Timeline for Can copyright prevent claims of self-plagiarism?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
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| Nov 11, 2017 at 11:06 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @Dan Romik : As if it did indeed require something totally new, albeit starting off the previous one, then even modulo any plagiarism issues, if you could turn in the original paper it would still be worth a zero for not addressing the assignment. Conversely, if identical paper would satisfy the assignment, again modulo plagiarism issue, then turning in wholly different paper might not, and give lower/zero grade for not meeting assignment points. Finally, if it does require something new so that the original paper would not suffice, the question is moot. | |
| Nov 11, 2017 at 11:04 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @Dan Romik: "expanding on your earlier work (as Ben Voigt suggests in a comment), and achieve an even deeper level of knowledge and understanding, and do all of this without needing to work any harder than any of the other students." However, I thought the objection was to redoing work already done . The subtext seems to be that the assignment would require repeating a substantial amount of the points already made in previous work, not that it was a follow-on that would by the requirements require a wholly different text starting off where a previous one left off. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 21:15 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @Azendale it sounds like we mostly agree, and I can see you have good intentions. I think what was challenging about your question is that you were proposing to use rather dishonest means to get around a requirement that may seem stupid to you, sort of like sorting grains of sand, but in many cases will be far from stupid. Yes, some professors can take such things to an unhealthy extreme. I encourage you to go to your professor and ask for an alternative assignment in such a case, as you suggested, which I'm sure they'll be happy to do, and regardless, always be honest. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 19:47 | comment | added | Azendale | @DanRomik I love reading/researching and learning. Writing is OK if I know it will benefit someone else, and I have passed all the writing courses I have had so far with straight A's (some of those with points above 100%). But writing something (that will only be read by my professor) to prove I have learned...well, I might prefer sorting grains of sand for an equivalent amount of time instead. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 19:38 | comment | added | Azendale | @DanRomik I'm not settling for the minimum. I would be thrilled if a professor pulled my aside and said that I already seemed to know X, so they were giving me the option (and challenge) to go learn about A, B, & C instead, and told me if I took that option I would need to set up a meeting with them in the future where they would ask questions to find out what I learned. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 18:10 | comment | added | Dan Romik | Another way of thinking of my advice is in terms of an efficient allocation of resources. You're in the course for X amount of time, the instructor is there for Y amount of time. How can we use these resources to maximize the benefit to you? If you already know half of the material, a lot of this will just be a waste of your and the instructor's time. Credit by examination is indeed a good solution -- I'm by no means against it; my solution is another good approach, which has the added benefit that you (or someone like you but without your passion for learning) will gain even more knowledge. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 18:02 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @Azendale Good points, and great to hear you have a passion for learning, however: 1. there are others with similar views about self-plagiarism to you who do not have such passion. 2. I would say a degree certifies some complicated combination of an absolutel level of knowledge and an increase of knowledge. 3. In any case, a good university, and in particular one that follows the approach I was advocating, will produce many many students who have a lot more than the minimum knowledge. Why settle for the minimum? (See also this answer.) | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 16:45 | comment | added | Azendale | I have nothing against learning extra things -- I love learning and learning by actually trying things for myself is the preferred way to spend free time. I just don't enjoy doing it under the confines of a course -- the tests and deadlines have a special way of removing fun. I see a degree as a certification of a minimum level of knowledge, not as certifying an increase in knowledge. If it is an increase, then what is a degree supposed to mean to an employer? If it is an increase, then what is credit by examination? | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 11:13 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @O.R.Mapper ok, fair enough. I think your philosophy is reasonable and internally consistent, as is mine. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:38 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... while leaving the general furthering of one's knowledgeability on a broad topic to the general responsibility students have for themselves. Approaches in this respect might differ. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:35 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... possibly doing something entirely unrelated. "the time the student will need to work on his project is no less on average than for any other student" - not necessarily; some classes overlap topically, while others do not. Students that happen to pick many overlapping classes might have to spend less time overall because, e.g., similar exercises on SQL might appear both in a class on enterprise systems and in a class on database management. But then, I realize that in my own assignments, I spend quite some effort to ensure they are specifically useful to learn a specific set of skills, ... | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:34 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | I think my general thought about the suggestion is that no matter whether student dive specifically into AVL trees, learn more about trees or data structures, or do something completely different that has nothing to do at all with the topic, they will be outside of the scope of the assignment (and its intended final discussion). As such, I don't really see a need to assign an alternative exercise; once they can hand in a solution that fulfils the requirements of the assignment, they are free to use their remaining time in any way they wish - possibly finding more information on the topic, ... | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:32 | comment | added | Dan Romik | Also, if you don't mind students reusing code (as you stated above), then the student is not committing self-plagiarism. In that case, presumably you factored reuse of code into the scope of the assignments, so that the time the student will need to work on his project is no less on average than for any other student. In that case that part of my answer will not apply. Again, I see no inconsistency between what you're saying and my principle that the goal of an assignment is to generally further one's knowledge rather than to learn some very specific skill that one might have already learned. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:25 | comment | added | Dan Romik | @O.R.Mapper no problem, if you would prefer if they did something entirely different, then you could assign them an alternative exercise since they have already learned as much as you think anybody needs to know about AVL trees. This is consistent with my answer, if you interpret "something" more broadly as, say, trees, or data structures, rather than something super specific. Anyway, as the instructor I'm sure you will figure out a good way for the student to make productive use of his time to further his knowledge, in keeping with the philosophy of my answer. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:08 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | ... my expectation is that they do exactly that, in order to get (1) programming practice, (2) practice in handling pointers, and (3) an idea of how self-balancing trees work. I would certainly not want students to dive into optimizing this particular kind of trees, given that AVL trees are rarely used in practice and are primarily taught because they are a reasonably demonstrative and not too complicated example of self-balancing trees. If the above expectations have already been met by a student, I would prefer if they did something entirely different rather than cling to the assignment. | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 10:07 | comment | added | O. R. Mapper | 'learn even more about the "something" in question' - that sounds good in theory, but I think it is somewhat unrealistic in many situations. If the assignment is to write a binary tree class with preorder, inorder and postorder traversal methods, then the code that does so is what it is. There is not much more to dive into. Furthermore, as an instructor, I have a certain idea of what effort students will typically spend on a given task, and thereby, how "deeply" they are going to dive into the topic. If I ask them to implement an AVL tree, ... | |
| Nov 19, 2015 at 8:09 | history | answered | Dan Romik | CC BY-SA 3.0 |