?
Had I corrected my own work then I wouldn't be needing anyone's
sympathy.
*HOW* it does is LEAST or of NO IMPORTANCE HERE since the OUTPUT is
the ONLY concern over here.
> you give an INPUT and you get an OUTPUT, you verfiy the OUTPUT and give the MARK. This is done automatically by a testdriver.
>> BOTH the codes that I have passes ALL THE TESTS. And it DOES NOT
matter if the code getting CHECKED was SUPERIOR or INFERIOR. BOTH OF
THEM DO THE SAME WORK THAT THEY SHOULD AND THAT TOO PRECISELY.
>comparison of jet plane and winged flying machine has no relation
with this topic.
THIS work isn't going to be PUBLISHED anywhere, I never WROTE my name
in the classes that I submitted, so I am not claiming anything over
here.
I admit the MISTAKE but the 5% reduction is WAY TOO MUCH for a CASE of
this MAGNITUDE. Just for taking 4 LINES of code. That too TRIVIAL.
Hamilcar Barca
-0700), Adam Maass wrote:
> In the professional world, what you did would be perfectly acceptable
> [...]
In working for an employer, this depends on the employer's policy. In
every case, what's acceptable depends upon copyright and license.
> One guideline I've seen posted about academic honesty in computer
> science courses: students may talk about the problems, may even point
> out where mistakes are in other students' code. But students may not
> actually write or modify other students' code.
I've seen everything from
* students may not use any outside reference whatsoever;
* students may discuss anything but no student may view another's code;
* students may use anything they can find, as long as copyright and
license are respected and the original author is credited properly.
Hamilcar Barca
2004 08:46:47 -0700), Robocop wrote:
> I think the professor himself knows that its NOT A BIG DEAL even then
> instead of giving a verbal warning (since its my FIRST TIME and the
> assign.
When I took a master's level "Advanced Operating Systems" course, the
professor made it clear that the use of anyone else's code would result in
failure for the assignment (15% of the course grade). Using C-Shell code
would result in failure from the course.
Larry Coon
> Are you gonna' stick to the statement that
> <http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/index.htm>
> failed to provide you with information on
> academic misconduct and plagiarism?
You mean like this?
<http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~advising/policy.htm#honesty>
Or this?
<http://www.cs.yorku.ca/admin/coscOnAcadHonesty.html>
> It is usually prominently mentioned in the
> induction/orientation materials supplied to
> 1st year students.
Where I teach, it also must be included as part of the
syllabus in every course.
> It would seem in that case, that you have not learned
> the fundamental lesson at the heart of the issue.
>
> "Accurate information properly referenced and credited."
> It's not rocket science.
It may not have even been sufficient had he properly
credited it. If the assignment was to write the code,
then that doesn't mean to submit others' code, even if
it WAS properly credited (but this is more a matter of
individual school/professor policy). The better thing
for the student to have done in a case such as this
is make the necessary changes in HIS code, not cut &
paste someone else's code, credited or not.
> If you choose to go behind the Prof's back in
> the wild of Usenet to 'fight' the well deserved
> lumps you are getting, it indicates you are still
> willing to tell whoever asks, whatever they want to
> hear, in order to get what you want.
>
> In that case I feel the 5% punishment *is* unfair..
> to the person who *should* be occupying the spot
> vacated when you are expelled.
:-) I've done everything from a verbal warning (with
a really minor infraction) to a 0 on an assignment to
an F in a course, but it takes a lot to expel a student.
TO ROBOCOP: You cheated, intentional or otherwise. I
suggest you learn from the experience.
Larry Coon
University of California
Mike Schilling
> I admit the MISTAKE but the 5% reduction is WAY TOO MUCH for a CASE of
> this MAGNITUDE. Just for taking 4 LINES of code. That too TRIVIAL.
If you handed in homework capitalized this annoyingly, I'd give you a 0.
Chris Smith
serious problem: they are trying to teach, but their students are trying
to become marketable. If a college fails to teach, and their students
nevertheless are offered degrees, then the college reputation is
tarnished... and even more, the value of a college education in general
is tarnished. They then have less to offer, and are being cheated.
This problem is even more pronounced in many Computer Science programs,
where (in my experience) more students sometimes cheat than proceed
honestly through the program.
