Cheating and Academic Dishonesty

Unfortunately, it is necessary to mention the subject of cheating. Many of the individual exercises given in this class require the development of short to medium length programs or program fragments, and there are always many correct solutions to any non-trivial programming problem. It is sometimes difficult for students and instructors to determine what constitutes cheating or academic dishonesty in this setting. Since the goal of this course is to learn the concepts required in the construction of programs, the student must actually engage in the creative process of constructing these programs - simply producing a working program is not enough. Each exercise, if carried out by the student, will give the student understanding, or will reinforce the student's understanding, of an important computer science concept. Hence, the student is permitted to inspect related problems and ask questions of the TA and others in the class about the problem and related problems, but the student is not permitted to copy the work of any others, including but not limited to the TA, previous TAs, or other students who are taking the class or who previously took the class. Likewise, students allowing others to copy their own work are guilty of cheating.

Furthermore, it is the responsibility of every student to make sure their work is not available to others. Thus do not leave your work behind on a disk or on the computer screen or even a hard copy of your work (even in the garbage or if you forgot to pick up your print out). All of the above constitute negligence on the student's behalf and are potential breaches of academic honesty.

One way to help adjudicate possible cases of forgery is to analyze the level of understanding each student has in their own work. Since this understanding is at the center of the course goals, each student must strive to have a complete understanding of every exercise.

The assignments and all extra credit exercises assigned for this course are not team projects unless the instructor explicitly tells you so. You may consult with others when attempting to develop your solutions to these assignments. It is legitimate for two individuals to plan together the general approach that they will individually use in solving a problem. But once any significant details of the development and coding of the program starts, joint intellectual property is created, and it is WRONG to claim sole credit to it. BEFORE reaching that point, collaboration should cease. This does not mean that students may not help each other, there are just limits to "helping". You should not develop a single solution working together as a team. Even developing it "part way" can cause problems. Two identical or nearly identical solutions to the same problem will be regarded as evidence of over-collaboration and will be dealt with as cheating. The borderline where simply consulting with others becomes working as a team or copying is a gray area. If you have any doubts, you probably are working too closely and should stop - go off and work by yourself.

• Do not develop a program "together".
• Do not develop a program "side by side" while looking at each other's code.
• Do not show or give your program to anyone. If you wish to help someone, PUT YOUR PROGRAM AWAY, and work on their program. If they have no program yet, help them get started by writing on paper or a board, but leave your program out of it. Even with these precautions, if you develop too much of someone's program for them, the similarities will show, and both of you can easily find yourselves facing charges.
• Do not leave your program on any computer. On CIRCA computers, when you log out from a PC, a message from the machine that indicates that the hard disk is being purged does not guarantee that your files have all been deleted. Delete them yourself. If someone steals your program that way, you can still be found guilty of Academic Dishonesty for facilitating their dishonest act.
• If you let someone use your computer, make sure all copies of your work are either protected or deleted. If they take your work, even if it's without your knowledge, you can still be found guilty of an act of Academic Dishonesty. Bottom line: it is your responsibility to protect your own work.
• If you are helping someone, do not help them develop the program at the computer. Discuss issues "in the air", or on paper.
• Ask yourself the question: "If this program I'm turning in were worth a lot of money, could someone successfully sue me for a cut of the action ?"
• Helping someone find a bug in their code is a gray area. Many bugs will stump people for many hours, and it's only humane to let people know the pitfall they've fallen into. We encourage students to help each other in this regard, but be careful: if you find all of someone's bugs, you've deprived them of the process of learning how to find bugs themselves. Here's good rule of thumb: the person you're helping must be actively engaged in the process of searching for the error. Beware of those who merely stand aside and let you fix their program: they're willing to let you make significant contributions to their program, and then turn it in as their own. This activity is unlikely to produce evidence of over-collaboration, but it is unethical nevertheless.