Update on that plagiarism thing... (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

I spoke some more with my mentor and another prof on the matter of my schoolwork and the kids who were ripping it off. Luckily I seem to have misunderstood my mentor's initial e-mail a bit, since she's now indicated that she's behind me and that she shares my opinions on plagiarism and the prevention thereof.

Both her and the other prof are rather tech-savy, familiar and confident with the Internet and all kinds of productivity tools. Both of them do believe in the good that anti-plagiarism software can do and they'd love to have it at their disposal at HU. They also agree that it would be useless to take my term papers down, since they're already out there. As we all know anything ever posted on the Internet is next-to-nearly impossible to ever stamp out.

I hope they'll manage to convince their colleagues that using anti-plagiarism software will not necessarily hamper them in their daily activities. Computers and software may be complicated, but they don't -have- to be.



Posted in: anti-plagiarism , ephorus , plagiarism , uncool

No honor among peers: plagiarism is uncool (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Well, this is certainly ironic... Not half a year ago my profs at college sang praise of the work I was doing and how helpful it was to publish my notes, calculations and papers on the web. This took a turn today when I received an e-mail from my mentor, asking me to remove all of my work from the web.

Apparently there is no honor among peers and there's a bunch of students that decided to be assholes and completely rip off my work. Of course it was never my intention to help people commit fraud at college. I have faith in my peers and counted on fellow students to have the balls to do their own work.

Publishing my schoolwork was always meant to be an inspiration for fellow students, possibly helping them along in their own pursuits. It'd be great if a glance or two at my work had helped them over that little bump they'd run into. I explicitly mention on my site that people shouldn't be dicks and that my work is not meant to be turned in as their own. I warn the readers that any repercussions following plagiarism of my work are their own responsibility and that I won't be held accountable for their assholish behaviour.

Anyway... It's dilemma time! I dislike the thought of hampering my old profs in their daily work. They made me feel at home at HU and they taught me a lot. On the other hand, I believe that removing my work from the web will only amount to fighting symptoms. Students will always share papers among themselves, it's just that mine are more visible. Besides, it's a very real possibility that at least a dozen students have already downloaded every single file I put up on the web, so it's impossible to stamp out any copying from my work.

I explained to my mentor that this high visibility of my work could also work in their advantage. If they'd consider using anti-plagiarism software like Ephorus, all the work turned in by students would be automatically checked against any papers findable through the web including mine.

I'll be honest and admit that having my work up on my site is also in part down to my sense of pride. I'm fscking proud of all the hard work I did last school year and I believe that my papers are also a testimony to my qualities in documentation and education. Call it my portfolio if you will.

I'll mull things over a bit and have another chat with my profs. Let's see if we can find some common ground in this.

Posted in: homework , plagiarism , stealing , students , term paper