CSI 3125 -- Comments on Plagiarism

[This page has been inspired by similar pages in use at the University of Toronto.]

Plagiarism occurs when someone presents another person's work or ideas as one's own. This is a serious transgression. You must do on your own every assignment that you hand in, and your solutions cannot contain anyone else's uncredited ideas. Please refer to the University of Ottawa's Policy on Academic Fraud for a detailed description of plagiarism and applicable sanctions. Look at examples of acceptable and unacceptable ways of using the work of others. Note that it is quite unacceptable to use other people's code in your solutions of programming assignments.

How to avoid plagiarism

It is natural and perfectly acceptable to discuss assignments with friends and classmates. You can discuss and compare general approaches and ways of getting around particular difficulties, but you should not leave such a discussion with any written material. Discussions are meant to help you think, not to give you ready answers. Do not look at other students' solutions on paper or on the computer screen, even in draft form. You yourself must code your programs, analyze results, write reports and answer assignment questions. Group work is only allowed if it is a group assignment; in such a case all team members are equally responsible for the solution.

If you have talked with anyone about an assignment, please write so in your assignment and state the extent of your discussion. If you have used another resource to solve the assignment (textbooks, Web pages, and so on), make a proper reference to that resource. In particular, suppose that you are asked for an opinion and you copy word-for-word an opinion from a textbook. It may be also your opinion, but if you wish to present it as your own, you must properly identify the source (the book's author, title, page number).

You will probably do a lot of research (or just plain search -:) on the Web. Make sure to cite whatever pages on which you found your facts. One exception: do not bother with Wikipedia -- it is not a respectable resource.

Note that it is also a serious offense to help someone else plagiarize. Do not lend your assignment answers, printouts, reports or diskettes, and do not let others copy or read them. To protect yourself against people who may copy your work without your knowledge, retain all of your old printouts and draft notes until the assignment has been graded and returned to you. If you suspect that someone has stolen a printout or diskette, contact your instructor immediately.

Helping each other

Although you must solve your assignments unaided, there are still many ways in which students can help each other. For instance, you can go over difficult lecture or tutorial material, work through exercises, or help each other understand an assignment handout. This sort of course collaboration occurs often in study groups.

Measures that we take to detect plagiarism

Teaching assistants have been instructed to report to the professor any suspicion of plagiarism they find when they mark assignments.

Programming assignments may be screened for similarities by a very clever program specially designed for this purpose. Be assured that such programs are very effective.

If plagiarism has been detected in any part or in the whole assignment, the professor will take appropriate measures. Recall that it is equally bad to copy a solution and to let someone else copy a solution.