The MPCS has high standards for academic honesty. The MPCS Academic Honesty & Plagiarism Policy is aligned with the University of Chicago’s Academic Honesty & Plagiarism Policy:
“It is contrary to justice, academic integrity, and to the spirit of intellectual inquiry to submit another’s statements or ideas as one's own work. To do so is plagiarism or cheating, offenses punishable under the University's disciplinary system. Because these offenses undercut the distinctive moral and intellectual character of the University, we take them very seriously.
Proper acknowledgment of another's ideas, whether by direct quotation or paraphrase, is expected. In particular, if any written or electronic source is consulted and material is used from that source, directly or indirectly, the source should be identified by author, title, and page number, or by website and date accessed. Any doubts about what constitutes "use" should be addressed to the instructor.”
Cheating, copying, and all forms of plagiarism and academic dishonesty are considered a SERIOUS OFFENSE in the MPCS. The MPCS Academic Honesty & Plagiarism policy adds the following requirements to the University's guidelines above for all students taking MPCS classes:
Academically honest work is understood to be the following:
-
Work that has been done exclusively by you, without any outside assistance.
-
Work that has involved some outside assistance (such as other students and reference materials found in the library or the Internet), but which includes proper attribution.
Students must follow these rules for all submitted work:
-
Always list any external sources consulted in your work: This includes not only books or websites you consulted, but also students that you discussed your solution with.
-
Never use another student’s work: Never submit any work that has been written by another student. This is unacceptable even with attribution. You can discuss the high level aspects of an assignment with other students, but the work you hand in must always be your own. Some MPCS instructors may use plagiarism detection software to grade submitted work.
-
Never share your work with others or post it on a publicly accessible website: You should never share your solution to an assignment with other students - this is considered a serious offense. If the student you shared your solution with submits that work as their own, you will be penalized too, even if you did not know that the student intended to copy your work.
You should also never upload your code to public GitHub repositories, code snippet sharing sites like pastebin, etc. If someone copies your code from such a site, you will be penalized, even if you did not intend for your code to be used in that way.
You should never share work from previous quarters with students in MPCS classes. Even if you are not in the class that quarter, but your work is found to have been copied and submitted, you will be penalized for a violation of academic honesty.
If you are ever unclear on whether you are following the rules correctly, please ask your instructor before an assignment is due. It is your responsibility to seek clarification.
The program’s administration is notified of any violations of this policy, no matter how minor. This misconduct will be investigated promptly and referred to a disciplinary committee. Penalties may include a zero for an assignment, an automatic F grade for the course, being placed on academic probation in the MPCS, suspension from the MPCS program or expulsion from the University of Chicago.
For further information, you may refer to the MPCS academic honesty guidelines for code attribution.
