Academic Integrity Policies

As mentioned in the What to Expect section of the syllabus, this course encourages and will often require collaboration. Working with others is among the stuff digital humanists like. It’s also part of your "Team Participation" grade for this class.

Asking for help is central to the ethos of fields like programming and digital history, as evidenced by Q&A forums like Digital Humanities Questions and Answers and Stack Overflow. Spend very much time on these forums, and you’ll also learn that "Googling it" is one of the first things that digital humanists and programmers do when they get stuck.

Collaboration should not excuse violations of academic integrity, however, and such violations will still be reported to the Honor Council. You can collaborate in this course and still honor the Honor Code so long as you carefully follow these guidelines (some of which are borrowed or paraphrased from the list of course policies in Rice COMP 140. (Click “Continue reading” below to read the guidelines for this course.)

• When working on homework, you are allowed to discuss course material and general approaches to homework problems with your other classmates, the teaching assistant, and the professor, but you should never misrepresent someone else’s work as your own.
• Attempt homework problems several times yourself before seeking out assistance. This will ensure that you are the one who is actually doing the work and will ensure that the final product still has the hallmarks of being your original work.
• When you receive help, include acknowledgements in your final assignment to indicate any assistance you have received. Name the people or online resources you received help from, and indicate what kind of help you received. It is your responsibility to make sure that the assistance you receive does not cross the boundary into having someone else write code or "do the homework" for you.
• If you use any material from online sources, you must provide the URL.
• When in doubt about whether a form of collaboration is allowed, just ask!
• Whenever you seek help on a homework assignment, your goal should be to improve your level of understanding and not simply getting something to work. If you borrow solutions from someone else without understanding why they work, you will be in no position to solve similar problems on your own. You should be prepared to explain any part of your homework assignment to your professor when asked.

I want to be clear that these guidelines are provided not to discourage you from collaborating, but instead to make clear the terms of academic integrity for this course so that you will collaborate, seek help, and offer help. Some of these guidelines may also be overridden by the instructions for a particular assignment, so be sure you pay attention to homework instructions. Always feel free to ask if you have questions about any of this!