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When is research, research and when is it cheating?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Howdy,
I've been wondering this for a few days, just how much research is considered initative and how much is considered cheating..?
Example:
Programming in computing, if I want to do a certain thing but i'm not sure how to do it i'll search google for functions that fit my needs and then take that and mold it to fit my program... as an example, now would you consider that as cheating, (as i'm copying some code from an external source) or would you consider it as using your initative? (Considering we're allowed to use the help built in - but I dont have that at home)
(I'm doing AS levels btw)
Thanks
I've been wondering this for a few days, just how much research is considered initative and how much is considered cheating..?
Example:
Programming in computing, if I want to do a certain thing but i'm not sure how to do it i'll search google for functions that fit my needs and then take that and mold it to fit my program... as an example, now would you consider that as cheating, (as i'm copying some code from an external source) or would you consider it as using your initative? (Considering we're allowed to use the help built in - but I dont have that at home)
(I'm doing AS levels btw)
Thanks
Post edited by JustV on
0
Comments
It's okay I think to look online to find out what function would do something, but not to just nick entire programmes.
We basically got told to do this for some AS biology work. I always try to put stuff in my own words so that it makes sense to me...
As long as you referance any functions you use it should be ok, in fact it should be fine to use other people's prewritten functions as long as you say they're not yours and get no credit for them.
Molding functions could make it more difficult to tell whats yours and whats not, though if you provide a link to the original source it should be fine.
My advice is basically give credit for anyone elses work, even if you just look at it for an idea and then write your own function.
But you are supposed to research. If you have a fully annotated piece of work, with a full and accuarate bibliogrpahy, then you will be fine. If you say where and when you got the work from then you should generally be OK, as you will not get credit for other people's work and you are not passing it off as your own.
Unlikely - programmers don't like reinventing the wheel, and generally people who share code on othe net usually licence it under the GPL or some other unrestrictive licence.
There are only so may ways to do a particular function that it would be hugely restrictive if copyright restrictions applied - say no to software patents!
Strange how I work for IBM in software engineering and we aren't allowed to copy any code we find on the net or in books for legal copyright reasons.
That's hardly suprising - IBM are a commerical company, and many software licences don't allow you to charge for any products you use them in or specify you must release the source. However for a non commercial school project it's very unlikely you would be infringing any of the more open software licences.
With regard to books - the licence (note not the copyright) is usually very restrictive, so you might have problems copying stuff from there. Though usually restrictions are clearly stated so it should be obvious what you can and can't do with the code.
Copyright does apply to code (this is legally shaky with small amounts of code, e.g single lines, as copyright can only be held on a 'creative work') - the writer/programmer or the company/organization they work for owns the copyright.
However the copyright owner may licence their code out under whatever terms they wish. There are some popular licences like GPL and creative commons with huge amounts of stuff available to use freely (with some conditions) in your own works.
In programming it is OK to use a concept for a function such as say you are using a Binary Search or a Insert Sort because these are generally understood methods. If however you are copying code and tweaking it then you need to be saying that you did this and where you got the original code from.
"Plaigirism is copying from one source, research is copying from twenty."
It's so true...what do people think research is?
It's about checking out other ideas...taking some...sifting out what you want to leave and putting your own spin (i.e. original thought) into the mix. And original thought is what gets people asts at universities, isn't it?
But being just plain uimaginative and copying, that's a different, dishonest story.
Ok going off topic here, but patents protect the implementation of an idea, not the idea itself - i.e. you could patent timetravel by means of [insert well defined scientific procedure here], but you couldn't patent time travel itself.
Software patents don't seem to work like this, in the US at least, you're patenting an idea rather than it's implementation. e.g Amazons 1 click ordering service - they have patented the idea of only clicking once to order a product. Hardly a novel idea at all, but now no one else can use this.
Patents are designed to allow patent holders to benefit from their work and so encourage the creation of new work, but with such simple ideas being patented software companies are having trouble avoiding all possible patents owned by other companies (Microsoft even lost a patent case a while back which was to do with inserting a couple of lines in a web page), and companies are patenting every idea in sight rather than making new products based on these ideas.
Of course people should be able to protect their work (though arguably with written works like code, copyright provides all the protection you need) though should it be at the expense of new works being created. It's not software patents I disagree with - it's more their implementation.
Erm, theres only one way to do certain functions. Ie, if i need to say.. write an if statement, and the first time I did this I had no idea of the syntax in VB (i'm a php coder at heart) so I had to google it. So are you saying that everyone who types:
if x>y then
in their code is cheating?
But someone I know copied all of someone elses macros in our IT project last year, and got away with it.
thats hardly code thats just one statement