6.5930/1 Hardware Architecture for Deep Learning

We encourage students to discuss assignments in this subject with other students and with the teaching staff to better understand the concepts. However, it's also critical for your individual learning to be sure you devote concentrated independent effort to solving all the problems.

This page is designed to give you a sense of what kind of interactions are allowed, and which are not, when working on 6.5930/1 coursework. The policies below are in place in order to help with our primary goal for the exercises and homework, (i.e., that you deepen your understanding of the course materials by working through them).

1) All Assignments: Sharing of Work

Regardless of the assignment, you should never use results from other students, nor from the staff (from this year or from previous years). You should not take credit for computer code or graphics that were generated by other students.

In addition, students should never share their solutions (or staff solutions) with other students, including through public code repositories such as Github.

2) Labs

You are expected to give your best effort and work as far as you can on your own for every question before asking for help or using other resources.

If you are still stuck on a problem, you may talk about the question with a TA staff, but all exchanges of information should be general in nature. See the sample interactions below for examples of what is considered okay, and what is inappropriate.

After having received help on a question and reaching a solution, you should wait a day or so, and then try to work through the questions again from scratch on your own.

3) Consequences

Incidents of plagiarism will result in a grade of zero on the assignment and, at the discretion of the staff, may be reported to the Committee on Discipline (COD). More information about what constitutes plagiarism can be found at http://integrity.mit.edu/.

4) Sample Interactions

OKAY! - After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa asks Ben a leading question that helps him discover a reasonable next step to take when solving the problem.

OKAY! - After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa talks Ben through some key ideas using a separate but related example problem. Ben then tries to apply these ideas to the problem he was stuck on.

NOT OKAY - Alyssa notices that Ben is struggling with a problem, so she gives him her answer and explains to him how she arrived at it.

NOT OKAY - After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help, and she explains that it is easy: you just take equation 3.12 from this book, insert equations 2.5 and 3.2, integrate, and you should get the right answer!

NOT OKAY - After trying a question on his own, Ben asks Alyssa for help. Alyssa describes in detail the steps she took to solve the problem.

NOT OKAY - Bob has access to a "bible" of 6.5930/1 answers, which he consults when he gets stuck.

OKAY! - After having made reasonable efforts individually, Alyssa and Ben talk in general terms about different approaches to doing a problem. They draw diagrams on a whiteboard. When Alyssa discovers a useful Timeloop command, she mentions it to Ben. When Ben makes an observation about Accelergy, he shares it with Alyssa.

NOT OKAY - As Alyssa and Ben type lines of code, they speak the code aloud to the other person, to make sure they both have the right code.

or...

NOT OKAY - As Alyssa and Ben each solve a problem, they speak aloud the steps they are taking, to make sure they are both following the right steps.

NOT OKAY - In a tricky part of the lab, Alyssa and Ben look at each other's screens and compare them so that they can get their code right.

OKAY! - After they have both solved a question, Alyssa and Ben talk in detail about the approaches they took, and the relative merits/drawbacks of each.

NOT OKAY - Alyssa and Ben sit down to work on a homework set together. They decide to divide up the problems: Alyssa will work through the even-numbered problems, and Ben the odd-numbered ones. When they are done, they will discuss their work with each-other so that each has a complete solution.

Scenario: Louis had a very busy week, and he has made almost no progress on the week's homework. Ben wants to help.

OKAY! - Ben works near Louis and answers his questions when they come up, after Louis has made a reasonable effort.

NOT OKAY - Ben has been helping Louis for a while, but he needs to get back to his own work. He gives his code to Louis, after Louis promises only to look at it when he really has to.

Collaboration Policy

1) All Assignments: Sharing of Work

2) Labs

3) Consequences

4) Sample Interactions