Plagiarism is a kind of fraud: passing off someone else's work or ideas as your own in order to get a higher mark. Plagiarism is treated very seriously. The assignments you hand in must be your own and must not contain anyone else's ideas. Refer to Appendix A in the U of T Code of Behavior on Academic Matters for a more detailed description of plagiarism.
You may discuss assignments with friends and classmates, but only up to a point: You may discuss and compare general approaches and also how to get around particular difficulties, but you should not leave such a discussion with any written material. You should not look at another student's solution to an assignment on paper or on the computer screen, even in draft form. The actual coding of your programs, analysis of results, and writing of reports must be done individually.
If you do talk with anyone about an assignment, please state this in your assignment and state the extent of your discussion. Also see the section below on properly referencing any of the materials you used.
Note that it is also a serious offense to help someone commit plagiarism. Do not lend your printouts, reports or diskettes, and do not let others copy or read them. To protect yourself against people copying your work without your knowledge, retain all of your old printouts and draft notes until the assignments have been graded and returned to you. If you suspect that someone has stolen a printout or diskette, contact your instructor immediately.
Although you must not solve your assignments with the help of others, there are still many ways in which students can help each other. This can be a valuable educational experience, and is encouraged. For instance, you can go over difficult lecture or tutorial material, work through exercises, or help each other understand an assignment handout. This sort of course collaboration can be done in study groups or online.
Detailed information on how to document the sources you used in any particular assignment is provided in the handout titled How Not to Plagarize.
Oh, which reminds me ....
Most of this message was lifted directly from one of Sean Culhane's course web pages, and he got it from one of Allan Jepson's course web pages. Thanks to both Allan and Sean.
Sean took the remainder from:
Margaret Procter,
UofT Memo ``Revised Version of Plagarism Handout'',
Writing Support,
August 11, 1997.