Yeah, assigning open/recently solved problems seems to be relatively common in graduate theory/aglo courses, at least relative to other subfields of CS and math. Not sure why. It always struck me as not the most productive use of problem set time. But then, what do I know about teaching theory :)
These classes often encourage you to collaborate - with others in the class, and also with outside resources. That is: they would encourage you to go read the paper, so long as you cited it as a source and provided a proof in your own words you had reconstructed from memory. The idea is to encourage engagement in the community and teach people to build off of existing results, a skill often overlooked in undergrad where that would have been considered cheating.
