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Online Plagiarist Sues University
raistphrk writes "The Reg reports that an English student at the University of Kent has sued the university after the university caught him ripping his papers off the Internet and kicked him out of the English program. I guess the stakes are now being raised for universities that use services to check for plagiarized papers."
I stole someone else fp. I couldn't figure out how to write my own.
Burgulars will start suing homeowners for unsafe conditions. Oh wait ... nevermind
Got hosting
Are you *sure* this is in England and not in South Park Colorado?
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
this reminds me of that woman that sued mcdonalds for "making her fat"...how could this guy not realize that copying papers and turning them in as his own is wrong?
should have stopped him?! The world is going downhill when people begin to reject common sense in favor of outrageous accusations such as this one.
He admitted he's plagiarized... There should be no problem.
sue his parents, and anyone else he has ever interacted with, for producing either an idiot or a liar, whichever he is.
I'm a student at a university in the UK, and was recently done for plagarism, on the basis that I had lifted a paragraph from an internet source. I freely admit that yes, I did lift the paragraph from the source, but the unreasonable part is *I WROTE THE SOURCE*. That's right, they stuck my essay in google, my website came up, with an old, largely unrelated essay on it, and, because the essay is on the internet, it's copying from an internet source, in spite of the fact that it's my own site.
There's catching people who are attempting to plagarise, and just being silly.
Discrimination: You singled me out. All the other students are doing it, too, and you didn't kick them out.
This guy should have to pay his own legal fees plus all the cost incurred by the university.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I saw this a couple of days ago (at a site with more details).
...
How any person can get to university without realising that plaigarism is wrong is beyond me. How an *English* student can try to argue that he didn't know what the word meant (as per the student handbook that explained this)
This person is so stupid that he doesn't deserve a degree. I think how he got his A Levels (pre-university exams in England) is also rather doubtful as well.
His problem, then, is not that he was caught, but that he was caught too late. He argues that the university should have warned him of the consequences earlier.
* CAUTION: Coffee is hot, do not store between legs while driving.
* DO NOT stop chainsaw with HANDS.
* DO NOT TOUCH SERVER
And new to this category:
* IF YOU CHEAT THROUGH SCHOOL, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO PULL THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER YOU AT ANY TIME, INCLUDING AFTER YOU'VE PAID US 4 YEARS TO PLAY ALONG WITH YOUR LITTLE SCAM( but just before we hand you your diploma).
-Adam
"I can see there is evidence I have gone against the rules," he concedes. "But they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished. If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough."
University authorities wouldn't comment directly on the case stressed that the university is very clear on the subject. David Nightingale, the deputy vice-chancellor said: "All students are given clear guidelines as well as practical advice and support as to what constitutes plagiarism. These spell it out that it is not acceptable under any circumstances."
I'll admit that I've never been to a university, but I have to assume that like any respectable organization, this university made it clear to the student when he enrolled that plagarism was not acceptable. I'm sure there's a signature of his on a form somewhere in his records stating that he knew that well in advance.
Where I went to college, the Art department chair was caught many years after that fact for plaigarizing his dissertation for his Ph.D. He lost his doctorate and his job, and probably faced legal actions as well.
Better to get nailed for plaigarism before you have your degree like this guy at the University of Kent did than to build a career around a falsehood like the department chair.
A love beyond compare...
Welcome to the Real World, kid. You break the rules, you get caught, your own damn fault.
Plagiarism is an offense in which nobody wins. People who actually do the work are hurt because they won't rank as high (most Universities run off bell curves). The University gets themselves discredited and the value eof everybody's degree goes down if it happens too often. Everbody ends up with paint on their faces.
Only person possibly standing to benefit from it is the Plagiariser. So if you go down, it's your fucking problem.
This kid really needs to grow the hell up.
Karma: Non-Heinous
The crux of the lawsuit is that the student was punished too late, to his detriment, and, arguably, the university's benefit. There is no question that whatever method was used to catch the plagiarism did produce an accurate result.
Heh, the University should say they only found out about the problem on the last day, and that they decided to award an honorary degree to the service he used, and a F to the student.
So? Its not illegal for the university to do that. Education is a business. You cant claim to be downloading pirated material on Comcast's network, then claim they should have stopped me when you get busted.
Its just another typical example of people today trying to put the blame on others for their mistakes.
Its totally irrelavent as to when the school noticed/stopped him. The guy is asking for a degree based on work he didnt do. He cheated. he got caught, and now is just fishing for a way out.
Theres no way on earth he could have thought the university would be thrilled with his plagerism.
