Each homework report receives a numerical score for Contribution (10 points) and Scholarship (5 points).
DATASCI/STATS 531/631 permits and encourages students to take full advantage of all sources, including collaboration, for projects and homeworks. We follow the same principles of transparency and citation of sources that apply in scientific research. Indeed, the midterm and final projects are mini research exercises, complete with peer review. Your midterm and final projects are expected to take advantage of code and ideas from the past projects available online, but it is critical that your own independent contribution is transparently explained.
To make sure that expectations of scholarship are clear, we also emphasize the importance of good scholarship in homeworks. For homework, you can use as many or as few sources as you like, but you are responsible for making clear what sources you used for each part of your homework report, and for being explicit if you used none. The grading scheme is intended to reward homework reports which demonstrate both good scholarship and demonstration that thought was applied beyond the sources used.
A guiding principle in scientific work is that anything that can be attributed to a source should be. You should not appear to take credit for something that you did not work out yourself, and if you don’t supply a source it is implicit that you are claiming intellectual credit for yourself. There is an exception for facts that are already well known to all readers, but good scientific writing uses this exception sparingly.
In academic coursework, there is an additional principle that you should actively assist the grader to evaluate your contribution. Any source you could acknowledge that would accurately diminish your own contribution should be described. Explicitly saying when you did not use sources helps the grader and therefore deserves additional credit. If you say nothing about sources, the grader may start wondering about the difference between absence of evidence and evidence of absence, and may legitimately find room for improvement in the scholarship for your solution.
Getting full credit for good scholarship should be easy. You just have to follow standard scientific practice while being honest, generous, and helpful to the reader. From another perspective, failure to credit sources can amount to plagiarism which can end up having serious consequences for your success in this class.
A source is anything or anyone you consulted (including classmates or office hours or any website you visited) to help you write or check your answers.
(5 points). The howework is explicit about what sources were and were not used. The reader can easily tell which parts of the homework relate to which of the listed sources. This is usually done by citing the source at each point it was used, and listing the full reference at the end of the report. Collaborations can also be mentioned in an acknowledgment section at the end of the report.
(4 points). Sources are explicit, but it is sometimes unclear which parts of the homework relate to which sources. Or, there are some points which could be improved by a suitable reference.
(3 points). Sources are explicit, but no effort is made to describe which parts of the homework relate to which sources. Or, there are many points which could be improved by a suitable reference.
(0 points). Failure to list sources explicitly, even if just to say that none were used. Since credit is assigned for being explicit about sources it is necessary also to be explicit about lack of sources. Otherwise, the grader cannot tell the difference between failure to list sources and the possibility that the work was done entirely independently of the notes, the internet and all colleagues.
If you choose to carry out your homework independently and then check it against your colleagues or internet sources, you should do the following: (i) explain that this was your approach; (ii) explain where you got to by yourself; (iii) explain what changes you made after consulting sources. If done well, this can be a good strategy for homework. If you are transparent about the extent of your own engagement with the problems, and that contribution is small, you may lose points. However, if a major discrepancy is identified between what you say you did and what you actually did, that is an academic integrity issue.
A good report needs to show evidence of contributing beyond the sources used. It should be clear that a good homework report demonstrates a reasonable level of thought and effort concerning the topic under investigation. It is your responsibility to demonstrate to the reader, in a transparent and unambiguous way, evidence that you thought carefully about the problem at hand. The simplest way to do that is (i) think about the problem; (ii) write about what you thought; (iii) include in your writing an explanation of what you have learned from what others have thought and written.
You are permitted to comment on sources (including previous solutions) in your own solutions. This is one way to show an independent contribution.
Directly copied text must be in quotation marks. Directly copied equations must be explicitly referenced to the source. Adapted or paraphrased material take from a source should be referenced. Facts that are already well known to all readers do not need a source: if you know a necessary fact and do not have to look it up, that may indicate that the fact is well known, but it will still help the grader if you explicitly say, for example, ``no source was used for this question.’’
If it becomes clear that your homework or project has benefited substantially from undisclosed sources, that is a serious academic integrity issue. Consequences can be severe.
Scholarship points may be removed retroactively if at some later point it becomes clear that unattributed sources were being used.
For your own protection, you are advised to be careful to acknowledge any interaction with online sources (even a brief read, if you subsequently edit your report). Similarly, acknowledge any discussion with other people which contributes to your report.
If the grader has to carry out detective work to figure out which parts of your report come from what source, then you can expect to lose points for scholarship. Your acknowledgement of sources should be transparent and easy to read. This is usually carried out by listing sources at the end of the homework report and citing them where relevant in the main text. Sources can be references to the notes or the course textbook or the class Piazza site or a Stack Overflow page.
This is standard homework grading except for an additional requirement to demonstrate contribution of original effort beyond any source you use.
(10 points). All solutions are correct. If checked against a source, the homework is explicit about how the individual solution differs from the source and what (if anything) was learned from the source. The student has found a way to show that they contributed beyond any source used. In particular, the two should not look too similar—by consulting a source, you acquire an obligation to differentiate your own work, which could be by adding original material relevant to the question and going beyond the source.
Points are subtracted for each error or omission or failure to explain a contribution beyond the sources used.