Academic Honesty

in 15-100 Section F, Fall 2006
(document created August 24,  2006 - based on earlier documents)

The University's policy on cheating applies in this course.  When cheating or plagiarism is discovered, the incident will be reported to the appropriate Dean's office, as per University policy.   Some special explanations that are specific to these sections of this course are below.  Efforts will be made in class to describe these issues.   If you have any questions as to what is appropriate and what is not, please ask the Instructor about it.

When to work alone and when to collaborate:

Work on the exams and quizzes must be entirely your own, unless otherwise specified. 

You are encouraged to discuss the exercises and homeworks with other students.   However, you must write up your own solutions to the written problems and create and debug your own programs (except for very minor syntax problems).  In general, it is a bad idea to look at another student's solution or partial solution, or showing your solution to another student.      NOTE: If you discuss the homework with other students, you should document this, as outlined below.
   
Part of computer programming is re-using other people's ideas and their  programs.  You are encouraged to take code from certain publicly available references - specifically, in-class examples and the course texts.  However, you should NOT be copying from the solutions of other students enrolled in the course, or from students who have taken this course in the past.  "Copying" means either Copy and Paste, or transcribing something from paper or a screen.    NOTE:  When you copy code from an acceptable source, you should document this, as outlined below.

Giving credit where credit is due (documenting your sources):

In order to receive credit for work you have done, your name must appear on that work.   For computer programming, this means that you need to put your name in EVERY file that you create or modify.  For computer programs, this means adding your name in a "comment" at the top of the file.  (Examples of this will be presented in class.)   Putting your name on a folder containing your files is not sufficient since files may move out of that folder.  Adding your name to an existing file that you did not modify is considered plagiarism.  

If you discussed the homework with a colleague, or received help from another student, you need to document this in the comments at the top of the relevant file(s).  For instance, "Jane Doe helped me to understand how to approach this problem".   Or, "I worked with John Smith on determining what was wrong with my data file."

When you copy code from an acceptable source (in-class examples and the course texts), you should document this.  In particular, if you Copy and Paste from an electronic version of a program, or copy it from a printout or book, you must document this.  The way you document such copying is by typing a comment in the program.  The comment should contain the name of the person or reference from which the work was copied.  To not credit your source is considered plagiarism, as in any other field. 

Examples of cheating:

• Turning in someone else's work, in whole or in part, as your own (with or without his/her knowledge).
• Turning in a completely duplicated assignment.
• Allowing another student to turn in your work as his/her own.
• Several people writing one assignment and turning in multiple copies, all represented (implicitly or explicitly) as individual work.
• Stealing an examination or solution from the instructor.
• Copying another person's code, either by copy-and-paste, by transcribing, or by typing from memory.   This applies to entire files as well as portions of files.
  
• Looking at someone else's code that solves the assignment.  This applies to entire files as well as portions of files.
• Showing your code solution for the assignment to someone else.  This applies to entire files as well as portions of files.
• Writing code on paper with someone else and then both people type it into separate computers.
• Working at separate computers telling each other what to type.
  

• Turning in work done alone or with the help of the course's staff.
• Submitting one assignment for a group of students if group work is explicitly permitted (or required).
• Getting or giving help about using the computers.
• Getting or giving help about solving minor syntax errors.
• High level discussions of course material for better understanding.
• Discussing assignments to better understand them.
• Outlining ideas as a pair or group on paper or on the computer and then each person taking those ideas and converting them to computer code.
• Working at separate computers discussing the obstacles you encounter along the way and approaches at solving them (but not telling the other person what to type).
  

Guidelines to the Instructor:  

An old document of the Computer Science Department contained the following two guidelines to help an instructor decide if cheating has occurred:

• Plagiarism will be suspected if an assignment that calls for independent development and implementation of a program results in two or more solutions so similar that one solution can be converted to the other(s) by a series of simple commands.
• Cheating will be suspected if a student who completed an assignment independently cannot explain both the intricacies of the solution and the techniques used to generate that solution. It is unreasonable to expect a complete definition that would cover all cases because each situation is important enough to merit careful, individual scrutiny.