Oh my, I think Dave just turned into a bear.
On the other hand, hes top of the class in his law module!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
No it isn't. Read the article.
The basis for the suit is: "I've been plagarizing for 3.9 years, and right as I was about to graduate, you told me I couldn't. You shouldn't be allowed to kick someone out for plagarism after they pay you for 4 years of education."
This is a very silly argument, but if the student can find some evidence that the administration had knowledge of the plagarism scheme, led him to believe he would graduate, he paid all his fees, and *then* they pulled the plug, that would probably be just as immoral as the plagarism itself.
Lets be honest with ourselves. Who plagarizes anymore and thinks its okay?
The analogy to that would be seeing a burglar in your house, and sitting there as he took almost everything (and he knows that you're there watching and not saying anything about it). When he goes to take the last valuable item in your house, THEN you pull out your gun and shoot him in the face.
Now granted, what the kid did was stupid, and his excuse is lame ("I didn't know it was wrong"). But if they knew that he had been plagarizing the past 3 years (as the article incinuates), then they should have kicked him out immediately. Doing otherwise does kind of look like extortion, or rather making someone pay money under false pretenses.
That being said, I don't feel sympathy for the kid. You lost money? Too bad, you shouldn't have been plagarizing. You're 21 years old, you should know better.
-Vendal Thornheart
...is that the university didn't warn him that they knew he was plagiarising papers for his courseworks, but instead let him keep going until the week of the final exams and then told him there wasn't any point in him taking them, as they wouldn't let him pass anyway, thus letting him build up debts of $15,000+.
.A verbal warning first, then a written warning; and finally suspension or being expelled.
There are two other possible options they could have done at the first time they he was plagiarising text:
(1) Throw him out immediately.
(2) Follow standard industry disciplinary procedures:
. .
Given that the university stated that plagiarising won't be tolerated, why didn't they warn him? If a students wasn't getting some topic and constantly getting wrong answers, wouldn't the department have told him? If someone decided they wanted to become a pilot, attended flying school, but lacked the concentration/attention span required to learn, would the instructors waste their (and his) time stringing that person along only to tell them that they shouldn't bother attending the exam?
There are standard punishments for this type of behavior. To allow someone to build up this amount of debt is purely vindictive and would probably amount to a "cruel and unusual punishment". It seems to me, the department were only interested in collecting as much money from him as possible.
OTOH, nice troll.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
All I know, is that whenever I hand in a single piece of coursework, however minor, we are always given a sheet to read and sign, stating that the work is entirely our own.
And I'm a student in England.
I hope he doesn't win, if he does, I'm going to feel really silly for the hundreds of hours I've put in on work over the years, when I could have done this.
/Me Rolls Eyes.
My karma really hurts.
As a corollary, it is amazing how stupid today's plagiarist is.
...is that many countries no longer have public canings.
Like they do in Singapore
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
I suspect (as the plaigarism detection system is new in that university, and is due to be used full time from next year) that they were testing it on some papers from this year. His came up as plagiarised. They (sensibly) decided to check all of his papers. Ding! All copied. They then contacted the authorities, and he got 0 on all papers.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is all stuff detected within the past month.
The University is running a pilot scheme which uses plagiarism detection software to analyse student work.
So it's not like they knew all along and were stinging him along. They just got smart, started using the same technology he was using to cheat, and finally caught him.
This was the English department after all. It took them awhile!
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
Building a case takes time. A suable entity, like a university, doesn't simply go off making accusations it can't prove. A better analogy than yours is a store security officer who sees Winona Ryder on the security monitors clipping the price tags off of articles of clothing on the store racks and stuffing them in her bag, then arresting her once she's on her way out the door with the merchandise in hand. That gave the security personnel everything they needed to prove intent.
It's not like the university officials did anything remotely analogous to "shooting him in the face", either. They imposed a completely legitimate penalty on him, that he already knew about. He's doing the equivalent of the burglar complaining, upon being arrested, that he shouldn't have been arrested JUST THEN because you waited too long to call the cops, thus "robbing" him of the opportunity to run out of your house before you could catch him.
As I pointed out elsewhere in the thread, you seem to assume that the university was making money by keeping this yobbo paying tuition. That's almost certainly not true.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
He has no evidence that the University knew he was cheating three years ago. Read the article again.
What he's really saying is that, since the University didn't catch him the first time he plagarised and warn him about it, they shouldn't be allowed to punishment if they catch him at any subsquent time. This is as silly and stupid as saying that if a burglar isn't caught the first time he robs somebody, he should be free to keep on robbing people without fear of punishment, because nobody told him it was wrong after the first time he did it.
