Palestine Polytechnic University

College of Administrative Sciences and Informatics

Department of Information Technology

Plagiarism Detection System

Aya Ahmad Abu Sabha

Nehad Ameen Hroub
Sabreen Faris Smeirat

Supervisor
Eng. Hani Salah

A final project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the bachelor degree in information technology

June 2010
 Acknowledgment
The team members advance deep thanks to their dear supervisor
Eng. Hani Salah

The team advances deep thanks to the Friends of Fawzi Kawash IT

Center of Excellence (FFKITCE) for their support and help

To our dear teachers, friends, and everybody helped us… we can

only say … Thank You …

Project team

II
 Dedication
To our parents for their support and encouragement all the time
To the supervisor of the project Eng. Hani Salah
To all our teachers and friends.

Project team

III
 ‫الملخص‬

‫االَتحبل فً واجببث انطهبت هً يشكهت راث َطبق واعغ ويتضاٌذة فً انًشاحم األكبدًٌٍت‪ .‬أٌ ػًهٍت‬
‫انكشف ػٍ االَتحبل بىاعطت اإلَغبٌ هً ػًهٍت بطٍئت وغٍش يىثىلت‪ .‬نزنك عٍتى فً هزا انًششوع‬
‫بُبء َظبو يحىعب ٌؼتًذ ػهى انىٌب نكشف حبالث االَتحبل حتى ٌتًكٍ انًذسعىٌ فً انجبيؼبث‬
‫يٍ ػًم كشف نالَتحبل بطشٌمت أعشع وأكثش دلت ويىثىلٍت‪.‬‬

‫ٌىجذ انؼذٌذ يٍ انخىاسصيٍبث نكشف االَتحبل‪ ,‬نزنك تى دساعت هزا انخىاسصيٍبث‪ ,‬واختٍبس أحذهب‬
‫كأعبط نتصًٍى وتُفٍز هزا انُظبو نًمبسَت انىاجببث انتً ٌغهًهب انطهبت ػهى يىلغ انتؼهٍى‬
‫االنكتشوًَ انًغتخذو فً جبيؼت بىنٍتكُك فهغطٍٍ‪ ,‬وإخشاج تمبسٌش تفٍذ بىجىد حبالث االَتحبل‬
‫‪,‬ونمذ تى اعتخذاو دوسة حٍبة تطىس االَظًت (‪ )SDLC‬كًُهجٍت يؼتًذة نبُبء انُظبو‪.‬‬

‫وعٍتى تطبٍك هزا انُظبو ػهى يىلغ انتؼهٍى االنكتشوًَ فً جبيؼت بىنٍتكُك فهغطٍٍ (يىودل)‪,‬‬
‫ببعتخذاو نغت ‪ PHP‬انًغتخذيت فً بشيجت َظبو يىودل‪.‬‬

‫يغ انؼهى بىجىد أَظًت تمىو بُفظ ػًم َظبو هزا انًششوع‪ ,‬إال أٌ هزِ األَظًت (انبشيجٍبث) غٍش‬
‫بشكم يفتىح‬ ‫يجبٍَت وغٍش يفتىحت انًصذس‪ ,‬بؼكظ انُظبو انًمذو فً هزا انتمشٌش وانزي عٍىصع‬
‫انًصذس‪.‬‬

‫‪IV‬‬
 Abstract

The plagiarism in student assignments is a widespread and growing problem in the

academic process. The traditional manual detection of this kind of plagiarism by human is
difficult, not accurate, and time consuming process. This project aims to create an online
web-based plagiarism-detection system that can help university teachers to make a better
judgment for student's work.

There is currently a number of existing detection algorithms. Some of them have been
studied, analyzed, and compared. Based on this analysis and comparison, the most suitable
one for our system (namely: AC) has been chosen for the implementation phase. Our
system will reuse the selected algorithm, and integrate it to the E-learning platform that is
used at PPU (namely: Moodle). The algorithm has been reprogrammed by PHP (the
language used in Moodle programming), in this project we will use System Development
Life Cycle (SDLC) as a methodology to implement this system.

Given that, there are already some existing systems (software) for plagiarism detection, but
they are all not free and not open-source. On the other hand, the system that is presented in
this report is free to use, integrateable with Moodle, and open-source.

V
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT II
DEDICATION III
DELARATION IV
‫الملخص‬ V
ABSTRACT V
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT 2
1.2 PROJECT OBJECTIVE 2
1.3 PROJECT GOALS 2
1.5.1 Functional Requirements 4
1.5.2 Non-Functional Requirements 4
1.6 TIME SCHEDULE / GANTT CHART 4
1.7 THE RISKS 6
CHAPTER TWO BACKGROUND 9
2.1 PHP 10
2.1.1 Advantages of PHP 10
2.1.2 Why PHP 10
2.2 MOODLE 10
2.2.1 Moodle Usage 10
2.2.2 Moodle Management 10
2.2.3 Assignments in Module 11
2.3 EXISTING CHEATING DETECTION ALGORITHMS AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE 11
2.3.1 Attribute-Counting Systems 11
2.3.2 Structure-metric Systems 12
2.4 CONCLUSIONS 18
CHAPTER THREE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 23
3.1 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 24
3.1.1 Functional Requirements 24
3.1.2 Non-Functional Requirements 24
3.2 FEASIBILITY STUDY 24
3.2.1 Development Requirements 25
3.2.2 Operational Requirement 26
3.2.3 Total cost 27
CHAPTER FOUR SYSTEM SPECIFICATION 28
4.1 USE CASE 29
4.2 CLASS DIAGRAM 30
4.3 OBJECT DIAGRAM 31
4.4 SEQUENCE DIAGRAM 31
4.5 COLLABORATION DIAGRAM 33
4.6 STATE DIAGRAM 34
4.7ACTIVITY DIAGRAM 36
VI
CHAPTER FIVE DESIGN 38
5.1 DATABASE DESIGN 39
5.2 INTERFACE DESIGN 40
5.3 FLOWCHARTS 44
CHAPTER SIX IMPLEMENTATION 46
6.1 INSTALLATION ENVIRONMENT 47
6.2 SERVER INFORMATION AND CONFIGURATION 53
6.3 DEPLOYMENT TIERS 53
CHAPTER SEVEN TESTING 59
7.1 SYSTEM UNIT AND MODULE TESTING 57
7.2 INTEGRATION TESTING 58
7.3 SYSTEM TESTING 58
7.4 ACCEPTANCE TESTING 58
7.5 INTERFACE TESTING 59
CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLOUSIONS 68
8.1 CONCLUSIONS 67
8.2 DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK 67
REFERENCES 69
FIGURE REFERENCES 70
APPENDICES 71

