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Policies

Changes to the Syllabus​

I am here to help you learn, and I want to make sure we achieve the expected learning outcomes in this course. To do this, I may have to make some changes to the syllabus—for instance, if it becomes clear that we need to spend more time on some topic. I’ll do my best to honor the syllabus as is, and I’ll be sure to let you know about any changes as far in advance as possible.

Accommodations​

If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please visit the Student Disability Services website for details about the accommodations process. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. You are also welcome to contact me privately to discuss your academic needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.

Attendance and Participation​

Attendance is required in all class and lab sessions and participation is heavily encouraged. Please see the Assignments and Grading section for more details. If you are unable to attend two or more classes, either consecutively or in the semester, due to a medical illness, Swarthmore College’s medical excuse policy asks that you visit the Worth Health Center if you would like them to contact your Student Dean with corroborating medical information. If you have any questions regarding the dean’s note process, please feel free to talk with our medical staff by calling 610-328-8058.

If you are sick or feeling unwell...​

In the spirit ofwellbeing and fostering independent and adult decision making, a student may decide on their own that the absence is necessary due to their illness or injury. If you're sick, please don't come to class. I want you to recover quickly and to minimize getting other people sick. If you decide to come to class and have a respirtory illness, consider wearing a mask.

If you will be missing class, you should still email me, before your absence (if you can) or once you are feeling better. You can miss up to two days of class without a note from the Dean's Office or any other documentation. We can set up a meeting to discuss how to make up for missed classes and assignments or if it would be more appropriate for you to consider withdrawing from the course.

However, if you have a prolonged illness that prevents you from attending class, please let me know and work with your Student Dean to get a note from the Worth Health Center or your healthcare provider.

Academic Honesty and Integrity​

I believe we all have the capacity to be just and honest people. Without these virtues, how can we ever expect the world to be a better place for everyone? Sometimes you’ve taken on more work than you should have, or maybe you’re stumped by the solution to a problem. When that happens, you may be tempted to take a shortcut — to copy someone else’s work, to find a solution online, or to share your work with someone else. Doing so harms your own and others’ learning process and is not fair to your fellow classmates who put in the hard work.

I am here to help you if you are struggling, but also know that the Computer Science Department and Swarthmore College have a set of policies that I, as an instructor, must abide by:

Academic honesty is required in all your work. Under no circumstances may you hand in work done with or by someone else under your own name. Discussing ideas and approaches to problems with others on a general level is encouraged, but you should never share your solutions with anyone else nor allow others to share solutions with you. You may not examine solutions belonging to someone else, nor may you let anyone else look at or make a copy of your solutions. This includes, but is not limited to, obtaining solutions from students who previously took the course or solutions that can be found online.

You may not share information about your solution in such a manner that a student could reconstruct your solution in a meaningful way (such as by dictation, providing a detailed outline, or discussing specific aspects of the solution). You may not share your solutions even after the due date of the assignment. The one exception to the above rules is when group work is explicitly allowed, in which case you may share solutions only with those in your group.

In your solutions, you are permitted to include material which was distributed in class, material which is found in the course textbook, and material developed by or with an assigned partner. In these cases, you should always include detailed comments indicating on which parts of the assignment you received help and what your sources were.

When working on tests, exams, or similar assessments, you are not permitted to communicate with anyone about the exam during the entire examination period (even if you have already submitted your work). You are not permitted to use any resources to complete the exam other than those explicitly permitted by course policy. (For instance, you may not look at the course website during the exam unless explicitly permitted by the instructor when the exam is distributed.)

Failure to abide by these rules constitutes academic dishonesty and will lead to a hearing of the College Judiciary Committee. According to the Faculty Handbook:

"Because plagiarism is considered to be so serious a transgression, it is the opinion of the faculty that for the first offense, failure in the course and, as appropriate, suspension for a semester or deprivation of the degree in that year is suitable; for a second offense, the penalty should normally be expulsion."

This policy applies to all course work, including but not limited to code, written solutions (e.g. proofs, analyses, reports, etc.), exams, and so on. This is not meant to be an enumeration of all possible violations; students are responsible for seeking clarification if there is any doubt about the level of permissible communication.

The general ethos of this policy is that actions which shortcut the learning process are forbidden while actions which promote learning are encouraged. Studying lecture materials together, for example, provides an additional avenue for learning and is encouraged. Using a classmate’s solution, however, is prohibited because it avoids the learning process entirely. If you have any questions about what is or is not permissible, please contact your instructor.

Using AI Tools​

We’re living at an exciting time. A plethora of exciting AI tools have been released in recent years, including Grammarly, Canva, ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Bard, Meta’s LLaMA, and many more. Clearly these tools have the capacity to support human knowledge, work and creativity. However, these tools are not magic, and they have many limitations. In this class, you may choose to use AI tools to support your work. Doing so responsibly and thoughtfully is a way to increase your learning; but using them haphazardly may actually undermine your learning. If you use an AI tool in your work in this course, you must:

  1. Explain which parts of the work came from you and which from the AI tool, and acknowledge the human labor that went into developing the AI tool you used. If you use AI-generated content or ideas, please don’t claim credit for them. AI models are trained on the work of thousands — if not millions — of under- or unpaid writers and artists, and further refined by crowd/gig workers. By crediting the AI tool and acknowledging the underlying human labor you are, at least to some extent, giving credit where it is due, just as you would want someone to credit you if they used your work later on. An acknowledgement is hopefully a small step towards addressing its extractive practices.
  2. Explain how the AI tool helped improve the quality and/or creativity of your work. Remember that AI models can only reproduce the past, and can’t imagine new possibilities, whereas humans can. Leverage AI tools as a starting point for your creative process, not an end point. It may even be helpful to spend time generating ideas on your own before allowing your imagination to be directed by the AI tools. If you allow yourself to rely too much on AI tools, you may limit your future self from developing the skills (and neural pathways) needed to be creative on your own: generating new ideas, synthesizing disparate ideas, writing compelling text, and designing other types of content. Strive for AI to be a partner, not a crutch^.
  3. Fact check any claims you included from AI tools, and cite any primary/original sources. Remember that AI is not magic. AI-generated content is frequently factually incorrect and often misleading because of inherent limitations in how these models are designed and currently work. Of particular note, generative AI systems often “hallucinate” claims and sources that are false or do not exist. Again, do not use AI-generated output as an endpoint.

Speaking of attribution, these ideas were developed in discussion with Dr. Tim Gorichanaz at Drexel University and inspired by Dr. Cori Faklaris’ blog post. I’ve also written a more detailed blog post on my philosophy regarding the use of AI tools.

Note: The policy for using AI tools in other courses within the Computer Science Department — especially for CPSC 21, 31, and 35 — are more restrictive. Speak to the instructor about their policy on the use of AI tools.

^ Though this is a useful analogy meant to warn against overreliance, I want to acknowledge that it is an ableist term. I am working on finding a better analogy. Email me if you have any suggestions.

Adding, Dropping, or Withdrawing from the Course​

If you are considering whether to continue your enrollment in the course, please refer to the Course Add/Drop Policy (by the 2nd week of the semester, February 7, 2025) and the Course Withdrawal Policy (by the 9th week of the semester, ~March 17, 2025).