Re: Answers to review questions in "Beginning XSLT": Chapter 8
2003-03-19 12:14:47
At 06:53 PM 3/18/03, you wrote:
Chris,
Having taught in the university setting, I submit that the solution to the
problem of plagiarism, or of the inappropriate, uncredited use of
extra-curricular materials in general, is not to throttle the public
sharing of information where it occurs.
I certainly agree with you here, Wendell. I would never want to throttle
the interplay on this list in any way: the help this list has given
me and many others is invaluable, and I would particularly single out Jeni
Tennison and yourself as two examples of people who have
been extremely helpful, to me personally as well as to the XSLT community
as a whole. I guess my concern was that posting of answers
to questions in a (at least potential) textbook would lead to that textbook
becoming less valuable, and thus it would hurt Jeni's book's
value.
I'm afraid students (and their professors) do have to take some
responsibility. If this list were explicitly directed and managed in
support of someone's formal curriculum, I could see the reasonableness of
our agreeing to observe such restrictions. As it is, I think the benefits
of Lars' and Jeni's efforts in public outweigh the costs. (Especially
since the cost cited is merely hypothetical and based on the idea that
members of this list should be responsible for "too large a temptation for
some less scrupulous student". Poor thing, unable to resist!)
Yes, students and teachers have to take responsibility as well. For my
classes, I've always tried to come up with questions that weren't
in the books, and which I haven't asked in previous years (some frats are
known for keeping files of papers from previous years, etc.).
That may be easier for classes in my academic field (literature), where
there is a potentially close to infinite number of questions that
could be asked. And of course you're absolutely right that the bottom-line
responsibility is the student's. One quick anecdote: I had
a pair of students once who turned in the same paper at the same time:
somehow, they must have been assuming that I didn't
actually read their assignments, I guess. They didn't do too well in my
class. Nevertheless, however, the amount of effort and
time that is required to come up with new sets of questions (let alone new
editions of textbooks) is often hard to justify against the
small remuneration paid to the teachers of the world, and if it were my
textbook, I'd want to maintain its value for as long as possible
(even if that time is measured in Internet time). If Jeni doesn't feel that
way, of course, it's her call: it's her textbook.
I guess I would suggest that working with specific questions that come up
in the process of working with XSLT is always fair game:
this list is an invaluable resource for those (like me) who need such
assistance. Even someone working on an assignment who needs
help getting past one specific problem seems fine to me -- that's what TAs
do anyway, of course. It's just the idea of answering all of
the questions in such a way that a Google search could find them for that
budding plagiarist that strikes me as likely to reduce the
value of Jeni's book. If Jeni doesn't care, it's OK with me, but if it were
my textbook, I'd rather answer this particular sort of question
off-list instead.
In any case, I don't want to belabor the point. Students have been finding
ways to avoid learning for a long time, and answering a
few questions on an email list won't change that. I leave it to your own
senses of what's right.
Another $0.02 worth. (In place of the nickel's worth of lecture on how the
plagiarist is really robbing himself. :-)
I could give you that lecture too! ;-)
Cheers,
Wendell
At 04:54 PM 3/18/2003, Chris wrote:
At 03:38 PM 3/18/03, you wrote:
Hi all,
Here are my answers to the review questions in Ch. 8 of "Beginning XSLT"
by Jeni Tennison. Comments, corrections or clarifications are appreciated.
My hope is that these postings and responses will be of value in the future
to anyone working through Beginning XSLT and wanting to check their answers.
Regards,
Lars
Is anyone else bothered by this? I'm sure that Mr. Huttar's intentions are
entirely noble, and he's clearly doing the work entailed in studying the
questions in Ms. Tennison's book and formulating his answers.
However, having these answers posted and archived seems to me too
large a temptation for some less scrupulous student who may be assigned
these questions when using Ms. Tennison's book in a class. I know in
some other email lists I've been on, care was taken not to circumvent the
learning process for such students by doing their homework for them.
Wouldn't that same care be appropriate here?
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