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I'm currently a first year information technology student majoring in software development. I applied for an internship at a software development company. I got an interview and now they're asking to see some assignments that I've done at school to prove my experience. Is it usual that a school (in Canada) own all the rights to assignments that I've done? The assignments contain some code by the school and the rest is mine. I'm wondering if there's a route I can take so that I can share these assignments with this potential employer without violating my school's policies? Or is there something else I can tell this employer?

(Please note that I'm asking this question on behalf of a friend)

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    "without violating my school's policies"? The first step would be to find and read your school's policies. Actually, without knowing your school and its policies, I don't see how anyone else on this site can answer this definitively. My guess is that you will find out that this is no problem.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Apr 9, 2016 at 1:48

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I don't think you need to worry about school policy or copyright here: you're privately sharing these documents in order to allow somebody to better evaluate you, not attempting to transfer ownership or widely distributing them.

As such, the question of who owns the code is irrelevant: you are not claiming ownership, you are claiming that the portions you wrote provide evidence of your skills as a programmer. The company should be expected to treat it as a confidential part of your application process, just like all of the other personal information that you have given them. If they do not, any possible fault and liability lies with them, not with you.

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  • +1 for the company should be expected to treat it as a confidential part of your application process
    – Nobody
    Apr 12, 2016 at 13:07
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You will not have any problems with this arrangement. Nobody is going to come after you for some code snippits from college assignments unless you are publishing a textbook. Look into Copyright Fair Use, which this clearly falls under.

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    Perhaps you can justify your assertions?
    – jakebeal
    Apr 9, 2016 at 4:16
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    You are being intentionally pedantic. Explain to me how the publishers of those textbooks are actually going to catch wind that he shared some code snippets during a job interview and how anyone would then care. Show me any legal case where this has ever happened. Logical possibilities based on legal paranoia aren't legitimate fears.
    – Kevin
    Apr 9, 2016 at 4:19
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    I have no intention to be pedantic: it's just that on this site there is generally a tradition of writing answers that explain the person's reasoning in an accessible manner. Your answer also assumes the concern is about getting in legal trouble with a textbook publisher, when the original post seems more concerned about ethics and material created by the school.
    – jakebeal
    Apr 9, 2016 at 4:33

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