Seething...

[Calligirl]

Hey, Guys!
Haven't been here, been finishing school to graduate!!!!!

This last assignment has me steaming and I don't know what to do about it. Hubby says do nothing, grab degree and go.

Remember the kid I posted about who grabbed images off the Net for his CD cover design and the instructor thought it was great? (Still having problems trying to get it to print but nobody knows that it's all copied...) The same kid who popped into class five minutes before and found a template on the Net to design his movie poster?

This time, it was me who got ripped off. The assignment was an art prospectus we had to write and design. I had to print mine at school so Tuesdsay I showed the instructor who had minor changes for me. Yesterday, it was due. Kid comes bouncing up and shows his which was a DIRECT COPY WORD FOR WORD OF MINE. He cut and pasted the whole damn thing, which is obvious by the logo which was blurry on mine until I changed it right before I turned it in. He never noticed on his. He took my copy, changed Garamond to some arty-farty foo-foo italic, totally unreadable and changed the pictures into grainy filtered blobs to be artistic and was proud to show it.

I am just so pissed I don't know what to do. Do I have a talk with the instructor at all? He has another semester to go but I'm out of there so do I let it go as hubby says? I got full credit so I don't think the instructor thinks I copied him for God's sake but still...

The CD thing I couldn't prove, just his word which he has lied about to the instructor when she asked him, the movie template thing I saw him do but it wasn't my class so none of my business and maybe I didn't understand the assignment (although I know I did). This is different.

Advice?

[Kool]

I would turn his butt in, that's plagerism.

[morea]

I'd talk to the instructor. That's just rotten of him.

Unfortunately, this goes on in the work world after college, too:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26183

[MikeTheVike]

I'm not the kind of person to rat people out, but I would say something. I would probably be like "Dude, you stole my shit!" and say it really loud in the class in front of the other students and professor to draw attention and really embarrass him.

[Craig B]

LOL at Mike!

I agree, your instructor should be made aware of it.

[Exodus]

I would seriously say something to the professor. That's just freakin' wrong!

[Virgo Nightingale]

You HAVE to say something. Behavior like that should not be tolerated, and he needs to learn that, and the sooner the better. Otherwise, he will go out into the real world and keep doing the same thing thinking it's okay. As much as I'd love for him to learn his lesson the hard way by getting his a$$ fired and sued by someone he copied, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice by letting him get away with copying your original work.

[frankster]

We had a student in our year in Uni who would consistantly wriggle thier way out of exams/course work/any kind of assesment but feigning illness and in a couple of cases even managed to avoid sitting exams all together and just be awarded the class average!?! It must have taken more stress and more effort to construct these situations than it would have done to actually learn something. They were able to take half the number of exams in one semester and take the other half at a later date. In the end this student was awarded a first (the lowest percentage mark ever to be awarded a first in the history of the department) I still can't get my head around it to this day. I wish I'd dobbed that person in right at the start for the cheating faker that they were. All my mates always said to each other, well, they won't last five minutes in the real world, but guess what, that person managed to fake thier way into getting officially classifed as disabled!?!?! So now they are getting employed on the strength of an ill gotten first and filling a company's equal opportunities quota. I can't still can't fathom how a person could sink that low, but I'm not crazy and it is true. No idea what they are up to these days, but I hope to hell that Karma crept up behind them and did them up the ass with a pointed stick. :mad:

[Broacher]

This is serious infringement on the value of your training. If you are paying the money to get the credentials this program deems valuable and they accept a plagiarized submission as fair value-- you've just knocked the crap out of the value of your investment. It's that simple. A school is only as 'good' as it's ability to preserve it's integrity. If I were the prof, I would not only encourage you to report this attack on my program, I would reward and commend you to administrators for your effort and use the story (edited to protect your privacy) to address the class on the seriousness and consequences of plagiarism.

All that is true, of course, in an ideal world. The truth is that today, for whatever number of speculated reasons, plagiarism, cheating, and standard lowering seem to be far too commonplace in colleges. I've also talked to profs who have told me horror stories about what pressure the admin level has placed on them to 'look the other way' when cases come up. Or who discipline teachers who fail to pass enough students compared to other classes, or, as a result of failing certain students, jeopardize the school's qualifying for certain grants.

But there are honest profs, administrators--and students. And we have to do what we can to support their efforts to keep the crap to a minimum. Good luck with this one. Keep us posted.

[Calligirl]

Well, Broacher, unfortunately, there is one person in our graduating class we have had to put up with that the administration has blatently 'forgiven' classes for because she is SUCH a problem for everyone and is being 'assisted' into graduation to get rid of her period. I do believe she has a mental condition of some sort and is on medication. She has thrown fits to the point that the other students leave the room while the instructor(s) attempt to appease her. No, she's not a teenager, she's in her 30's, I believe.

I know that going to the instructor will not change a thing. She gave me full credit and she will probably not change his (he's a favorite). What makes me burn is the fact that he went into my files on the computer and copied them. We're not even talking 'stealing off the Net', this was the computer in the classroom so it was blatent.

I'll see him one more time for finals on Monday, then hopefully, I won't see him again.

[Virgo Nightingale]

I understand that you're just looking forward to graduating and getting him out of your life, but I still think you owe it to yourself to say something. If anything, you'll know that you did the right thing even if nothing came of it.

[morea]

in that case, Calligirl, mention it to the teacher so that she has a chance to do something about it, graduate, then send a letter to your teacher's boss.

[Ben Kessler]

If the instructor didn't notice the similarity between your assignment and his, I'd say there's a big problem with this faculty member. A department head really should be alerted, either before or after you graduate.

[Patrick Shannon]

You may even be able to further prove it by the save dates on the files if it goes that far. That is unless you've saved since then.

I want to say that the instructor will hopefully see past his ripoff scam, but with teachers, you never know. It's like in school when a bully is punching a kid repeatedly, then the kid hauls off and belts him back in self defense. The teacher only sees the second kid attack, and he gets the detention.

[Riya]

Do it. Its because people look the other way that people are getting away with this crap. Besides, it is so very satisfying to call them out in front of everyone.

[cornfed]

I'd call him on it, too. If this happens in the real working world, you at least will have gained the experience of having called someone out on it already. Call it a learning experience. Whether it's for a school project or not is beside the point. Call him on it in front of everyone, too. If he's humiliated, too bad. Then everyone else will surely be thinking that they would never do this just so they don't have to endure that sort of humiliation. You really stand to lose nothing and stand to gain everything. Don't let people walk all over you like that. It's wrong.

Someone did this when I was in school, too! They had the audacity to redo "The Giving Tree". It looked like they scanned the whole book. The teacher wasn't aware of it until the entire class was appalled and pointed it out!

[cornfed]

And congrats on completing your schooling!!

[budafist]

Do it. If the tutor doesn't do anything, raise the issue with head of department. Stuff like this sucks so bad. I had a girl in my class that ripped everyone else off. She'd bring in nothing to the tutorials, but she would take everyone else's ideas.

[Drazan]

I would approach this in a calm and professional manor. After all you don't want the kid to point out that "you" copied him - do you? It may happen if you don't say anything.

After all you are the one who he copied from and don't you want to protect your work? You may find this same situation in the real world and what are you going to do about it then?

Plagerism is plagerism even if you are in school does not make it legal in any sense of the word - dispite common belief.

If I recall correctly he's looking to go on to teaching art? That's just propagating the "jack it and slap it" mentality and he's probably going to "teach" that mentality to others.

Make sure that you have proof of what he has done, and all the research / raw files that you have done to prove the work is yours. Also it probably wouldn't hurt to drop in that movie poster site and any other tidbits you may know. Also this is protecting you in the future if so-and-so decides to use your work in his portfolio to get a job....and just perhaps the same job that you applied to? - that would be a bit detrimental, wouldn't it?

What you don't want to do is come off like a vindictive person, but really, you should approach your professor and protect yourself from this kid.

In my opinion.