AI in the fight against plagiarism: St Petersburg University wins an award in the field of artificial intelligence and big data

One hundred thirty applications were submitted by leading Russia’s companies, Russian and international educational organisations, and only 18 research projects received awards, including the development by St Petersburg University. The St Petersburg University team, led by Iaroslav Kurbatov, a master’s student at St Petersburg University, included students Fedor Kudriavtsev, Nikita Ovinnikov, and Said Mukhamad Aliev. The project manager was Dmitrii Grigoriev, Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics at St Petersburg University.

The Gravitation International University Award is aimed at supporting the authors of promising projects, promoting the best practices of universities in the field of artificial intelligence, breakthrough technologies, and finding new opportunities for cooperation between educational institutions, the state, and business. The contest was organised by the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Tomsk State University, and the association "University Consortium of Big Data Researchers".

The University’s project is aimed at developing an effective and convenient service to ensure a transparent environment for solving student programming assignments. According to the developers of StudyFair, in the context when online education is increasingly on the rise, issues of academic integrity are becoming more than relevant. What is more is that with an increase in the number of students and in the volume of academic work, the need for automated tools that can ensure copying of other people’s answers increases. 

The system, developed by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at St Petersburg University, uses advanced AI algorithms to analyse and compare student code with a database of possible solutions to problems to detect borrowings at an early stage. The project is second to none in a way that it supports multiple programming languages, including Python, C#, Java, which makes it a universal tool for working in an academic environment. The system also provides dynamic reporting, allowing teachers to detect plagiarism and track student progress and behaviour throughout the entire teaching and learning process and make informed conclusions about possible long-term borrowings. 

One of the key features of the project is deployment flexibility. The service can be installed on local servers and used in the cloud infrastructure of an educational institution. Thus, the University’s development is available for any educational institution, regardless of its technical equipment and infrastructure. The StudyFair service is as clear and easy to use as possible, since students can submit assignments through a telegram bot, and teachers can analyse the results through the web interface.

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science was opened at St Petersburg University in 2020. It develops and implements large-scale self-organising adaptive and distributed digital artificial intelligence platforms and integrates new technologies into various sectors of the economy and public life, taking into account the National AI Development Strategy, approved by Executive Order of the President of the Russian Federation.

The StudyFair service was successfully tested in the teaching and learning process to check the assignments of first-year students at St Petersburg University. The results showed a significant reduction in attempts to pass borrowed code, which contributed to increased academic integrity and the development of independent work skills among students. According to the project specialists, given the trends towards increasing volumes of digital information and the integration of modern technologies into the teaching and learning process, the demand for such systems will only grow, and the field of educational innovation is becoming an increasingly promising area.