Code of Conduct
All students will adhere to the code of conduct developed by NCSU, which pertains to both academic and non-academic misconduct. Students will also commit to in-person participation, with the exception of valid absences outlined by NCSU’s attendance regulations. Active participation and discussion are expected during lectures. All discussion and questions will take place in good faith with a positive and supportive environment.
Because of the nature of paper discussions and in-class computer activities, make-up work is generally not possible. This is why the lowest paper discussion score and the lowest computer activity score are dropped. Five of each are scheduled, and only your best four in each category count. One missed session, for any reason, costs you nothing. If you need to miss more than one for a documented reason, come talk to me.
This page is the working reference. The full policies, including university requirements, are in the course syllabus on Moodle.
Author contributions
Every group deliverable must carry a statement of author contributions. This applies to the poster first draft, the final print-ready draft, and the poster itself. Hidden authorship is a common source of conflict in research groups, and writing the statement together forces the conversation while there is still time to redistribute work.
Model it on CRediT, the taxonomy journals use. These roles usually apply to a poster:
| Role | What it covers here |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | Choosing the clade and topic, framing the question |
| Investigation | Literature searching, gathering evidence and data |
| Formal analysis | Analysis or synthesis behind a figure or claim |
| Visualization | Figures, trees, maps; poster layout |
| Writing – original draft | Producing the first version of the text |
| Writing – review & editing | Critical revision of someone else’s text |
| Project administration | Coordinating the team, deadlines, submission |
Add other CRediT roles if they apply. Every team member must appear, and every role performed should be attributed to someone.
Every member must read the statement and agree it is accurate before you submit. If your team cannot agree, come talk to me before the deadline. A statement that omits a contributor, or credits someone who did not contribute, is handled under the academic integrity policy; a missing statement makes the submission incomplete.
A short paragraph is enough. On the poster, put it in small text near the acknowledgements; it does not count toward your content.
Author contributions. A.R. and J.M. conceived the poster topic. J.M. and K.O. performed the literature search (Investigation). A.R. carried out the divergence-time analysis (Formal analysis) and produced Figures 2 and 3 (Visualization). K.O. wrote the first draft (Writing – original draft); all authors revised the text (Writing – review & editing). J.M. coordinated deadlines and assembled the final poster (Project administration). All authors have read and agreed to this statement.
Artificial intelligence
AI may assist with language, formatting, and finding literature. It may not stand in for your scientific judgment. The question you choose, the argument you build, the criticisms you anticipate, and the conclusions you draw must be yours. You are responsible for everything you submit, including any error or fabrication introduced by a tool.
These rules follow what funding agencies now require: NSF asks proposers to disclose AI use and holds authors responsible regardless of source, and both NSF and NIH prohibit reviewers from uploading proposals to AI tools.
| Assignment | AI use | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Exams 1–3 | Not permitted | In person, closed-book, no devices. |
| 595 one-pager | Not permitted | One page, and entirely about the idea. Write it yourself. |
| 595 peer review | Not permitted | Never upload a classmate’s unpublished proposal to any tool. You are graded on the review you give. |
| Paper discussions | Not a substitute for reading | Fine for understanding a difficult method while reading; not in place of reading the paper. |
| Poster: Projects 1–4 | Permitted, disclose | Language, structure, and finding literature. Content, interpretation, and figure choices must be the team’s. |
| 595 first draft and final | Permitted, disclose | Content yours, language may be assisted. |
| Computer activities | Not permitted | Write the code yourself. Working through where it breaks is the activity; ask me or your neighbors during class. |
This table covers graded work. How you use AI in your own study time is up to you.
Two rules specific to this course:
- Every citation must be real, retrieved, and read. Language models fabricate references plausibly, producing correct-looking authors, journal, volume, and pages for a paper that does not exist. A citation that does not resolve to the source you describe is treated as a fabrication regardless of how it was produced.
- No AI-generated figures or images. Generated plants invent morphology: wrong phyllotaxy, impossible floral parts, phylogenies with fictional topology. Every figure must come from real data, your own analysis, or a credited published source.
How to disclose. Add a short “AI use” note at the end of your submission, outside any length limit. Name the tool, what you used it for, and at which stage:
AI use. Drafted the introduction outline with ChatGPT (GPT-5), then rewrote it. Used Claude to tighten the methods paragraph. All references retrieved and read; no AI-generated text remains verbatim.
Disclosing never costs you points. Not disclosing is the violation. If you are unsure whether a use is acceptable, ask me first. That question is always welcome.