Finding the truth online can be elusive

[jonathans_daddy]

When I was teaching a few years back, I had a student turn in a paper that was obviously not his work. He listed a couple of websites as sources, but when I checked them I got 404 errors. Getting creative, I started peicing together URLS using the beginning of 1 URL and the end of another. Viola! There's the real source. When he got his paper back with a big '0' on it, he was irate. I explained that I had found his real source and he still didn't get it. The conversation went like this...
Student: "But I worked hard on that"
Me: "You did? How? It was someone else's work."
Student: "But I typed it"
Me: "Well, that was dumb. Why didn't you just copy & paste?"

Student was speechless.

[Striek]

I almost completely relyt on online sources for most of my resarch these days. This is likely because I am studying computer security. Any book in this area will likely cost in the range of $75. By the time these books show up in libraries, usually two years, they are already obsolete and useless to me. There are a few exceptions, mainly purely theoretical book writeen about general information security, but most still tend to discuss particualr techniques specific to individual scenarios, operating systems, and hardware. And this i only for books which discuss mostly theoretical issues.

Any book that is specific to any software, operating system, or hardware, is out of date long before I can ever find it in a library. This makes libraries useles to me as a means of research on technological issues. However, a library is still usefull in some areas for me such as law and philosophy.

So aside from online source, I am left mainly with periodicals, such as newspapers, journals, magazines, and sometimes the evening news. But when you actually stop to think about it, any information available as part of one of these sources is alos available online through their website. So, when I use the CBC as part of a research paper, does it matter whether I obtain that information through a transcript or thier website? I do not think so.

Insofar as other online research materials are concerned, I find that most students are quite happy after finding one source to base their papers on. If this source is wrong, they are usually in for quite a surprise. This is usually because they have another four papers to write by next Monday and are quite happy to just have it done. Such is the life of a student. Get it done, get it out of the way, and move on to the next assignment. Then if any time is left over once the bare minimum has been accomplished, polishing and refining can be done. There is just a lot less time for polishing and refining than most professors seem to think.

I would also like to add that students are not the only source of plagarism in an academic environment. Two fof four of my profesors have garnered every single test an assignment from online sources. This annoys me to no end because even if I do not use online sources for answers, others students certainly will, and they shre it with me whether I like it or not, just to brag about finding the answers, if for nothing else. Assignment would be a lot more challnenging if not all the answers were online. For my investigations course, every assignment comes right off of the Honeynet Project. In addidtion to hosting the original problem, the Honeynet Project also posts the top ten response papers for each one, on which the marking scheme is based.

Now as far as I am concerned, this is plagarism. Becaus emy professor is too lazy to ake his own assignments and instead chooses to use somebody else's work, my academic progress suffers as a result, because the answers are provided for me. Unfortunately, since there is no law against this (the honeynet project and its answeres are GPL licensed) and no section of our academic policy prohibits it, I am unable to do anything about it.

Which brings me to another point. Some students use papers which are specifically GPL licensed. This legally permits them to use these papers anywhere they wish, on two major conditions: The original source is credited, and no money is made in doing so. Given that the latter is already met in an academic environment, what is then the ethically correct response to a student handing in someone else's GPL licensed work, if they credit the original source?

[MrLinus]

This legally permits them to use these papers anywhere they wish, on two major conditions: The original source is credited, and no money is made in doing so. Given that the latter is already met in an academic environment, what is then the ethically correct response to a student handing in someone else's GPL licensed work, if they credit the original source?

But isn't the grade an equivalant to monetary payment?

[Striek]

If they bought the paper and with it the copyrights, yes. But my point is that this is not ethically questionable. Since they have credited the original source of the work, they are not misrepresenting it.

However, in situations where the paper was not paid for, but rather freely available, this is not true.

For example, any major papers I submit have a copy of the GPL Free Documentation License attached to them, priarily for the purpose of allowing professors to use it as a teaching material in future years. This will also allow other students to use my papers in the future as well. With my choice of license, I have specifically allowed anyone to redistribute my papers in any means they wish. So by reproducing my work and handing it in, they are not violating any laws, so long as they credit me as the source of the work.

A professor would have no means by which to consider such a paper plagarised. And if no stipulation was given at the beginning of the course stating that all submitted work must be oroginal, as quite often happens, this is not even a violation of course requirements.

This is purely a theoretical question; I realize that most, if not all students, when using someone else's work, claim it is their own. Even if they did buy the paper, they have not necessarily violated any laws or requirements, either course or ethically relaterd. On what grounds could you fail a paper given that all these conditions are met?

[MrLinus]

But my point is that this is not ethically questionable. Since they have credited the original source of the work, they are not misrepresenting it.

I wasn't saying they buy the paper. But rather isn't the grade earned is equivalent to earning $$ for the paper? And if that is true, then it would violate the GPL no?

On what grounds could you fail a paper given that all these conditions are met?

I dunno. That would just bug me. If I'm asking a student to submit a report (and I do ask for original work as well as reference and proper grammar structure) I expect them to do research and form an opinion as well as explain why somethign is or isn't. I don't know yet what I would do since I've never run into this situation but some how, it doesn't feel right giving someone a grade for a paper that someone else wrote, even if there is a GPL.

Thinking about this however the paper may miss the exact topic being asked to be reviewed/opined on, present dated material and may not qualify as per grade requirements (I know at the college I teach at individual.original work is required). They actually have a clause:

What constitutes cheating?

* Plagiarism.....copying all or part of another person's assignment or test.
* It does not matter whether the person you copy from is a registered or former student, or a non student.
* If you cut and paste something directly from the Internet and do not give appropriate credit.
* If you copy text from a book and do not give appropriate credit.
* If you copy entire pages from a book or the Internet and do not submit any original thoughts or work along with it.