Collaboration & Academic Honesty Policy

Collaboration & Academic Honesty Policy

We highly encourage students to get together in small groups to go over material from the lectures and text, work problems from the text, study for exams, and to discuss the general ideas and approaches to laboratory assignments. However, work to be turned in, including programming assignments, must be done independently, unless we explicitly designate an assignment as one in which collaboration is allowed. As expained in the student handbook, this means that the work you turn in must represent only your own work. It must not be based on help from others or information obtained from sources other than those approved by the instructors (e.g., the text, web pages linked from the course web page, and materials provided in lecture). Effective learning is compromised when this is not the case.

Accordingly, you should never read or copy another student's code or solutions, exchange computer files, or share your code or solutions with anyone else in the class until after the assignment is due. Under no circumstances may you hand in work done by, or in collaboration with, someone else under your own name, with the exception that you may freely use any code that we provide to you or code from the textbook, as long as you cite this code as coming from the instructors or the book. Additionally, the student mentors are allowed to help you with your code.

When a program is assigned, we will identify it as either a "test" or a "laboratory"' program. The academic honesty policy applies differently to each with respect to collaboration or assistance from anyone other than the mentors or instructors:

is to be treated exactly as a take-home, open-book test with respect to rules for obtaining assistance. You are allowed to read your textbook, class notes, and any other source approved by your instructors. You may not consult anyone other than your instructors. The instructors encourage the asking of questions, but reserve the right not to answer, just as you would expect during an exam. Guideline: Any work that is not your own is considered a violation of the academic honesty policy.

the work of the individual student, designed and coded by him or her alone. Help locating errors is allowed, but a student may only receive help in correcting errors of syntax; help in correcting errors of logic is strictly forbidden. Guideline: Assistance from anyone other than the mentors or instructors in the design or coding of program logic will be considered a violation of the academic honesty policy. The only time it is acceptable to look at another student's code is to help them identify an error in their program. You may not provide them with suggested code to correct it nor may you copy their code in your program. You may point out similar examples from the text or lecture notes that help them correct the error.

If you do not understand how the academic honesty policy applies to a particular assignment, consult with us. When in doubt, credit the people or sources from whom you got help. This also goes for any help obtained via the Internet. You will not lose any points for acknowledging help obtained where the rules for assistance are unclear. If you are ever unsure about what constitutes acceptable collaboration, just ask.

Failure to abide by these rules is considered plagiarism, and will result in severe penalties. Violations are easy to identify and will be dealt with promptly. The first offense typically results in failure in the course. A second offense is automatically referred to the College's Board of Academic Discipline. See the Academic Honesty Policy in the Student Handbook for further information. Please do not put us, yourself, or anyone else in this unpleasant situation.

Collaboration & Academic Honesty Policy