How to Avoid Plagiarism and Exam Violations in AP CSP

Summary

The webinar explains how AP Computer Science Principles students can avoid plagiarism and exam violations while completing the Create performance task. The presenters emphasize that many cases arise from misunderstandings rather than intentional cheating. Because the task is worth 30% of the AP exam score, students should understand the requirements before beginning and keep their work private.

What Counts as Plagiarism or a Violation

• Using someone else’s media, data, information, evidence, or program code without acknowledging its source can be plagiarism.
• The written responses must be each student’s own work and clearly show that student’s understanding. Students should not cite sources in their written responses; any needed attribution belongs in the program code.
• Students may collaborate with another AP CSP student on program code, but they may not collaborate on the video or written responses.
• Students must not submit practice performance tasks or work revised, amended, or corrected by someone other than their collaborative partner.
• A program used as a class example or taken from a public sample cannot simply be submitted as the student’s own work.
• Students affirm that their work is their own when submitting each of the three components: the program code, video, and written responses.

Common Plagiarism Patterns

The presenter describes several forms of plagiarism, from copying entire work to making superficial edits:

• Identity theft: Submitting another person’s whole work and claiming it as one’s own.
• Copycatting: Copying substantial portions of another person’s work, even if only one response is copied.
• Cherry-picking: Keeping the structure and ideas of a sample or another student’s work while swapping a few words, names, values, or details. Using synonyms, reordering code, or making small changes to literal values does not make copied work original.
• Reusing prior work: Copying or repurposing one’s own practice performance task is also prohibited.
• Code imitation: Changing variable names, data sources, or minor code details while retaining the same algorithm is not enough. Students must create meaningful new functionality.

The presenters show examples of identical and lightly edited written responses, as well as code and prose adapted from samples. They stress that even a single plagiarized response can cause the entire Create task to be flagged.

Practical Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

1. Understand the task before starting. Review the directions, guidelines, and scoring materials in advance. Teachers provide at least 12 classroom hours for the task, but students must complete it without teacher assistance.

2. Work independently on the video and written responses. Do not write responses together or share them with a partner for reference. Each student needs to express their own understanding in their own words.

3. Keep reference materials and samples closed while writing. Write responses from your own understanding rather than imitating sample answers, sentence starters, templates, or other students’ work. The rubric may be used to check that a response addresses the task.

4. Make any reused code substantially your own. If starting from existing code, add meaningful new functionality and a new list. A changed data set or renamed variables alone is not sufficient. The new work should provide something specific and original to discuss in the written responses.

5. Cite outside material in the program code. Add comments identifying code that came from a teacher, online source, video, library, or other source. No particular citation style is required; clearly identify what was not written by you and where it came from. Cite data sets that you did not create, such as by including the URL. Do not use externally sourced code in your written responses.

6. Be specific when explaining your program. Avoid generic descriptions or “buzzwords,” especially when explaining how a list manages complexity. Explain what the particular list does in your program and why the program would be different without it.

7. Use different examples and test data from your partner when practical. This can help students produce distinct written explanations. If both partners use the same list or procedure, they still need to write independently and describe their own understanding.

8. Protect your work. The presenters recommend typing directly into the digital portfolio, which keeps the work and revision history together. If using another document, do not share it. Treat the task like a test: prevent others from viewing or copying your responses, and do not publish the project before receiving an AP score.

9. Use inspiration without copying. A student may create a program inspired by a game or another idea, provided the student writes the code independently and does not follow a tutorial or copy code without attribution.

Collaboration and Program Authorship

• A collaborative partner must be another current AP CSP student. A teacher, family member, or student outside the course is not an eligible collaborative partner.
• Students may work alone or collaborate on program code with peers. The presenters recommend keeping groups small enough that every student is actively involved.
• If partners genuinely develop code together from scratch, their program code can be the same and does not need attribution to each other.
• If partners separately write different sections and combine them, they should identify who wrote each section in the code. The presenters advise that both students remain actively involved in the code they later discuss in their own written responses.

What Happens if Plagiarism Is Suspected

• The College Board uses automated and manual checks and may also review reports from teachers.
• A suspected score is placed on hold while the case is investigated. The student receives an email explaining the available options.
• The options described include canceling the score, accepting a zero on the Create performance task, or appealing and providing evidence of authorship.
• An appeal may involve a school investigation, comparison of student work, or a confession from the student who copied. Revision history or a teacher’s support may provide context but does not, by itself, prove originality.
• Students whose work matches a public sample are not offered an appeal, according to the presenter.
• The presenters advise students to use a personal email address for their College Board account so they can receive messages after school access ends.

Speakers and Sources Featured

Speakers

• Crystal Furman — Director for AP Computer Science Principles at the College Board.
• Maureen Reyes — College Board colleague who monitored chat and helped answer questions.

Sources and Materials Mentioned

• AP Computer Science Principles Course and Exam Description, pages 169–171
• AP CSP Student Handout, pages 11–15
• College Board sample program (“Sample D”)
• A plagiarism infographic credited during the presentation to visualcommunicationguy.com
• Public and endorsed-provider samples, discussed as examples students should not copy or use as templates