Collaboration and Academic Integrity

Collaboration Policy

You are encouraged to discuss homework assignments with your classmates, but the work you submit must be your own. You may work together to solve problems, but you must write / code your solutions independently without consulting any notes or records from the group work. Do not look directly at anyone else's work or solution. Do not show your work or solution to anyone other than course staff.

You may use the internet for ideas, definitions, and understanding general concepts. You may not copy code directly from the internet or search for solutions to assigned problems. This includes Google, StackOverflow, reddit, and any other website.

AI tools such as GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT have essentially memorized all the code on the internet. Asking the tool to produce code is no different, as far as we're concerned, from searching for the code and copying it yourself. As such, the use of these tools to generate code is not allowed for completing assignments in this course.

Academic Integrity

Any attempt to misrepresent the work you did will be dealt with via the appropriate University mechanisms.

Note that, in cases where one student copies the solution of another, both students have violated the policy and there will be consequences for both. Again, all students should keep their solutions private.

If you ever feel uncertain about whether their discussions with other students violated policies, you should (a) ask and (b) describe your collaboration clearly on the assignment. If you do, the worst that will happen is losing some points. That is much better than the alternative.

Please also carefully review the WA State Law on Academic Misconduct and the UW Academic Misconduct Process, which provides the following policy:

Engineering is a profession demanding a high level of personal honesty, integrity and responsibility. Therefore, it is essential that engineering students, in fulfillment of their academic requirements and in preparation to enter the engineering profession, adhere to the College of Engineering Statement of Principles.

Any student in this course suspected of academic misconduct (e.g., cheating, plagiarism, or falsification) will be reported to the College of Engineering Dean’s Office and the University’s Office of Community Standards and Student Conduct to initiate the student conduct process. Any student found to have committed academic misconduct may receive a zero for their grade on the impacted academic work (e.g., assignments, project, or exams), and academic consequences, with the possibility of expulsion.