Plagiarism is a kind of fraud: passing off someone else's work or ideas as your own in order to get a higher mark. Plagiarism is treated very seriously. The assignments you hand in must be your own and must not contain anyone else's ideas. Refer to the University of Ottawa's Policy on Academic Fraud for a more detailed description of plagiarism and sanctions.
You may discuss assignments with friends and classmates, but only up to a point: you may discuss and compare general approaches and also how to get around particular difficulties, but you should not leave such a discussion with any written material. You should not look at another student's solution to an assignment on paper or on the computer screen, even in draft form. The actual coding of your programs, analysis of results, writing of reports and answering assignment questions must be done individually.
Downloading code or any other material from the Internet, and submitting it as your own work without credit is also plagiarism.
If you do talk with anyone about an assignment, please state this in your assignment and state the extent of your discussion. If you use another resource (such as textbooks, internet resources, etc) when solving your assignment, include the proper reference.
Note that it is also a serious offense to help someone commit plagiarism. Do not lend your assignment answers, printouts, reports or diskettes, and do not let others copy or read them. To protect yourself against people copying your work without your knowledge, retain all of your old printouts and draft notes until the assignments have been graded and returned to you. If you suspect that someone has stolen a printout or diskette, contact your instructor immediately.
Although you must not solve your assignments with the help of others, there are still many ways in which students can help each other. For instance, you can go over difficult lecture or lab material, work through exercises, or help each other understand an assignment handout. This sort of course collaboration can be done in study groups or through the discussion group.
The Virtual Campus discussion forum can be used to discuss techniques and tools used in assignments, but the discussions should never mention or present any potential or partial solutions to assignment questions. You can consider creating a study group.
If in doubt about whether a question you are asking or answering is against these guidelines, ask your TA (teaching assistant) the question instead.
Measures taken to detect plagiarism
The professor will take appropriate measures, once plagiarism is detected on part or on the whole of an assignment. Note that copying or lending is considered to be equally serious offenses.