In a course in computer engineering, we once had to do group presentations and reports on some research topic of interest. We were a group of 3 so we divided the three reports with each person being the primary writer for one of the reports. I knew my teammates from other classes but imagine my surprise reading the report of one of them. I was just amazed at the quality of the report and his command of english given the limited experience that he had. But he didn't cite any quotes in the report for all the references that he used. So I decided to do a google search on a few key phrases so they could he properly cited. Then lo and behold I enter one phrase and the entire first 4 pages of the report are literal cut and paste from something on the internet. Overall on the 10+ page report maybe 90% was plagerized. I was freaked out a the possiblity of putting my name on the report as a team project. I tried to get him to understand that what he did was wrong but he didn't think it was a big deal. Eventually we did pressure him to rewrite it in his own words. I shudder at the thought of what he did for his master's thesis!
In the case of this kid, I think it's pretty cut-and-dry that he should bite the bullet. If you get caught plagiarizing, then you get busted. The fact that he didn't get caught before isn't evidence of negligence or discrimination, but rather his own luck in previous instances.
When I submitted the story today, I had hoped to generate a debate about the rights-and-wrongs of plagiarism, but also about the issue of whether or not universities should be requiring the usage of online plagiarism-checking services.
I'm pretty torn about online plagiarism-checking services. I think plagiarism is bad. I mean...every style book has a reasonable method of documenting where you got a quote from, and you can quote a whole paragraph in if it's relevant. For that matter, for most university papers, you can paraphrase a paragraph as long as you (a) cite the original source after you do so and (b) provide some more analysis to suppliment the material you used.
On the flip side, I do feel a bit violated when I have to submit these papers. One at least one site, the user agreement you MUST agree to states that the site basically inherits ownership of the paper. Now, that really bothers me. I post all of my academic papers (as well as personal poetry and other writings) on my own personal website. Based upon those user agreements, this site could post my paper, with our without indication that I authored it, or even sell it, without even informing me. Worse, if a professor requires that I use the service, I don't have a choice in the matter. I am forced to either (a) take a failing grade on the paper (and potentially the class), or (b) give up what intellectual property rights I have over my paper. That really irks me.
I don't have anything to hide; I don't rip off other people's work for my papers. At the same time though, I know other students DO rip off other authors' writings. I don't think it should be a professor's responsibility to be a source checker. If a fifty page paper has forty to eighty sources, the professor shouldn't have the responsibility to hunt down all of those sources. At the same time though, schools are putting their students in an academic guilty-until-proven-innocent situation.
If you take a look at the projects on RentaCoder, you will find that a good amount of them are homework assignements from students in the US and the UK. I find this ironic due to the fact that they are making themselves less prepared for a job that will probably get outsourced anyway. And they wont be in a position to try to find a better job.
Whats even better is how some poeple make it easy to track down thier professor. They post a pdf or word document given to them by thier professor, some people forget that it automatically stores the name of the person or orginization where it was created. A simple email to the professor of the course, and that cheater is history.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
- infringes on music copyrights... applaud
- infringes on non-GPL licensing stipulations
... applaud
- infringes on GPL licensing stipulations
... flame
- infringes on website owner copyrights by reposting text that requires free registration
... flame
- infringes on website owner copyrights by putting up an (unauthorized) mirror of the same material
... cheer
- cheats in class by using a graphing calculator's memory functions
.. cheer
hmm.. it's not here.writes in additional line
- plagarizes in class by plagarizing from the web
... flame
glad we got that sorted.He admits he plagiarised. From the article:
"But they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished. If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough."
He's complaining that he spent 3 years and lots of money submitting stolen papers and that the University should have made him understand EARLIER that submitting stolen papers would REALLY get him kicked out of the program.
His case is that no one at the university REALLY explained to him that stealing papers was not acceptable and what the ACTUAL consequences would be. Or at least that they didn't do it early enough to satisfy him.
Whether he wins or loses that case, you have to ask yourself, would you want to HIRE him to work for you?
In reality, the student got what he paid for - class instruction - for years. He doesn't have that coming back to him. He paid tuition for a service (instruction), and he received that service.
The fact that he is unable to complete his degree puts him in the same category as all the drop-out and flunk-out "students". Should they be refunded their tuition, simply because they cannot finish? Doubtful.
Court adjourned; ruling in favor of the defendant, in summary judgment.
If this student can sue the university "because they didn't catch him before" I guess that serial killers can sue the police "because they didn't catch him before".
Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic?
How any person can get to university without realizing that plagiarism is wrong is beyond me.
