198:314 Principles of Programming Languages
Fall 2002
Academic Integrity
In recent years, cheating has become a severe problem, in particular
in undergraduate courses. Cheating hurts everyone,
- the cheating student, since he/she does not learn the
material of the course, wasting tuition money,
- the honest fellow student, who learns the material, but
has to compete with dishonest students, and
- Rutgers University as a whole, since students with
inferior knowledge and education will enter the job market
and will not perform as well as their grades indicate.
Keep in mind that the value of your education also depends on
the reputation of Rutgers University as a first class academic
institution. Cheating diminishes the overall quality of our
graduating students (assuming that "cheaters" manage to graduate),
and as a result the quality of Rutgers' academic program, making a
Rutgers degree less desirable and valuable.
Here is what you should do
- Do not cheat.
There are severe penalties for academic
dishonesty at Rutgers, with the most severe being dismissal
from the university. Any form of academic dishonesty (or
cheating) in CS314 will be dealt with severely.
We will use tools such as Berkeley University's
Software Plagiarism Detection System, called
MOSS ,
to determine the similarity of submitted programming projects.
MOSS and similar systems have been successfully used in the past to detect
cheating programmers (
click here ). These tools can detect
structural similarities that do not require textual
similarities.
- Do not give others the opportunity to
cheat.
It is typically impossible for us to determine
who copied from whom. If two project or homework submissions are
considered identical, both parties involved will be considered
cheaters. Therefore,
- read-protect all your files . To do this, use the Unix chmod o-r
command.
A detailed description of this command is available online, just
enter man chmod at the command line prompt.
- Do not share printouts/notes of homeworks or
programming projects with others . For instance,
do not leave printouts/notes in the printer room or in
other publically accessible areas.
- Talk to your academic Dean and us if you are
overwhelmed by the course .
In our experience, many students cheat because they consider it
their only chance to survive the course. If you run into
personal or other problems that make it hard for you to
do well, talk to your academic Dean. The Dean has the tools to
help you, for instance, by
writing us a note about your particular situation. In response,
we may be able to grant you project extensions or help you
in other ways. Make sure to discuss with your Dean and us
early enough so that it is before the particular homework/project
due date or the exam. After the fact, often such problems
are offered as an explanation for cheating, but
they are not a justification for these actions.
- Enjoy the course .
Doing a project by yourself, learning something by doing it,
and getting recognized for your good work by receiving a good grade
is an exciting feeling.
A link to Rutgers' general policy on academic integrity for undergraduate
and graduate students can be
found here
. You are expected to know and follow these guidelines.
Programming Projects and Homeworks
We encourage students in CS314 to study together in groups. It is
acceptable to discuss programming projects and homeworks in order
to better understand what the assignment is asking you to do.
However, when you are ready to code or write up your answer or
program, you must work individually. Writing
programs together, or copying parts of the code or homework from
each other, is considered a violation of academic honesty. The
line is crossed when more than one person writes a line of code
on either paper or a computer file. Collaborations of this sort
will be considered cheating on
the homework or programming project.
The following "Gilligan's Island Rule" may give you a guideline
to avoid academic dishonesty. This rule says that you are free to meet
with fellow students(s) and discuss the assignment with them. Writing on a
board or shared piece of paper is acceptable during the meeting; however,
you should not take any written (electronic or otherwise) record away from
the meeting. After the meeting, engage in a half hour of mind-numbing
activity (like watching an episode of Gilligan's Island), before starting
to work on the assignment. This will assure that you are able to reconstruct
what you learned from the meeting, by yourself, using your own brain.
Exams
All exams will be closed book. You will need to come to every exam
with a photo ID. You should
take a seat so that there is one unoccupied chair on either side of
you. Any attempt to communicate with another student during an
exam or to bring any material for reference in the exam will be
considered cheating.
Mobile phones, calculators, PDAs or other electronic equipment is
not allowed in the exam room. Bags, backpacks, coats, jackets, etc.
must be left outside the exam room, or must be stored in the front
of the exam room.
Last updated at 2:30pm. on September 2, 2002 by Barbara Ryder.