Contrary to the beliefs of students, universities know that this is
happening. It's hard not to know, when a junior-level compiler theory
professor has problems with students who can't write simple algorithms
or deal with rudimentary data structures. Students are being given the
benefit of the doubt, though, because there's no direct proof that the
student cheated on any specific occasion. The result is somewhat
extreme measures being taken by universities to protect themselves
against this kind of exploitation by their students, on the few
occasions when they are completely and unquestionably justified in
taking that action. Robocop's situation is such a case, and he is
apparently getting off very easy.
Frankly, I'm completely in favor of academic institutions doing whatever
they can to prevent cheating on coursework. After all, that's the
environment in which the student chose to work when they enrolled in a
university. If they don't like it, they can study at home, AND they can
deal with the consequences when others challenge the legitimacy of their
education and find other ways to prove themselves. Someone who insists
that a university should legitimize their claims to skill in software
development -- and then objects when that university tries to protect
the legitimacy of their courses -- is either so dull as to misunderstand
the point of the whole process or so malicious as to intentionally harm
others around them in order to gain a selfish benefit.
--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere.
Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation
Brian
> Had I corrected my own work then I wouldn't be needing anyone's
> sympathy.
I'm not sure why you are looking for sympathy really. But yes,
your statement above is exactly true.
What I read from your attitude is:
- Plagiarism is a gray line.
- Cheating is a gray line.
- You did 90% of the work and only used a fair method to finish.
- It's only technically plagiarism (and it is!) but nothing serious.
- Academic Dishonesty is meant for more serious stuff (your
teacher should go storm a frat house for instance)
I have sympathy for you. It sounds like you're aggressively
academic. No one counts points like that except for accountants
and grade goalies.
Learn and live. What more can be said? You copied code that
was not your own. GUILTY. Technically. It was a few lines of
modified code. Conservative rule. Conservative teacher. Be
more conservative in the future.
You should let it go. It's a slap on the wrist. (Eh, I should
also warn you that teachers are vindictive. Programming assignments
can be nitpicked to death. Your professor actively pursues
plagiarism... he probably has a magnitude greater experience
with student appeals than you. Really, I'd be grateful for
the lesson. Ease up on the caffeine and pizza and move on!)
FISH
> *HOW* it does is LEAST or of NO IMPORTANCE HERE since the OUTPUT is
> the ONLY concern over here.
Aha - so why are you being asked to write the code then? Presumably
your tutor has his own working copy of the solution for testing
purposes. Why didn't you simply ask him for his copy, then hand it
in? After all, as you claim, he isn't bothered about how the code
was implemented, or indeed who wrote it, merely that it works.
[snipped...]
> I admit the MISTAKE but the 5% reduction is WAY TOO MUCH for a CASE of
> this MAGNITUDE. Just for taking 4 LINES of code. That too TRIVIAL.
As I understood your original posting you didn't hand in a source
file with four lines of code written by another author - you handed
in a file which was an entirely reworked implementation by another
author. Is that not the case?
Suppose a fellow student had copied your source files and handed in
the same classes as you... does he merit the same mark as youself?
What about if he'd *almost* got his own version to work, but not quite,
so decided to just copy your working version instead - is that fair?
Bottom line: the work you submitted was not entirely your own. It
doesn't matter if the output was the same as your own, it still wasn't
your work! You said yourself in the original posting that the reason
you submitted the forum code rather than ammending your own work was
because the forum code was better written --- so obviously implement-
ation *must* have been a factor.
-FISH- ><>
Robocop
> Colleges in America (and probably elsewhere) are running into a very
> serious problem: they are trying to teach, but their students are trying
> to become marketable. If a college fails to teach, and their students
> nevertheless are offered degrees, then the college reputation is
> tarnished... and even more, the value of a college education in general
> is tarnished. They then have less to offer, and are being cheated.
> This problem is even more pronounced in many Computer Science programs,
> where (in my experience) more students sometimes cheat than proceed
> honestly through the program.