You get it wrong. He's suing them for not catching him earlier . He admits that he's been cheating all along and that he knew it was cheating. His complaint is that, if they had caught (and kicked him out) earlier, he wouldn't have stayed in school for so long (and paid his tuition).
It looks like he's going to go into court arguing that he's been cheating since day one. I expect the university to use (among other things) the 'clean hands' defence (you can't claim the protection of the court if you're breaking the law). Plagirism is also copyright violation, so he's likely to get laughed out of court just on that basis.
I can just imagine the disclosure request for:
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I was about ready to tear the kid's head off too, and then I read the blurb. Although I don't think he would ever win a lawsuit, I do think that, if they knew that he was plagarizing earlier, they should have kicked him out instead of letting him wade through 3 years of school and then opening up the history of his plagarizing.
The analogy to that would be seeing a burglar in your house, and sitting there as he took almost everything (and he knows that you're there watching and not saying anything about it). When he goes to take the last valuable item in your house, THEN you pull out your gun and shoot him in the face.
Now granted, what the kid did was stupid, and his excuse is lame ("I didn't know it was wrong"). But if they knew that he had been plagarizing the past 3 years (as the article incinuates), then they should have kicked him out immediately. Doing otherwise does kind of look like extortion, or rather making someone pay money under false pretenses.
That being said, I don't feel sympathy for the kid. You lost money? Too bad, you shouldn't have been plagarizing. You're 21 years old, you should know better.
-Vendal Thornheart^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
-Ben Taitelbaum
The university also can, and should, withdraw an awarded degree even years later if it was discovered that the student cheated.
There are two reasons.
1) Citations are useful for people doing research. If I read your paper, and I want to know more about a specific item, I will look at your references and get other related books. This is not applicable or useful in this case because the only purpose of the paper was to demonstrate the student's abilities, NOT to create a work that will be read and used by others.
2) To make a clear distinction between what is YOUR thinking and what thinking you BORROWED from someone else. This is the primary reason why plagarism is frowned upon; you're tricking the teacher into thinking you did work when all you did was copy someone else's. However, this isn't applicable here either, because the student actually did the work.
Really, this is just the product of a paranoid administration more obsessed with the letter of the law than the purpose.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
"This is like a murderer saying they should have warned me earlier that I will kill a person and go to jail?"
It sounds more to me like a serial murder that killed 4 or 5 people over three years suing the police departments who investigated the case for not catching him after the first one thus stopping him from serving time for and additional 3 or 4 people.
All these comments about turning in your own work twice being plagiarism are beside the point. Some professors don't want students turning in a paper written for another class, since presumably you should have learned something unique in that class that merits a unique assignment. In many situations that could be considered academic dishonesty (although I don't agree with that view), but hardly "plagiarism," which as others pointed out involves taking another person's work and pretending it is your own.
These essays were obviously read by the student's teachers. Some students from the same class obviously prepared their essays together. Did the teachers just not care? Do they realize that next year those judging the competition will not take their students seriously. I was put off by the experience, and don't really want to judge again next year. When I was that age, we didn't have online sources for this kind of thing. I guess I'm naive to be surprised by the sheer percentage of kids cheating. I know there have been articles recently that cite studies that have found extremely high percentages of kids cheat, I just figured that these numbers applied to a kid's entire academic career - I can see someone cheating once or twice in the period of time from kindergarten to the end of high school, or until the end of college. Apparently, I was underestimating the problem.
The way my undergraduate university dealt with this was to have an honour code. We signed an agreement on our first day of school that we wouldn't cheat, and if we did, if we were discovered, if we knew that someone else cheated, and we didn't do anything, there were clear penalties. The code was clear and as far as I know, the implementation was fair. There was a case of a fraternity getting copies of an exam before it was given, and those involved were punished.
I indirectly caught someone cheating once when I found their class notes in the bathroom while they were taking an exam. I knew that it was early in the exam period. I didn't follow the honour code, but just took the notebook, kept it for a few days and then dropped it off with the professor, not telling them when or where I'd found it. I felt bad for the student, but I figured that when they went to the bathroom and found it missing, and then had it returned to them several days later by the professor, they would be freaked out enough. Yeah, that was probably mean, but I could have been meaner.
It seems this chap's whole case is that the university should have noticed his cheating and confronted him sooner.
The timing of the disciplinary action is irrelevant. He knew that cheating was liable to get him disciplined and/or dismissed, and he even admits that. Does he seriously expect the university to check every piece of work he handed it, at the time he hands it it? Does he expect them to do the same for every student?
