Plagiarism.org
and Turnitin.com
Plagiarism.org and
Turnitin.com were created to address the growing problem of web-based
plagiarism. The Plagiarism.org website provides information on the issue of
using the Internet to facilitate dishonest academic behavior and describes some
technologies that have been designed for the purpose of detecting unoriginal
works. Document Source Analysis, a technology invented by Plagiarism.org about
five years ago, works by assigning a unique identifier (called a ‘digital
fingerprint’) to every text document. Clients of this proprietary technology
submit their works to a database at Turnitin.com. Every time a new document is
submitted, the ‘digital fingerprint’ assigned to that document is used for
cross-referencing the new submission with all the other documents in the
database. If another document with the same fingerprint is found during this
process, then the new submission has clearly been plagiarized. In addition to
checking that papers already in the database have not been copied, automated web
crawlers are deployed to search the Internet for other works that might prove a
new submission to be unoriginal.
The cross-referencing
procedure prevents students from simply copying another paper verbatim and
handing it in, but there are other less obvious forms of plagiarism that the
Document Source Analysis technology is designed to detect. For instance, a
student might attempt to copy a paper and simply replace some words and phrases.
Another student may write some original material and then integrate an
inordinate amount of copied material, with no quotes or citations, into her
paper. To prevent these more subtle types of plagiarism, Document Source
Analysis employs algorithms to produce ‘originality reports.’ These reports
are generated on the basis of a ‘plagiarism index’, which varies according
to the amount of unoriginal content contained in a document. If the plagiarism
index exceeds a certain threshold value, then the work under review is
classified as a plagiarism. Within twenty-four hours of submitting a document to
Turnitin.com, a client will receive a report assessing the originality of the
submitted document. The report contains links to direct comparisons of the
submitted text with suspected sources of copied material.
Glatt
Plagiarism Services, Inc.
Glatt Plagiarism Services,
Inc. offers a user-end software-based approach to preventing and detecting
plagiarism. One software program, called the Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program
(GPTeach), is a tutorial designed to provide students with an understanding of
exactly what constitutes plagiarism and instructions on how to avoid it. Another
program, the Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program (GPSP), provides a software
solution for identifying plagiarized writings. The underlying assumption of this
program is that individual writing styles are unique, and that an author should
be able to recall her own style of writing better than anyone else. The program
works by substituting a “standard size blank” for every fifth word in a
paper suspected of plagiarism. The author of the paper is then asked to fill in
the missing words. The program issues a “Plagiarism Probability Score” based
on factors such as the number of correct responses and the amount of time
intervening between responses. Glatt Plagiarism Services, Inc. also offers
another plagiarism detection program whose purpose is to assist students in
self-detection. This test is very similar to the GPSP, but is much less
accurate.
Listed below are some other
sites that provide web-based plagiarism detection services:
Integrigard offers a
subscription service and a free service through PaperBin.com and
HowOriginal.com, respectively. The subscription service works through a
submissions process, in which submitted papers are added to a database for
future comparisons. The free service operates similarly, except that writings
submitted to HowOriginal.com are not added to Integrigard’s internal database.
“EVE2
accepts essays in plain text, Microsoft Word, or Corel Word Perfect format and
returns links to web pages from which a student may have plagiarized. EVE2 has
been developed to be powerful enough to find plagiarized material while not
overwhelming the professor with false links.”