Use plagiarism detection tools such as AntiCutAndPaste and/or MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) to easily discover if any of your students are cheating off of one another.

  • Both MOSS and AntiCutAndPaste catch common plagiarism tactics such as changing variable/ parameter names.
  • AntiCutAndPaste also catches changes in comments, and spacing.
  • MOSS:
    • reports that X% of Student A’s submission is a match for Y% of Student B’s submission.
      • It produces a side-by-side mapping of Student A and Student B’s code, with matching sections highlighted in color.
      • Typically, a potential case of plagiarism will result in over 50% matching, while a non-plagiarism case will be around 10-15% matching.
    • Check out the free MOSS tool for more information.
      • Note from the CS Teaching Tips Team: MOSS is compatible with C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Javascript, Lisp, Scheme, Matlab, and more!
  • AntiCutAndPaste:
    • reports plagiarized lines of code so you don’t have to dig through student files after seeing the report.
    • Check out the free AntiCutAndPaste tool, available for Windows and Linux!
      • Note from the CS Teaching Tips Team: AntiCutAndPaste is compatible with C++, Visual Basic, Delphi, Java, C# and plain text.