Comments on: Plagiarizing code for computer programming assignments

By: Freakman

Freakman — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:44:32 +0000

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. If someone gets copies someone else’s source, and they can’t explain what it does, they’re going to get caught pretty quickly.

The whole idea that students have to run off to steal source code just to pass a course should be flag to educators though. They should be asking themselves, “Are the concepts actually being taught, and if so, are they being taught properly?”.

I found that last year (in a grade 10 Comp Sci class, teaching Turing), and that so many students were doing poorly in the class simply because not enough time had been spent on the basic concepts. Instead, everything was pushed into graphics and games, and people suffered from it.

In the end, my point is: If students are resorting to stealing code that they should be capable to write, are they being taught what they need to know to begin with?

By: Andrew Ingram

Andrew Ingram — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:02:20 +0000

My comp sci department at university (University of Warwick, England) had (i’ve left, but I assume this still applies) has their own plagiarism-detection software. All code assignments are submitted through this and it’s almost impossible to trick (it’s extremely strict and can cope with significant refactors) and anything that’s flagged is then checked manually.

I know someone who did a project to try and improve it and in doing so they found very few ways of plagiarising code so that it couldn’t be detected. Basically the only way to get by it was to have enough understanding of the solution to have been able to produce it yourself.

It’s probably got some flaws but the university doesn’t block any websites and there wouldn’t be any point anyway. Anyone who’s serious about plagiarising can just go and use a different computer network.