The computer science department recognizes that sometimes students will desire additional help with understanding course materials and hire outside tutors to help them. The department neither encourages, nor discourages the hiring of tutors. However, this document is designed to provide guidance with the types of things tutors can help with and those that should be avoided due to academic dishonesty issues.
Tutors can help students by explaining course materials in a one-on-one basis, reviewing students’ solutions to sample problems and exams, and answering general questions about programming assignments. However, it is important that tutors do not help write programming assignments or solutions to graded home work assignments. Talking about abstract solutions to problems is generally acceptable. However, if the tutor is writing code or proofs (even on a white board) this crosses the line of academic dishonesty. Likewise a tutor can provide general help with debugging an assignment, but should never directly debug a student’s program. A general rule of thumb is that the nature of the help provided by a tutor should be similar to that provided by an instructor or TA during office hours (just with additional more personal attention).
Generally, tutors are other students who have previously taken the course they are tutoring for and received an “A” in the class. Students and their tutors should negotiate the pay to be provided prior to starting a tutoring relationship. Generally tutors are paid an hourly rate that both parties agree to.
