Database Principles, Fall 2012 Main | Syllabus | Grading | Programming Style | Honesty | Archive/Handouts

ACADEMIC HONESTY

The Computer Science Department statement on Academic Integrity is included below. Please note that Computer Science is a field in which you learn by doing. If you do not complete your own work, you will not master the underlying concepts. If you give inappropriate help to another, he or she will not learn the material. Any case of academic dishonesty in this course therefore carries its own inherent penalties. In addition to this, and the statement below, the following points are most relevant to this course:

• Lab assignments given in class often benefit from (quiet) discussion with peers. This is permitted, but please do not disturb others.
• Discussion of additional paper-based theoretical assignments with classmates is freely permitted under the following restrictions. You must document for each problem the people with whom you discussed the problem. You must write up your own answers using your own words.
• Discussion of a project assignment with anyone other than the faculty of the college must be kept to general strategies; you must not view the code of another or let your code be viewed by another. It is too difficult to know where to stop "helping" once specific program code is being discussed.
• Any instance of academic dishonesty will be penalized by a 0 on that assignment. If it is an instance of one student copying another, both will be penalized equally.
• Repeat incidents or large-scale violations will result in stronger penalties that may involve failure from the course.
• Any incident will be reported to both the department chair and the Dean of Science and Engineering.

Department of Computer Science Academic Integrity Policy

The Computer Science Department subscribes to Merrimack College's definition of Academic Misconduct as “all forms of cheating, lying and plagiarism; it includes the providing or receiving of assistance in a manner not authorized by the professor in material to be submitted for academic evaluation, or presenting as one’s own the words or ideas of another person or persons for academic evaluation without proper acknowledgment.” Examples of academic misconduct include copying from another student's exam, using unauthorized information from notes, calculators, phones, or computers during exams, copying all or part of another student's assignments such as code or diagrams and providing one's work to other students for their use. These examples are not exhaustive.

The Computer Science Department considers any instance of academic misconduct to be a serious offense. The penalty for an instance of academic misconduct may include, among other things, a zero for the assignment(s) in question, a failing grade for the course in question, or expulsion from the college. Any of these penalties may be imposed for any single instance of academic misconduct. The severity of the penalty imposed will depend on the severity of the misconduct as judged by the faculty member, department, and dean. Multiple instances of academic misconduct will generally result in increased severity of the penalty imposed. Any instance of academic misconduct will be reported to the department chair and the dean of the division in order that previous instances in other courses, departments and divisions can be identified and considered.

Plagiarism or copying of programs, homework, papers, or other assignments will not be tolerated, whether the copying is from other students or other sources, such as the Internet. Particularly, for programming projects, students should work independently except where collaboration is expressly permitted by the professor. While it is generally permissible for students to discuss assignments, strategies and techniques, they should be careful not to reveal specifics of their own work to others. Directly examining the code of others can easily lead to unacceptable similarities in structure and style. It is generally not permissible for one student to develop an assignment by altering the work of another student or altering work from other sources such as the internet unless expressly permitted by the professor. In general, it is expected that students will submit homework assignments and projects that are their own work.

Allowing another student to examine and/or copy your work constitutes an instance of academic misconduct both by you and by the other student. Thus academic misconduct includes not only taking others' work and submitting it as your own, but also allowing others to use your work or submit your work as their own. Students allowing others to copy their work will be charged with academic misconduct. They are subject to the same penalties listed above and will be reported to the Dean.

Examining and/or copying the work of another without their permission constitutes, in itself, a separate instance of academic misconduct. Thus it is not permissible to examine the work of others which is found either in printed form, as in a lab, or in electronic form, as on a public hard drive. Students who take the work of others in this manner will be charged with academic misconduct. They are subject to the same penalties listed above and will be reported to the Dean.

Revised 9/01/04