Collaboration Versus Cheating

We outline how we detected programming plagiarism in an introductory online course for a master's of science in computer science program, how we achieved a statistically significant reduction in programming plagiarism by combining a clear explanation of university and class policy on academic honesty reinforced with a short but formal assessment, and how we evaluated plagiarism rates before SIGand after implementing our policy and assessment.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 5 tables, SIGCSE 201

Cryptographic Methods with a Pli Cachete: Towards the Computational Assurance of Integrity

Unreproducibility stemming from a loss of data integrity can be prevented with hash functions, secure sketches, and Benford's Law when combined with the historical practice of a Pli Cacheté where scientific discoveries were archived with a 3rd party to later prove the date of discovery. Including the distinct systems of preregistation and data provenance tracking becomes the starting point for the creation of a complete ontology of scientific documentation. The ultimate goals in such a system--ideally mandated--would rule out several forms of dishonesty, catch computational and database errors, catch honest mistakes, and allow for automated data audits of large collaborative open science projects

Source-code plagiarism : an academic perspective

In computing courses, students are often required to complete tutorial and laboratory exercises asking them to produce source-code. Academics may require students to submit source-code produced as part of such exercises in order to monitor their students’ understanding of the material taught on that module, and submitted source-code may be checked for similarities in order to identify instances of plagiarism. In exercises that require students to work individually, source-code plagiarism can occur between students or students may plagiarise by copying material from a book or from other sources. We have conducted a survey of UK academics who teach programming on computing courses, in order to establish what is understood to constitute source-code plagiarism in an undergraduate context. In this report, we analyse the responses received from 59 academics. This report presents a detailed description of what can constitute source-code plagiarism from the perspective of academics who teach programming on computing courses, based on the responses to the survey

Source-code plagiarism : a UK academic perspective

In computing courses, students are often required to complete tutorial and laboratory exercises asking them to produce source-code. Academics may require students to submit source-code produced as part of such exercises in order to monitor their students' understanding of the material taught on that module, and submitted source-code may be checked for similarities in order to identify instances of plagiarism. In exercises that require students to work individually, source-code plagiarism can occur between students or students may plagiarise by copying material from a book or from other sources. We have conducted a survey of UK academics who teach programming on computing courses, in order to establish what is understood to constitute source-code plagiarism in an undergraduate context. In this report, we analyse the responses received from 59 academics. This report presents a detailed description of what can constitute source-code plagiarism from the perspective of academics who teach programming on computing courses, based on the responses to the survey

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table