We hope that you are all honest and have no intentions of cheating. Cheating ruins the experience for everyone and we will pursue appropriate penalties if we catch someone cheating. Please don't.
You can find a general discussion of cheating, plagiarism, and the like on the university's web page and on the CS department's page.
In this class, you are explicitly allowed to work on homework problems in small groups (e.g. 2-3 people). Therefore, it's likely that everyone in the group will submit solutions that use a similar approach and share key technical details. However, you must write up your final solution yourself, in your own words. We do, of course, realize that some problems with a very simple solution (e.g. a formula) can't actually be varied much (or sometimes at all).
Verbatim copying will be punished (e.g. by giving you reduced or no credit for the homework). Writing your own version of the solution helps you ensure that you do understand all the details and it gives you practice composing mathematical English. If you don't understand your group's solution well enough to write it out by yourself, you will do badly on the exams.
If your homework is typed (e.g. using latex), each person is expected to type-set their own version. Just as with handwritten homeworks, the act of typing out the solution helps you memorize the mathematical techniques and style.
To keep everyone honest and help us correctly see what's going on when grading, you must note the names or netids of the other group members on your homework. Clearly distinguish whose submission this is, e.g. write their names under yours with the label "worked with."
A similar policy applies to consulting other sources such as books and the internet. Reading solutions to similar problems is very useful for getting ideas and understanding techniques and style. But it is cheating to copy verbatim or from solutions to the same problem we have assigned. It's also dishonest to go searching for solutions to the assigned problems. More importantly, mathematics can only be learned if you try to work problems on your own. That's essential for doing well on the exams.
If you don't follow these homework collaboration policies, we may take action up to and including a formal cheating prosecution. However, this is very unlikely. Almost all violations of the rules involve warnings and, in rare cases, deducting points when folks don't listen to the warnings.
If you aren't sure you've done the right thing, or something unusual happens (e.g. a roommate blurts out advice that you didn't ask for), consult with us and/or write an explanation on your homework. If you have made a good-faith attempt to clearly acknowledge all help you received, you might not get full points but it won't be considered cheating.
Actual cheating is rare in this course. Cheating on homework would normally require blatant disregard for the homework collaboration guidelines. Cheating on exams or quizzes would normally involve behavior well-known to be unacceptable, such as copying from the person sitting next to you, bringing unauthorized notes into the exam, or discussing an exam with someone who still needs to take a makeup version of the exam.
If we do catch someone cheating, our standard penalties for a first offense are:
For a second cheating offense of any kind, you will fail this course.
Notice that the department and collect keep a record of cheating cases. They may take more serious action if someone is found to have cheated in more than one course.