Thu May 15 13:32:36 EDT 2014 Mark Roberts wrote: > P.J. Alling wrote: > > >It's derivative, at best, but since the student has already failed, why > >keep beating that dead horse. > > Exactly. I've forwarded everything to my department chair. He and I > have elected not to pursue the matter any further. We'd have to get > the Dean involved and go through all kinds of hassle. Too much work > for nothing at this point.
Mark, Of course, it is your choice of how much of your time and energy you are willing to invest in this. I just would like to bring to your consideration an important (for the students' development) issue here. I think it is very important that the student is aware that 1) it is not OK to repeat somebody's design without acknowledging that, and 2) he was caught doing this. For the first, it is possible that the student might not really see the problem in basing his/her design on somebody's else. (And there are also cultural differences of acceptance for students coming from different countries. -- I don't know if you deal with any international students.) Second thing, if the student knows it was unacceptable but did it, the fact that he wasn't caught might be encouraging for the future similar attempts. Thus, it is best for the student (and the society) if the student is warned at the early stages and is informed about the possible consequences. Even if you are not going to follow the formal procedure, I'd consider telling him that it is inappropriate and that in this case he will get out easily, but it wouldn't be tolerated in the future. My colleagues and I have dealt with a bunch of cases of plagiarism that in essence similar to this, and I am convinced that there are two types of cases: 1. In some patalogical cases, a simple warning doesn't do much. Hence, things must be documented, even if no strong measures of panishments are used, so that the subsequent violations would be repeat violations and as such are subject to stronger measures (up to expulsion). One of my colleagues had a case where the first serious fact of plagiarism of a student was not documented, and then when a different faculty found that the thesis (graduate level!) was plagiarized, since it was the "1st offense", serious measures couldn't be used. 2. In other cases, even a well delivered warning is a good enough message so that the student realizes the seriousness of the misconduct in a full perspective, and it is not an issue in the future. Best, Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