VII
 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure (1): SIM Example-Student Program Pairs ........................................................ 13
Figure (2): SID Phases ................................................................................................ 15
Figure(3): Parsing Steps ............................................................................................. 16
Figure (4): Use Case ................................................................................................... 29
Figure (5): Class Diagram. .......................................................................................... 30
Figure (6): Object Diagram......................................................................................... 31
Figure (7): Teacher Sequance Diagram ....................................................................... 32
Figure (8): Student Sequence Diagram ....................................................................... 33
Figure (9): Teacher Collaboration Diagram ................................................................ 33
Figure (10): Student Collaboration Diagram ............................................................... 34
Figure (11): Teacher State Diagram ............................................................................ 34
Figure (12): Student State Diagram............................................................................. 35
Figure (13): Teacher Activity Diagram ....................................................................... 36
Figure (14): Student Activity Diagram ........................................................................ 37
Figure (15): Login Form. ............................................................................................ 40
Figure (16): Select Course. ......................................................................................... 40
Figure (17): Select Assignment ................................................................................... 40
Figure (18): Submit Assignment. ................................................................................ 41
Figure (19): View Submitted Assignment. .................................................................. 41
Figure (20): Submitted Assignment ............................................................................ 42
Figure (21): plagiarism detection button. .................................................................... 43
Figure (22): Comparison Result. ................................................................................. 43
Figure(23): student operation. ..................................................................................... 44
Figure (24): Teacher Operation. .................................................................................. 45
Figure (25): Start Moodel . ......................................................................................... 48
Figure (26): Choose Language. ................................................................................... 45
Figure (27):Checking PHP Setting. ............................................................................. 45
Figure (28): Confirm the Location of Moodel. ............................................................ 50
Figure (29): Confirm Database Setting........................................................................ 51
Figure (30): Server Checks. ........................................................................................ 52
Figure (31): Language Pack. ....................................................................................... 53
Figure (32):GPL License. ........................................................................................... 54
Figure(33): Setting the Database. ................................................................................ 55
Figure(34):Setup Administrator Account. ................................................................... 56
Figure (35): Three-Tier System .................................................................................. 54
Figure (36): Three-Tier Class Diagram ....................................................................... 55
Figure(37): Login Form. ............................................................................................. 62
Figure(38): Login to the Site....................................................................................... 63
Figure(39): Main Page. ............................................................................................... 64
Figure(40): Select the Course From The Main Page. ................................................... 64
Figure(41): Select the Assignment . ............................................................................ 65
Figure(42): The Main Page of the Assignment. ........................................................... 66
Figure(43): Submission Page. ..................................................................................... 67
Figure(44): Similarity Page. ........................................................................................ 68
Figure(45): Visual Report. .......................................................................................... 69
Figure(46): Save as Excel Sheet or Word Document. .................................................. 70

VIII
 LIST OF TABLES

Table(1): Gant Chart 1 (First Semester: October 2009 - December 2009) .................... 4
Table(2): Gant Chart 2 (Second Semester: February 2010 –May 2010) ........................ 5
Table (3): Expected Risks ............................................................................................ 6
Table (4): Effects and Responsibilities ......................................................................... 7
Table (5): Algorithms Comparing .............................................................................. 19
Table (6): Result Display ........................................................................................... 21
Table (7): Hardware Development Resources and Costs ............................................ 25
Table (8): Software Development Resources and Costs ............................................. 25
Table (9): Operational Hardware Resources and Costs............................................... 26
Table (10): Operational Software Resources and Costs .............................................. 26
Table (11): Total Cost................................................................................................ 27
Table (12): Assignment Table .................................................................................... 39
Table (13): Context Table .......................................................................................... 39
Table (14): User Table ............................................................................................... 39
Table (15): Shows Some Problems to be Tested Teacher Object ................................ 57

IX
 Chapter One
Introduction

1.1 Problem Statement

1.2 Project Objective
1.3 Project Goals
1.4 Methodology
1.5 System Requirements
1.5.1 Non-Functional Requirements
1.5.2 Functional Requirements
1.6 Schedule / Gantt Chart
1.7 The Risks
 1.1 Problem Statement
Plagiarism can be defined as "the use or close imitation of the language and
thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work"
[1].

Many students make (intentionally or unintentionally) some type of cheating and

plagiarism in their assignments. Usually it is difficult for teachers to detect plagiarism in
student assignments by hand. The detection process becomes easier, faster and more
efficient if it’s performed automatically (i.e. via a computerized system).

The plagiarism detection "is the processes of locating instance of plagiarism

within a document wither its text or code" [2]. Detection can be either manual or
computer-assisted. Manual detection requires effort, and it is impractical in cases where
many documents to be compared.

Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) is an open

source Course Management System (CMS) , it's used by educators as a dynamic web
site for their students; it's best tool to manage learning. Moodle can support large
deployments and hundreds of thousands of students, so it can be used for schools. It can
be used to conduct fully online courses while others used it to augment face-to-face
courses. Some teachers use Moodle to deliver material to students, assignments and
quizzes, that makes learning more richly and collaborative.

1.2 Project Objective

The main goal of the project is to create an online plagiarism detection system that
can be used by teachers at Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU) to detect cheating
and plagiarism cases in student submitted assignments. The system should be integrated
with the e-learning platform that is currently used at PPU (namely: Moodle).

1.3 Project Goals

The project objective mentioned in Section 1.2 can be achieved by specifying the
following goals:
1. Studying, analyzing, and comparing existing open-source plagiarism detection
software and algorithms.

2
 2. Picking one of the analyzed algorithms to be used in this system, or designing a
new one from the scratch. This goal includes coding the algorithm using PHP (the
programming language used in Moodle).
3. Integrating the plagiarism-detection code in the existing PPU e-learning platform
(Moodle).

Based on the goals stated above, we shall precede breaking down them into
concrete activities, functions, and deliverables as follow:

1. Studying, analyzing, and comparing the existing open-source plagiarism

detection software and their algorithms.
a. Searching for related algorithms and open- source software.
b. Studying and analyzing these algorithms.
c. Comparing the algorithms and identifying their advantages and disadvantages.

2. Picking one of the analyzed algorithms to be used in this system, or designing

a new one from the scratch.
a. Based on the comparison among the analyzed algorithms, the best (most
suitable / adaptable one to the system requirements) will be picked to be
implemented in the system.

3. Integrating the selected algorithm in the PPU e-learning platform (Moodle).

a. Learn the language that is used on construction of the Moodle (namely: PHP).
b. Reprogramming the plagiarism-detection code using PHP, and adding it as a
new feature to Moodle.

1.4 Methodology
The project team will use the traditional method of software engineering,
which called System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), in the analysis, and
development of the system.
We will start by studying, analyzing existing plagiarism system and algorithms,
and comparing between them to choice the best and most suitable one between them
to be uses on the project.

3
 1.5 System Requirements
This section lists both functional and non-functional requirements of the system.
Further details about each requirement will be discussed in Chapter 3.

1.5.1 Functional Requirements

a. Enable teachers to detect plagiarism and cheating in student submitted
assignments.
b. Viewing visually aided cheating (similarity) reports.

1.5.2 Non-Functional Requirements

a. Compatibility.
b. Ease to use.

1.6 Time Schedule / Gantt Chart

To discuss the time schedule of the project, it is best to refer to the Gantt
charts below in Table (1) for the first part of the project and Table (2) for the second
part of the project where the key activities are stated and the time period for their
completion is depicted.
For clearing up, the following is a brief description of the key activities stated
in Table (1) (starting October 1st - December 20th, 2009-12-20)
 Analysis: establishes a high-level view of the project and its goal.
 Requirement specification: presents the functional and non-functional
requirements.
 Design: describes desired features and operation in details.

Table (1): Gantt Chart 1 (First Semester: October 2009 - December 2009)
Key Activities October November December
Analysis

Requirement
specification
Design(Draft)

Documentation

4
Important dates and milestones for 1st semester:
 October 1st: Project plan.
 October 20th: Project outline.
 November 30th: literature review and Background.
 December 10th: Requirement specification.
 December 20th: Design.
 December 24th: Final documentation.

Below is a brief description of key a activities stated in Table (2) (starting

February 1st to may 15th, 2010):
 Programming: coding by PHP.
 Installation: presents more technical details and show the installation
environment.
 Testing: put the system under testing to ensure that it meets the design and
functional requirements.
Table (2): Gantt Chart 2 (Second Semester: February 2010 –May 2010 )
Key Activities February March April May
Design (Final)

Programming

Installation

Testing

Documentation

Important dates and milestones for 2nd semester:

 February 20th: Design.
 March 30th: Programming.
 May 5th: Testing.
 May 25th: Final documentation.

5
1.7 The Risks
During the different phases of this project, some risks may appear and cause
delaying, threaten the progress, or even affecting the outcomes of the project. Table (3)
summarizes the most important expected risk events, access degree of probability (P)
that the risk event happens (represented from 1-5 where five is the most likely), access
degree of effect (E) upon project when it happens (represented from 1-5 where five is
the worst), and the risk index which equal the product (P × E).

Table (3): Expected Risks

No Risk event Probability (P) Effect(E) Risk index (P ×E)
1 Member absence 4 2 8

2 Lack of time / 5 3 15
schedule conflict
between members
3 Equipment 2 5 10
malfunction

4 Loss of data 2 5 10

5 Loss of equipment 2 5 10

6 Unexpected results 2 3 6

7 Communications 2 2 4
problems between
members

8 Installation 3 5 15
problems

6
 Table (4) summarizes the expected effect for each event on the project, action(s)
could be taken for each event, and who is responsible for this action.

Table (4): Effects and Responsibilities

No Risk Effect on the Action Responsibility
project
1 Member absence Delaying Each member ALL
May absence
2 Lack of time / Delaying Try to solve ALL
schedule conflict conflicts as
between possible
members
3 Equipment Delaying/ Periodic ALL
malfunction partial or maintenance
complete and testing and
failure preparing the
damaged part
4 Loss of data Delaying/ Backup ALL
partial or
complete
failure
5 Loss of Delaying/ Provide ALL
equipment partial or enough
complete security
failure To save the
equipment
from theft
6 Unexpected Delaying/ Perform ALL
results partial failure requirement
analysis
carefully right
from the
beginning

7
 Table (4): Cont.
7 Communications Delaying Perform timely ALL
problems meetings ,good
between communication
members

8 Installation Delaying Try to solve ALL

problems the problems
as possible

8
 Chapter Two
Background

2.1 PHP
2.2 Moodle
2.3 Existing Cheating Detection Algorithms and Open
Source Software
2.3.1 Attribute-Counting Systems
2.3.2 Structure-metric Systems
2.3.2.1 SIM
2.3.2.2 MOSS
2.3.2.3 JPlag
2.3.2.4 SID
2.3.2.5 AC
2.3.2.5 Code Match
2.4 Conclusions
 In this project we will presents background about PHP, Moodel and Existing
Cheating Detection Algorithms and Open Source Software.

2.1 PHP
Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) "is a widely-used general-purpose scripting
language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into
html" [3].

2.1.1 Advantages of PHP

1. PHP is a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive Web pages.
2. PHP is a server-side scripting language.
3. PHP supports many database management systems (MySQL, Informix, Oracle,
Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.).
4. PHP is open source software.
5. PHP is free to download and use.

2.1.2 Why PHP

1. PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, UNIX, etc.).
2. PHP is compatible with almost all web servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
3. PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side.
4. PHP is the language used in Moodle programming.

2.2 Moodle
Moodle is "a software package for producing internet-based courses and web
sites. It is an ongoing development project designed to support a social constructionist
framework of education" [4].

2.2.1 Moodle Usage

Moodle is using by a variety of institutions and individuals, including
universities, high and primary schools.

2.2.2 Moodle Management

Moodle is managed by an administrator who is identified during the setup

(default can be edited during setup). The administrator can use the plug-in themes
to customize the site colors, fonts, layout to suit need otherwise plug-in activity

10
 module can be added to Moodle installation. Plug-in language packs allow full
localization to any language. These can be edited using a built-in web based editor.
Currently there are language packs for over 70 languages.

2.2.3 Assignments in Module

 Assignments can be specified with specific date and a maximum grade.

 Students can upload their assignments (using any file format) to the server.
 Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to the
teacher.
 For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and
comment) on one page in one form.
 Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student, and
notification is mailed out.
 The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after grading (for
regarding)
 Advanced assignments can allow multiple files to be uploaded.

2.3 Existing Cheating Detection Algorithms and Open Source

Software
Many algorithms for plagiarism detection systems have already been developed.
This section introduces these algorithms and identifies their features. These algorithms
can be roughly classified into two categories:
1. Attribute-counting Systems.
2. Structure-metric Systems.

2.3.1 Attribute-Counting Systems

This is the earliest type of plagiarism detection algorithms. These systems
measure the level of similarity among assignments pairs, using four simple program
statistics:
 Number of distinct operators.
 Number of distinct operands.
 Total number of operator occurrences, over all distinct types.
 Total number of operand occurrences, over all distinct types

11
2.3.2 Structure-metric Systems
This type of plagiarism detection algorithms introduces much larger number of
metrics and notions of similarity for the resulting feature vector in order to improve
performance (based on structure and metric comparison).

These algorithms are usually based on converting the program into a stream of
tokens (thus ignoring easily changeable information such as space, line breaks,
comments, etc.) and then comparing these token streams to find similarities among
them. The most advanced systems in this category (in terms of plagiarism detection
performance) are: SIM, MOSS, JPlag, AC and CodeMatch. The following is a brief
description for these systems.

2.3.2.1 SIM
Software Similarity Tester (SIM) plagiarism detection system was developing in
1999 by Gitchell and Tran as a system for measuring the similarity between text written
in C, Java, Pascal and natural language.

In SIM, each program is first parsed using the lexical analyzer to produce a
sequence of integers (tokens), then compares token sequences using a dynamic
programming string alignment technique. This technique first assigns each pair of
characters in alignment a score. For example, a match scores 1, a mismatch scores -1.
The score between two sequences is then defined to be the maximum score among all
alignments, and tests similarity between texts written in C, Java, Pascal, and natural
language. With this definition, a similarity measure between two sequences is defined
as follows:
s  2  scores, t  scores, s   scoret , t 

SIM work steps:

1. Read the program files: read the file and store it in sequence.
2. Determine the set of interesting runs: the algorithm determines match between two
files.
3. Determine the line numbers of the interesting runs: finds the start and end line
number for each chunk.
4. Print the contents of the runs in order: the stored match and display the analysis in
chart.

12
 Figure (1): SIM Example-Student Program Pairs (Source: [1])

The main characteristics of SIM are the following:

1. Locality of the tools - the tool's software may be downloaded and the processing can
be performed locally, or it may be web-based, with processing taking place on a
remote server.
2. SIM are available at the web and source code did not include copyright or license
information.

2.3.2.2 MOSS
Measure of Software Similarity (MOSS) was developed in 1994 by Alex Aiken at
Berkeley as a system for measuring the similarity of source code written in C, C++,
Java, or Pascal. MOSS tests the source code in real file be parse the source code,
tokenizing it and apply comparison algorithm (MOSS) to the tokenized form of the
code. And compare it with the source code in other files.

2.3.2.3 JPlag
The amount of information given about JPlag is very sparse. JPlag does not
compare to the internet. It is designed to find similarities among the student
assignments, which is usually sufficient for computer programs. However its main
function is to convert the programs into token strings and comparing these strings.

13
 The official JPlag website [8] summarizes its work a s follow: "Similarities of 0% or
5% can be represented by the similarity value alone this clearly is no plagiarism.
Likewise, similarities of 100% can also be represented by the similarity value alone —
this clearly is a plagiarism. But what if the similarity is 40%? Such cases should usually
be investigated by a human being for final judgment.”

The main characteristic of JPlag can be summarized as follow:

1. JPlag is available as a web service.
2. JPlag has a powerful user interface for understanding the results.
3. JPlag is resource-efficient and scales to large submissions.
4. JPlag has very good plagiarism detection performance

2.3.2.4 SID
Shared Information Distance or Software Integrity Detection (SID) detects
similarity between programs (source code) by computing the shared information
between them.

SID is easy to use software to detect plagiarism within source code and has shown
to be the most effective at catching cheaters. SID currently supports Java and C++
source codes. For two programs to be compared, SID computes the shared amount of
information between two programs, the shared information distance between two
programs X and Y is defined as:

 x, y   k  x   k  x y 
k  xy 

SID works in two phases:

1. In the first phase, source programs are parsed to generate token sequences by
standard lexical analyzer.
2. In the second phase, Token Compress algorithm is used to compute the shared
information metric d(x, y) between each program pair within the assignments.

14
 File 1 Token Seq 1

File 2 Parser Token Seq 2 Compressor Output

File n Token Seq n

Figure (2): SID Phases (adapted from [2])

2.3.2.5 AC
AC presents a website to detect similarity between assignments or programs and
can be used by any person free. This website provides statistical analysis and several
graphical visualizations aid in the interpretation of analysis results. AC tools available
for research and development at: http://tangow.ii.uam.es/ac.

AC performs the following steps to compare between students assignments:

1. Distance integration

This stage put the characters in sequence and converting them into sequence of
tokens after removing comments and spaces from the source file.

2. Token counting similarity distance

This stage counts the tokens between two assignments using parser (compiler to
compare the similarities between the two sequences) and gives the percentage of
similarity.

The comparison process in AC can be further explained as follow:

1. Input the source code or characters are split in sequence.
2. Lexical analysis, create tokens by converting the sequence of characters into
sequence of tokens to become meaningful symbols. For example,
12*(20+12)/40 it becomes after lexical analysis: 12,*, (, 20, +, 12,), /, 40.
3. Tokens are ready.
4. Syntactic analysis checks that the tokens form allowable expression.

15
 5. Semantic parsing makes the actual parsing by comparing the sequences and
gives of the outputs.

Source String

Lexical Analysis
(Create Tokens)

Tokens

Syntactic Analysis

Parse

Compiler, Interpreter or
Translator

Output

Figure (3): Parsing Steps (adapted from [3])

AC characteristics can be summarized as follow:

1. Locality of the tool: it may be downloading and using it locally, it is completely
stand-alone, and can be run in any computer with a suitable Java runtime
environment.
2. Breadth: number of programming languages and variants that the tool can
process.
3. Privacy: It may only be available to its host, or it may be available for wide use.
4. Documentation: existence of documentation about the tool of AC, source code
and associated programs, which facilitate the comprehension.
5. Algorithms: quality and variety of the similarity distances incorporated into the
tool.
6. Visualization: existence graphical and chart tool.
7. Support: the availability of long-term technical support of the tool.

16
2.3.2.6 CodeMatch

CodeMatch compares thousands of source code files in multiple directories and

subdirectories to determine which files are the most highly correlated. This can be used
to significantly speed up the work of finding source code plagiarism, because it can
direct the examiner to look closely at a small amount of code in a handful of files rather
than thousands of combinations. CodeMatch is also useful for finding open source code
within proprietary code, determining common authorship of two different programs,
and discovering common, standard algorithms within different programs.

CodeMatch compares every file in one directory with every file in another
directory, including all subdirectories if requested. CodeMatch produces a database that
can then be exported to an HTML basic report that lists the most highly correlated pairs
of files. You can click on any particular pair listed in the HTML basic report see an
HTML detailed report that shows the specific items in the files (statements, comments,
identifiers, or instruction sequences) that caused the high correlation.

It’s currently supports the following programming languages BASIC, C, C++,C#,

Delphi, Flash, Java, JavaScript, MASM, Pascal, Perl, PHP, PowerBuilder, Ruby, SQL,
VHDL.

The Algorithms

CodeMatch uses several algorithms to determine similarity between two source

code files. When multiple files are compared, file pairs are given a correlation score
between 0 and 100.

Statement Matching

The CodeMatch Statement Matching algorithm compares each functional line of

source code from both files, excluding comment lines. Also, all whitespace removed.
For source lines to be considered matches, they must contain at least one non-keyword
such as a variable name or function name.

17
 Comment Matching

The CodeMatch Comment Matching algorithm compares each line of comments

from both files. Sequences of whitespace are converted to single spaces so that the
syntax structure of the line is preserved. The entire comment is compared, regardless of
whether there are keywords in the comment or not.

Identifier Matching

For each file pair, the CodeMatch Identifier Matching algorithm counts the
number of matching identifiers that are not programming language keywords. In order
to determine whether an identifier is a programming language keyword, comparison is
done with a list of programming language keywords. Only non-keywords are compared
in order to find matching function names, variable names, and other identifiers.

Correlation Score

Finally, a single correlation score is given for the similarity of the file pairs. If a
file pair has a higher score, it implies that these files are more similar and may be
plagiarized from each other. CodeMatch reduces the effort needed by the expert by
allowing him to narrow his focus from hundreds of thousands of lines of code in
hundreds of files to dozens of lines of code in dozens of files.

2.4 Conclusions
Based on the information presented in section 2.3, AC is nominated to be used for
the implementation of the project. The reasoning of this selection can be explained as
follow:
1. AC is free and open source.
2. AC supports both programming (source-code) and other natural language files.
These points in addition to AC features stated in section 2.3.2.5 make it a good
candidate for this project. In this project we cannot use the AC code as it because it is
difficult to integrate it with model code, so we analysis the code and reprogramming the
main algorithms by using PHP to use it in the plagiarism detection system.

18
 Table (5): Algorithms Comparison

JPlag Moss SID CodeMatch SIM AC

System 1997 1994 1994 2005 2003 2007

Started
From

Language (s) Java, C#, C, C, C++, Java, Java, C++. BASIC, C, C, Java, Pascal C, Java,
Supported C++, C#, C++, and natural natural
Scheme and Python, Visual C#, Delphi, language. language.
natural Basic, Flash
language Javascript, ActionScript,
text. FORTRAN, Java,
ML, Haskell, JavaScript,
Lisp, MASM,
Scheme, Pascal,
Pascal, Perl, PHP,
Modula2, Perl, PowerBuilder,
TCL, Ruby, SQL,
Matlab, Verilog,
VHDL, VHDL.
Verilog,
Spice, MIPS
Assembly
8086,
HCL2.
Cost Free but user Free but user Free and open Commercial Free and open Free and open
must create must sourced tool, free on sourced sourced
an account create an any code
account where
the total of all
files being
examined is
less than 1

19
 megabyte

Service Web service Internet Standalone Standalone Standalone Standalone

service application application application application

Interface GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI

Requirements Web browser, A submission JDK 1.4 or JDK 1.4 or Java runtime
Java Runtime script later later environment
Environment for either
(JRE), Java UNIX or
1.5 or higher Windows
Security User id and User id and Runs locally Runs locally Runs locally
e-mail e-mail
needed needed

Submission Standalone Command line Standalone Standalone Standalone Standalone

Methods Java software Java application application application
application application
that can be
deployed
over the
network
Source Data Files, or a Files, or a A directory Files, or a Files, or a Files, or a
directory with directory with containing directory with directory with directory with
or without or without subdirectories, or without or without or without
subdirectories subdirectories each subdirectories subdirectories subdirectories
containing one
or more zip
archives or
submissions

20
 Table (5): Cont.
Speed Fast Fast Large sets of Large sets of Fast Fast
files will files will
require long require
amounts of long amounts
time to of
analyze time to analyze
Algorithms Greedy String Winnowing Token based String Greedy String Token based
Tiling Algorithm matching matching Tiling matching
algorithm for algorithm for
source-code, source-code,
string string
matching for matching for
natural natural
language language
texts texts

Table (6): Result Display

JPlag Moss SID CodeMatch SIM AC

Result storage Local Remote Local Local Local Local

Overview Histogram, Ordered list Matching pair Ordered list Ordered list Ordered list
results display statistics Tree
method about
the files that
were
analyzed
Display of Powerful Powerful Powerful Powerful Results Powerful
Results graphical graphical graphical graphical displayed in a graphical
interface for interface for interface for interface for dialogue interface for
presenting presenting presenting presenting presenting
results results results results results

21
 Table (6): Cont.
Visualization of Cross linked 2/4 scroll Table List of results existence
Results listings, bars, showing showing the graphical and
scroll simultaneous the similar detected code chart tool.
bars scrolling lines fragments
of code between file
detected pairs.
among
file pairs.
Visual display of Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
matched file
pairs
Metrics Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Token matches, Percentage
Produced similarity, similarity, similarity, similarity, lines matched similarity, token
token token token lines matches.
matches matches, matches matched
lines
matched

22
 Chapter Three
System
Requirements

3.1 System Requirements

3.1.1 Functional requirements
3.1.2 Non-Functional requirements
3.2 Feasibility Study
3.2.1 Development requirements
3.2.2 Operational requirements
3.2.3 Total cost
 This chapter first presents both functional and nonfunctional requirements of the
system. It then discusses the feasibility study of the system.

3.1 System Requirements

This section lists both functional and non-functional requirements of the system.

3.1.1 Functional requirements

1. Enable teachers to detect plagiarism and cheating in student submitted
assignments.
 The system reads the submitted assignments and enters them to the
algorithm to find the degree of similarity between them.

2. Viewing visually aided cheating (similarity) reports.

 Teachers can display cheating (plagiarism) report, which contains all
submitted assignments and the percentage of similarity of each
assignment with others.
The main functions such a registration, login, create courses are
already exist in the Moodel (it is not new functions to be added in this
project).

3.1.2 Non-Functional requirements

1. Compatibility
 System should be compatible and integrateable with Moodle because it
will be added as new feature to Moodle.

2. Ease to use
 Teachers will interact with the system to generate plagiarism report
through a user-friendly graphical user interface. Furthermore, the
generated reports will contain both textual and visual (bars, charts, etc.)
representation for the results.

3.2 Feasibility Study

This section shows the feasibility study for system development and operation.

24
 3.2.1 Development requirements
1. Development hardware resources

Table (7) below shows the hardware resources that are needed during the
development phase along with their costs.

Table (7): Hardware Development Resources and Costs 1

Hardware Component Cost

HP EliteBook, Core 2 Duo SL9400 1609$
/ 1.86 GHz LV Centrino 2 with
vPro, RAM 3 GB - HDD 120 GB -
GMA 4500MHD, Win XP Pro -
12.1" Widescreen TFT 1280 x 800.

Total 1609$

2. Development software resources

Table (8) below shows the software resources that are needed during the
development phase along with their costs.

Table (8): Software Development Resources and Costs [1]

Software Component Cost

Windows XP professional 159 $
PHP 0
MySQL Server 0
Apache 0
Microsoft Office 2007 103$
Total 262 $

1
(http://www.amazon.com, accessed: 10/10/09)
25
 3. Development human resources

The cost of development is zero because the developers of the system are
the project group team and the system development is part of their graduation
requirements.

3.2.2 Operational requirements

1. Operational hardware resources

This system will be hosted on a server that is already located at the

computer center, table (9) below shows the hardware resources that are needed
during the implementation phase along with their costs.

Table (9): Operational Hardware Resources and Costs

Hardware Component Cost

Server HP ProLiant DL 380G5 1 0 $
CPU, Intel ® 5000P Chipset, RAM
DDR2-667 32 GBs
Total 0$

2. Operational software resources and costs

Table (10) below shows the software resources that are needed during the
implementation phase along with their costs.

Table (10): Operational Software Resources and Costs 2

Software Component Cost

PHP 0
MySQL Server 0
Apache 0
Total 0

2
( http://www.php.net/ ,accessed: 10/10/09)
26
 3. Operational human resources

The human operational cost is zero, because the e-learning supervisor and
network supervisor are employees at Palestine polytechnic university and they
already paid salaries for their jobs.

3.2.3 Total cost

Table (11) below shows the total costs for the hardware, software, and
human resources that are required for both system development and
implementation.

Table (11): Total Costs

Development Costs Operational Costs Total

1871$ 0$ 1871 $

27
 Chapter Four
System
Specification

4.1 Use Case

4.2 Class Diagram
4.3 Object Diagram
4.4 Sequence Diagram
4.4.1 Teacher Scenario
4.4.2 Student Scenario
4.5 Collaboration Diagram
4.5.1 Teacher Collaboration Diagram
4.5.1 Student Collaboration Diagram
4.6 State Diagram
4.6.1 Teacher State Diagram
4.6.1 Student State Diagram
4.7 Activity Diagram
4.7.1 Teacher Activity Diagram
4.7.2 Student Activity Diagram
4.1 Use Case
The Use Case is used to describe the system as whole. As shown in Figure (4), the
system has a database and two user types; namely: teacher and student.

Figure (4): Use Case

29
4.2 Class Diagram
The Class Diagram is used to describe the main classes and their roles in the
system. This diagram is shown in Figure (5).

Figure (5): Class Diagram.

30
4.3 Object Diagram
The Object Diagram is used to describe the main objects in the system as shown in
the Figure (6).

Figure (6): Object Diagram

4.4 Sequence Diagram

The Sequence Diagram is used to describe the system sequence. For this system,
the system sequencing has been depicted in two scenarios: teacher and student
(as shown in the Figure (7) and Figure (8) respectively).
4.4.1 Teacher scenario
In this scenario
 The teacher can interacts with system by enter username and
password.
 The teacher enters to e-learning interface.
 Select course from group of courses, select the submitted
assignments.
 Click on button plagiarism the system detect the plagiarism among
submitted assignments and view a report about the cases of
plagiarism between the students assignments.

31
 Figure (7): Teacher Sequance Diagram

4.4.2 Student scenario

In this scenario
 The student interacts with the system by enter username and password.
 The student enters to e-learning interface.
 Select course from group of courses and then select the assignment.
 Upload this assignment, and this assignment becomes submitted.

32
 Figure (8): Student Sequence Diagram

4.5 Collaboration Diagram

4.5.1 Teacher collaboration diagram
Figure (9) show the data that flow between object in teachers operation.

Figure (9): Teacher Collaboration Diagram

33
4.5.2 Student collaboration diagram
Figure (10) shows the data that flow between object in students operation.

Figure (10): Student Collaboration Diagram

4.6 State Diagram

4.6.1 Teacher state diagram
Figure (11) shows the deferent state for objects depend on its attributes
during teacher operation.

Figure (11): Teacher State Diagram

34
4.6.2 Student state diagram
Figure (12) shows the different state for objects depend on its attributes
during student operation.

Figure (12): Student State Diagram

35
4.7 Activity Diagram
4.7.1 Teacher activity diagram
Figure (13) presents the deferent activity for teacher.

Figure (13): Teacher Activity Diagram

36
4.7.2 Student activity diagram
Figure (14) presents the deferent activity for teacher.

Figure (14): Student Activity Diagram

37
 Chapter Five
Design

5.1 Database Design

5.2 Interfaces Design
5.3 Flowcharts
 5.1 Database Design 3
This section presents the most relevant tables that are needed to create this
system; these tables are already built in Model.
 Role_Assignment table
Table (12): Role_Assignment Table
Role_assignment
id: INT
roleid: INT
contextid: INT
userid: INT
hidden: INT
timestart: INT
timeend: INT
timemodified : INT
modifierid :INT
enroll: VARCHAR(20)
sortorder :INT

 Context table
Table (13): Context Table
Context

id :INT
contextlevel: INT
instance: INT
path:VARCHAR(255)
depth:INT

 Part of User table

Table (14): User Table

User

id :INT
name: VARCHAR(255)
major: VARCHAR(255)
address: VARCHAR(255)
phone: INT

3
(These tables are subset of the complete database of Moodle; a subset of the schema
can be found in Appendix (B)).
39
5.2Interface Design

 Login form
This form is used to authenticate users. The user (teacher or student) enters
his / her credentials in the login form (see Figure (15)). Based on successful
authentication, the user will be redirected to the course page.

Figure (15): Login Form

 Select course
Through this form, the user selects a course from the list of courses he /
she was registered in (see Figure (16)).

Figure (16): Select Course

 Select assignment
Through this form, the user selects an assignment (see Figure (17)).

Figure (17): Select Assignment

40
 Submit Assignment
Finally, the student submits his / her solution on the upload form as
shown in Figure (18).

Figure (18): Submit Assignment

 View Submitted Assignment

Figure (19) below presents the “view submitted assignments” link that let
the teacher to browse all submitted assignments.

Figure (19): View Submitted Assignment

 Submitted Assignment
After the teacher press on the link above, the submitted assignments will
be displayed as shown in Figure (20).

41
 Figure (20): Submitted Assignments

 Plagiarism Detection Button

This project aims to add a new “CHEACK FOR PLAGIARISM” button; the
teacher can press on the button to browse plagiarism result. This new button an
be seen in Figure (21).

42
 Figure (21): Plagiarism Detection Button

 Comparison Result
Figure (22) shows a sample cheating (comparison) results.

Figure (22): Comparison Results

43
5.3 Flowcharts

Student operation

Start

User name and

password
ser name an
password

No
Correct input

Yes

Student page

Select course

Select assignment

Submit assignment

End

Figure (23): Student Operation

44
Teacher operation

Start

User name and

password
ser name an
password

No
Correct input

Yes

Teacher page

Select course

Select assignment

Show Submitted
assignment

Compare Submitted
assignment

Show result

End

Figure (24): Teacher Operation

45
 Chapter Six
Implementation

6.1 Installation Environment

6.2 Server Information and Configuration
6.3 Deployment Tiers
6.1 Installation Environment
The man installation requirements of Moodle include: Apache, MySQL, and
PHP. It’s regularly tested with Windows XP/2000/2003, Mac OS X and Netware 6
operating systems. However, the following is a more detailed listing of Moodle
hardware and software requirements.

Moodle requirements
1. Hardware
1. Disk space: 160MB free (min). To store the teaching materials it requires
more free space.
2. Memory: 256MB (min), 1GB (recommended). Moodle can support 50
concurrent users for every 1GB of RAM, but this will vary depending on
the specific hardware and software combination.
3. The capacity can limit the number of users that Moodle site can handle.

2. Software
1. Web server software: Moodle can work fine under any web server that
supports PHP, such as IIS on Windows platforms.
2. PHP scripting language. There are currently two versions of PHP
available: PHP4 and PHP5.

Start Moodle installation

The Moodle package is available at: http://download.moodle.org/. The package is
free for download. After extracting the ZIP file, the resulted folder will contain the
sever sub-folder, Start Moodle.exe, Stop Moodle.exe and readme file.

To install Moodle:
 Click on the Start Moodle.exe button, after you click on this button, you see a
CMD prompt interface; this interface displays Moodle version and other
information; it shows two choices the 0 for exit and 1 for refresh; to start enter
1, and XAMPP sever will start. The screen is shown in Figure (25).

47
 Figure (25): Start Moodle

 After running the XAMPP server, write http://localhost on the browser address,
then the Moodle language selection page will appear as shown in Figure (26).

Figure( 26): Moodle Language Selection Interface

48
 After selecting the language, you will be redirected to the PHP settings screen
as show in Figure (27).

Figure (27): Checking PHP Setting

 The next screen (see Figure (28)) will ask the administrator to fill-in the
following information:
1. Web address: specify the full web address where model will be
accessed.
2. Moodel directory: specify the full directory path to this installation.
3. Data directory: a place where Moodel can save uploaded files.

49
 Figure (28): Confirm Moodel Location

 The next step is to configure Moodle database settings. The installer as shown
in Figure (29) creates this database automatically.

Figure (29): Configure Database Setting

50
 The next step (Figure (31)) is to check if the various components of the system
meet the system requirements.

Figure (30): Server Checks

 If you want to change the installation language, you need to download the language
pack as shown in Figure (31).

Figure (31): Language Pack

51
 Next, the GPL license will appear as can be seen in Figure (32).

Figure (32): GPL license

 The next step (Figure (33)) is to configure the database tables.

Figure (33): Database Tables Configuration

52
  Then configure an account for the main administrator who has a complete
control over the site. You need to give him a secure username and password
(see Figure (34)).

Figure (34): Administrator Account

6.2 Server Information and Configuration

The server (hardware) is found and run at the Computer Center of Palestine
Polytechnic University. Therefore, we do not need to configure it. Whenever the
Computer Center wishes to deploy or test our system, they simply can host it as a
new site on the server.

6.3 Deployment Tiers

6.3.1 Three-tier system
In this section, we display three-tier systems that contain clients specific to user
(in this project users are teachers and students), internet server (s), and database
server(s). A three-tier system design divides the business or organization objects and

53
 their operations or business rules from both the user interface, from the database, and
from any other legacy applications that might be used.

In this project we need to apply it on Moodle in Palestine Polytechnic

University, so this is three-tier system specific for Palestine Polytechnic University.

Figure (35): Three-Tier System4

6.3.2 Three-Tier Class Diagram

Before considering adding infrastructure classes to project class diagram, we
might want to modify project class diagram by dividing it into three-tier system section
to indicate which tier each class will reside in.

4
The Computer Center in PPU

54
Figure (36): Three-Tier Class Diagram

55
 Chapter Seven
Testing

7.1 System Unit and Module Testing

7.2 Integration Testing
7.3 System Testing
7.4 Acceptance Testing
7.5 Interface Testing
 In this chapter, we will test our system step-by-step (starting from the point
when the teacher requests the main page of Moodle, going by intermediate steps such as
course selection, assignment selection, plagiarism detection, to finally showing the
plagiarism report). This test will be performing in order to ensure that the system meets
its specifications and requirements. The testing phases that will be discussed in this
chapter are:
1. System units and module testing.
2. Integration testing.
3. System testing.
4. Acceptance testing.

7.1 System Unit and Module Testing

The unit and module testing has been performed using the black box testing
method; we suggest some possible problems and test the system performance against
these problems.
Table (15): Shows Some Problems to be Testing on Teacher Object
Inputs Expected values Actual values Notes
Valid Teacher Error Message Error Message Match
Username and Invalid
Password

Invalid Teacher Error Message Error Message Match

Username and Valid
Password
Invalid Teacher Error Message Error Message Match
Username and Invalid
Password
Valid Teacher Open Open Match
Username and Main Page Main Page
Password
Select Course That Open Enrollment Open Enrollment Match
The Teacher Doesn’t Key Page Key Page
Register In It

57
 Table (15): Cont.

Select Course That Open Course Main Open Course Main Match
The Teacher Does Page Page
Register In It
Select The Open Assignment Open Assignment Match
Assignment Main Page Main Page
Select No Submitted Error Message (No Error Message (No Match
Assignments Submitted Submitted
Assignments) Assignments)
Select # Submitted Open The List Of Open The List Of Match
Assignments Students Names Students Names
Whose Submitted Whose Submitted
Assignment Assignment
Check The Plagiarism View Plagiarism View Plagiarism Match
Detection Report Report

7.2 Integration Testing

All sub-units and sub-modules were integrated with each other and this
integration is tested to show if there were defects that appear upon their integration.
Testing here demonstrates on the interfaces among all sub-units of the system, and the
functionality of the integrated sub-parts. After testing the integration of all sub-units of
the system, the results indicated that all sub-units and sub-modules work together
properly.

7.3 System Testing

We have tested the system under several conditions and there were some errors
and problems. Upon these results, all identified problems have been resolved.

7.4 Acceptance Testing

After testing the system against its requirements, we could determine that it
achieves its functional requirements, and t is ready to be deployed in the real world
(university). The system currently allows the teachers to perform plagiarism detection in
rabid and easy way, and provides them with logical results.

58
7.5 Interface Testing
This section simulates (tests) how all system screens will be used by a teacher.
The sequence and displayed results show that all main system screens are working as
expected. First, the teacher enters the Moodle Website (http://elearning.ppu.edu/) and he
will see the main page of Moodle that contains interactive objects such as the
organization name (PPU in our case), the course names, and the website description. To
enter the system, the teacher clicks the Login button, or enters his / her own username
and password in the login form directly (see Figure (37)).

Figure (37): Login Form

If he / she clicked on the button, he / she will be redirected to the login page; in
this page, the teacher should enter his / her own username and password correctly.

59
 Figure (38): Login to the Site

If the entered username and password were correctly, Moodle will redirect the
teacher to the main page which contains the names of courses that he / she is teaching,
course description, and the name of teacher (teachers) that he/she (they) teaching each
course as shown in the Figure (39).

Figure (39): Main Page

60
 When the teacher clicks on a course name, he / she will be redirected to the main
page of the selected course.

Figure (40): Select a Course in the Main Page

After clicking on the name of the selected-course, the main page of that course
will be displayed. This page contains course name, course participants, course
assignments and other activities. The user then can click on the name of the available
assignments (if any) as shown in Figure (41).

61
 Figure (41): Select an Assignment

The assignment page contains assignment description, number of students

who submitted assignments and the link to update this assignment, to view the
submitted assignments you can click the link as can be seen in Figure (42).

Figure (42): Assignment Page

62
 After clicking on the link, the teacher will be redirected to the submission page
that contains submitted assignments; this page contains the names of students who
submitted the assignments and some other information.

The teacher can view these assignments, add comments, add the assignment
grade, and update this assignment. When click on the link, the teacher can view the
plagiarism report that compares the assignments with each other’s.

Figure (43): Submission Page

When the teacher clicks on the view similarity table, he/she will be redirected to
the plagiarism form that shows the result of comparing between the submitted
assignments as shown on the Figure (44).

63
 Figure (44): Similarity Page

The teacher can view the visual report when he/she click on the view chart link
as shown on the previous Figure (45).

Figure (45): Visual Cheating Report

64
The teacher can export the results of the cheating report to an Excel sheet or Word
document by clicking on the Excel sheet, Word document link as shown in Figure (46).

Figure (46): Save as Excel Sheet or Word Document

65
 Chapter Eight
Conclusions

8.1 Conclusions
8.2 Future Work
 This system aimed to upgrade Moodle (the well-known open-source e-learning
system). The presented system allows the teachers to detect the plagiarism among
student's submitted assignments. This functionality has been successfully embedded
into Moodle, and it is now ready to use by university teachers.

8.1 Conclusions
1. The system upgrades on Moodle and its open-source.
2. The plagiarism detection functionality of the system is based on a well-known
algorithm in this field called AC.
3. The system compares among student's submitted-assignments and gives the rate
of convergence among them.
4. The system generates cheating reports in both tabular and bar chart formats. It
also enables the teacher to export cheating results to Excel spreadsheets or Word
documents.
5. The system currently supports limited types of files; for the natural languages, it
supports .text, .doc, and .docx files. For source code assignments, the system
supports .php, .C, .C++, and .java files.

8.2 Directions for Future Work

The following are some possible directions for future on the system:
1. Comparing among assignments containing compressed files and figures.
2. Comparing the student's submitted-assignments with other documents published
on the web.
3. Add more intelligent techniques to the system in order to detect some advanced
cheating tricks.

67
 References
[1] Sanjay Goel, Deepak Rao et al.: Plagiarism and its Detection in Programming
Languages, December 15, 2005.

