* it is not clear that the code they generate is their property* Could you expand on this? When you create something, barring some exception such as when you

* it is not clear that the code they generate is their property* Could you expand on this? When you create something, barring some exception such as when you create it as a an employee, you own it. In certain cases, if the code is exactly implementing a narrow problem from a book there might be a question of it being a derivative work of the textbook itself, but when that is true it is probably not something worth publishing anyway. The other case would be that it is a shared copyright if the professor or another student significantly assited, which is fairly common in some grad work. But the simple status of "student" does not change the rights to your own work. I have known more than one student to go on to publish work that is only a cleaned up version of an assignment and I have heard of others going on to start entire companies based on work they did as a student.