Working Together in CSCI 261
"Your code is like your boyfriend or girlfriend. It's okay to talk about it on an abstract, high level. But you don't want to go into the specific details, and you certainly don't want to share."
- Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck, Brown University, 1997
The CSCI 261 Collaboration Policy follows; it is essentially the collaboration policy for all courses in the EECS department.
- If the project is an individual effort project1 you are not allowed to give code you have developed to another student or use code provided by another student. If the project is a group project, you are only allowed to share code with your group members.
- You are encouraged to discuss programming projects with other students in the class, as long as the following rules are followed:
- You view another student's code only for the purpose of offering/receiving debugging assistance. Students can only give advice on what problems to look for; they cannot debug your code for you. All changes to your code must be made by you.
- Your discussion is subject to the empty hands policy, which means you leave the discussion without any record [electronic, mechanical or otherwise] of the discussion.
- Any material from any outside source such as books, projects, and in particular, from the Web, should be properly referenced and should only be used if specifically allowed for the assignment.
- If you are aware of students violating this policy, you are encouraged to inform the professor of the course. Violating this policy will be treated as an academic misconduct for all students involved. See the Student Handbook for details on academic dishonesty.
Violations of this policy result in a course letter grade drop for all students involved.
1 Unless otherwise specified in writing, all CSCI 261 labs and assignments are to be individual efforts
How Cases of Cheating are Handled
It is fair to inform you that all homework assignments are checked via an automated system (imagine the Terminator). When cheating is detected by "the Terminator," the course coordinator is notified. If cheating is detected a significant number of times, the course coordinator will then send you an email notifying you of the possibility of your work being copied, and you will need to meet with him (the coordinator, not the Terminator). Meetings with the course coordinator are usually fun, but this meeting will likely not be.
Be aware! Cheating is treated very aggressively in this class.