Policies

This page contains common CS course policies that all faculty teaching CS courses should follow. Note that this page is written from the perspective of the faculty member (i.e., the faculty member should do ___).

1. Talk About Academic Integrity in the First Class

Please take a few minutes during your first session to explain clearly to students:

• Using AI tools (or any kind of cheating) without permission will lead to an automatic F in the course.
• A formal academic misconduct report will also be filed.
• There are no second chances; this applies whether it happens early or late in the semester.

1. Include It in the Syllabus

Make sure your course syllabus clearly states:

• Whether or not AI tools are allowed (and in what context)
• What counts as academic dishonesty
• What the penalties are (e.g., failing grade, official report)

1. Design Assignments That Encourage Real Learning

Try to create assignments that:

• Require students to think through the course material, not just paste questions into ChatGPT
• Ask for short explanations or reflections along with code
• Pull from class content that may not be handled well by AI tools (make it a little harder for someone to rely entirely on AI without understanding what they are doing)

1. Keep Exams Secure

For exams, we ask that you:

• Hold them in person whenever possible, using pen and paper
• If the exam is online or needs to be submitted to Canvas, please use a Lockdown Browser, and consider quick follow-ups (like asking a few students to explain their answers)
• Do not allow phones, laptops, or any smart devices during the test (This helps make sure students are actually doing the work themselves)

1. Encourage Learning Over Shortcuts

Throughout the term, remind students that:

• Sticking to the material in the course is enough to succeed
• Relying too much on AI now can hurt them later (especially in interviews or real jobs)
• Practicing with their own code or answer, even when it is messy or incomplete, is still the best way to learn

1. What to Do If Someone Cheats

If you discover that a student has used AI or cheated:

• Please report it right away and assign the student an F in the course
• Let the chair know what happened
• Submit an academic misconduct form (we can help with that if needed)

1. Projects

Courses should have students do work that is more than "just" vocab, multiple choice questions, etc. For the majority of courses this will involve programming. For some courses this will be proofs/algorithms, system analysis/design, or other work of this nature. Courses should generally have a number of these types of assignments, with students working on these types of assignments at least half of the weeks in the semester.

1. University policies

Reminder of some key university policies: respond to student questions with 2 business days, submitted work is graded within 2 weeks (though faster is better), syllabus submitted to department chairperson and admin by the first day of lecture, 3 week attendance reporting, interim grades after the 6th week, no exams during study week. Maybe I am missing something here?

1. Interim grades

Interim grades are assigned after the 6th week of class. This means that there should normally be a significant number of assigned and graded work by the end of the 6th week. These should not be all bunched up in the 6th week; normally there should be graded work by the 3rd week of classes (preferably sooner).

1. Online courses -

• Courses that are asynchronous online should have videos for some of the content, normally at least 1/2 as many hours as there would be lecture hours (at least 1/2 of 45 hours for a 3 credit course). Exceptions should be discussed with the support faculty and approved by the chairperson.
• Faculty should respond to student questions within 24 hours during the work week.
• Faculty should be available to meet with students by appointment (and respond promptly to requests).
• Only the following are approved to take CS courses online: distance students, face to face student who needs to take another course that is at the same time as the CS course (and cannot avoid taking both courses in the given term).

1. Face to face courses

• Students in face to face courses are required to take exams in the classroom.