In 1994 Aiken designed a similar detection system for Berkeley called Measure of Software Similarity (MOSS).
The Internet service, which allows instructors to submit a set of programs for comparison, was made public two and a half years ago. Since then, more than 1,200 users worldwide--representing both individual instructors and entire departments--have subscribed to the free service.
"The computer sciences have had this problem for a long time," says Aiken, who was inspired to develop MOSS after finding that plagiarism tools available at that time were inadequate to keep up with common code-copying.
Like Harvard's program, the MOSS program catches similarities in submitted files and leaves the final plagiarism analysis up to the instructor.
Aiken says that MOSS is used routinely in Berkeley's introductory as well as junior and senior computer science courses.
Although not all computer science professors use the system, it is currently in use in five courses with 200 to 300 students each.
Aiken says the program allows professors to focus on teaching rather than worrying about cases of academic dishonesty.
But according to Aiken, cheating still persists.
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