Departmental Policy on Cheating on Assignments

1. The Computer Science Department uses many ways to check that the work students submit for marking is their own and was not produced by, or copied from, someone else. In particular, for most programming assignments, the department uses a program comparison program to automatically compare all submissions from students. Also Turnitin.com may be used on essays and reports. This detects similarity to online material and submitted works in its own database.
2. All assignments where plagiarism is detected are checked for similarity by the course supervisor or another suitable person associated with the course.
3. All assignments deemed to be too similar are automatically allocated a zero mark.
4. All students who submitted these assignments are entered in the duplicate assignment register.
5. A standard email (see below) is sent to these students.
6. Repeat offenders may be referred to the University Disciplinary Committee.

To ensure you are not identified as cheating you should follow these points:

• Always do individual assignments by yourself.
• Never loan your code to another person.
• Never put your code in a public place (e.g., your web site).
• Never leave your PC without locking the screen (e.g., to get food, to have a drink, or to go to the toilet). You are responsible for the security of your account.
• Never get code from a tutor (e.g., private tutors). Several tutors have been caught giving the same code to all their students.
• Always reference the source for text you copy as part of the answer to an assignment.

The standard email:

Your assignment number X for CompSciXXX is very similar to an assignment submitted by another student or unacknowledged work by some other person. Your mark for the assignment is therefore zero.

Section 5.6 of the 2004 Undergraduate Handbook for Computer Science states:

If you wish to explain why your assignment is very similar to work done by someone else you may write a letter addressed to the Head of Department of Computer Science. (Do not address it to the lecturer.) Include your name, address, ID number and UPI along with the course number and assignment number. In this letter you can detail why your assignment should gain marks and any reasons that you know of as to why it is so similar to other work. After the letter is received you may be asked to attend a meeting to answer questions about the assignment and why it was very similar to another submission or some other work.

You have one week from the date of receiving the affected assignment to appeal the decision made. The department will endeavour to ensure that its appeal process is completed within one month.