Open and Closed Project Policy for CMSC 131

Guidelines for ALL Coding Work

There are a few simple rules that you should keep in mind for all of our coding assignments, regardless of whether they are "open" or "closed":

The word "code" is used to refer to code typed into a file, written down on paper, printed in a book, spoken aloud, or presented as pseudocode.
Under no circumstances may you copy code from another student or from any other source with the only exception being code that we provide for you such as in examples. If you do use code examples provided by us in your project, have a comment in your code citing that source.
Under no circumstances should you be viewing code written by other students in the class.
It is always OK to openly discuss course-wide policies on things like programming style, grading, submissions, etc.

P1-P7: Closed Projects

You should treat a closed project similar to as if it were a take-home exam. However, you may ask for assistance from your instructor or any of the TAs during office hours. You are not to discuss the project with anyone else. This includes other students, your friends, family, etc. You are not allowed to post our code anywhere (this includes places like github).

Lab Coding: Open Projects

Although you should always try to complete as much of an open project as you can on your own, you MAY discuss the implementation details (the "HOW") openly with anyone. However, you must write 100% of the code on your own. Looking directly at another student's code to see how you should do things in any form is forbidden, but on an open project you are free to ask others for ideas on HOW the code is to be written or to look at a section of your code to offer advice on how to proceed in fixing it. REMINDER: This DOES NOT apply to the closed projects.

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