Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!ucsd!ucsbcsl!comdesign!pst
From: pst@comdesign.uucp (Paul Traina)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: looking for cheating detectors
Message-ID: <405@comdesign.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jul 88 22:11:04 GMT
Organization: Network Equipment Technologies, Santa Barbara
Lines: 31

In article <1403@sbcs.sunysb.edu> paco@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Francisco J Romero) writes:
>
>  I am looking for a program which detects similarities between/among C 
>  programs, and can be used to detect cheaters.  I am just too busy and
> 	...

Having been on both sides (student/grader),  it the long run, I felt that
if the student could hide his program enough so that a human couldn't
figure it out, he's won the game.

A copy-discovery program is incredibly complex and quite easy to fool.
If you were at the latest USENIX, you saw the presentation on SPIFF and
how difficult that sort of context-diff program was to develop.

*Commentary*	Let them cheat.  If they're smart & learn, it's no big
		deal.  If they're stupid, they'll blow their final and
		they won't do well in courses that build upon the
		material presented in your course.

I will assume that you are teaching a large freshman class, otherwise you'd
know that it would take more time to compare "diff" listings than just
remember-as-you-go-along-grading.  Since you are teaching a large freshman
class (data structures maybe?) you'd realize that their programs are so
simple it's almost impossible not to have two programs constructed in
just the same way with just the same algorithms.

-- 
Paul Traina	- {uunet|pyramid}!comdesign!pst - comdesign!pst@pyramid.com

To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all
men,  that is genius.