Someone has a case of the Mondays!


Well OK, not really. I don't know if this story transpired on a Monday - it was just a catchy title :-)

Anyway, I had heard of this story about a student accused of copyright infringement and possibly academic dishonesty for posting his own code online! I did not know much of the story until I read the whole story on Inside Higher Ed. If you haven't seen it, go have a quick read - it IS pretty ridiculous.

Basically there is a student in a data structures class (aaaahh, brings back fond memories) and after an assignment was due and everyone had submitted their answers to the professor he posted his answers to the web. The professor went bananas and tried to assert that he had copyright over the answers and that the student was committing academic dishonesty for posting the answers.

This guy is pretty stupid (too many years in front of a CRT?)

If I write my own code - you don't have copyright.

If I post the answers after the assignement is due, I am not helping anyone cheat.

On another note, anyone who's taken a data structures class knows that there are only a finite ways of completing a data structure assignment. There are many examples of data structure code on the internet that students could find and modify if they wanted to cheat.

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