Finding the Source of Assignment Copies

[somy]

A funny problem!

Hi everyone.
I'm a teacher assistant. and my students always copy their assignments from each other! I suggested to do a new experiment
I want to find the original one who is the source of the coppies!

I have noticed that there are just two or three types of assignments. (It is clear from the notations and the sentences!). Some of them make a little change to the main one, but still I can notice that it belongs to one of the groups.
Also the pencil written papers are more probable ones. Because most of the coppiers do it by pen!

Just tell me your suggestions to find the cheaters!
Thanks.
somy

 

[Dr.ThinkDeep]

Copiers tend to leave out errors and intermediate steps and they introduce additional errors which turn out inconsequential for the result by some magic self-correcting mechanism, namely the copying from some original.
Do you want to make a NEW funny math problem out of this?
Imho the computer geneticists have been working on this seriously for some time.

 

[somy]

Thanks Dr.Thonking.
But can you tell me genetic algorithm of this experiment. Any suggestion would be usefull.

 

[meteor]

Imho the computer geneticists have been working on this seriously for some time

This behavior was observed in an artificial life model developed by Tom Ray called Tierra. In this simulation there are parasites that cooperate clandestinely between them. Ray called these parasites "cheaters"

 

[Gokul43201]

Here's a trick that may or may not work. The premise it that the copiers, knowing that they have easy access to solutions, will not bother to read the questions carefully, while the real solver will.

So, you introduce a subtle error into the problem, the copiers will automatically error-correct, if the error is well chosen.

For instance, in a word problem, you can introduce a person's name, like 'Jonson' or 'Elisabeth'. While the true solver may copy the name correctly, the copiers will invariably write 'Johnson' or 'Elizabeth'.

Of course, this is only a probabilistic approach, and so, is no good for any official purposes.