>
>> Following is what I found in one of their "Policy" GUIDE. <<
Statement 2 does not imply that students must work, study and learn in
isolation. The Department encourages students to work, study and learn
together, and to use the work of others as found in books, journal
articles, electronic news, private conversations, etc.. In fact, most
pieces of work are enhanced when relevant outside material is
introduced. Thus faculty expect to see quotes, references and
citations to the work of others. This shows the student is seeking out
knowledge, integrating it with their own work, and perhaps more
significantly, reducing some of the drudgery in producing a piece of
work.
___________________________________________________
I just want 5% reduced to something ELSE.
Larry Coon
> You should let it go. It's a slap on the wrist. (Eh, I should
> also warn you that teachers are vindictive.
And they also talk to each other. There were times
I strongly suspected a student was cheating, but I
wasn't able to catch him red-handed. But all of his
other professors, current and future, were informed
and knew to watch out for it.
The situation is as Chris described. Students cheat
in lower-level classes, and as a result never
develop the necessary prerequisite skills for the
advanced classes. By the time they get to the
advanced classes, the only way they CAN get through
the class is to continue cheating.
Sudsy
<snip>
> The situation is as Chris described. Students cheat
> in lower-level classes, and as a result never
> develop the necessary prerequisite skills for the
> advanced classes. By the time they get to the
> advanced classes, the only way they CAN get through
> the class is to continue cheating.
>
> Larry Coon
> University of California
I was stunned to read some of the posts on this thread claiming
that "it's no big deal" or "everyone does it". The fact remains
that the student included code in his assignment which he did not
write, period. He deserves to be punished. And if you read the
thread Andrew posted then you'll likely agree that he's getting
off easy!
Ask yourself some questions: do you want this person to graduate
and perhaps one day find yourself working with him? If he sees
no harm, no foul in usurping the code of others and claiming it
as his own, is your code safe? Sounds outrageous, right?
It's only a logical extension from the position he's trying to
defend right now. Do you want him to get the bonus (using your
code) while you get the shaft?
Is ethical behaviour going the way of the dodo?
Rene
> Larry Coon wrote:
> <snip>
> > The situation is as Chris described. Students cheat
> > in lower-level classes, and as a result never
> > develop the necessary prerequisite skills for the
> > advanced classes. By the time they get to the
> > advanced classes, the only way they CAN get through
> > the class is to continue cheating.
> >
> > Larry Coon
> > University of California
>
> I was stunned to read some of the posts on this thread claiming
> that "it's no big deal" or "everyone does it". The fact remains
> that the student included code in his assignment which he did not
> write, period. He deserves to be punished. And if you read the
> thread Andrew posted then you'll likely agree that he's getting
> off easy!
Prior to reading that other thread I gave the OP the benefit of doubt but
afterwards I can only add that reading it was quite enlightening (and funny
too, thanks to some of the messages there)
Oh and it also clearly shows that the OP should have better used his time
to learn the basics and take the clues that were abundantly handed to him
though he seems not to have noticed. The thread also shows that the OP has
quite a lack of understanding of java and basic oop which in itself is
nothing bad but that makes the exchange of his own class not a "trivial"
thing but a necessity at that time to actually hand in a functional
solution.
The fix may have been trivial but not for an unexperienced person (which
was shown since the OP couldn't fix it even when given hints of where to
look) and the handed in copied class is of quite a different quality level
as well.
I do now however think the punishment is appropriate. It was the second
assignment and he seems to be a freshman, so in my book he's entitled to a
second chance.
J.F. Cornwall
> Andrew Thompson wrote:
>
>
>>Are you gonna' stick to the statement that
>><http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/index.htm>
>>failed to provide you with information on
>>academic misconduct and plagiarism?
>
>
> You mean like this?
>
> <http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~advising/policy.htm#honesty>
>
> Or this?
>
> <http://www.cs.yorku.ca/admin/coscOnAcadHonesty.html>
>
Somebody should really have run a spell-check on that page...
JFC
(snip)
marcus
you plagiarized
you did not *prove* you understand the work
further . . .
you whine, you snivel, you make excuses, you emphatically demonstrate
your ignorance, you seek unqualified opinions to support your untenable
position, you are in denial about your failings
learn to paint . . .
