Built for the way programming is really taught

Why this exists

In programming courses, “did this student do their own work?” is a harder question than it looks. Every submission starts from the same assignment, often the same starter code, and there are only so many reasonable ways to write a sorting routine. A rename here, some reformatting there, and copied work can look superficially original — while genuinely independent solutions can look suspiciously alike. Instructors are left squinting at diffs, and integrity offices are left with weak evidence.

Honor Checker was built to change that. It compares the structure of code rather than its surface, using a published, reproducible fingerprinting algorithm — so cosmetic edits don’t hide copied logic, shared scaffolding doesn’t become a false accusation, and matches can be shown side by side as evidence an instructor can actually stand behind.

Built by an educator, refined in real courses

Honor Checker is developed by a working computer science professor, and it’s shaped by the realities of the classroom: batches of submissions, sections that share students, assignments recycled across terms, and the need for evidence that holds up in an integrity review. It’s currently in beta at Brigham Young University, where it’s being refined in real courses — a reflection of the product’s stage, not an institutional endorsement.

Who’s behind it

Honor Checker is built by Jerod W. Wilkerson, who teaches software engineering and advanced programming courses at Brigham Young University. The problem the product solves is one he meets every semester: large batches of submissions, sections that share students, and assignments that come back around term after term. He is a faculty member there; that is a statement of his employment, not an institutional endorsement of this product.

He has spent three decades alternating between industry and academia — as a software engineer, consultant, founder, engineering manager, engineering director, researcher, and professor. Before returning to academia he founded The Object Center, a consulting firm focused on object-oriented development and Java web applications, working with organizations from startups to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Missile Systems, J.P. Morgan Chase, Ancestry.com, the State of Utah, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Arizona. His research on software engineering, software quality, and defect reduction has appeared in leading journals including IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering — the same standard of published, reproducible method that Honor Checker’s detection rests on.

A note on a shared surname. The Winnowing algorithm this site cites is the work of Saul Schleimer, Daniel S. Wilkerson, and Alex Aiken (SIGMOD 2003). Despite the coincidence of surnames, Jerod Wilkerson is unrelated to Daniel S. Wilkerson and had no part in that paper. Honor Checker implements their published algorithm; it does not claim authorship of it.

Where we’re headed

The beta is closed, and general availability is coming. Our commitment as the product grows is the same principle that guides its AI roadmap: deterministic evidence first, assistance second, and a human always deciding. Honor Checker helps instructors see and understand the evidence — it never renders a verdict about a student.

Honor Checker is developed and operated by Honor Checker LLC.