VAIL - Faculty/Administrators - Detection Tools and Methods - Choosing a Detection Tool - UMUC


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Faculty art (briefcase + computer)

Survey Research


	Introduction


	Factors To Consider Before You Begin


	Student Copyright and Detection Services


	The Detection Process


	Choosing a Detection Tool


	Detection Workshops and Training


	Resources for UMUC Faculty


	Bibliography

Detection Tools and Methods

Printable Version

Choosing a Detection Tool:
Online or Remotely Located Search Tools and Services

Online Tools | Desktop Tools | Web Search Engines | Subscription Databases

Currently Available

Tool Name	Type of Detection	URL
EduTie.com	Cut & Paste; Collusion	http://www.edutie.com	MORE INFORMATION
PlagiServe.com	Cut & Paste; Fraud	http://www.plagiserve.com	MORE INFORMATION
TurnItIn.com	Cut & Paste; Collusion; Fraud	http://turnitin.com/static/home.html	MORE INFORMATION
Glatt Plagiarism Self-Detection Program (GPSD)	Cut & Paste; Fraud	http://www.plagiarism.com	MORE INFORMATION
Moss (Measure Of Software Similarity)	Collusion in computer code	http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/moss.html	MORE INFORMATION
Jplag	Fraud; Collusion in computer code	http://www.jplag.de/	MORE INFORMATION

Under Development

Tool Name	Type of Detection	Developer	URL
MatchDetectReveal (MDR)	Cut & Paste	School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monash University	http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/projects/MDR/
Non-Verbatim Copyright Infringement Detection for text	Cut & Paste (paraphrase)	By Ozlem Uzuner & Boris Katz	http://www.ai.mit.edu/research/abstracts/abstracts2001/ information-access/09uzuner.pdf

Defunct Services and Tools

HowOriginal.com
Paperbin.com
Digital-Integrity.com
FindSame.com

Edutie.com
(Cut & Paste; Collusion Detection)

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Vendor	Olexiy Shevchenko, Max Litvin, and Sasha Lugovskyy
Demo/Trial	Yes; Free trial of 10 submissions
Pricing Structure	Individual License $150 (200 manuscripts limit), Departmental License $800 (unlimited manuscripts), and Institutional License $1,400 (unlimited manuscripts)
Platform	Web
Submission Formats	Electronic files; by students and faculty
Scope of Search	System tracks Internet source(s) used in a document; shows the degree of plagiarism and provides direct links to the sources.
Results Format	Web based
Results Turnaround	Submissions take approximately 24 hours to be processed.
Archives Student Papers	Yes. The documents are submitted to an EduTie server so that the customer could view them later. However, all the documents submitted to EduTie remain the property of the author, and EduTie.com has no right to view the documents or disclose them to any third party. (EduTie)
Summary of Reviews	A relatively new service (7/02); though the technology behind PlagiServe drives this product.
Comments	Tracks all online paper mills and hosts a database of reportedly 250,000 academic papers/works.
Identified Limitations	Submissions take approximately 24 hours to be processed; cannot access subscription websites
Special Features	Online Paper Submission; development of secure institutional archive of submitted papers; integration into online course delivery systems; customization to your institutional Website set-up price ranges from $1000 to 4,000; administrators can monitor usage of a school or department’s account, create and change profiles and passwords and manage archives of uploaded papers.
Report Samples	From Edutie: http://www.edutie.com/sample_report.htm

PlagiServe.com
(Cut & Paste; Fraud)

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Vendor	Olexiy Shevchenko, Max Litvin, and Sasha Lugovskyy
Demo/Trial	No
Pricing Structure	Free
Platform	Web
Submission Formats	Cut & paste text in text box by faculty
Scope of Search	Searches the Internet and "paper mills"; has a local database of reportedly 70,000 student term papers, essays, and Cliff notes.
Results Format	Web based
Results Turnaround	Generates a report in less than 12 hours.
Archives Student Papers	Information presently not available.
Summary of Reviews	Generates a reports in less than 12 hours
Comments	Though you must register, it provides free, unlimited use; service is based in the Ukraine.
Identified Limitations	Instructor must submit all papers to system in one batch; only available through its website; cannot access subscription websites.
Special Features	Provides list of resources for further information about plagiarism.
Report Samples	From PlagiServe: http://www.plagiserve.com/sample.htm From "Results of Oxford's test of four text-based plagiarism detection tools" by Frances Condron (2001): http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/reports/plag.xml.ID=appendixl

Turnitin.com
(Cut & Paste; Collusion; Fraud)

