Dear students,
I would like to take a moment to recall what plagiarism is (and what it is not) and why indulging in plagiarism is a serious fraud.
The reason I am doing this is because every year I notice people who shamelessly copy from their friends and deliver work (or parts of a work) that they did not do themselves, without due acknowledgement (i.e., plagiarised work).
Plagiarism starts as soon as you are taking someone else’s work, in whole or in part, and pretend it is your own. Every time you are delivering something by email, and you do not explicitly cite your sources for the parts you copied from elsewhere, you are committing plagiarism.
It is extremely common that people caught in an act of plagiarism defend themselves by saying they worked together. So they think they have genuinely worked on the delivered product themselves, so it is fine to claim it is their own. But it is not fine to attribute joint work to oneself alone. If you produce something jointly, you have to acknowledge your co-authors.
Now, copying is not plagiarism and working with other people on a topic does not necessarily imply you have to co-sign everything you make on the topic. If you copy and acknowledge your sources, it is fine. It is extremely common in computer science to use source code from others and integrate it into one’s own code. But you must not pretend it is your own code entirely. Working with someone else to figure out a solution does not mean everyone involved is a coauthor of the product that comes out of the solution. For instance, you may collectively work on a math exercise to figure out a proof, then each individually write your own version of the proof. The structure of the proof will be similar for all the people involved, but the products will be personal. The author of a document is the one who writes it, not the one who provides the idea. Writers get their ideas from talking to people, reading books, listening to the radio, watching films, etc. Not all of the people who provide ideas have to be identified as coauthors.
Plagiarism is a fraud. From a legal point of view, it is a breach of copyright laws. From the university point of view, it is cheating. From a pedagogical point of view, it is undermining the evaluation process. Grading plagiarised work is meaningless.
Students often think that if the owner of the source of the plagiarised work agrees to share their work, and agrees to have it copied, then no harm is done to this person. But victims of plagiarism, even consenting, may suffer from the action. As I said, the evaluation is undermined, which affects both the perpetrators and the victims alike. If you genuinely did the work, do not allow others to claim authorship on your property. It is truly bad for everyone including yourself.
Plagiarism is such a serious issue that any act of plagiarism that is reported to the administration will lead to disciplinary action. If proved true, it invalidates your diploma regardless of your overall grades. In some cases, it can lead to even future prohibition to register at the university for years.
As far as I am concerned, I encourage collaboration, team work when appropriate, and sharing knowledge freely out of class. But use other people’s efforts responsibly. Asking questions is a much better way of overcoming your obstacles than blindly copying ready-made solutions.
From now on, for everything that concerns my own courses, I will not tolerate plagiarism of any kind.