Enabling checks for plagiarism
To ensure that learners produce unique solutions and do not copy someone else's work, use the plagiarism check. In this case, the solution submitted by a learner will be compared with code submitted by other learners earlier. The plagiarism check can detect if a learner's code is too similar to previously submitted code, for example, if the learner has merely renamed variables from another learner's solution. It juxtaposes both solutions, highlights problematic areas, and allows instructors to compare them.
| Information | This feature applies only to manually assessed labs. It informs instructors if there is a likelihood that a learner has copied code from someone else's solution. The system does not determine whether code is plagiarized; it is the instructor assessing the lab who makes that decision. |
To enable it for a lab:
- For the required lab, open CODE.
- Click course-config.json and in the editor pane set the following parameters:
- set the check_for_plagiarism parameter to true.
- in the exclusion_criteria parameter, specify the names of the files to be excluded from the plagiarism check, separated by commas. For example, this could include a file containing instructions or example code that is the same for all learners.
"plagiarism": {
"check_for_plagiarism": true,
"exclusion_criteria": "library.py"
}