Academic Integrity Guidelines

Every student is expected to conduct themselves with academic integrity.  Essentially this means that you should do your own work and not take credit for the work of others.  Violations of academic integrity will be treated seriously.


Exams:  All work must be your own.  The course web page and in class announcements will tell you specifically if calculators, notes, or the textbook are allowed.  Unless otherwise specified, they are not allowed.
Homeworks:  The purpose of homeworks is for you to learn the course material.  As such, homeworks are an essential educational component of the course.  Directly copying another solution will not achieve this. The points you gain on homework by such cheating will probably be less than the points you will lose on exams because of your lack of understanding --- and you risk the penalties of cheating.

Individual Homework:  Many students find it helpful to consult with fellow students about homework, or even to work in study groups.  This kind of joint work can be helpful and is acceptable provided you are careful to always do your own homework.   Permissible activities include: 

Inappropriate (= cheating) activities include, but are not limited to:

Exception:   If you see a solution to a homework (someone tells you or you read a worked solution), you may still write up your own solution if you wait at least 20 to 30 minutes and then write up your answer without referring to the other solution.  This does not apply to section: If a problem is gone over in section, you should not write it up to hand in no matter how long you wait.  The purpose of the delay policy is to encourage you learn the ideas behind solutions rather than the step by step details of particular solutions.

Group Homework:  Some classes may include group homework.  In that case, the above comments apply with each group regarded as an individual.  In addition, all members of a group should contribute to the work of the group.  In particular, the job of writing up the homework should be divided among group memebers by whatever method is announced in class.