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📓 Academic Honesty

Academic honesty at Epicodus is straightforward: show up to class, participate in all classroom activities, and submit your own work on your independent projects. However straightforward our requirements may be, this lesson is meant to go into details about academic honesty at Epicodus and the consequences of being dishonest.

Attendance​

We require every student to attend class and participate in all classroom activities. When a student meets attendance requirements over the course of the program, we know that student has put in the work and is prepared to go onto internships and be successful in their job search.

To be clear about what constitutes attendance dishonesty, we’ve generated a list of examples:

  • Signing in with a pair but working solo, without approval from your teacher.
  • Signing in but being absent from class.
  • Leaving class early without signing out.
  • Having someone sign in or sign out for you.
  • Working on code reviews during classroom hours when pair programming is required.

Students who misrepresent their attendance in any way will be expelled from the program. If you have any concerns about your attendance and meeting requirements, or if you feel like you are behind in your coursework and need extra support, reach out to an Epicodus staff member to discuss your situation.

Independent Projects​

Independent projects are the primary way your instructors can evaluate your coding skills, give you feedback, and help you find areas for improvement. They are also important for helping you discover your coding strengths and weaknesses on your own.

We expect all work on your independent projects to be your own. You cannot copy or look at other students' independent projects. Plagiarism will not help you improve your coding skills and you will be at a disadvantage for finding a job after the program. Future employers aren't going to care about whether you received a certificate from Epicodus. Instead, your skills will be their primary area of focus. Our primary goal is to get you — and your peers — great jobs in the tech field. For that reason, it's necessary to accept the challenges of independent projects so you can improve your skills further and get a job.

If a student copies the work of another student, that student will be expelled.

What Should I Do If I am Struggling?​

We would much rather receive a broken project that's yours than a perfect, complete project that isn't. Give the project your best shot during the required work hours. Over the weekend, find some time to review the material and see if you can get your code to pass objectives. If your code still isn't passing after the weekend, sign up for a meeting with a teacher. We'll be happy to meet with you and help you understand how to refactor your code.

General Guidelines​

Academic dishonesty in code can be a little tougher to define than in academic writing. Developers will often reference other people's work to help them understand how to solve a problem. Here are some guidelines:

What You May Reference​

  • Your own repos from class, including repositories you worked on with your pairs
  • LearnHowToProgram.com
  • Official documentation
  • Stack overflow or other online code resources

When you use any outside reference, be sure you don't simply copy and paste chunks of code. In addition to being plagiarism, copying and pasting code will make it more difficult to understand how the code actually works. Take the time to type it out and make it your own. In the process, you'll become a better coder.

What You May Not Reference​

  • Repos for similar projects created by past or present students (this includes forking repos)
  • Other students' work through screen sharing or VS Live Share

Getting Help​

We know that students sometimes like to get together to discuss code or study. We think that's great! But it can sometimes be tricky to know what crosses the line of academic honesty.

Here's the bottom line: we don't allow students to provide assistance or coaching to other students on their independent projects until the students involved have passed all objectives for that code review.

Instead of getting help from a classmate on your code review directly, you could:

  • Watch videos or read articles together
  • Whiteboard or discuss the content covered for the section
  • Build a new project together that helps deepen your understanding

Summary​

Please make sure that you meet attendance requirements by attending class and participating in all classroom activities. This means that you may not misrepresent your attendance by signing in when you are not in class, or leaving class early without signing out. This also means that you may not solo or work on your code review when you should be pairing.

Please also make sure that the work you submit is your own. This means you may not reference the works of past or present students until both you and the other person have passed the code review. This includes all aspects of your work including READMEs.