Surely, the more likely situation was that a few of his later pieces of work aroused suspicion. This then led to a fuller investigation to assess the rest of his work. Then once the investigation had been completed, and a clear case could be made, he was confronted by the evidence.
When I was at University, one of the student's had managed to cheat in each formal set of exams in a full 6 year medical course. She was only dismissed after the final exams, days before graduation, and after paying fees close to 100,000.
The cheating only came to light when one student who was absolutely certain he had passed a certain paper (it was his 2nd attempt and he had worked like a dog for it) was told he had failed. He was called up before the Dean a couple of days before the results were published. He asked to see his paper, and it wasn't his - somebody had switched the answer papers.
Subsequently, there was a full investigation and several other exams were scrutinised - evidence of cheating was found throughout the course. Suspicions were also raised about some informal 'prize' exams during the course, but this could never be proved as the papers were destroyed after marking.
Is that people who steal your neck-vein?
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
He went to school and paid money where they educated him. He indeed to learn something for his money, not to plagiarise. Class is now over. He got what he paid for.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
" Also similar to the "I didn't know smoking was bad for me" argument ... "
The tobacco lawsuits are different. When a company's internal documents show that they knew a product was both chemically addictive and highly carcinogenic, and they continued to sell it for decades while assuring consumers that it was neither addictive nor deadly, they are responsible for damage done to those consumers.
Given full disclosure up front (as cigarettes feature now), I'm more willing to blame the users.
I was looking through the comments today and RTFA. The guy deserves what he got. The real question is whether or not the University is in the wrong for not telling him that he was cheating.
It's pretty obvious that the Judge that hears this case is just going to throw it out and give the guy a big, "You had it coming!" What bugs me is that if the University did know that he was cheating the entire time then why didn't they do something about it. Was it because they just wanted to hold onto a student who was paying his bills?
I agree the student got what he deserved, but I think the University does have a responsibility to both the students and itself to discipline rule-breakers immediately, otherwise it may take years for the student to learn his lesson.
What worries me most is that the University may be as morally bankrupt as the student...
Sad thing is the kid does have a point about universities not being aggressive enough about cheating and plagiarism. The fact that he got away with it for so long is symptomatic of cheating at many universities here in the US. I taught a summer course at a prestigious university once (I teach full time at a not-quite-as-prestigious one normally) and there were 11 students in the class. Several were students at another big well-known school in the midwest. I caught 6 of them plagiarizing, cases that ran from a couple students who had no idea they were plagiarizing (I didn't believe them at first but after talking to them I actually believe them; they basically did clip jobs of stuff from other sources, a paragraph here, a sentence there) to a couple who openly admitted that they plagiarized.
The ones who admitted it were from the midwest school; I had a long chat with one of them afterward and she told me that she and everyone she knew cheated on just about every assignment. She said she didn't want to at first but when she saw her friends getting away with it and getting better grades than her, she changed her tune. She was kind of blown away that she had gotten caught - she said professors at her university simply never made much attempt to catch cheaters. If students are being essentially rewarded for plagiarism, they may not have enough incentive to avoid it.
I had another case a few years ago with a student who looked up to me a great deal. After I caught him he was extremely apologetic and embarrassed. But he said the strangest thing in an email to me -- he basically said, "I'm a Marine, and I learned in the Corps to do whatever it takes to get ahead. If I was in the same position again I would do it again." Now, I've never been in the armed services, but I can't imagine the USMC is teaching him to cheat in school. And the idea that he would do it again if he was in the same position -- what the fuck? He got caught. He flunked the course. He didn't "get ahead." You'd think he would learn from the experience. But I think the problem is, when people get away with it so many more times than they get caught, they really believe it is in their best interest to cheat.
I'm all for giving people a second chance in many of these situations but I think professors should always document instances of academic dishonesty at the university level (our university requires it; I think all should) so that students who do it in different classes do not keep getting "second" chances.
Writing a good term paper actually IS about taking constucted pieces and putting them together.
BUT YOU HAVE TO CITE YOUR SOURCES.
Any moron can take someone elses hard work and put their name on it, it involves no creativity, no intelligence, and no skill.
The only thing this guy has going for him is that he feels the world owes him a living for no work of his own. Frankly if you're too fucking lame to get an english degree, there is no place for you in college. (Before all the English Majors start whining, I should mention that I have an English BA, which I picked up accidentally while working on my CS BS, so I know what the hell I'm talking about.)
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
While I understand what you're saying, you're A) oversimplifying and B) assuming Slashdot thinks as a single hivemind. (Which, while more true than may be optimal for true arguments and discussions, is NOT as true as your little quick-reference sheet makes it seem.)
