Academic Dishonesty (circa 2012)
Academic dishonesty includes such behavior as
copying the work of a fellow student and presenting it as one's own;
unauthorized collaboration. This includes the following:
File copying. If student A copies a homework or exam file from student B, this is cheating. This includes copying the file and then changing the name of the submitting student. (I seem to have incidents of this type almost every semester. One wonders how dumb such students think their instructors are.) Student B will be suspected of participating in the cheating.
Work copying. If student A copies the homework or exam work of student B, this is cheating. Student B may be suspected of participating in the cheating.
Idea copying. If student A merely changes the wording or minor aspects of the work of student B, this is cheating. Student B may be suspected of participating in the cheating.
talking or using unauthorized electronic communication during an exam;
reading a classmate's computer monitor during an online exam;
helping a fellow student cheat, for example, by doing the other student's assignment for him/her.
Collaboration Between Programming Students (CIS 232 students may skip this section)
Collaboration is a difficult issue for students of computer programming. There's a lot of value in students helping each other. I wish to encourage such help, as long as it's really help for the receiving student to learn programming. It's highly unlikely that when student X writes a piece of code for student Y, the latter learns much other than to get X to do Y's work. When X and Y submit dozens or even hundreds of lines of identical code not taken from public domain sources (such as class notes), it will be regarded as unauthorized collaboration unless the assignment calls for collaboration. When X helps Y find and correct an isolated error in Y's code, Y is likely to learn something about programming; such activity will be regarded as legitimate help.
Code presented in class discussions will generally be considered in the public domain - i.e., available to students for use in their projects.
Grading Policy
A student found guilty of academic dishonesty will be punished for his/her misdeed as follows. Your score for the assignment or exam on which the cheating occurs will be given by the formula
min(-10% of possible score, unpenalized score - 75% of possible score)
where "min" is the minimum. Notice this means you will end up with a negative score if you're guilty of cheating; the highest score you can get if you cheat is 10% of the possible score below 0. This is so that if you're so poorly prepared that honest effort would result in a very low score, you won't be tempted to think you have nothing to lose by cheating.
For example, if a student is caught cheating on a homework assignment for which there are 40 possible points, then the highest possible score is -10%*40 = -4 (negative 4). If the student has, say, an unpenalized score of 20 points, the student's grade will be
min(-10%*40, 20 - 75%*40) = min(-4, 20 - 30) = min(-4, -10) = -10 (negative 10) out of 40.