cs111: policies

Collaboration Policy

It is never acceptable to present someone else's work as if it were your own. Unless stated otherwise, we will assume that all work you hand in is yours and yours alone.

While you are working on a homework assignment, you may collaborate with other students by talking about the problem or your solution in a natural language, but you may not use any formal language, and especially not Java. In other words, you should not be looking at other people's code (or other problem set solutions) and you should not show yours to another student.

You are encouraged to use the class conference to discuss problem sets, but the same rules apply: discussions should be in English and should not include code that is part of a homework solution.

When you turn in the assignment, you must indicate any other students with whom you collaborated. If you get help from us or a TA that constitutes a significant part of the assignment, you should acknowledge that, too. If you are not sure what constitutes collaboration or a significant part, err on the side of caution.

Copying other people's code or work is a serious violation and will be regarded as a disciplinary matter.

You may consult public literature (books, articles, etc.) for hints, techniques, and even solutions. However, you must reference any sources that contribute to your solution.

Assignments, exams, solutions and even notebooks from previous terms of cs111 are not considered to be part of the public literature---not every student has access to such materials. You must refrain from looking at any solutions from previous terms of cs111 (unless, of course, we explicitly tell you it's OK to do so). Consulting any materials from previous terms constitutes a violation of the Honor Code.

We also expect you to follow some guidelines that will minimize the potential for honor code violations. They are:

When you are working on a computer, you may create a new folder on the Desktop to store your files. If you come to a computer and find somebody else's folder on the Desktop, drag it to the trash and empty the trash. It would be a violation of the Honor Code to open the folder.
When you are done using a computer, you should remove all of your work.

Grading Policy

Exams

Exams are graded colletively by the cs111 staff. Of course, many questions require us to use judgement, and we do our best to be both consistent and fair. If you think we made a mistake grading your exam, please stick a post-it or something like it to the relevant page, and write a note explaining the problem. Do not write on the exam.

Of course, making any modification to your answer before submitting it for a regrade would be an Honor Code violation. To avoid any ambiguity, it is best not to write on the exam at all.

Give the exam to your instructor. We will consider the regrade and return the exam to you as soon as possible.

Homeworks

Homeworks are graded by the teaching assistants and then reviewed by the instructors.

We may not grade every part of every homework. We may select one or more parts of the homework at random. Any remaining problems will simply be checked off as completed. You must complete all problems on the homework in order to be able to receive full credit.

For any problem that is not graded in detail, it is your responsibility to check your solutions using the solutions we provide. If you have questions about the solutions, ask your instructor.

If you have questions about your grade on an homework, you should first contact the teaching assistant that graded it. If you have further questions after that, ask your instructor.