The first point is a gross oversimplification as, while SOME people here have said specifically 'All copyright is wrong and should be abbolished," MOST people have expressed something more mild. Along the lines of, "The current copyright system is extremely unfair. However, I do understand the possible good uses for copyright as an idea, just not how it is currently implimented. Because of that, I have more sympathy for those who chose to ignore the unreasonable restrictions used for copywritten entertainment (usually music) than those who use the copyright system to impose unreasonable restrictions on media." Which, in your mind, gets boiled down to all Slashdotters saying, "Infringing on music copyrights is good." This isn't even true for all Slashdoters, though, as every time music copyrights come up there are well-spoken arguments by artists (or even just those who disagree with downloading music without paying the artist, or programmers who apply the argument about music to software) who explain why they believe the copyright system is valid, and you're an ass if you "pirate" music or software.
The second two points ignore the type of licensing stipulations. You seem to have a missunderstanding you seem to have on how (many) Slashdoters view software licensing. The issue (as I understand it) is that the GPL grants privledges BEYOND what would normally exist for code. As such, violating it makes you look like an ass, because you're already being given allowances you wouldn't have had without the GPL. On the other hand, the software licenses which are "applauded" when broken (usually) impose a restriction that (by Slashdot hivemind, popular concensus, the phase of the moon, or whatever company is currently in or out of favor) have been deemed unreasonable and overly harsh. For the most part, these software licenses impose restrictions vastly beyond what 'normal' copyright law would suggest is standard, and often due so in a questionably legal fashion (click through licenses, EULAs, popup browser downloads that say they are "required," etc.) So violating the GPL makes you look greedy while violating 'standard' software licenses (according ot Slashdot groupthink) can be the "right" thing to do.
I don't even understand your points concerning mirroring and reposting text. Karma whores or ACs will often copy-and-paste text from Salon or the NYT and get modded up for it. Likewise, posting mirrors often gets you modded up. The idea for the first is that many (not all) people feel the registration systems imposed for some news sites are overly harsh and appreciate not having to give up such info to read what - in the newsstand print edition - would require no personaly identifying information. The logic behind mirroring is that many of the sites Slashdot posts about are, by their nature, hobby sites with low bandwidth and the webmasters appreciate not having their site hosed. When an entire word has been devoted to the negative effect of having a website posted on Slashdot, I don't think mirroring is unreasonable. For small sites, it's often considered a polite way of being helpful, rather than copyright violation...
Maybe I missed a story, but how is the graphing calculator even slightly on topic? Because it's a story about school? I admit I don't read every story and don't have them all memorized, but I don't recal seeing a story about some kid getting in trouble for using a graphic calculator. (I wouldn't be copmletely surprised if it happened, but I think you're jumping the gun by posting about it.) That said, as a student... graphing calculators are tools and, if the teacher allows their use, I'm going to damn well use every tool I can to make my life easier. I'm not writing papers by hand because computers make it easier. Lik
Not necessarily, there are places that do in fact sell papers that come with the rights to redistribute. There are works in the public domain (Shakespeare etc..) that you can republish without copyright infringement. And paraphrasing without citing the source, while not illegal, is still plagirism.
When you go to uni, you don't pay for a degree. You pay for tuition (and other related services) and the twit recieved these services. There was no contract that said he had to get a degree. The fact that he elected to not bother to do the work that would have led to a degree is his affair -- the contract between him and the uni is intact.
He doesn't have a case, unless there was something really odd in his contract with the uni.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Waaah! I admit that I did wrong, but I was misled into thinking it wasn't a problem!
File this one under, "Sit down and shut up!"
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
I am completely amazed that this person is acutally NOT an American (as I am, don't worry, no foreign criticism here).
Apparently, in our courts and society, ignorance of the rules, or in fact, ingnorance in general, is usually enough to get yourself out of trouble (or at least, excuse yourself from it).
People have brought up a large number of similar cases (most notably coffee), where people basically claim ignorance (unreasonably) and try and make a legal case out of it.
I didn't know the coffee was hot, I didn't know plagerism would get me kicked out of school, et cetera. What sickens me more than when people wrongfully claim ignorance, is when judges don't throw that shit out of court.
Tobacco company executives all testified under oath before Congress that they knew of no scientific evidence of nicotine being bad. Turns out they were lying their asses off, that for decades they had been suppressing their very own studies which showed that, and intentionally adding oddball ingredients to boost addictivity.
Tobacco companies are evil and deserve more than they will get. Unfortunately, what with tobacco taxes bringing in so much revenue, governments are unlikely to give them what they deserve.
