ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
(adapted from a document written by Ann Ford)

The basic rule is that you may not give or receive assistance for any work you are submitting as your own. In all cases in which we have reason to believe that cheating has occurred, we will submit relevant materials to the Engineering Honor Council for evaluation. If a violation of university academic standards has occurred, sanctions will be determined by the Engineering Honor Council. A zero in the project or exam is the typical minimum sanction -- stronger measures, including expulsion, are possible. Read the Engineering Honor Code (copies available at the Lurie Engineering Center) and the LS&A handout entitled "Academic Integrity in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts" (copies are available in 1255 Angell Hall) for detailed definitions of cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic misconduct.

Keep this in mind: If you are having trouble finishing an assignment, it is far better to do your own work and receive a low score than to go through an academic judiciary case and suffer any penalties which may be involved, which can be severe.

What is cheating on a programming project? (a few examples)

• having someone else write your program, in whole or in part
• copying a program someone else wrote, in whole or in part
• collaborating with someone else to the extent that the programs are identifiably extremely similar, in whole or in part
• utilizing program solutions from a previous semester (whether written by a student or the course instructor)

In all of the above, it is not relevant whether the "someone else" is a friend, a tutor, a complete stranger or a textbook. For the assignments that are supposed to be done individually, it is also not relevant whether the "someone else" is you group partner for your group assignments.
What is not cheating? (a few examples)

• talking to someone in general about topics and concepts involved
• asking someone for help with a specific bug or error message in your program
• getting help with the specifics of C++ or SQL syntax
• utilizing information given to you by the teaching staff of the course, for example copying a function in the code we provide to you as part of the assignment, whether or not you make modifications to this copy

Generally speaking, talking about course work is ok; sharing, using, looking at or reading ANY form of written or drawn material is a violation of academic integrity policies.