The course-wide rules for late work, extensions, academic integrity and getting help.

Policies and support#

These are Slop University’s course-wide rules for SLOP4700, not a real institution’s policy — they exist so each assessment brief can link to one place instead of restating the same rules three times.

Collaboration and citation#

You may discuss the Engagement Signal Pilot case, the readings and general approaches with classmates. What you submit — your strategy memo, your negotiation log, your Decision Autopsy, your redesign proposal — must be your own analysis in your own words. If a classmate’s observation genuinely shaped your thinking, say so in a line of acknowledgement; it costs you nothing and protects you from an integrity question you didn’t need to have. Cite every reading you rely on, including the case documents themselves when you quote their wording directly. An unattributed idea that turns out to belong to someone else is treated as a citation failure first and escalated only if the pattern repeats.

The Alignment Lab is not an exception#

Everything above applies to the Lab too, with one addition: the formal decision meeting itself is a live, unscripted event, not a script you can prepare in advance with a partner from your role group. Comparing notes on the case facts before role assignment is fine. Coordinating in advance what you will each say in the meeting, or sharing your strategy memo with someone playing another role, defeats the point of the exercise and is treated as a collaboration breach on that assessment.

This does not restrict the Lab’s own required pre-meeting contact window — making a self-initiated contact within the limit described on the Alignment Lab page, exchanging evidence in that contact, or recording a commitment made during it, is the assessment’s own mechanic and is expected, not a breach. What the rule above prohibits is scripting in advance what either side will say, ghost-writing another role’s lines or log entries, or bypassing the contact limit — not the exchange the window is there for.

Absence, deferral and extensions#

Tell your tutor before a session you know you will miss, where that’s possible. The Alignment Lab’s role assignment and pre-meeting contact window both open once, in Week 9’s session — the decision meeting itself happens afterwards, self-arranged by your group within the 48–72 hour window that follows, not inside the Week 9 class. Missing Week 9’s session still means missing your role assignment and the start of your window, which is exactly the case the Alignment Lab page routes to its alternative / structured-async pathway rather than the ordinary async make-up, so if you know in advance you cannot attend that session, contact your tutor at least a week ahead so that pathway can be set up for you rather than improvised on the day. For the two written assessments, a short extension for illness or misadventure is available on request, made before the due date where possible; unrequested late work is accepted but marked down per day late unless an extension was agreed first.

Getting help#

Ask during a session first — most questions about the case, the templates or what a criterion is actually asking for are faster to resolve out loud than by email, and the answer usually helps three other people who had the same question. Outside sessions, email the person whose page lists the relevant responsibility, and allow two working days for a reply. If a response from your tutor doesn’t resolve the issue, the convenor is the escalation point — say in your email that you’ve already asked your tutor and what they said, so the convenor isn’t starting from nothing.