CSCI 653: regulations for homework assignments

In the interest of keeping the grading both fair to you and manageable for me and the grader, the following regulations are in effect for the semester:

Your assignment must be turned in to me no later than 12:30 p.m. on the day that it is due. This means that your assignment must be turned in no later than 12:30 p.m. on the day that it is due. The late arrival of you and your assignment during the scheduled class time disrupts my lecture and distracts your classmates. As a courtesy to the rest of us, please be sure your assignments are delivered on time.
If you have another class that meets from 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and this class delays your arrival, please discuss alternative arrangements with me. (For instance, I always welcome assignments that are turned in early. A standard practice in other semesters has been to slip assignments under my office door on the morning that they are due. So long as they arrive before I leave for class at around 12:15 p.m., I count them as being on time.)
No late assignments will be accepted. The assignment schedule has been posted. I anticipate no changes. You have been given a minimum of nine days for working on each assignment. The only excuses that will be entertained are those regarding a serious illness, a debilitating accident, or a death in the family.
Your homework assignments must be typeset. You may use the word processor of your choice, but you must typeset your assignment—no handwritten assignments will be accepted. If you do not already know how to typeset mathematical notation, now is the time to learn.
I will not answer any questions regarding a homework assignment on the day that homework assignment is due. This means that you should give yourself plenty of time to work on the problems before the assignment is due.
You will be allowed to work with others on the homework assignments. However, certain rules are in force. You may consult with each other, with me, with texts, papers, or any published material, but the final written solution you turn in for the assignment must be composed by you without the help of others. This means that you may neither look at the written solution of another student, nor show another student your written solution.
This also means that you may not consult students who have already taken CS 653, nor may you consult any work they may have done for CS 653, nor may you consult any handouts they received from their CS 653 instructor. Your consultations are restricted to written material that has been published. Exchanging final solutions electronically also will be a violation as this will be considered as written (but unpublished) work.
An "empty hands" policy must be observed when you meet with your classmates to discuss the problems on a homework assignment. You are free to discuss any aspect of the homework assignment, but you must leave the meeting without any record of these discussions. The actual writing of the details of a homework solution must be an individual activity, so that each student earns an individual grade for each homework assignment.
If you work on a homework assignment with other students in the course, you are required to list their names when you turn in the assignment.
If you find a solution in a published source, you may use it to derive the answer to a homework problem, but you should give this source proper credit in your write-up of the solution. In no case should you copy verbatim from a reference without proper attribution as this would be plagiarism.
If you have any questions about whether a particular source is considered to be published material, you are obligated to clear the source with me before consulting it. In general, I consider web pages (except those sponsored by journals or conference proceedings pages sponsored by professional organizations) to be unpublished work since, with only some exceptions, most web pages are unmoderated. This exclusion includes wikis, web pages for similar courses at other colleges and universities, blogs, etc. Thus, in general, searching for a solution on the web—and then submitting it as your answer for a homework assignment—will be considered a violation.
If you have any questions about whether a consultation with a source might constitute a violation, you are required to ask me for permission before you are allowed to engage in such a consultation.
Do not oversimplify your proofs when a proof is the required answer for a homework problem. Showing a reasonable level of detail in a proof demonstrates to the grader and me that you actually understand the proof.
If critical steps in the solution to the problem are missing, expect to lose points. Since this decision is ours—not yours—to make, this suggests that you should be sure to show your work.
Get in the habit of carefully writing up your solutions for the homework assignments. It is good practice since when I grade the final exams I also will deduct points if your answer is not sufficiently detailed to constitute what I regard as a correct solution.
Points will be deducted even if your answer is correct if your answer is more complicated than it needs to be or is too difficult to read. The solutions to your homework assignments must be clear and concise as well as correct. Expect to lose points, even if your solution is correct, if it is difficult to read and understand; this includes solutions that are confused, incomprehensible, unnecessarily complicated, verbose, or incomplete.

The Department of Computer Science
The College of William & Mary