COLLABORATION GUIDELINES
The basic rule is that you can and should collaborate on non-graded material but that you CANNOT collaborate on any graded material. Collaborating, sharing, comparing answers or any other form of cheating on graded assignments, midterm or the final exam will be treated as an academic honesty issue.
Throughout the class, we encourage you to interact with your fellow students and engage in active discussion about the course. For Quick Questions and Practice Problems you may talk, share, and collaborate as freely as you wish. These problems are here for you to learn from. So, for these ungraded problems you should feel free to:
Discuss the general approach to solving the problem in the Discussion Forum.
Work jointly to come up with general steps for the solution.
Get a hint, or several hints, if you get stuck while solving a problem.
You should still try to work out the details of the solution yourself.
Avoid simply taking someone else’s solution or formula and pasting it in - this defeats the purpose of learning!
For the Graded Assignments, the Mid-Term Exam, and the Final Exam, however, there should be absolutely no collaboration between students. You should NEVER use the discussion forum for any questions, clarifications, or discussions of any problems for grade. You should always use the sc0xhelp@mit.edu email for clarification of any graded element.
The staff will be very proactive in removing posts and replies in the discussion forum that we feel have overstepped the line in terms of collaboration or appropriateness. Students found posting graded questions or solutions will be dealt with directly.