Infuriate left and right
"A student who was booted off his degree course for plagiarism is to sue the university."
You know, I'm just about cheering for this kid, and I'll tell you why:
First, colleges have a tendency to take BUCKETS of your money and make no guarantees with it, e.g. if you don't learn the first time, we'll let you sit in on the class again, FREE! There are PLENTY of accredited specialty schools that have this guarantee, so don't tell me it can't be done. So, just as with almost every institution I've ever run across, it is inherently violent by creating false hope and not taking responsibility. (Think about it...corporations are legal entities that NEVER DIE, but when they fuck up, it's REALLY difficult to get them to take responsibility)
Second, the money...again. College is OUTLANDISHLY expensive! Most people will NEVER have the money it takes to go to one, and the price just keeps going up with no restraints on it at all! Example: just last year, the University of California Regents decided to raise tuition by 30%. Just like that, one simple little vote, and it happens. I complained about this to a former UC Berkeley student and he laughed. "HA! That's nothing! When I was there they raised it by 300%!" I merely looked at him agape. They have a monopoly on the goods, folks, and they raise prices at will.
Third (and this is a lesser complaint), living conditions. I once visited the UC Davis campus to see a couple of friends and they told me about how they had to live on campus the first year. H-A-D to, those were the words they used. The place they HAD to live was a glorified closet that housed not one of them (which would have been cozy but respectable) but T-W-O of them. The entirety of their living quarters was less than that of your average PRISONER. Now, I'm sure that not all colleges have this requirement, but the ones that do are defrauding their students for HUGE amounts of rent for those cramped closets. If any college told me that I had to live under those conditions I would tell the dean to offer me his neck to repay the insult.
Fourth, the kid admitted to plagiarism, I'll grant you that. But doesn't the old saying go that if you steal it from one source, it's plagiarism, if you stal from many, it's research? Okay, no, I can't really defend the kid here. Crow copied Gypsie's paper word-for-word (even if his downbeat was on Basehart) and didn't get to eat the Hostess Snowballs. The kid should have a disembodied floating head in his dorm room for pulling that stunt. But I know how *I* would have dealt with it: I would have made sure my bibliography was complete. Quoting other works in a paper is STANDARD PRACTICE! If it were me, I would have used entire paragraphs from Paglia's works, but I would have given her credit and probably gotten away with it!
But frankly I'm under the impression that the University of Kent is running a scam on him and I hope he repays the favor in a court of law.
Fight the University monopoly! Practice auto-didacticism!
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
he was lazy and never read the university code of conduct. They all have them, and it outlies what you may and may not do. It's an important document to read. For example here in Arizona it's legal to carry a gun, both openly (with no permit) and concealed (with a permit). You can do this everywhere that isn't prohibited by law, or by the owners. The universities are not prohibited by law, and have no signs posted, so one might assume you can carry on campus. Well, you could in the past, but not any more. The regeants changed the rules. This is important to know, if you are in the habit of carrying a gun.
The same applies to cheating. They outline quite clearly what constitutes cheating, and what the punishments can be (which include explusion). Thus you have no reason to be supprised if you get nailed for cheating.
He's just whiny because he thought he could get away with it. If he didn't know the punishment, that's his own fault. As is often said, ignorance of the law is no excuse. That applies to the criminal code, and it applies to rules and regulations of a university. They make them public knowledge (and usually hand them to you as a new student), it is YOUR responsibility to know them and follow them.
The text says "has sued the university" whereas the actual article says "A student...is to sue the university" and other articles state "is planning to sue".
This seems to me that his legal action is very much in the formative stage, if it is anywhere at all. Good luck on finding a solicitor to take the case. Especially given that the university has made it perfectly clear what plagiarism is and the consequences thereof.
Most frivolous lawsuit stories are about lawsuits that where filed but never made it to court. I have a feeling this is going to be one of them.
Okay, a couple of points here:
Lawyers have to pass the BAR exam. I know a couple of people that have tried and, believe me, it isn't easy. There really is no way to cheat on this test. You can't even know what the questions are, really, because they rotate them. So his lawyer most assuredly will NOT have gotten his license the way he (didn't) get his degree.
Of course, all this may not translate in the UK, but I'm certain that the exams the barristers there take are just as stringent.
I also want to make a point here about tests in general: all tests should be open-book. Remember that life IS an open-book test, and research is getting easier. Example: all I have to do now is type in "definition autodidactism" into Google and it will give me not only the correct spelling (did you mean autodidacticism?) but also the definition. That is UNBELIEVABLY handier than a dictionary. Memorization is fine for a lot of things, things that you have to do on the fly. But memorizing the capitals of all 50 states? Virtually useless.
