The Effectiveness of Low-Level Structure-based Approach Toward Source Code Plagiarism Level Taxonomy

Low-level approach is a novel way to detect source code plagiarism. Such approach is proven to be effective when compared to baseline approach (i.e., an approach which relies on source code token subsequence matching) in controlled environment. We evaluate the effectiveness of state of the art in low-level approach based on Faidhi \& Robinson's plagiarism level taxonomy; real plagiarism cases are employed as dataset in this work. Our evaluation shows that state of the art in low-level approach is effective to handle most plagiarism attacks. Further, it also outperforms its predecessor and baseline approach in most plagiarism levels.Comment: The 6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technolog

Dynamic Thresholding Mechanisms for IR-Based Filtering in Efficient Source Code Plagiarism Detection

To solve time inefficiency issue, only potential pairs are compared in string-matching-based source code plagiarism detection; wherein potentiality is defined through a fast-yet-order-insensitive similarity measurement (adapted from Information Retrieval) and only pairs which similarity degrees are higher or equal to a particular threshold is selected. Defining such threshold is not a trivial task considering the threshold should lead to high efficiency improvement and low effectiveness reduction (if it is unavoidable). This paper proposes two thresholding mechanisms---namely range-based and pair-count-based mechanism---that dynamically tune the threshold based on the distribution of resulted similarity degrees. According to our evaluation, both mechanisms are more practical to be used than manual threshold assignment since they are more proportional to efficiency improvement and effectiveness reduction.Comment: The 2018 International Conference on Advanced Computer Science and Information Systems (ICACSIS

An Observational Analysis of the Range and Extent of Contract Cheating from Online Courses Found on Agency Websites

Although online courses can provide access to higher education through e-learning systems which would not otherwise be available for students, they also pose challenges for academic integrity. Paramount to this is contract cheating, where students have been observed paying other people to complete work for them to complete their online courses. This paper analyses attempts by students at contract cheating using Transtutors.com, which is a billed as a site for homework support. A sample of 174 online assignments found on Transtutors.com are analysed and traced back to 17 online universities. Assignments from online institutions are demonstrated to be a particular problem for contract cheating detectives, since notifying staff at those institutions of attempts by their students to cheat has proved to be difficult or impossible. The paper concludes by looking at the wider issues posed by online contract cheating and the opportunities for automated detection within this field

An Initial Analysis of the Contextual Information Available within Auction Posts on Contract Cheating Agency Websites

The advantages of using contextual information in order to detect contract cheating attempts by students have not yet been fully explored in the academic literature. Contract cheating occurs when a student uses a third party to produce assessed work for them. This paper focuses on contract cheating using agency websites, where an auction type process is used by students to select a contractor to have the assessed work produced for them, often at a financially advantageous price. Currently, the process of finding contract cheating on agency sites is manually intensive, with a detective required to investigate and attribute each cheating attempt. This paper aims to formally identify the context internally and externally available for contract cheating posts on an agency website. The paper is offered as a starting point for academics interested in producing an automated intelligent contextually-aware tool to detect contract cheating

Software Piracy Forensics: Impact and Implications of Post‐Piracy Modifications

Piracy is potentially possible at any stage of the lifetime of the software. In a post-piracy situation, however, the growth of the respective versions of the software (both the original and pirated) is expected to be in different directions as a result of expectedly different implementation strategies. This paper shows how such post-piracy modifications are of special interest to a cyber crime expert investigating software piracy and suggests that the present software piracy forensic (or software copyright infringement investigation) approaches require amendments to take in such modifications. For this purpose, the paper also presents a format that is jargon-free, so as to present the findings in a more intelligible form to the judicial authorities. Keywords: Piracy, post-piracy modifications, software piracy, source code, copyright, software copyright infringement, software piracy forensics, database forensics, MIS forensics, AFC, SCAP, technical expert, substantial similarity test, CDA

Tools and Environments

Teaching and learning how to build software are central aspects of computing education, and the tools which we use to support this are themselves a focus of research and innovation. This chapter considers tools designed or predominately used for education; from software development environments to automatic assessment tools, visualization, and educational games platforms. It looks at not just the history and state-of-the-art of these tools, but also at the challenges and opportunities in researching with and about them