From: Ryan Davis Date: 2011-11-10T07:08:46+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Challenge On Nov 9, 2011, at 04:50 , Intransition wrote: > Come on. Let's not be so harsh. Leave it to you to side with intellectual dishonesty. No, let's be harsh. If this kid has gotten to college level and not learned that taking credit for someone else's work is not only wrong, but going to bite you in the ass hard once you leave academia, then it is certainly time to drive that lesson home. What we don't need out there is another plagerist. > If truth is being told, then this girl has now dropped a class over it. You don't know what the policy of the school is. Don't assume you have any idea what the outcome will be. > And what good does that serve? It serves a lot of good. Both for her and for society in general. Look at the devastating effects of the work of Victor Ninov and Jan Hendrik Schön. A distinct lack of ethics and intellectual dishonesty caused this. Do we need more of it? No. > Now she won't be learning any Ruby, Programming, or (IMHO) how to truly "Think". Again, you don't know that. You have no idea what the disciplinary policy of this school is. > Shaming her or her friend isn't going to make the world a better place. Encouraging her to earnestly try, on her own, regardless of the outcome or the grade she might receive is more noble. As long as she learns, even just a small portion of what her classmates manage, then at least it is something positive. And relative growth is far more important than absolutes. So, taking credit for someone else's work, as long as she can claim she learned something from it, is a good thing in your opinion. What happens when she's out in the real world with a real job and she tries that? She gets fired, without benefits, and that reference is forever burned. It probably follows her around as well. > For what might seem small to you and me can in fact be quite huge to a newbie. Which is why driving this lesson home now is a Good Thing™.