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To: python-list@python.org
From: Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au>
Subject: Re: Can post a code but afraid of plagiarism
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:10:46 +1100
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Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> writes:

> If Fred writes something and Bill copies it without acknowledging
> Fred's work, then Bill should be penalized. That much is clear.

The situation is where a student is being examined for skills where it's
appropriate to test the student's own skill with a reasonable level of
isolation from the relevant work of others.

So questions of plagiarism aren't relevant to that aspect.

> But why should Fred be punished? What has he done wrong?

Fred has, in your example, ignored the requirements to keep his own work
on the assignment isolated from Bill.

This is harmful to the assessment of both Bill and Fred, since the
teacher has a severely lessened ability to determine both Bill's and
Fred's individual competence levels at the skill being examined.

So, to encourage both Bill and Fred to keep their work isolated and
allow their levels of competence to be assessed with confidence, they
both need to have disincentive to both copy work and allow their work to
be copied.

> When it's less clear who copied from whom, I can understand issuing
> across-the-board penalties in the interests of fairness (and because
> the effort of figuring out who wrote what isn't worth it), but I'd say
> it's a compromise for simplicity rather than justifiable punishment on
> someone who published code.

Sure. Penalising both students – or, more precisely, advertising such
penalties from the start – seems like a much more fair and effective
measure than relying on the teacher to both detect the machinations of
ingenious students and to determine who copied from whom.

-- 
 \        “Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take |
  `\          for granted … but to weigh and consider.” —Francis Bacon |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney