Yesterday, I found a post from a student on a code-sharing forum. My gut reaction was that it was an attempt at plagiarism. I made a comment on Twitter along those lines, and got some pushback. Isn't that just student-centric networking? Isn't the student just using their network as part of their learning?
Here's the post:
At first blush, that doesn't seem so bad. The student is posting a question, asking for feedback. If this was on their own blog, I may not have thought twice about it. Sure, they're asking for a full solution, rather than a more generalized "what angle should I take in solving this?" but as long as they cite where the solution came from, that may not be academic misconduct (but likely is, given the "solve this assignment for me" phrasing).
What made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up was the section immediately below the student's post:
In my opinion, and I could be wrong about this, this feels like it's crossed the line. It's not a generic forum for sharing solutions, it's a recruitment website for hiring people to solve problems.
Is this just a natural extension of connectivism and student-centric networked learning, or is this plagiarism? Is this any different than hiring students to write term papers, theses and dissertations?