Academic Integrity Policy for CS 1110

Getting Unauthorized Help on Assignments

• Assignments can be done in official partnerships which are registered on CMS. Your partner can help you work on the assignment with no limitations. If you and your partner stop collaborating and submit as individuals, your code will look similar so you need to mention this in the comments at the top of your file, a la "I was originally working with Mary. We worked together on the testing code. However, we stopped working together after the testing code, because I wanted to work with Joe instead. Joe and I worked on the widget class by ourselves."
• You are free to come to the instructor or any course staff for help. This help can include questions about the assignment, help reading error messages, and hints about where to go if you are stuck.
• Looking at or receiving code from someone else is a major violation and will be prosecuted as such. Even talking about code (without sharing files) is a problem, since your discussion will likely alter your code in ways that suggest it has a single rather than unique authors. Remember: once you have seen someone's solution is it nearly impossible to come up with your own, unique version.
• Getting help from anyone else -- a current or former student of CS 1110 or someone outside Cornell entirely -- is not allowed. Asking for clarification is not considered a violation, but those types of questions should always be directed to the course staff, as only they know the official answers.
• It is not okay to copy files from online sources. Some of the earlier assignments do not change too much, and you might find versions online. But if you do that, we can easily detect this, because we also have access to these online solutions.
• Programming forums like Stack Overflow are acceptable resources for basic Python questions. However, using Stack Overflow to aid you on specific parts of an assignment is not allowed. If you are unsure of whether you have used an online forum in a way that counts as unauthorized assistance, your best option is to cite the source, just like you would cite a source in a paper. "I wrote this function after looking at the following page on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9189172/python-string-replace." Citing a source is not immunity from prosecution, but in cases where you did cross a line and this is considered a voilation, citing will significantly lessen the penalty that we assess.