CS 473: Academic Integrity

This policy statement is unfortunately necessary, thanks to the actions of a tiny minority of students.


Expectations

Each student (or homework group) must write their own homework solutions, in their own words, and must properly credit all sources. We strongly encourage students to use any printed, online, or living resource at their disposal to help solve the homework problems, but you must cite your sources.

This is the same ethical standard that researchers are expected to follow in their formal publications; see the guidelines published by ACM and IEEE. Citing your sources will not lower your homework grade.

Avoiding plagiarism is really very simple: Never present someone else's words or ideas as your own.

See Article 1, Part 4 of the UIUC student code (http://www.admin.uiuc.edu/policy/code/article_1/a1_1-402.html) for more examples and information. If you have any doubt about whether something constitutes plagiarism, talk to Jeff or the TAs, and err on the side of caution.


Penalties

Violations of academic integrity will not be tolerated.

These penalties are consistent with the CS department's recommendations. All academic integrity cases will be reported to the student's department and college. Multiple offenses can result in suspension or dismissal.

Our high expectations for graduate students extend to issues of academic integrity. A notice of any cheating offense by a graduate student will be entered into their file, where it will be seen by the student's advisor, as well as their qual, prelim, and thesis committees. Several computer science faculty members have publicly stated that they would refuse to advise or serve on a committee for a MS or PhD student who has committed even a single cheating offense, no matter how minor or how far in the past. If you cheat, you are signing your own academic death warrant.

Except for Homework 0, groups of up to three people are allowed to submit a single solution for each homework. Every member of the group receives credit for the entire assignment. That means every member of the group is responsible for the entire assignment. If a submitted homework contains plagiarized material, every member of the group will be given the same penalty. (Again, this is the same standard that is applied to coauthors of research papers.) If you cheat, you are not only endangering your grade, and possibly your academic career, but your colleagues' as well.

Regardless of whether it constitutes plagiarism, or whether you get caught, getting too much help on your homework will hurt your final grade. If you don't learn how to solve algorithmic problems on your own, you will perform poorly on the (closed-book, closed-notes) exams, which make up 70% of your final course average. On several occassions, students with ≥90% homework averages have failed the course.


Causes

Every plagiarism case I've ever seen involves at least one of the following aspects: