Plagiarism Detection Services

Renoir Gaither
Shapiro Undergraduate Library
University of Michigan

A host of fee-based and free plagiarism detection services exist as both full-featured online services and downloadable programs. The following list contains some well-known services.

Plagiarism.org, Turnitin.com

URL	http://plagiarism.org/; student site: http://turnitin.com/

Method of Use	Registered students upload papers through the Turnitin.com portal. Using a set of algorithms, papers are cross-referenced or “fingerprinted” against hundreds of thousands of papers in the service’s database and Internet sites. An “originality report” is emailed to the instructor with color-coded links to original sources where suspected passages in the paper occur. Also, the service generates an “overall similarity index,” a five-point scale of similarity with the original source.

Cost	Costs vary according to number of students. All licenses include: - plagiarism prevention - peer review - research resources - digital archiving - class management tools - administrator help desk support - Internet and database searches Departmental, campus and multi-campus license accounts are negotiated individually.

Trial	For a month free trial with five Originality Reports, visit http://turnitin.com.

Notes	A team of researchers at UC Berkeley developed the computer programs in 1996 to monitor plagiarism in undergraduate classes. A “digital portfolio” service that will provide storage and retrieval of academic documents is a coming feature.

MyDropBox.com

URL	http://www.mydropbox.com/

Method of Use	Registered students upload papers using the "SafeAssignment" anti-plagiarism tool. MyDropBox furnishes a report with unoriginal material highlighted and linked to sources.

Cost	Licensing fees vary according to fte. License types include those for individual users, departments, K-12 and higher education institutions, districts or consortiums.

Trial	No trial.

Notes	According to the company, " The MyDropBox® Suite of services includes SafeAssignment™ plagiarism prevention solution, Re:Mark® online marking and commenting service and Peer Re:Mark system for collaborative peer review assignments." Some databases that are checked against include MedLine, FindArticles, ProQuest. Also, all submitted papers from a single institution are checked.

JPlag

URL	https://www.ipd.uni-karlsruhe.de/jplag/

Method of Use	JPlag is used to detect software plagiarism. It finds “similarities among multiple sets of source code files.”

Cost	Free

Trial	No trial

Notes	Created by Guido Malpohl, JPlag currently supports Java, C, C++, Scheme, and also natural language text.

Critique	Jplag: Finding Plagiarisms Among a Set of Programs <http://wwwipd.ira.uka.de/~prechelt/Biblio/jplagTR.pdf>

EVE2

URL	http://www.canexus.com/eve/index.shtml

Method of Use	Instructor must install the software on his/her workstation. Papers are collected either on disk, through email, or through an electronic drop-box system. EVE will accept files in Plain Text, Microsoft Word, and Word Perfect format. There are different “strengths” of detection that the instructor must choose; consequently, the complexity of checking and length of time for detection will vary. If plagiarism is detected, the URL is recorded. The instructor is given a report, highlighting any plagiarism.

Cost	Individual instructors may purchase product for $19.99 for unlimited use for the instructor’s classes only. Site licenses for colleges and universities start at $399.

Trial	Instructors may download a free copy of EVE2 that will work for 15 days. Download for Windows, not MAC platform.

Notes	This is a Canadian company, so spellings might be different.

CopyCatchGold

URL	http://www.copycatchgold.com/

Method of Use	Used to detect plagiarism among students, rather than from "outside sources." Instructor receives a similarity report. The service reports, "The program will detect plagiarism even when the student changes the order of sentences, replaces words with synonyms, or uses only part of paper."

Cost	£250 per annum for a single user license for educational users. Site licenses available

Trial	N/A

Notes	Wide variety of acceptable paper formats: ASCII, Ami Pro, Lotus Manuscript, MS Word for DOS, html, MS Works for DOS, etc. About 25% of UK universities have implemented CopyCatch at least at departmental level.

WordCheck

URL	http://www.wordchecksystems.com/

Method of Use	The Document Profiling Software or WordCHECK DP identifies word use and word frequency patterns in papers in an internal database or “library” created by the instructor. The instructor can check to see if a paper is similar to other papers written by the author, as well as similar to any papers written by other authors.

Cost	*WC/RA Basic Desktop - $295 ($149 academic price): package allows up to 1,000 documents in a profile Library. WC/RA Professional Desktop - $1,295 ($897 academic price)*: package allows for a capacity of up to 5,000 profiles. Higher number of profiles available. Various licensing packages available.

Trial	A free 30 day trial is available. Demo package allows profile and evaluation of ten documents.

Notes	Microsoft Windows 98 and higher is required or Windows NT 4.0.System requirements: 8 MB Hard Drive space with 64 MB RAM (128 MB RAM is highly recommended), and Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher.

MOSS

URL	http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/moss.html

Method of Use	Developed in 1994, MOSS (Measure Of Software Similarity) is an automatic system for determining the similarity of computer programming code. Provided as an Internet service, MOSS produces HTML pages highlights individual passages in programs that appear the same.

Cost	Free

Trial	N/A

Notes	Must use MOSS from either UNIX or Windows systems. Restricted to instructors of programming classes.

WCopyfind

URL	http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/

Method of Use	Developed by Lou Bloomfield, Professor of Physics, University of Virginia, this program examines a group of documents that an instructor selects, and pulls out text portions of those documents with matching words in phrases of a specified minimum length. The program cannot find such "shared" phrases from documents that are "external" or those not entered for testing. Recent versions of software can handle web documents

Cost	Free

Trial	N/A

Notes	Wcopyfind is free software, but is covered by a license that places certain restrictions on its use, modification, and distribution. Program can handle non-English characters in most western languages.

Glatt

URL	http://plagiarism.com/

Method of Use	Based on “Wilson Taylor's (1953) cloze procedure, the Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program eliminates every fifth word of the suspected student's paper and replaces the words with a standard size blank” for the student to fill in. Assessment is based on correct responses and the time taken to fill out the missing words. It has been used when the original material cannot be located.

Cost	$300 if the Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program is sold separately; $250 if sold along with the Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program of similar price.

Trial	N/A

Notes	Software available on CD-ROM only. Program does not find original material; only helps to detect chances of plagiarism!

Urkund

URL	http://www.urkund.com/

Method of Use	Urkund provides both manual and automated services. Manual service allows teachers to manually search Urkund's proprietary database for comparison words or phrases. The automated model has students send materials to an email address where the material is analyzed with Urkund's database of past students' papers and Internet content. A report is generated after comparison tests and sent to teacher.

Cost	Pricing is provided after contacting Urkund.

Trial	N/A

Notes	Established in 2000, this United Kingdom-based company sells one year subscriptions that allow both manual and automated services.

Plagiarism Detection Services Considerations

Positives

Can act as a deterrent
May provide quick, easy links plagiarized sections & Internet source material
Can assist in detecting patch-written material

Caveats

Loss of intellectual property
Cost
Not all original sources in database
All instances of material taken from original sources are highlighted, including properly cited material.

More Information

VAIL: Detection Tools and Methods. Oct. 2001. Web Page. http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/vail/faculty/detection_tools/choosing.html. 30 November 2004.

Culwin, Fintan and Thomas Lancaster. A Review of Electronic Sources for Plagiarism Detection in Student Submissions. Web Page. URL: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/events/presentations/317_Culwin.pdf. 30 January 2002.

Groark, Marie, and Diana Oblinger. "Academic Plagiarism in the Networked
Environment." EDUCAUSE. 1 (2001): 1-9.

The Plagiarism Resource Center at The University of Virginia

BACK TO DETECTING VIOLATION


	Printable Version