You see, folks, we have this nifty little system called WRITING. This WRITING system allows you to use symbols to RECORD things on that you might want to recall later. Why would you not be able to recall something? Because humans are imperfect, and have imperfect memories to go with them. The WRITING system allows you to record anything that you might forget and want to recall later!
It is far, FAR, *FAR* better to teach children how to do research and use reference material than to teach them trivia that they could, in the former case, easily look up in a library. And I assure you that practice in reference will (eventually) lead to memorization of plenty of facts, and thus prepare them for a career on gameshows.
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
This is probably one of the worst things I could say, but I'm actually a student at the University of Kent.
In fact I am doing a Computer Science and as such, I do assignments as part of my degree, in the same way that the student in the article would have.
Now, this is potentially the reason why this may be why I shouldn't post this, but I have sort of plagarised.
As part of one of the assignments I needed to submit I was conducting research to answer the question, and as such I looked at a few of the examples given by one of the lecturers. The main issue is that one of the examples was a complete replica of the answer to the question. Now after reading the example my thoughts were tainted and as such I could not think of any better way to answer the question.
Now this is neither here nor there, but as a computer science student we have always been told that if something has already been done before, i.e. someone else has written a function to do x, then why produce our own version to do x. I've been very close at times to submitting some work with a note suggesting I didn't write the code but merely copied it, with the previous statement attached.
I understand this is quite an aside to the article, but I felt obliged as a fellow student to post this.
I think that suits like this are good.
Only for the reason that the lower end of the gene pool gets spotted and we as a society can adjust. Those of use that have taken a class or gone to school (most of us) basicly understand that the purpose of taking the courses / classes etc is so that the teacher / prof / school can certify that we know what they have taught us to a percentage degree (90%,50%).
This kid is freely admiting that he has done nothing and has been avoiding the ciriculum since day 1? Will that make his future employers more trusing in thier descision to hire him?
If I was able to I would allow him back into the course on the one condition that on his transscript it would show that he has actively plagerized and admited to it. Let him pay for the remainder of his courses. Thank him for bringing it to thier attention and send him into the world with his stupidity following him all the way.
Just my $0.02 CDN
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
The student's argument only has merit if the University is selling the degree for the money. However, this is not the case. The money is for attending classes and for the educational services of the University. The money is NOT for grades or a degree. The student received the classes and the educational services, therefore the student was not deprived of anything he was entitled to for the tuition money spent. The degree is awarded for meeting the academic requirements of the University, not for paying tuition. The student, because he cheated, did not meet the academic requirements, and therefore is not entitled to a degree.
If this idiot were to win this lawsuit it would be pretty scary for our University system.
This reminds me of the cheating scandle at Georgia Tech a few years back, where a bunch of whinny bitches got F's in a CS class because the professors setup a way to compare peoples programs to see if they had cheated. (I was a TA for one of those classes and I had less then a 3 or 4 students ever ask for extra help all semester.. and shocker.. those that did go the material and weren't caught for cheating).
The idea behind school is not to see how well you can avoid doing any real work of your own, but to learn something.
There can be no guarentee that because you paid to take a class means you paid for the right to pass that class. The last thing we need is for college level eduation to be reduced to the level that grade school education has in many places.
The teachers should have to kept to certain standars, but ultimately the burden should be on the students to learn.
I can just imagine the disclosure request for:
A list of all assignments on which you cheated
For each such assignment on which you cheated,
A description of where and how you obtained your work,
any agreements you engaged in to obtain it,
how much (if anything) you paid for each assignment, and
how you think the markers should have recognized your cheat.
He'll probably just crib the list from someone else.
The ______ Agenda
I have an English BA, which I picked up accidentally while working on my CS BS.
Response 1:
So you're the bastard whose got it! I just put it down for a few minutes beside the printer in the computer lab, and when I got back it was gone!
Response 2:
Lucky sod - the rest of us have to work at picking up girls/guys.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
To save money, McDonalds had reduced the amount of styrofoam used to make the coffee cups to the point that they were not stable without the lid attached. The woman removed the lid to put cream & suger in the coffee and the cup simply came apart in her lap.
This was entirely McDonald's fault, they deserved to be sued and they deserved to lose.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That's nothing. While studying for my maths degree, I picked up three PhDs, two MBAs and a Diploma in Human Resources Management, and all without leaving my e-mail client.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You should consider using your powers of observation and judgement of character
And you should use yours to detect humor