[plt-scheme] Do no evil

wooks wrote:

>>> I have just come across a set of lecture notes for a 2001 CS
>>> course in an
>>>>> American University that contain a significant amount of
>>>>> plagiarism from a book by Michael Jackson (Software
>>>>> Requirements and Specifications). In some instances whole
>>>>> lectures were plagiarised to the extent that the lecturer did
>>>>> not even bother to change the examples. I wonder what he will
>>>>> say when next a student presents him with an assignment that
>>>>> consists of wikipedia entries.
>>> 
>>> This does not sound like plagiarism to me.
>>> 
> 
> I thought you were supposed to acknowledge your source when you did
> that sort of thing. Would it be plagiarism if a student did it?

A lecturer, unlike a student, is typically not presenting original work 
and being assessed on its originality. It would be plagiarism if I took 
examples from a book and passed them off as my own work in a technical 
talk or in a textbook from which I were to get royalties.

That said, it is good practice to acknowledge sources. You don't get the 
whole context with slides -- the lecturer may have acknowledged the 
source orally, as I often do. One instance where I don't do this right 
away is if the source also contains examples I am using as assignment 
questions. I have, in such circumstances, prepared a "sources" sheet 
available after the final exam. --PR