How do we prevent a professor from releasing our class project as his own research? I don't want to release too many details in this inquiry, but I do have a very legitimate question to ask. My senior class (aerospace engineering) has been hard at work for nearly nine months reverse engineering a particular X-Plane. We have done detailed analysis on almost all the aspects of the craft and we have just heard that our supervising professor intends to release this research as his own for future technologies in SSTO vehicle analysis. What options do we have to prevent this blatant plagiarism by an adviser and how soon should we act?
You must have documented your reverse engineering efforts in some way (e.g. Student reports). You can publish these online, e.g. On ArXiv.

You might also discuss coauthorship with your professor on future publications.