Scott Ellsworth
rob...@excite.com (Robocop) wrote:
> Dear Folks:
>
> After spending hours I completed the entire assgn. and I had a little
> bug in one of the class given below, so I decided to go to a forum.
[...]
> Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<< I don't know what to
> do now. I thinks its just laughable to be charged for such simple
> thing; also me being a first year student, I don't think its fair.
You hopefully knew going in that going to a forum was risky, just like
asking for a copy of someone else's program source would have been
risky. This is the same problem that all academics face when they have
a chance to find information that will call their efforts into doubt.
(For example, if you are running a drug trial and you have a chance to
unblind the results early, you do not want to even if it would help
other research and would not make a difference in your current work, as
objective onlookers have no way of knowing that.)
What you should have done before, and now need to do under a cloud of
suspicion, is to find a way to prove your innocence. Since you did make
what you claim was a copy and paste error, you are going to have a hard
time.
Under most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution,
but if they have clear evidence that you went to a public forum for help
with homework, then it is up to you to prove that you did not actually
cheat.
Frankly, I would see if the professor would accept a "no contest"
penalty, given how hard it will be to prove that you mistake was
incompetence rather than malice. Essentially, you state that you will
not contest the 5% hit to your grade in return for not admitting guilt.
You lose the points, but you have not been branded dishonest.
If you do go before a group, you might want to lose the defensive
attitude. Point out that you know the risks of going to a public forum
with homework, but thought that you could keep the help from the public
separate from your own work. Admit any mistakes you made, such as copy
and paste errors, but hold forth that the intent was not dishonest. I
suspect you will still lose the points, given that you _did_ mix outside
code and your own.
Scott
Scott Ellsworth
"Adam Maass" <adam.nos...@comcast.net> wrote:
> The academic world works a lot differently than the professional world.
>
> In the professional world, what you did would be perfectly acceptable and
> indeed, even preferable: you found a way to answer the problem posed, and
> probably saved a good amount of time rather than trying to figure it out for
> yourself.
If, however, he had grabbed some GPL source to solve his problem, and
put it in his company's proprietary software, it would have been far
from ok. What Robocop did seems similar in terms of misunderstanding
the rules.
Scott
Robocop
*prove*? "understand" ?
Did you read the *Subject* before giving a reply?
Hamilcar Barca
2004 20:06:45 -0700), Robocop wrote:
> Did you read the *Subject* before giving a reply?
You used someone else's work and you've gotten into trouble. You were
looking for sympathy and/or an excuse. However, you're not getting much
if any of either.
Now, it's time for you to move along and find another newsgroup for your
personal problem.
Adam Maass
Acck, foo. I was imaginging going to a colleague and grabbing code from
there.
You're right, of course.
-- Adam Maass
Elspeth Thorne
At the university where I attended, if you were caught cheating (eg,
copying code off a forum, to make your program work, /no matter how
trivial the change/) you /failed/ that course. Immediately. No appeal.
On the other hand, if you copied code, and cited the reference, you
simply got 0 for the assignment, as 'your' code would be without
academic merit.
If someone copied *your* code, and got caught, you would *both* suffer
at the very least failure of that assignment - if you were lucky, and
the lecturer was in a good mood. They would be perfectly within their
rights to class it as plagarism instead, and fail both students.
All these poilices are in every course syllabus, and on every course web
page, and on every assignment sheet, and we have to either do a
click-through agreement saying we comply to the policy when
electronically submitting work, or sign a cover page saying that we have
read and understood and are complying with the policy in the case of
hardcopy submission.
To simply suffer a 5% loss in this case...well, I think you're getting
off lightly. /Extremely/ lightly.
Welcome to academia. Oh - and learn to pay attention when they tell you
about their definitions of academic misconduct.
Elspeth.
Carl Howells
> If someone copied *your* code, and got caught, you would *both* suffer
> at the very least failure of that assignment - if you were lucky, and
> the lecturer was in a good mood. They would be perfectly within their
> rights to class it as plagarism instead, and fail both students.
Well, not every time. Someone copied my code for one class, a few years
back. But I didn't know about it. I'd simply not remembered to mark the
directories on our Solaris system as not readable to world, and someone
found my code and copied it. They were caught, and got in trouble for
it. I didn't, as I clearly wasn't at fault, thought I was careless.
