Theses and capstone projects plagiarism checker using kolmogorov complexity algorithm

Abstract

In education, students attempt to copy previous works and are relying on prepared solutions available on the Internet in order to meet their requirements. This action leads to plagiarism, which is becoming part of educational institutions’ concern to reduce growing academic dishonesty. With regards to the aforementioned issue, this study aims to design and develop a plagiarism checker capable of registering documents, granting access to users, and calculating the similarity between documents. Thus, the software was constructed using HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, and MySQL. The developed system is composed of three main modules; the Document Search which enables users to browse documents, the Document Registration which enables the administrator to add and manage the stored documents, and the document Comparison, which serves as the system plagiarism detection mechanism. The algorithm Normalized Compression Distance was used to measure similarity and the Boyer-Moore Algorithm to highlight the suspected plagiarized document. Moreover, tests were conducted to determine if the system is functioning as expected and to measure the accuracy of the output produced by the system. The developed system was evaluated using the ISO 25010 software quality model in terms of Product Quality and was rated by one hundred respondents. The system obtained a mean of 4.70 which is equivalent to “excellent” in descriptive terms. This validates that the objectives of the study were met and achieved. This further indicates that the system was developed according to its desired functions and requirements.