Enhancing academic integrity: Development of an innovative plagiarism detection tool for CAD-modelling courses

The ability to create three-dimensional (3D) solid models using computer-aided design (CAD) software is an essential skill for engineering students. However, there is a growing concern about the potential for plagiarism in CAD-based assessment tasks in engineering education, as existing plagiarism detection tools are primarily developed for text-based submissions. Due to the absence of specialty tools for plagiarism detection in CAD-based assignments, a manual inspection of superficial file properties is often employed, but it proved to be inefficient and unreliable. In this paper, the design and development of an automated plagiarism detection tool, specifically designed for CAD assignments conducted on the SOLIDWORKS CAD platform, is outlined. The performance of the software-based automated plagiarism detection approach is evaluated through the comparison against the results of current manual detection methods. The software clearly offers markers for improved accuracy and efficiency in plagiarism detection, greatly reducing the time and resources required. However, human review is still essential for final decisions on allegations of plagiarism. Furthermore, false positive detections hinder the human review process. Recommendations are made on further tuning program parameters and algorithms to achieve a stronger conviction of plagiarism and to eliminate false positives.