Then, the next term, I was grading for that course... And came across
someone handing in that same code, again, slightly rewritten so it
wasn't quite so obviously mine. So, another person got failed for
copying my work, a term later.
Anyway, to "Robocop": You should have been at least failed on the
assignment. A 5% penalty on one assignment is so minor as to be
entirely meaningless. Every time you whine, you demonstrate an
inability to constructively interact with the real world.
Elspeth Thorne
> Elspeth Thorne wrote:
>
>> If someone copied *your* code, and got caught, you would *both* suffer
>> at the very least failure of that assignment - if you were lucky, and
>> the lecturer was in a good mood. They would be perfectly within their
>> rights to class it as plagarism instead, and fail both students.
>
>
> Well, not every time. Someone copied my code for one class, a few years
> back. But I didn't know about it. I'd simply not remembered to mark the
> directories on our Solaris system as not readable to world, and someone
> found my code and copied it. They were caught, and got in trouble for
> it. I didn't, as I clearly wasn't at fault, thought I was careless.
>
> Then, the next term, I was grading for that course... And came across
> someone handing in that same code, again, slightly rewritten so it
> wasn't quite so obviously mine. So, another person got failed for
> copying my work, a term later.
>
Actually...at my university, you would have been at fault. If you walk
away from your computer (for example, to collect the printout for the
assignment you just did) and someone copies your code off the
screen...you've just been a participant in collusion. It's a tough
policy, and hasn't made any friends amongst the students (for obvious
reasons!), but that's the way it is. Although, it does encourage
students to resist the temptation of copying - with or without permission.
Not nice, but there you go. And since most coding assignments are
submitted electronically, and analysed for plagarism (I hear the
algorithms that do this are getting better, too) before the marker even
sees them, the rate of cheating - or at least outright copying - has
dropped considerably.
Elspeth.
Jonathan Sachs
news:cf94k9$jj0$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au...
> > Well, not every time. Someone copied my code for one class, a few years
> > back. But I didn't know about it. I'd simply not remembered to mark the
> > directories on our Solaris system as not readable to world...
> > I clearly wasn't at fault, thought I was careless.
>
> Actually...at my university, you would have been at fault. If you walk
> away from your computer (for example, to collect the printout for the
> assignment you just did) and someone copies your code off the
> screen...you've just been a participant in collusion.
The lawyer in me can't resist commenting on this. It's not clear exactly how
your university defined "fault." There are two possibilities, one
unenforceable and the other uncertain.
The first possibility is absolute liability: if someone copied your work,
you're at fault. Period. If you stored your work in a casino-quality safe,
and another student cut the safe open with a plasma torch, causing thousands
of dollars of damage to the hardware which you purchased to protect yourself
from just such an occurrence... it's your fault. Certain? Yes. Enforceable?
Not really; this type of policy is so grossly unfair that usually no one
dares enforce it.
The second possibility is qualified liability: if you fail to exercise
reasonable care to protect your work, you are liable for the foreseeable
consequences. Enforceable? Yes. Certain? Of course not; the question of what
constitutes "reasonable care" has no final answer. The school may publish an
encyclopedic definition of it, but some case will always come up where the
rules do not apply, or yield a manifestly absurd result.
None of this is meant to suggest that plagiarism policies as such are
unfair, unreasonable, or unenforceable. But there will always be cases in
the gray zone, and no amount of strictness or care will eliminate them.
Andrew Thompson
> Carl Howells wrote:
>> Elspeth Thorne wrote:
>>
>>> If someone copied *your* code, and got caught, you would *both* suffer
>>> at the very least failure of that assignment - if you were lucky,
>> Well, not every time. Someone copied my code for one class,
> Actually...at my university, you would have been at fault. If you walk
> away from your computer (for example, to collect the printout for the
> assignment you just did) and someone copies your code off the
> screen...you've just been a participant in collusion.
I know of a situation where student A gave code
to student B, who then gave it ten other people.
All of them were charged with academic misconduct.
At this point, student B accused student A of
'stealing it off his monitor', student A
shrugged vaguely, and the other students..
The university decided they did not care, student
B was decided to have not taken proper care* of
their work, *everybody* was found 'guilty'.
