The value of your degree depends on the academic integrity of yourself and your peers
in each of your classes. Please read the University Policy on Academic Integrity
(https://www.cmu.edu/policies/)
carefully to understand the penalties associated with
academic dishonesty at Carnegie Mellon University.
Academic integrity means that any work you submit for this course is your own. This is
critical to your learning. The policy's intention is that you never hand in something
you do not understand. Your understanding must be deep enough that, if necessary, you
could re-do the work completely on your own. In short, do your own work.
We want you to collaborate with other students only if the collaboration improves your
understanding. Therefore, you can talk about the homework assignments, but no one may
take notes or record the discussion. When you write your solution, it should be yours.
Go to a separate area and write your own code or answers. Do this individually so that
you do not end up copying someone else's work. Your own solution, even if it is
incorrect, is much better than someone else's that you do not understand.
When working on programming assignments, do not look at other students' code or show
them your own. If you need that kind of help, get it from the course staff. You may
discuss your code at a conceptual level; for example, "do we need a loop for this
purpose or just an if statement?". You may collaborate on code at a whiteboard, but you
may not take notes or photographs; the purpose of the collaboration is to develop your
understanding so that you can then solve the problem yourself, on your own.
If the course staff sees similarities between your work and that of another student, we
will attempt to understand what happened. Usually this involves asking you to explain
your work and how you did it, and to re-create the work or solve a related problem
during our meeting.
For exams, your work must be your own with no communication between you and others
(except course staff), and you may use only authorized materials.
If you cannot keep up with the workload due to personal issues, please see your
professor. He will help you work toward a solution and will be always happy to assist.
In this class, cheating, copying, or plagiarism means copying all or part of a program
or homework solution from another student or unauthorized source, or knowingly giving
such information to another student, or handing in a copy of work that you and another
student did together, or giving or receiving unauthorized information during an
examination. If you use information from another authoritative resource, you must cite
the source of this information (and receive permission if required).
Students who violate this policy will be charged with academic dishonesty that can
result in failure in this course and possible expulsion from Carnegie Mellon
University. Review the official University Code for more information.