Honor Code Links
Some examples of Honor Code/Fundamental Standard -related policy statements:
Honor Code statement of Stanford's Dept. of Computer Science
[from Computer Science User's Guide: http://cse.stanford.edu]
In the Computer Science Department, we take the Honor Code seriously and
expect you to do the same. The good news is that the vast majority of you
will do so. The bad news is that all historical evidence indicates that
some students in computer science will submit work that is not their own,
shortchanging not only their own learning but undermining the atmosphere
of trust and individual achievement that characterizes Stanford's academic
community. Each year, the Computer Science Department accounts for somewhere
between 20 and 50 percent of all Honor Code cases, even though our courses
represent only about seven percent of the student enrollment.
The purpose of this page is to make our expectations as clear as possible
in the hope that we will reduce the number of Honor Code violations that
occur. The basic principle under which we operate is that each of you is
expected to submit your own work. In particular, attempting to take credit
for someone else's work by turning it in as your own constitutes plagiarism,
which is a serious violation of basic academic standards.
From the attention that the department pays to the Honor Code, some of you
will get the idea that any discussion of assignments is somehow a violation
of academic principle. Such a conclusion, however, is completely wrong.
In computer science courses, it is usually appropriate to ask others-the
TA, the instructor, or other students-for hints and debugging help or to
talk generally about problem-solving strategies and program structure. In
fact, I strongly encourage you to seek such assistance when you need it.
The important point, however, is embodied in the following rule:
- Rule 1: You must indicate on your submission any assistance you received.
- In addition to providing proper citation -usually as part of the comments at the beginning of the program- it is also important to make sure that the assistance you receive consists of general advice that does not cross the boundary into having someone else write the actual code. It is fine to discuss ideas and strategies, but you should be careful to write your programs on your own. This provision is expressed in the following rule:
- Rule 2: You must not share actual program code with other students.
- In particular, you should not ask anyone to give you a copy of their
code or, conversely, give your code to another student who asks you for
it. Similarly, you should not discuss your algorithmic strategies to such
an extent that you and your collaborators end up turning in exactly the
same code. Discuss ideas together, but do the coding on your own.
The prohibition against looking at the actual code for a program has an important specific application in computer science courses. Developing a good programming assignment often takes years. When a new assignment is created, it invariably has problems that require a certain amount of polishing. To make sure that the assignments are as good as they can be, Stanford's department -like most others in the country- reuses assignments over the years, incorporating a few changes each time to make them more effective.
The following rule applies in all computer science courses:
- Rule 3: You must not look at solution sets or program code from other years.
- Beyond being a clear violation of academic integrity, making use of
old solution sets is a dangerous practice. Most assignments change in
a variety of ways from year to year as we seek to make them better. Each
year, however, some student turns in a solution to an assignment from
some prior year, even though that assignment has since changed so that
the old solution no longer makes sense. Submitting a program that solves
last year's assignment perfectly while failing to solve the current one
is particularly damaging evidence of an Honor Code violation.
Whenever you seek help on an assignment, your goal should be improving your level of understanding and not simply getting your program to work. Suppose, for example, that someone responds to your request for help by showing you a couple of lines of code that do the job. Don't fall into the trap of thinking about that code as if it were a magical incantation-something you simply include in your program and don't have to understand. By doing so, you will be in no position to solve similar problems on exams. The need to understand the assistance you receive can be expressed in the following rule:
Although you should certainly keep these rules in mind, it is important
to recognize that the cases that we bring forward to Judicial Affairs
are not those in which a student simply forgets to cite a source of legitimate
aid. Most of the students we charge under the Honor Code have committed
fairly egregious violations. Students, for example, have rummaged through
paper recycling bins or undeleted trash folders to come up with copies
of other students' programs, which they then turn in as their own work.
In many cases, students take deliberate measures-rewriting comments, changing
variable names, and so forth-to disguise the fact that their work is copied
from someone else. Despite such cosmetic changes, it is easy to determine-and
we have tools for doing so-that copying has occurred. Programming style
is highly idiosyncratic, and the chance that two submissions would be
the same except for variable names and comments is vanishingly small.
We have no desire to create a climate in which students feel as if they
are under suspicion. The entire point of the Stanford Honor Code is that
we all benefit from working in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Students
who deliberately take advantage of that trust, however, poison that atmosphere
for everyone. As members of the Stanford community, we have a responsibility
to protect academic integrity for the benefit of the community as a whole.
MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) -- A System for Detecting Software Plagiarism
Stanford's Dept. of Computer Science utilizes MOSS, among other things, to detect software plagiarism.
Honor Code statement of Stanford's Dept. of Electrical Engineering
[from Graduate Student Handbook: http://www-ee.stanford.edu/gradhandbook/honorcode.html]
Students should be aware of the Stanford University Honor Code which describes standards of acceptable and unacceptable student conduct. Of particular importance are the rules regarding receiving aid that is not explicitly permitted in exams and class work. It is also important that students take an active part in seeing that the letter and spirit of the Honor Code are upheld by themselves and others. Also of importance in these days of the ubiquitous Internet are the explicit prohibition of plagiarism. Penalties for violation of the Honor Code can be serious (e.g., expulsion from the University).
Remembering the University's Honor Code
The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of students and faculty in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:
The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and collectively:
that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading;
that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code.
The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable, academic procedures that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.
While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establish optimal conditions for honorable academic work.