All of them failed the assignment.
* Which, yes, was specifically stated in the
documents relating to academic honesty/misconduct.
If you ordered a print of course works you were
expected to immediately log off, walk to the
printer, and wait for the print-out to arrive.
If you failed to do so, you were held responsible.
[ No situation was ever detected/suggested where
a student 'hacked into' the system to steal code,
but then, if they could, ..would they actually
*need* to? ]
Rene
> Actually...at my university, you would have been at fault. If you walk
> away from your computer (for example, to collect the printout for the
> assignment you just did) and someone copies your code off the
> screen...you've just been a participant in collusion. It's a tough
> policy, and hasn't made any friends amongst the students (for obvious
> reasons!), but that's the way it is. Although, it does encourage
> students to resist the temptation of copying - with or without
> permission.
Well generally there is a mechanism to lock the screen. If you're working
on Windows NT systems (nt4, w2k, xp) press ctrl-alt-delete then either
select Lock manually or just press return (it is the first button). At my
university in some of the rooms this was once disabled (the button is
greyed out and not pressable) however it was a typical microsoft solution,
there is only a registry key that disables the butten, the function is
still around and active, you just need to activate it via a very simple
call using "runddl32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation".
If you work at unix machines, there's generally a lock utility. vlock or
alock or whatever. If you're working under X (graphic subsystem) under
unix, there's often xscreensaver or xlock.
Lock your machine, walk away, come back later. If none of this works write
a little programm that puts itself into the foreground and refuses to yield
unless a specific passphrase has been entered. This at least makes you
aware that someone fumbled around if it isn't running anymore and has been
shot down by taskmanager or kill.
Malcolm Dew-Jones
: "Robocop" <rob...@excite.com> wrote:
: > Dear Folks:
: >
: > >> PLEASE REPLY I WOULD REALLY BE THANKFUL <<
: > I would extremely appreciate your advices, as it would help me make my
: > decisions. Please spare some time to read the following.
: > Here is what happened with me. We had to do an assignment worth only
: > 2%. In it we had to make 7 classes one of them is below.
: > After spending hours I completed the entire assgn. and I had a little
: > bug in one of the class given below, so I decided to go to a forum.
: > There we discussed the problem and one person gave the code GIVEN
: > BELOW. So I ran it with my other classes and it worked, when I looked
: > at the code written by the person from the forum I quickly realized
: > what the _mistake_ in my code was and what changes it needed, as that
: > mistake was pretty much "trivial" and mediocre; I didn't bother to
: > correct that mistake in my code and I sent the code from the forum
: > given below as according to me it was no big deal as no one was ever
: > going to SEE the code and mark it and also the implementation of the
: > method in the code given by the person in the forum was pretty good
: > and no. of lines were few compared to MINE so I favored that code and
: > NOT mine . Moreover, the code was ONLY going to be marked by a
: > "TESTDRIVER" AUTOMATICALLY based on the OUTPUTS of the methods.
: > If you look at the code below (from the forum) and the one after it
: > (MINE). BOTH the codes will give SAME OUTPUTS if tested by the
: > TESTDRIVER, so it doesn't matter which code I used.
: > I've ALSO POSTED THE "method" (at the bottom) in the class written by
: > me which compelled me to take OUTSIDE HELP.
: >
: > Now I am charged with >>>"ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"<<< I don't know what to
: > do now.
: The academic world works a lot differently than the professional world.
: In the professional world, what you did would be perfectly acceptable and
: indeed, even preferable: you found a way to answer the problem posed, and
: probably saved a good amount of time rather than trying to figure it out for
: yourself.
That's not entirely correct.
In the professional world many wheels are purposely reinvented to avoid
possible lawsuits or other problems related to ownership of the code.
e.g. accidently embedding some GNU code in your flagship commercial
product could be disastrous to your bottom line.
: But in the academic world, the point is not to solve the problem, but to
: learn how to solve problems.
That is 100% true.
mroma...@rogers.com
>
> >> PLEASE REPLY I WOULD REALLY BE THANKFUL <<
Peace be unto you.
