Academic Integrity

We urge each student to carefully read the university policy on academic integrity, which outlines the policy on cheating, plagiarism, or unauthorized assistance. It is the responsibility of each student to produce her/his own original academic work. Collaboration or assistance on academic work to be graded is not permitted unless explicitly authorized by the course instructor. Each unit checkpoint quiz or project module submitted must be the sole work of the student turning it in. Student work on the cloud is logged, submitted work will be closely monitored by automatic cheat checkers, and students may be asked to explain any suspicious similarities with any piece of code available. The following are guidelines on what collaboration is authorized and what is not:

What is cheating?

1. Sharing code or other electronic files by either copying, retyping, looking at, or supplying a copy of any file. Copying any code from the internet (stackoverflow.com or GitHub or others). No code can be used to “test” the auto-grader. Anything you submit to the auto-grader must be your code.

2. Copying answers to any checkpoint quiz from another individual, published or unpublished written sources, and electronic sources.

3. Collaborating with another student or another individual on checkpoint quizzes or project modules.

4. Sharing written work, looking at, copying, or supplying work from another individual, published or unpublished written sources, and electronic sources.

What is not cheating?

1. Clarifying ambiguities or vague points in-class handouts.

2. Helping others use computer systems, networks, compilers, debuggers, profilers, or system facilities.

3. Helping others with high-level design issues.

4. Guiding others through code debugging but not debugging for them.

Cheating in projects will also be strictly monitored and penalized. Be aware of what constitutes cheating (and what does not) while interacting with students. You cannot share or use written code and other electronic files from students. If you are unsure, ask the teaching staff.

Be sure to store your work in protected directories. The penalty for cheating is severe and might jeopardize your career – cheating is simply not worth the trouble. By cheating in the course, you are cheating yourself; the worst outcome of cheating is missing an opportunity to learn. In addition, you will be removed from the course with a failing grade. We also place a record of the incident in the student’s permanent record.

To ensure Academic Integrity Policies are well-understood and to avoid potential violations, all students are required to complete and pass two non-graded Academic Integrity quizzes on OLI by the end of the first week of the course.