Policies

Academic integrity

The University takes academic misconduct very seriously and is committed to ensuring that so far as possible it is detected and dealt with appropriately. Find out more about the University’s official policies around academic misconduct here.

Cheating or plagiarising on assignments, lying about an illness or absence and other forms of academic dishonesty are a breach of trust with classmates and faculty, violate the University policies, and will not be tolerated. Such incidences will result in a 0 grade for all parties involved. Additionally, there may be penalties to your final class grade along with being reported to the School Academic Misconduct Office.

Gen-AI University Guidance

The University strategy is to embrace curiosity and to pursue knowledge. As one of the first to teach and research in the field of Artificial Intelligence over 60 years ago we have set an ambition to be a global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) with integrity.

There is currently a lot of interest in generative AI systems. ChatGPT (by OpenAI) is just one example, but there are others (such as DALLE-2, CoPilot, and Google Bard). It is an exciting area and naturally we want to explore what it can do and learn how to make use of it.

The University position is not to impose a blanket restriction on the use of generative AI, but rather to:

• Emphasise the expectation that assignments should contain students’ own original work;
• Highlight the limitations of generative AI and the dangers of relying on it as a source of information;
• Emphasise the need to acknowledge the use of generative AI where it is (permitted to be) used.

Please check out the Gen-AI guidance for students for further details.

Use of Gen-AI for IDS assignments

This is the expectation for the IDS course assignments (homework, quizzes, and final project).

Homework and quizzes:

• You cannot use GenAI tools to help with substantive parts of this work (e.g. not to help with your coding). Please ensure that you do not input direct exercise questions into the AI prompts.

Final Project:

• You may use generative AI tools for learning purposes, to enhance your understanding and develop your skills independently, similar to how you would use search engines to research information. Avoid copy-pasting genAI output¹.
• You may use GenAI tools to help you organize your thoughts particularly in preparing your writing, but you should not use it in the final wording of your work. In particular, you should not copy-paste entire sentences produced by genAI.

¹ Be aware that relying on GenAI tools for coding or simply copy-pasting their output will limit your ability to really learn and develop your coding skills. If you used a GenAI tool to perform a coding task, make sure you type out the solution (after having fully understood what it does) instead of copy-pasting the output.

Collaboration policy

Only work that is clearly assigned as team work should be completed collaboratively. Individual assignments must be completed individually, you may not directly share or discuss answers / code with anyone other than the instructors and tutors.

You are welcome to discuss the problems in general and ask for advice. Note that this means that if you are working on an individual assignment using GitHub you must set the repository to private.

Sharing / reusing code

I am well aware that a huge volume of code is available on the web to solve any number of problems. Unless I explicitly tell you not to use something the course’s policy is that you may make use of any online resources (e.g. StackOverflow) but you must explicitly cite where you obtained any code you directly use (or use as inspiration). Any recycled code that is discovered and is not explicitly cited will be treated as plagiarism. On individual assignments you may not directly share code with another student in this class, and on team assignments you may not directly share code with another team in this class. You are welcome to discuss the problems together and ask for advice, but you may not send or make use of code from another team.

Late work, extensions, and special circumstances

All work is due on the stated due date. Due dates are there to help guide your pace through the course and they also allow us (the course staff) to return marks and feedback to you in a timely manner. However, sometimes you might not be able to turn in your work on time.

• Late work policy: Some assignments cannot be turned in late and some assignments can be turned in past the deadline with a late penalty:
  • Quizzes: No late work accepted (note that we drop the lowest score of the quizzes, so if you miss one quiz, this can be your dropped score).
  • Homework assignments: Late work accepted up to 4 days past the deadline, or until feedback is given, whichever is sooner (i.e. the Saturday of the week following the deadline, 16:00 UK time), with 5% penalty for each 24 hours late.
  • Project: No late work accepted for the presentation, no late work accepted for the written component.

Please review the official University and School policies here.

• Extensions: According to the new Exceptional Circumstances policy students can apply for an extension (up to 3 times per academic year) and/or exceptional circumstances. You can request an extension for the project write up. Extensions are not granted for quizzes, homework assignments or the project presentation under any circumstances. To request an extension you must visit the Extensions and Special Circumstances website and check out Applying for support there. Note that decisions are made by an external committee, not the course teaching staff, so requests for extensions must go through this form and not through course organisers and tutors.

  The extensions deadline is the same as the late work deadline outlined in the section above.

  The decision to move to 4 day extensions has been made following discussion and agreement between Heads of School around the need for greater consistency, and as a short-term measure whilst the overall Extensions and Special Circumstances Policy continues to be reviewed (within Taught Assessment Regulation (TAR) 28.3).

• Exceptional circumstances: You can think of exceptional circumstances as one level above an extension request, where there is a documented reason why you’re unable to complete any assignment in the course. Exceptional circumstances decisions are made at the end of the semester by an external committee. To request a special circumstances waiver you must visit the Extensions and Special Circumstances website and check out Applying for support there. The Board of Examiners for your programme of study will decide on any action to be taken on accepted applications.

If you’re not sure whether your personal circumstance should be filed under an extension or special circumstances, we recommend you reach out to your Personal Tutor and/or Student Support Officers (studentsupport@maths.ed.ac.uk).

Regrade requests

Regrade requests must be made within one week of when the assignment is returned, and must be typed up and submitted via email to the course organiser. These will be honoured if points were tallied incorrectly, or if your answer is correct but it was marked as incorrect. No regrade will be made to alter the number of points deducted for a mistake. There will be no grade changes after the final project presentations.

Diversity & inclusion

It is my intent that students from all diverse backgrounds and perspectives be well-served by this course, that students' learning needs be addressed both in and out of class, and that the diversity that the students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit. It is my intent to present materials and activities that are respectful of diversity: gender identity, sexuality, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, and culture. Your suggestions are encouraged and appreciated. Please let me know ways to improve the effectiveness of the course for you personally, or for other students or student groups.

Furthermore, I would like to create a learning environment for my students that supports a diversity of thoughts, perspectives and experiences, and honors your identities (including gender identity, sexuality, disability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, and culture.) To help accomplish this:

• If you have a name that differs from those that appear in your official University of Edinburgh records, please let me know!
• If you wish to, please let me know your preferred pronouns.
• If you feel like your performance in the class is being impacted by your experiences outside of class, please don’t hesitate to come and talk with me. I want to be a resource for you. If you prefer to speak with someone outside of the course, your personal tutor is an excellent resource.
• I (like many people) am still in the process of learning about diverse perspectives and identities. If something was said in class (by anyone) that made you feel uncomfortable, please talk to me about it.