I am not a professional (yet) - i am thinking lawyer, judge,
programmer,
etc when you mention that word -
but here is how I look at your unfortunate circumstance,
see main point at bottom
Robocop wrote:
>and also the implementation of the
>method in the code given by the person in the forum was pretty good
>and no. of lines were few compared to MINE so I favored that code and
>NOT mine
From their perspective - In your words - So you copied two more
things: implementation and brevity
>Moreover, the code was ONLY going to be marked by a
>"TESTDRIVER" AUTOMATICALLY based on the OUTPUTS of the methods.
All the more for the university/college to lay judgement on you
From their perspective, I guess they might consider the roach effect
- "For every one cockroach
you see there can be up to 200 more behind your wall."
http://www.gardenspestcontrol.com/bugopedia/ - I have images
turned off in my browser so I do not know if this page has picture
of nasty bugs...so forgive me
>also me being a first year student, I don't think its fair.
Actually, a third year or fourth year student might get off easier
than you,
since they probably have establish a repertoire that others
notice and might have a good relationship with the instructor.
Plus the instructor might be more lenient since they might
know the student's course load and later year class
sizes may me smaller.
>SO, for thing of 0.2% I've to LOSE 5%????
I am not sure if this is standard policy at your education
institution, but maybe looking at mines might help
your decision
http://sitae.humberc.on.ca/standards.html
H) Academic Penalty
Academic penalty begins with the awarding
of a zero on the assignment/project/test
for the first offence and a notification
in writing, of the offence.
This notification is copied to the
coordinators and director, and is
kept on file in the School's offices.
A subsequent offence may result in
removal from the course and possibly
complete withdrawal from the program.
>I could have avoided this whole thing had I known that "we have to
add
>the name and the address of the reference" from where the segment of
>the class was taken from. But being a NOVICE I wasn't aware.
Well now you know, and this provision might help you alot in
future assignments, and that seems like a good point to raise up
if you ever decide to defend your case,
since it is a public forum - by the way I have
not read your other postings in depth
Then again they may raise up the point, that "ignorance is no excuse"
"I've seen many postings in the hackers' realm
reflecting the attitude that if anyone is
inept enough to leave obvious vulnerabilities
in their computer systems, they deserve to be
hacked. Ignorance is no excuse when it comes
to computer security. It's also fair to say that
a strong anti-Microsoft sentiment pervades
hacker communities"
- https://mscs.marad.dot.gov/clips/5-2-03.htm
>the few things I said about the
>INSTITUTION.
Hopefully, they were good.
>SHOULD I GO FOR A FORMAL HEARING IN FRONT OF LOT MORE PEOPLE TO PROVE
>MYSELF INNOCENT OR SHOULD I ACCEPT THE CHARGES AND PLEAD *GUILTY* AND
>ACCEPT 5% DECREASE IN MY OVERALL RESULT???
My advice, if your brave enough and you feel guilt free
to stand before more people,
then defend your case. Otherwise, you still have
the chance of building back your reputation since your in
your first year.
But this is just a general advice for advice sake.
Maybe this thing might take up too much
time in your other studies.
My Main point
Your in the King's court, so unfortunately
for you, the king might exercise his or her(queen) law
see Joseph's (peace be unto him) story :
Then he (Joseph) began the search with their bags before his
brother's bag, then he produced it from his brother's bag. Thus did We
contrive for Joseph. He could not have taken his brother according to
the
king's law unless Allah willed. We raise by grades (of mercy) whom We
will,
and over every lord of knowledge there is one more knowing.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/012.qmt.html#012.076
Elspeth Thorne
> Elspeth Thorne <note...@thorne.id.au> wrote:
>
>>Actually...at my university, you would have been at fault. If you walk
>>away from your computer (for example, to collect the printout for the
>>assignment you just did) and someone copies your code off the
>>screen...you've just been a participant in collusion. It's a tough
>>policy, and hasn't made any friends amongst the students (for obvious
>>reasons!), but that's the way it is. Although, it does encourage
>>students to resist the temptation of copying - with or without
>>permission.
>
>
> Well generally there is a mechanism to lock the screen. If you're working
I know this. The administration knows this. That's part of the reason
why *not* locking your screen (so that your code is on display) when you
aren't present in front of it is considered misconduct, in the
circumstances above.
Elspeth.