Teacher resigns over plagiarism fight

Post #28,164 by drewk 2/12/02 5:57:45 PM Reply	Teacher resigns over plagiarism fight PIPER, Kansas (AP) -- High school teacher Christine Pelton wasted no time after discovering that nearly a fifth of her biology students had plagiarized their semester projects from the Internet. She had received her rural Kansas district's backing before when she accused students of cheating, and she expected it again this time after failing the 28 sophomores. Her principal and superintendent agreed: It was plagiarism and the students should get a zero for the assignment. But after parents complained, the Piper School Board ordered her to go easier on the guilty. From [link\|http://fyi.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/02/07/plagiarism.dispute.ap/index.html\|CNN]. We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html\|Thomas Friedman]
Post #28,166 by Ashton 2/12/02 6:37:42 PM Reply	You go girl!______[words fail to express the suckiness felt]
Post #28,175 by nking 2/12/02 9:16:13 PM Reply	Cite your references then it isn't plagiarism. Give references to the projects that your project is based on. Give credit where credit is due. If not, then these kids are learning to be PHBs when they grow up. :( "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #28,180 by static 2/12/02 10:02:06 PM Reply	Not necessarily. It depends on whether the students did copy-n-paste or read-n-write. If it was the former, then I would fully expect the teacher to fail the guilty. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #28,192 by nking 2/12/02 11:16:42 PM Reply	If it was copy and paste then that is about as bad as copying word for word from an encyclopedia or other book and presenting it as your own work. But copying the idea, and changing the words a bit, or rewording, is a totally different thing. It is idea stealing, but many corps do that anyway. They may have to change things around a bit to avoid "photocopying" the original project. "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #28,207 by static 2/13/02 5:13:49 AM Reply	Precisely. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #28,284 by tuberculosis 2/13/02 4:46:39 PM Reply	I've been there I used to teach C and C++ programming at University of Colorado, Denver. Seems like I fail a student a semester for copying source code from a book or somewhere. Source is kind of an individual thing ya know. Typically, I spot it when I get deja vu grading a paper - then go back to find the other one that reminded me of it. In all cases but one, I've had full backing of the department head. In only one case did the student's advocate give me a hard time (and he is a jerk and my department head still backed me). My policy is that its not possible to pass the class with uncompleted assigments and you get a zero on any assignment that I can prove is not your own work. We've gone soft on this. In my parents' day, plagarism could get you expelled from the college permanently. It should still do that. The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week. The average farmer works 40 hours a week. The average programmer works 60 hours a week. What the hell are we thinking?
Post #28,292 by ben_tilly 2/13/02 5:43:15 PM Reply	I second that For a sample, look at [link\|http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?lastnode_id=26179&node_id=70860\|the following flame] that I wrote to a person who kept on posting his homework question, taking the last response and reposting etc. That does state my feelings accurately. I just wish that the punishment was more likely than I suspect it is. As it stands the only punishment that they tend to get is [link\|http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?lastnode_id=136531&node_id=122620\|not learning] and that puts people who did learn in the position of having to deal with people who have learned to expect that you didn't learn. This is, incidentally, the same problem that I have with a lot of affirmative action programs. I don't mind giving extra help to targeted groups. But damnit, if they don't wind up with equivalent accomplishments, don't let them through. Based on painful experience I have learned to treat blacks with college degrees with more suspicion than whites simply because there is a greater chance that the black didn't have to measure up to any meaningful standard for that degree. Without an easy way to distinguish, I have to paint with a broad brush. :-( Cheers, Ben

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