Attribution of Work

Leveraging the existing base of tools, software, knowledge, and earlier explorations is the only practical way to carry out science and engineering via computational methods.

Cheating in this class is nearly impossible, because the course encourages collaboration, code scavenging, and using publically available resources whenever possible. It's why we have ears, the Internet, the ability to read and write, and Google. You can get away with almost any lifting or scavenging of material, provided that you cite the source. If your citation is "I photocopied another student's write-up" then you may not get many points on the assignment or may be queried to verify you have learned the material and skills, but at least you won't be expelled for plagiarism. The distinction between plagiarism and leveraging is citation. If in doubt, ask. Better still, play it safe and give a citation for any material or help you have received or given. Using Canvas is one way to seek help - it's public to the entire class, the questions and answers are available to everyone, and so anything posted there is automatically fair game.

Some more details:

In spite of it being "nearly impossible", amazingly some fool(s) hand in duplicate documents or copied code without mention of provenance. It's not that hard to put in a code comment or a text footnote about just where you got any material, guidance, or help. Make a habit of having a section just for that in any code or other material handed in or presented, so that you have to think about and remember just where everything came from. The form typical "citation" examples could take might be

Beware that last one: A few years ago a P573 student did get a code from the University of Illinois and handed it in, but without attribution. Turned out it was a code I had written for a research center while I was a grad student there. So he was (academically speaking) chopped into small pieces and fed to the fish in Lake Monroe. Sadly, all he had to do was put the 15 words in the last bullet item into his report, and he would not have failed the course. Also, the fish in Lake Monroe would not have had a foul meal dumped on them (again, academically speaking).

Another warning: although Professor Bramley is older than dirt, he also knows how to use Google and other tools to find matches. Changing format and variable names is not sufficient to throw off the identification of copying. Unattributed copying will lead to a zero on an assignment at least, and a zero in the course more commonly. So ... play it safe and give a citation anytime you did not do all the work yourself, or helped someone else on an assignment. As a corollary to the "Bramley is not fully brain-dead yet" claim, generally I also look for internet accessible material ... and set assignments that have solutions which are not exactly the same as what is available.


Page history:
  • Started: Wed 19 Jul 2017, 11:44 AM
  • Last Modified: Fri 17 Aug 2018, 05:53 PM