All students must read, understand, and follow the course policy on academic integrity. Each student will be asked to verify they have read and understood the policy. If you have questions, please come see me.
Academic Integrity
Types of Academic Dishonesty
- Fabrication: Fabricating sources or any other information in your assignments is academically dishonest.
- Aiding and abetting: Providing another student with answers, or helping them to cheat, is an equally serious violation of the principles of academic honesty. A student who commits such an offense is subject to the same penalties.
- Plagiarism: Using a source (for code, blocks of text, images, or designs) without appropriate citations and recognition.
- Copying: Using another student's work for an assignment, exam, or project without acknowledgment.
This is not a complete list. To read the full Student Academic Conduct Policy, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, the Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory (or for graduate courses, the Graduate School website).
Group Work
Some assignments will be group assignments that are to be submitted by a group of two or more students. When submitting such an assignment, the same rules apply, except that the submitted work must be the work of the students as a group. By submitting a group assignment, each student is representing that the assignment is the work of the entire group, and each student takes full responsibility for the assignment's originality and content.Note that this means that if a student in a group makes no contribution to the assignment, the rest of the group must not include their name. If someone does not contribute to a project, claiming that they did is aiding and abetting.
Penalties
Academic misconduct could result in disciplinary action that may include, but is not limited to, suspension or dismissal.The minimum penalty for a first offense of academic dishonesty in this course is a grade of zero on the assignment; the assignment must also be redone, for zero credit, in order to pass the class. However, depending on the nature of the offense, the penalty may be more severe, including an F for the course, suspension, or expulsion. The minimum penalty for a second offense of academic dishonesty is an F for the course, but may be more severe.
Appropriate Citations
For this course it is both okay and a good idea for students to study together, including discussing homework problems. However, whatever a student turns in must be his/her own. A good rule of thumb is that it is okay to talk about problems, but it is not okay to share written materials or code.If you incorporate written materials or code from any source in the project, an appropriate citation is required. Here is an excellent overview of the APA style for correctly citing a source. Code from other sources must be described in an additional document turned in with the assignment, not only in the code itself.