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Vendor	iParadigms, LLC/Plagarism.org
Demo/Trial	Yes; Free 1 month subscription includes 5 "Originality Reports"; Tutorials available for various features of service.
Pricing Structure	$100 for an individual instructor; Site license based on institution's size, number of subscribers, and structure of institution: secondary school, 2-year college, 4-year college, and distance education. Est. $4000 per annum for unlimited reports
Platform	Web
Submission Formats	Recommends MSWord and other word-processing, plain text; by faculty and students
Scope of Search	Submitted student papers are compared to internet resources; then against a database of previously submitted papers.
Results Format	Web based
Results Turnaround	"Originality Reports" reported to be returned in more than 24 hours.
Archives Student Papers	Yes. Student papers are retained in the TurnItIn.com database. All future submissions to the service are then checked against that growing database.
Summary of Reviews	In JISC study it scored low in technical reliability but high regarding mass distribution. Also, JISC described this portal as having "poor technical support responses" and "high price outlay for mass uptake of their service".
Comments
Identified Limitations	Trial searches web resources only;originality reports reported to be returned in more than 24 hours of submission; only available through its website; cannot access subscription websites.
Special Features	Offers a "Peer Review" feature where instructors can customize assignments so that students can then use it to review and evaluate each others' work; "Digital Portfolio" allows students and teachers to review their papers previously submitted and archived.
Report Samples	Originality Reports from TurnItIn.com: http://turnitin.com/static/plagiarism.html ; Peer Review: http://turnitin.com/static/peerreview.html From "Results of Oxford's test of four text-based plagiarism detection tools" by Frances Condron (2001): http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/reports/pappendix1.html
JISC Ratings* Key: Excellent *** Good Acceptable * Poor ** Unsatisfactory *
Developers Stability	****
Speed of Response	****
Clarity of Reports	*****
Accuracy of Reports	****
Reliability of Software/Service	**

Glatt Plagiarism Self-Detection Program (GPSD)
(Cut and Paste; Fraud)

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Vendor	Glatt Plagiarism Services, Inc.
Demo/Trial	No
Pricing Structure	Free online or order a Windows 95/98/NT version, $65
Platform	Web
Submission Formats	Plain text, cut & paste into text box; by faculty
Scope of Search	A test designed to help users become more sensitive to their own writing style; it eliminates every fifth word and evaluates the student's accuracy and speed in replacing the words.
Results Format	Web based
Results Turnaround	Test is generated immediately.
Archives Student Papers	No. It seems to have the potential, but the function of the software has a different purpose.
Summary of Reviews	Helpful if the source of suspected student writing cannot be found. Can be used as a follow-up after detection of suspected student writing.
Comments
Identified Limitations	Disclaimer admits: "Although it bears many similarities to the GLATT PLAGIARISM SCREENING PROGRAM… results on the PLAGIARISM SELF-DETECTION TEST are significantly less reliable"
Special Features
Report Samples	N/A

Moss: Measure Of Software Similarity
(Collusion in computer code)

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Vendor	Alex Aiken, developer
Demo/Trial	No
Pricing Structure	Free
Platform	Unix, Windows
Submission Formats	C, C++, Java, Pascal, Ada, ML, Lisp, or Scheme programs; by faculty
Scope of Search	Finds similarities among multiple sets of source code files.
Results Format	HTML pages listing pairs of programs with similar code
Results Turnaround	Reported to be quick; processing time is < 1 minute, but email latency on the Internet may delay results a few minutes longer. (MOSS)
Archives Student Papers	Yes. Results are retained for 10 days, then everything is reported to be deleted. (MOSS)
Summary of Reviews	According to JISC study, "Poor technical support response." "Turnaround of results is quick…but less quick than Copycatch"
Comments	Tool can be downloaded from website; assignments need to be submitted in one batch.
Identified Limitations	Accounts restricted to instructors and staff of programming courses.
Special Features	Automatically eliminates matches to code that is expected to be shared (e.g., libraries or instructor-supplied code).
Report Samples	N/A

Jplag
(Collusion in computer code)

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Vendor	Department of Informatics at the University of Karlsruhe
Demo/Trial	No
Pricing Structure	Free; must e-mail for account setup
Platform	Web based
Submission Formats	Java, C++, C, Scheme, Natural Language; by faculty
Scope of Search	Finds similarities among multiple sets of source code files. In addition to comparing bytes of text, it tracks programming language syntax and program structure, which guards against similarities between plagiarized files.
Results Format	HTML
Results Turnaround	Reported to be quick; processing time is < 1 minute. (Jplag)
Archives Student Papers	No. Of course some of the code is part of the resulting web pages which are stored on our server, but you can remove them whenever you want to. When you are using the command-line version the results are downloaded and removed automatically. (Jplag)
Summary of Reviews
Comments	E-mail for account; assignments need to be submitted in one batch for similarity matching.
Identified Limitations	Suggests that it can be used for detection in text documents but producers do not support the success with this type of document.
Special Features	N/A
Report Samples	http://wwwipd.ira.uka.de:2222/example/

This project was developed by the Center for Intellectual Property at UMUC.

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