This feature is currently in beta. Please email support@zybooks.com to learn more about participating in our beta.
The SimChecker allows you to run a report across all submissions to a zyLab to detect students with similar submissions, and to quickly see those similarities and differences.
To get started, scroll to the bottom of a zyLab and expand the card labeled "Lab statistics and submissions".
At the bottom of the card is an option to run a similarity check.
Clicking the button leads to a page showing similarity scores for pairs of students. Scores range from 0-10. The higher the score, the more similar the two student's submissions are. Scores are sorted from highest to lowest.
Scrolling down shows a pair's similarities highlighted. Note that by default, the first pair is shown. Different pairs can also be selected to compare the similarity of those submissions.
The similarity checker strives to consider code that is similar but uses different variable names. At this time, these similarities aren't highlighted but are still counted towards the overall score.
Much effort was spent on making the tool fast even for very large numbers of students. Contact support@zybooks.com for comments/suggestions regarding speed, highlighting, or other features.