Internet Use for Homework Assignments

Use of the Internet as a Research Tool

In today’s digital age, the internet is an invaluable resource for research, learning, and collaboration. While I encourage students to harness this tool, it’s imperative that they use it ethically and responsibly. The purpose of this policy is to provide guidelines for acceptable internet use during homework assignments and guidelines on citations to be included. Students are permitted to use the internet as a supplementary tool for homework assistance. Websites, online forums, and educational platforms can be consulted for better understanding and clarity of topics. When in doubt about the appropriateness of a website or source, students should ask Dr. Munch or our TA.

Citing Sources

Each homework assignment has an entry spot for giving information on sources and who you worked with. Please note that I very much encourage collaboration and the use of the internet. However, it is important that you include these in your citation section as failing to cite a source is considered plagiarism, which is a serious offense.

For example, in writing this policy, I used ChatGPT to generate a first draft. Here is how I might cite that if I was turning it in as a homework.

I used ChatGPT to generate a first draft of my policy which I then edited for clarity and to add or remove portions relevant to our classroom. The prompt I used for this was:

“Write a draft of a classroom policy for using the internet on homework assignments. I want to make it ok to search the internet for help so long as they cite their sources, but situations where they direct copy verbatim from someplace like chegg are unacceptable.”

Similarly, I discussed this particular policy with our TA who gave me feedback on the policy and helped me with additional revisions. In this case, I would write something like.

In the course of writing this policy, I discussed the content with Rachel Roca, who both gave me feedback and helped me with edits.

If Rachel was also turning in this assignment, she might additionally mention me on her homework. The main important thing is that we were discussing and helping revise each other’s content, but we were not directly submitting copy-pasted versions of the other’s work.

In addition, it is often helpful, both for us and for you when you’re reading your code later, to include citations and links to sources as comments within code blocks.

If a student uses any information, data, graphics, or any other material from the internet, it must be properly cited. Citations should include the author (if available), title of the source, website address, and the date accessed. Where applicable, it should include what you were using it for (e.g. “I used stack exchange to help with figure plotting”) or what prompts were used to generate (e.g. the chatGPT example I provided above). Failing to cite a source as well as directly copying no matter the source is considered plagiarism, which is a serious offense.

Prohibited Actions

Directly copying and pasting content from any source, including websites like Chegg, without paraphrasing or adding one’s own insights is strictly prohibited. Using paid services to complete homework or gain answers is also considered a breach of this policy. Sharing login information or pooling resources to access paid content or answers is not allowed.

My litmus tests

Here are two ways I might think about your particular case and whether or not it would be a breach of the internet use policy.

The real-job-test

You have a job at XYZ, Inc. At this company, in your data science role, someone asked you to do the task in my homework problem. However, because this is a question in a company and not one from a text book, answers to a verbatim version of this question are not already on the internet. Perhaps there are related ideas, similar code, or helpful tutorials. In these cases, the sorts of hits that might come up on Google are likely going to be ones that could be used in the course of trying to answer the question for your boss.

The can-you-explain-it test

I should be able to ask you a question about what you wrote. You should be able to explain it to me, give examples, and talk through the reasoning in your answer. If this isn’t possible, then you are not using the internet resources in a way that helps your learning, and has a higher chance of being constituted as plagiarism.

Consequences

The policy from the ombuds office is available at this website.