Oregon State EECS: Graduate Studies

Basic Definition of Academic Dishonesty
By academic dishonesty we mean presenting, as your own work, material produced by or in collaboration with others, or permitting or assisting others to present your work as their own without proper acknowledgment.

The policies of Oregon State University with respect to academic dishonesty are stated in the Schedule of Classes. Courses involving computer programming require special consideration because use of the computer permits easy copying and trivial modification of programs. The following guidelines are provided to help in determining if an incident of academic dishonesty has occurred.

The instructor may suspect a student of program plagiarism if the student submits a program that is so similar to the program submitted by a present or past student in the course that the solutions may be converted to one another by a simple mechanical transformation.
The instructor may suspect a student of cheating, whether on a program or an examination, if the student cannot explain both the intricacies of his or her solution and the techniques and principles used to generate that solution.
The instructor may suspect a student of failure to adequately complete a collaborative assignment in cases where observation or questioning leads the instructor to believe that the student has not shouldered an equitable portion of the burden in some assignment requiring collaboration.

It should be clear that there is latitude for difference among individual instructors, particularly on the matter of when working with other students or adapting material from a textbook is permissible. The following general policy on cooperation on homework assignments holds:

In all circumstances it is acceptable to discuss the meaning of assignments and general approaches and strategies for handling those assignments. Any cooperation beyond that point, including shared pseudocode or flowcharts, shared code, or shared documentation, is only acceptable if specifically so permitted by the class instructor.

Penalty for Academic Dishonesty
In cases of academic dishonesty, the grade of 'F' will be awarded for the course, and a Report of Academic Dishonesty will be filed as required by University policy. A report will also be forwarded to the College of Engineering where additional disciplinary actions may be taken. If a second or further incident is reported for an individual, or if the circumstances of a first incident so warrant, a letter describing the incidents will become part of the individuals permanent record, and the Department will recommend that he or she be dropped from the Computer Science major. If a student wishes to appeal an instructor's action in such a case, an ad hoc committee of three faculty members, not to include the instructors involved, will review the evidence and make recommendations. Final determination of a grade remains with the course instructor. The student may make further appeals in keeping with University policy.

Examples of Academic Dishonesty
Although it is impossible to distinguish beforehand between cases of cheating and non-cheating, some clear instances of each can be given as examples.

when a student turns in the work of another student and represents it as his or her own work.
when a student knowingly permits another to turn in his work.
when a student copies code from the work of another student.
When a student deliberately transforms borrowed sections of code in order to disguise their origin.
When several students collaborate on a project and fail to inform the instructor of this.
When a student steals or obtains examinations, answer keys, or program samples from the instructors files or computer directories.
When a student modifies or deletes another student's or an instructor's computer files.

Distribution of this Policy
Copies of this policy will be available in the department office and posted on bulletin boards within the department. The policy will also be attached to or included in the undergraduate information bulletin.

An announcement of the existence of the policy will be made by the instructor at the first meeting each quarter of every Computer Science class, at which time his specific attitude on cooperation and use of published programs can also be stated. For lower division courses, reference to the policy and statement of the instructor's specific attitude will be included in the course syllabus distributed to all students.