CS 444 Course Policies

Unauthorized copying: You are encouraged to discuss assignments with each other, but coding and writing of reports must be done individually or only within your team. Feel free to search the Web for tips or code snippets, provided this does not make the assignment trivial and all external sources are explicitly acknowledged in the report. At the first instance of unauthorized copying, a grade of zero will be given for the respective assignment or test. At the second instance, you will automatically receive an F for the entire course. See the student code for more information on what consitutes an academic integrity violation.

To minimize future instances of unauthorized copying, we ask that you do not post solution code for the class assignments online, e.g., on your personal webpage or on github. It is all right to use your own solution code as part of your personal projects, but do not release such code with an explicit identification with a specific class/assignment.

AI coding/writing assistants (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, etc.): You are in this class to learn! If you use ChatGPT to do all of your assignments you will not do well later -- for example, during corporate coding interviews. The intent of class assignments is for you to type your own code. Solutions produced using coding auto-complete are highly likely to be flagged as plagiarism. We do not prohibit using ChatGPT or other chatbots for debugging/understanding purposes. If you use chatbots in this way, you need to submit the transcript of your conversation in the zip file accompanying your assignment.

Working in pairs: When choosing to work with a partner, you assume all associated risk, including but not limited to: partner not completing a fair share of the work, partner producing incorrect or late work, or cheating. The course staff does not have the ability to arbitrate disputes between partners or to assign separate scores to partners. In particular, any cheating or lateness penalty will automatically apply to both partners, even if one of them disclaims all awareness or responsibility for the offense. If you find yourself in an unsatisfactory partner situation, the only solution is to switch to individual submission. Note that you are free to pick different partners for different assignments, or to switch to working individually at any time.

Discussion board: You are highly encouraged to ask and answer questions about assignments on the discussion board. However, the general principle is to avoid directly giving away key elements of solutions. Thus, you should refrain from publicly posting key solution code or parameter values, either to get help with debugging or to demonstrate a possible solution to your classmates. Posting sample code for utility functions or publicly debugging system/platform errors is acceptable. If you need help with code, the preferred route is to attend TA office hours. However, if this is impossible and you wish to make a post with your code, be sure to make it private.

Late submission policy for assignments and project:

• Free late days for homework assignments: Each student gets a total of five free late days that apply to homework assignments throughout the whole semester. As long as you stay within your total late days budget, there is no need to request an extension and no late penalty will be assessed. If you are submitting a late assignment in a pair, late days will be subtracted from both students, but the available budget will be taken to be the greater of the individual budgets. E.g., if Student A has 1 late day left and Student B has 3 late days and the assignment is 2 days late, there will be no late penalty, and the remaining budgets of Students A and B will be 0 and 1, respectively.
  
  
• Free late days for projects: You get a separate budget of three free late days that apply to the three project deliverables (proposal, progress report, final report). The rules for assessing the late days across teams are the same as for the homeworks (see above).
  
  
• Late penalty: If you are out of late days, for every day that your assignment is late, your score is multiplied by 0.6. Submissions that are more than five days late (beyond any free days) will not be accepted. You are not allowed to submit different parts of the assignment at different times to receive a late penalty on only part of the assignment.
  
  
• Extension requests: Extension requests will be considered only after free late days are used up. Extensions beyond the free late days will be granted only in case of extraordinary circumstances. If you think that your circumstances qualify, email the instructor with relevant documentation.