Lecture notes for the Introduction to Computer Science I by James Tam

CPSC 231: Assignment Submission Guidelines

Points to keep in mind:

Make sure you read the assignment specifications for each assignment!
All assignments are due at 4 PM on the due dates listed on the course web page.
Unless otherwise noted in the individual assignment specification, the assignment must be completed by running a script in the following fashion described below. Typically this applies to all assignments where you must write program except for the one dealing with number conversions and part of the first assignment that requires you to use a text editor.

At the Unix prompt begin the script session
Display your source code (via the "cat" command)
Compile your program
Run your program (since this is the only opportunity that you have to demonstrate to your marker how your program works make sure that you demonstrate all functions completely).
End the script session
Print out the script in the printers in Math Sciences (via the "lpr" command)
Hand in your assignment in the appropriate drop box (second floor of Math Sciences)

Each assignment should have the following information on the inside cover

Your Name
Your University Identification Number
The course name (CPSC) and number (231)
The Lab that you are registered in
The Assignment Number

Assignments must reflect your individual work - you are not allowed to copy the work of other students. Any suspected cases of cheating must be forwarded onto the Department Head, which may result in penalties such as failing the course or even expulsion from the university.

A few questions and answers to help clarify things:
Q: What exactly constitutes cheating in this course?
A: It is probably similar to what you have seen in other courses. Cheating occurs if you hand in someone else's work as if it were your own (without crediting the other person).

Q: What happens if you include someone else's code and you do credit the other person properly e.g., The code listed below that is used to display the list came from the book "Pascal Programming and Problem Solving" by Leestma and Nyhoff.
A: This will not constitute cheating but since someone else did the work for that section of your assignment you won't get credit for it e.g., if you were supposed to get a letter grade for writing the code to display a list but instead you copied the code to it then you wouldn't get credit for the work because you didn't write it yourself.

Q: What is the difference between getting help from someone vs. cheating?
A: If you describe the algorithm to someone using plain English then you should be okay. If you give your code to friend to use this is not okay, even if your friend says that he or she will only use your solution as a guide in order figure out the answer and "promises" that he or she won't just copy it into their own program.

Okay Not okay

To display the contents of a two-dimensional array onscreen you will need two nested loops and two loop controls: one to keep track of the row that is currently being displayed and one to track the current column value.   Start by initializing the outer loop to the value of the lowest row value and the inner loop to the value of the lowest column value and display that array element. The inner loop will travel along the row from the lowest column value to the highest column value. After the last column has been reached, the outer loop value increases by one which allows the inner loop to traverse the second lowest row. The outer loop will repeat until all the rows have been traversed.   for r := 1 to 10 do
begin
   for c := 1 to 10 do
   begin
      write (arr[r][c]);
   end;
   writeln;
end;

Q: The code that you gave us in lecture or lab would be really handy for our assignments, are we allowed to use it?
A: Yes, just make sure that you indicate where you got it from in your program documentation.

This list of questions only includes things that I thought up as I writing the assignment specifications, if you ever unsure if a particular situation constitutes cheating or not then it is up to you to ask me.