General Rules and Policies

Registration You must be formally registered, via the Registrar's office, in both the class itself and the recitation.

If you are registered in any of these courses–CSCI 1227, CSCI 2227, CSCI 2341, CSCI 2355, CSCI 3355–you must also register for the appropriate course-related online zyBook, and for any of these courses see the link under Current Course Text dropdown at the left.

Tests and Exams No student will be permitted to write the final examination early, for any reason. If, for medical or other legitimate reasons, you are unable to write the final exam at the scheduled time, you must so inform the instructor at the earliest possible opportunity, and other arrangements may be made. Similarly, if you have or develop a medical condition or other problem that is affecting, or is likely to affect, your performance in the course over the long term, your instructor must be notified at the earliest opportunity.

Cooperative Effort vs. Plagiarism Saint Mary's University has reasonably strict guidelines with respect to plagiarism and cheating.

See A Student's Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism.

As far as this course is concerned, working with other students to exchange ideas and to solve problems is encouraged. But, copying another person’s work directly, electronically or otherwise, or having someone use your account or another account to complete work for you is strictly forbidden. Any such practice is subject to severe penalties, and the following specific policy will be in place for the duration of this course:

• All submitted assignments, projects, tests, and exams (that is, every submission for course marks) must consist entirely of work done only by the student making the submission, unless explicit permission for a joint submission is given. That is, unless explicitly noted otherwise, every pen stroke or key stroke of work submitted by each student must have been done by the student whose name appears on the submission, and no unauthorized team work of any kind will be accepted for these submissions. On the other hand, discussion of the basic ideas involved in an assignment or project is encouraged. It is the actual work done to produce the solution—the physical effort, if you will—that must be done individually by each student.
• If a team effort is explicitly permitted for one or more submissions, the above rule applies to the team collectively, as well as each individual on the team.
• Each student taking this course is expected to be aware of this policy and is advised that the penalty for a breach of it may include the forfeiture of a pass in the course, irrespective of the grade achieved, and irrespective of whether the student (or team) has supplied or received work passed from one student (or team) to another for inclusion in any formal submission of a homework assignment, test or exam.
• Violations of this policy will be reported, with details, to the Dean of Science and to the Registrar, along with a recommendation for disciplinary action.

Use of AI Tools As you are probably aware, artificial intelligence in the world of computing has made significant progress recently, and tools like ChatGPT and many others like it are now available for assistance with answering questions and solving problems of all kinds. Although we may not be making formal use of any of these tools in this course, for help with solving problems in the course you are permitted to use whatever tools of this kind to which you might have access, though not on the final exam.