edited by Rick Birney
A group of computer programming students have just passed their first programming
course. Most of the students heaving sighs of relief thinking that the hours and hours of coding
which was a part and parcel of their first course were behind them. Little did they know that
their next programming course was going to make them go through the whole grind again, only
in a little more advanced manner. If there was any consolation to be drawn, it was in the fact
that all the course projects were to be done in teams. For the first project each team was given
the assignment to program a web site of the team’s choosing.
Jen, Ben, Ken, and Zen who had known each other since freshman year decided to be
in one group. They were all pretty happy about it since they already had a good rapport among
themselves, and trusted each other’s skills and judgment. The first project was due in four
weeks, and all four of the team mates were very excited and enthusiastic about it. So after
class all four of them met to brainstorm over what their project should be. After much
discussion, Ben comes up with the idea of building a retail music download site for their
project. The web site would be interactive in the sense that users will actually be able listen,
purchase, and download songs. Everybody agreed that Ben’s proposal really sounded cool
and could potentially make their project the most advanced in the class.
Tasks were delegated to each team member at the end of the meeting. Jen was to work
on the client side, Ben was to work on the server side, Zen was assigned the task of designing
the user interface, and Ken would help each team member while they did their parts, and then
play the leading role in putting it all together towards the end.
Everyone had made decent progress by the time the next team meeting rolled around.
They discussed issues, and tried to help each other out if someone hit a dead-end
somewhere. Ben was the only one who did not seem to be running into any trouble with his
code, and usually had an answer for the others’ queries. They decided to continue work on
their parts further, and meet again the following week.
At the next meeting, Jen explained that she was running into major hurdles with her
client-side, whereas Ben explained he had completed his server-side. Ken had been helping
both Jen and Zen with their parts, while Ben refused to seek Ken’s help. By this time there
were issues with the user interface as well, and everyone seemed to be getting a little
frustrated and restless. Ben was the only one who maintained his composure, and tried to
calm everyone down, but to no effect. Eventually, Ben made a revelation, which came as a big
surprise to everyone.
Ben revealed that he had taken this same class the previous semester, but due to some
personal emergencies had to withdraw towards the end of the semester. During last semester,
Academic Ethics Case 3 – Using Someone Else’s Work
the group that he was a part of had done the exact same retail music project as theirs, which is
why he suggested it. Ben had the entire code for the project and was simply copying it for his
part. Ben goes further and offers to provide everyone with the code of the project so that they
could get away with just changing the looks of the user interface while leaving all the
functionalities unchanged. This way neither Jen nor Zen would have to spend hours racking
their brains over a project they had available ready-made.
Ben further explained that most of the coding for the project he was offering was his.
Therefore he had every right to use it as he saw fit. After a few moments of silence, Jen
speaks up and says that she wished Ben had told them before, and any help at this point
would be a blessing. She was really excited about getting the code, and this seemed to bring
great relief to her. At that very instant Ken and Zen both stared at each other not liking the
direction this meeting was taking them. They both voiced their concerns but both Ben and Jen
stuck to their guns. After exchanging a lot of words back and forth, and considering the
situation they were in, it was decided that Ben and Jen would take “help” from the available
project, whereas Ken and Zen would do their own work, and help each other out.
So, eventually with friction within the group, they somehow completed the project. Half
of the project was based on the previous semesters work while the other half being original
work. The professor for the course immediately recognized how similar the project was to a
project that was turned in the previous semester. After a little investigation the professor
determined that the project code was exactly the same in many areas but not all of it. When
the professor met with the project team, Ken and Zen immediately related the whole incident to
the professor. The professor was in disbelief at their actions and told the team members that
the repercussions of their actions would be discussed next week.
Based on the information presented in this case, please answer the following
questions:
1. What were some of the ethical issues addressed in this case?
2. Was Ben right in using his previous project to build a new one with another group?
3. Was his offer of providing everyone with the code, besides using it himself ethical?
4. In what different way should the other team members have reacted to Ben’s offer? How
should they have gone about their project from there?
5. How could the team have possibly avoided this type of problem from occurring?
6. How should the professor deal with this peculiar situation?
7. What kind of punishment should each of the team members receive?
8. What important lesson did you learn from this case?
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
