[skissane]

> Exams are often composites of multiple independent works.

If figure 4 came from an exam. For all we know, figure 4 actually came from course notes, assignments, etc. Whether or not issuing those to students counts as "publication", they are easily available to future students in a way that past exam questions are often not, hence their publication does far less damage to their value.

Also, MIT says that "Iddo did not have permission from all the instructors" – for all we know, figure 4 is from one of those instructors for which he did have that permission.

[anonymouskimmer]

Yep, those sorts of possibilities is what the "(possibly)" in my earlier post was for.

Based on a quick search it seems the figure 4 question and answer have to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_decision_process , which seem to be used in computer science. Iddo Drori is an associate professor of CS, so it seems quite likely it's his own question.