Plagiarism is a kind of fraud: passing off
someone else's work or ideas as your own in order to get a higher mark.
Plagiarism is treated very seriously. The assignments you hand in must be your
own and must not contain anyone else's ideas. Refer to the
A guide to plagiarism in
written work is available by clicking here. (The file is a Portable Document Format
(PDF) file. Click here if you
need a PDF reader.)
You may discuss assignments
with friends and classmates, but only up to a point: you may discuss and
compare general approaches and also how to get around particular difficulties,
but you should not leave such a
discussion with any written material. You should not look at another
student's solution to an assignment on paper or on the computer screen, even in
draft form. The actual coding of your programs, analysis of results, writing of
reports and answering assignment questions must be done individually.
Downloading code or any other
material from the Internet, and submitting it as your own work without credit
is also plagiarism.
If you do talk with anyone
about an assignment, please state this in your assignment and state the extent
of your discussion. If you use another resource (such as
textbooks, internet resources, etc) when solving your assignment, include the
proper reference.
Note that it is also a serious offense to help someone
commit plagiarism. Do not lend your
assignment answers, printouts, reports or diskettes, and do not let others copy
or read them. To protect yourself against people copying your work without your
knowledge, retain all of your old printouts and draft notes until the
assignments have been graded and returned to you. If you suspect that someone
has stolen a printout or diskette, contact your instructor immediately.
Although you must not solve
your assignments with the help of others, there are still many ways in which
students can help each other. For instance, you can go over difficult lecture
or lab material, work through exercises, or help each other understand an
assignment handout. This sort of course collaboration can be done in study
groups or through the discussion group.
If in doubt about whether a
question you are asking or answering is against these guidelines, ask your TA
(teaching assistant) the question instead.
The professor will take appropriate measures, once plagiarism is detected on
part or on the whole of an assignment. Note that copying or lending are considered to be equally serious offenses.