Academic Misconduct in Computing
It is the policy of this department to treat cases of academic misconduct
seriously. This statement is intended to clarify our policies with regard to
academic misconduct in courses taken in the Department of Computing and
Information Science, and to clarify penalties for offenses as outlined in the
document, Penalties for Academic Misconduct: Dean's Guidelines,
dated February 13, 1996 (all factual information and quoted material herein
is based on this document; students are free to review these guidelines by
contacting the Dean's Office). It is policy that all suspected cases of
academic misconduct are referred to the Chair of the department for
consideration and referral to the Dean of the college.
The Dean's Guidelines identify four offenses: plagiarism, misrepresentation,
examination cheating and impersonation. The most common forms of misconduct
exhibited in Computing are misrepresentation, and to a lesser extend
plagiarism.
Plagiarism: is the "verbatim copying or close paraphrasing of
another person's work without full and formal acknowledgement". Specificially,
this involves material from a book, research paper or other source being used
without acceptable referencing of the source material. This includes the use
of segment of code or non-standard algorithms that were obtained by a student
from a third party source, and used without permission and/or proper
references. Penalties for plagiarism range from 0 on the assignment in
question for minor first offenses to debarment and expulsion for subsequent
offenses.
Misrepresentation: refers to the submission of material created
by someone other than the student. This includes the copying of another
students' source code, in part or in whole, or submitting assignments from
previous offerings of the course. The Dean's Guidelines make it clear that
"A student producing work in the knowledge that it will be submitted by another
student as that student's work is also subject to penalty".
Misrepresentation is a very serious offense, with penalties ranging from 0 for the course "...if a student submits material created by someone other than
the student, whether purchased or not, the intent being to pass off that work
as one's own", to expulsion for subsequent offenses.
Examination Cheating and Impersonation are less common, however
carry similarly serious penalties.
Note that we encourage students to collectively discuss design issues or
strategies for problem solving related to assignments. What is expected
however is that the written work and implementations resulting from these
discussions be independently produced by each student. Note that both the
student who gives their work to another student, or leaves work where others
may find it, and the student who uses the work are implicated to varying
degrees. Please take care not to leave your work around, or leave a
workstation without logging off. It is ultimately your responsibility to
protect the integrity of your own work.
Last Modified: 2008 / 04 / 07