zyBooks provides tools that help instructors identify potential academic dishonesty; it does not make that determination itself. The Similarity Checker flags pairs of submissions with similar code, Code Playback lets you review how a submission was built keystroke by keystroke, and Student Behavior Insights surfaces outliers across the class. Together, these give instructors the evidence they need to investigate and act, but the judgment call remains with the instructor.

Code Playback records every keystroke a student makes in a zyLab and lets instructors replay it like a video. You can scrub through the timeline, see exactly when code was typed versus pasted, and view the size and timing of each paste event. This makes it straightforward to distinguish between a student who worked incrementally (even if imperfectly) and one who typed a few lines and pasted in a completed solution.

zyBooks’ Similarity Checker uses MOSS (Measure of Software Similarity), a well-established code comparison system originally developed at Stanford. After each assignment deadline, MOSS automatically compares all submissions in your class and identifies pairs with structurally similar code. Unlike simple text comparison, MOSS detects similarity even when variable names have been changed or code has been rearranged. Results appear directly in your zyLabs report with similarity percentages for each flagged pair.

zyBooks cannot block external AI tools outright, but it gives you several ways to limit their impact. For assessed work, the Assessments Platform works with lockdown browsers, Honorlock and Respondus among them, which block access to external websites, applications, and AI tools during an exam. For coding labs, AI Hints gives students in-platform, Socratic guidance when they are stuck, reducing the incentive to reach for ChatGPT. Paste Limiting makes it harder to drop in AI-generated code wholesale. Student Behavior Insights and Code Playback make it straightforward to identify submissions where very little actual coding took place. Instructors who combine these tools with a clear AI policy set at the start of term report the most consistent results.

Yes. zyBooks’ Assessments Platform is compatible with lockdown browsers, which prevent students from switching tabs, taking screenshots, or accessing other applications during an exam. Combined with question pooling and highly randomized activity variants, so each student sees a different version, this significantly reduces the value of coordinating answers in real time.

Paste Limiting lets you set a maximum character count for any single paste event in a zyLab. You control the limit and choose which labs have it enabled. Most instructors set a lower limit for graded assignments (around 50 characters) and a higher or no limit for practice labs. The limit blocks large copy-paste actions with a notification to the student; it does not restrict how much code they can write. Code Playback records all activity regardless of whether paste limiting is on, so you can always review the full submission history.

This is controlled by instructor permissions. You can choose to show students just their score, their score plus their own submission for each question, or their score plus submissions plus the correct solutions. This setting can be changed at any time, including after students have already taken the exam.

Yes. zyBooks Assessments work with common lockdown browsers, including Honorlock and Respondus. Safe Exam Browser and Lockdown Browser are also supported and are free to use even if your institution does not have an official affiliation with them. Before your assessment, refer to the zyBooks Support help site for the URLs you will need to whitelist within your lockdown browser.