[2] Sanjay Goel, Deepak Rao et al.: Plagiarism and its Detection in Programming
Languages, December 15, 2005.

[3] http://www.php.net , (accessed: 23/10/2009)

[4] http://docs.moodle.org/en/Talk:About_Moodle, (accessed: 23/10/2009)

[5] Manuel Freire, Manuel Cebrian and Emilio del Rosal: An Integrated Source Code
Plagiarism Detection Environment, Escuela Politecnica Superior, Universidad
Autonoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.

[6] Shared Information and Program Plagiarism Detection, Xin Chen, Brent Francia,
Ming Li, Brian Mckinnon, Amit Seker, University of California, Santa Barbara,
December 13, 2003.

[7] Paul Clough: Plagiarism in natural and programming languages: an overview of

current tools and technologies, Department of Computer Science, University of
Sheffield, July 2000.

[8] JPlag: Finding plagiarisms among a set of programs, University at Karlsruhe D-

76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
[9] Manuel Freire, Manuel Cebrifn and Emilio del Rosal Escuela: AC: An Integrated
Source Code Plagiarism Detection Environment, Polit_ecnica Superior, Universidad
Aut_onoma de Madrid.

[10] http://software.bioinformatics.uwaterloo.ca/SID/servlets/IndexPage , (accessed:

18/11/2009)

68
 Figure References
 Figure (1):

http://www.cis.famu.edu/~ejones/papers/stephens-plagiarism-ccscsc.pdf,
(accessed: 23/11/2009)

 Figure(2):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing, (accessed: 20/11/2009)

 Figure (3):

Xin Chen, Brent Francia, Ming Li, Brian Mckinnon, and Amit Seker: Shared
Information and Program Plagiarism Detection, University of California,
Santa Barbara, December 13, 2003.

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 Appendices

Appendix (A): User manual

Appendix (B): Part of Moodle Database Schema

Appendix (A)

User Manual

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User Sub-Manual
For Using Plagiarism Detection
System*

Moodle Version: 1.9.8

June 2010

Plagiarism Detection System is an open-source software upgrading on Moodle to detect

the plagiarism cases among assignments that student's submitted on Moodle and
generates plagiarism report the plagiarism cases.

This user sub-manual is under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

*
This user sub-manual is for our project only, and we aim to integrate it to the original user manual of
Moodle once we integrate our system with Moodle.

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1.1 Introduction
Plagiarism can be defined as the use or close imitation of the language and
thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.

Many students make (intentionally or unintentionally) some type of cheating and

plagiarism in their assignments. Usually it is difficult for teachers to detect plagiarism in
student's assignments by hand. The detection process becomes easier, faster, and more
efficient if it has performed automatically (i.e. by a computerized system).

The Plagiarism Detection is the process of locating instance of plagiarism within

a document withers its text or code. Detection can be either manual or computer-
assisted. Manual detection requires effort, memory and it is impractical in cases where
many documents to be compared.

So, in this project we will applied this system on Moodle, this is Moodle using
in E-Learning at Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU), It has become very popular
among educators around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic web sites for
their students. To work, it needs to be installed on a web server somewhere, either on
one of your own computers or one at a web hosting company, and it is open source
software package for producing Internet-based courses and web sites. It is a global
development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of
education.

Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software under the GNU General
Public License (GPL) Version 2, June 1991. Basically this means Moodle is
copyrighted, but that you have additional freedoms. You are allowed to copy, use, and
modify Moodle.

Plagiarism Detection System is open-source software as an upgrade on Moodle;

it aims to detect the plagiarism cases among student's submitted assignments and report
the plagiarism cases.

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1.2 System Features
The system presents open-source software to be integrated with an existing
open-source e-learning platform (namely: Moodle). The user does not need to know
how this system works; him / her only needs to know how to use Moodle as a teacher.

The software has the following features:

1. It is open-source and free.
2. It has a user-friendly interface by using interactive objects, easy to reading and
understanding report, easy to navigate, and speed in viewing results.
3. It provides the plagiarism detection functionality.

1.3 Get Start

For using the Plagiarism Detection System, follow the instructions below:

1. When you request the Moodle Website (http://elearning.ppu.edu/) you will see the
main page of the Moodle, it is containing interactive objects such as the
organization name that using the Moodle, the courses names, and the website
description. To enter the system please click on the button, or please enter your own
username and password in the login form directly as shown in Figure (1).

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 Figure (1): Login Form

2. If you click on the button, you show the login page, please enter your own username
and password correctly in spatial place as shown in the Figure (2).

Figure (2): Login to the Site

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3. After you have entered your own username and password correctly, the Moodle will
redirect you to the main page, which contains the names of courses that you are
teaching, course description, and the name of teacher (teachers) that he/she (they)
teaching each course as shown in the Figure (3).

Figure (3): Main Page

4. Please click on the name of the course that you want, this will redirect you to the
main page for this course as shown in the Figure (4).

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 Figure (4): Select the Course

5. After clicking on the name of the selected-course, you will see the main page of the
selected-course. It contains course name, participants in the course, course
assignments and other activities. Please click on the name of the wanted-assignment
as shown in the Figure (5).

Figure (5): Select the Assignment

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6. View the main page of the assignment, this page contains assignment description,
number of students whose submitted-assignments, and button, to view the submitted
assignments please click on as you see in Figure (6).

Figure (6): The Main Page of the Assignment

7. After clicking on the link, the teacher will be redirected to the submission page that
contains submitted assignments; this page contains the names of students who
submitted the assignments and some other information.

The teacher can view these assignments, add comments, add the assignment
grade, and update this assignment. When click on the link, the teacher can view the
plagiarism report that compares the assignments with each others.

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 Figure (7): Submission Page

8. When the teacher clicks on the view similarity table, he / she will be redirected to the
plagiarism form that shows the result of comparing between the submitted
assignments as shown on the Figure (8).

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 Figure (8): Similarity Page

9. The teacher can view the visual report when he/she click on the view chart link as shown on
the previous Figure (9).

Figure (9): Visual Cheating Report

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10. The teacher can export the results of the cheating report to an Excel sheet or Word document
by clicking on the Excel sheet, Word document link as shown in Figure (10).

Figure (10): Save as Excel Sheet or Word Document

1.4 Glossary
1. Plagiarism Detection System: is open-source software that using to locating
instance of plagiarism within the documents withers its text or code and
reporting the plagiarism cases, and upgrade with the Moodle.
2. Course Management System (CMS): is a tool that allow instructors to post
information on the web, this information related courses as course chapters,
videos, audios, assignments, and so on, this is a tool facilitates course
management by the instructors.
3. Learning Management System (LMS): is a software application for the
administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs,
classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content.

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4. Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): is a software system designed to
support teaching and learning in an educational setting, where the focus is on
management.
5. Open-Source: describes practices in production and development that promote
access to the product’s source materials. Before the term open source became
widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe
the concept; open source gained hold with the rise of the Internet, and the
attendant need for massive retooling of the computing source code.
6. Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle): is an
Open Source CMS, also known as a LMS or a VLE. It has become as popular e-
learning platform in higher education to creating online dynamic web sites for
their students (http://www.moodle.org/about/).

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 Appendix (B)

Moodle Database
Schema

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84