It has been my experience that some students feel that since we don't have exams, they don't have to be concerned about academic dishonesty. So there is no misunderstanding, I am clarifying what constitutes cheating in an internet course. The goal of this course is to teach you how to program in SAS. Part of that process is for you to struggle in figuring out how best to program each assignment. You don't learn much if you wait for your friend to write his/her program, look at it to see how it is done, and then fill in the blanks. You must do your own work, which means deciding the best approach and figuring out how to do it. It is cheating to:

        Copy someone's program--obviously.
        Adapt or paraphrase someone's program, i.e., change the variable names.
        Look at someone's program to see how the problem can be solved, and then write a program following their approach.
        To allow anyone to do any of the above with your programs.

        It is perfectly fine for you to discuss your programs and to get assistance from others, provided you don't look at their completed work, or have them describe their work in detail--let's have no one trying for a loophole ("he read me his program I didn't actually see it"). It is not cheating to:

       Ask someone's advice.
       Ask someone what an error message means.
       Discuss various approaches to solving a problem.
       Show someone a line or two of program and ask an opinion ("Why do you think this won't work?). A line or two means just that!
 
    When in doubt, ask the instructor!
 Copyright Paul E. Spector, All rights reserved, April 6, 2001.