Writing to the World Wide Web, Spring 1999 academic integrity Student-teacher relationships are built on trust. For example, students must trust that teachers have made appropriate decisions about the structure and content of the courses they teach, and teachers must trust that the assignments which students turn in are their own. Acts which violate this trust undermine the educational process. The Rensselaer Handbook defines various forms of academic dishonesty and procedures for responding to them.
All forms are violations of the trust between students and teachers.
Students should familiarize themselves with this portion of the Rensselaer Handbook and should note that the penalties for plagiarism and other forms of cheating can be quite harsh. Collaboration is permitted on the final project when approved in advance. Collaboration is not permitted on any other assignments. Students are required to provide proper attributions for all borrowed source materials and must respect all stipulations for the use of those materials as provided by their respective authors. Rensselaer has also defined guidelines for appropriate and ethical use of the Institute's computers and network whether on or off campus.