Policies

Also see Assignments for additional policies.

Illness

If you are ill and unable to meet a course deadline, then you must email the course ISC (Caroline Kierstead), and follow the guidelines and steps outlined in the Math Accommodations page.

• For assignments, the accommodations may be extra time up to the day the assignment solution is released or discussed in class.
• For the midterm exam, the accommodation will be chosen by the instructor: an oral make-up midterm, a written make-up midterm, or shifting weight to the final exam.
• For the final exam, the standard policy is to receive an INC and write the final the next time the course is offered.

If you are ill and exhibiting COVID symptoms, you should also register using the online self-declaration form.

Self-Declared Short-term Absence

In fall 2022, the University expanded the options for a self-declared absence for undergraduate students by introducing the option of self-declaring a "short-term absence" (which we refer to here as an STA). It's your responsibility to adhere to the conditions and required steps outlined on that page and below.

If your STA overlaps with an assignment submission or scheduled midterm, you must email the course ISC (Caroline Kierstead) before your STA begins. We need to be aware of your absence in advance to make appropriate accommodations. Failure to notify the ISC before your STA begins may result in a 0 on the missed assignment or midterm.

• For assignments, the accommodation will be elimination of the late penalty. For example, if the assignment is due at 6 PM on a Friday and your STA includes that Friday, then you can hand in your assignment 48 hours after the original deadline (Sunday at 6 PM) with no late penalty. There are no extensions beyond the maximum 48-hour late period after the original deadline.

• For a midterm exam, the accommodation will be chosen by the instructor: either an oral make-up midterm, a written make-up midterm, or shifting weight to the final exam. Make-up midterms are typically scheduled on the first weekday after the STA ends.

Academic Integrity

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. Contact the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. You are expected to follow the policies outlined for assignment submissions.

To ensure academic integrity, MOSS (Measure of Software Similarities) is used in this course as a means of comparing students' assignments. We will report suspicious activity, and penalties for plagiarism/cheating are severe. Please read the available information about academic integrity very carefully.

Using Code from Other Sources

Students are expected to submit their own work.

If you use code from other sources (e.g. Stack Overflow, online article, etc.) you must document the source as a comment where the specific code is used. No single source can constitute more than 10% of your assignment.

You can use any code from this term's offering of CS 349 without documenting it as a source. This includes starter code for assignments, code shown in lectures, and code from the course code repo.

Using Advanced AI Systems

Use of advanced AI systems to generate code (ie. CoPilot, ChatGPT, etc.) is also considered using code from other sources. The same rules apply from the previous policy: each AI system source must be documented and no single source can constitute more than 10% of your assignment.

Student Discipline

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about ‘rules’ for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate Associate Dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Intellectual Property

Students should be aware that this course contains the intellectual property of their instructor, TA, and/or the University of Waterloo. Intellectual property includes items such as:

• Lecture content, spoken and written (and any audio/video recording thereof)
• Lecture handouts, presentations, and other materials prepared for the course (e.g., PowerPoint slides)
• Questions or solution sets from various types of assessments (e.g., assignments, quizzes, tests, final exams), and
• Work protected by copyright (e.g., any work authored by the instructor or TA or used by the instructor or TA with permission of the copyright owner).
• All source code written by the instructor and provided in lecture, as starter code for an assignment, or in a sample code repository.

Course materials and the intellectual property contained therein, are used to enhance a student’s educational experience. However, sharing this intellectual property without the intellectual property owner’s permission is a violation of intellectual property rights. For this reason, it is necessary to ask the instructor, TA and/or the University of Waterloo for permission before uploading and sharing the intellectual property of others online (e.g., to an online repository). Permission from an instructor, TA or the University is also necessary before sharing the intellectual property of others from completed courses with students taking the same/similar courses in subsequent terms/years. In many cases, instructors might be happy to allow distribution of certain materials. However, doing so without expressed permission is considered a violation of intellectual property rights.