Which Source Code Plagiarism Detection Approach is More Humane?

TL;DR

This paper evaluates source code plagiarism detection methods from a human perspective, proposing three evaluation mechanisms and finding that structure-based approaches align better with human preferences and are more effective.

Contribution

It introduces three evaluation mechanisms linking human perspective with detection approaches and compares attribute- and structure-based methods from this viewpoint.

Findings

Structure-based approach is more effective than attribute-based.

Signature aspect and similarity degrees align with human preferences.

Structure-based approach relates to most human-oriented suspicion aspects.

Abstract

This paper contributes in developing source code plagiarism detection that is more aligned with human perspective. Three evaluation mechanisms that directly relate human perspective with evaluated approaches are proposed: think-aloud, aspect-oriented, and empirical mechanism. Using those mechanisms, a comparative study toward attribute-and structure-based plagiarism detection approach (i.e., two popular approach categories in source code plagiarism detection) is conducted. According to that study, structure-based approach is more effective than the attribute-based one; its signature aspect and resulted similarity degrees are more related to human preferences. In addition, such approach is related to most human-oriented aspects for suspecting source code plagiarism.