Report on Plagiarism Detection Studies

Report on Plagiarism Detection Studies

1  Turnitin did not detect papers with 34% plagiarized text; the system falsely “detected” papers with only 5% “minor” copy of text (Emerson, Rees & MacKay, 2005).

2  Turnitin did not detect all cases of plagiarism; it did not check against materials at password protected sites (Crisp, 2004).

3  A 15% threshold of “unoriginal” text was selected as the line over which a paper was judged to be plagiarized. For this threshold, Turnitin.com produced many false-positives, i.e., reporting a high amount of unoriginal text for papers that were not plagiarized (Barrett & Malcolm, 2006).

4  Turnitin did not detect plagiarized text, and it gave several “false hits” for papers not plagiarized (Hill, cited in Royce 2003).

5  Turnitin did not detect plagiarized text (Valenza, cited in Royce 2003), and yet it found matches for “small contentless strings of words in completely irrelevant documents” while missing “15 of 18 plagiarized passages” (Royce cited in Royce 2003).

6  The rate of detection by the systems (HowOriginal.com, PaperBin, EVE2, Wordcheck, Glatt, Turnitin) was a “high of 56% to a whopping low of 0%” (Satterwhite & Gerein, 2002). A Google search was as effective as use of Turnitin (Satterwhite & Gerein, n.d., Satterwhite & Gerein, 2002).

7  In a trial run of papers through Turnitin.com and use of a Google search, Turnitin was less effective. Turnitin did not catch cited and uncited verbatim passages of plagiarized text. In one text, it caught only two phrases; in another, it missed a “paper mill” text (Carbone, 2002).

8  “…its inability to find easily recoverable plagiarized sources can actually help students get away with plagiarizing” (Carbone, n.d.).

9  In the study of another system, Essay Verification Engine (EVE), “almost half the papers flagged by EVE demonstrated proper citation practice” (Braumoeller & Gaines, 2001, p. 836).

References

Barrett, R. & Malcolm. J (2006). Embedding plagiarism education in the assessment process. International Journal of Educational Integrity, 2(1), pp. 38-45.

Braumoeller, B. F. & Gaines, B. J. (December 2001) Actions do speak louder than words: Deterring plagiarism with the use of plagiarism-detection software. PSOnline, 34(4), 835-839. Retrieved through JSTOR.

Carbone, N. (n.d.) Considering plagiarism detection services and search tools. The Bedford/St. Martin’s Workshop on Plagiarism Detection. Retrieved January 25, 2006 at http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/plagiarism/default.asp?s=&n=&i=&v=&o=&ns=0&uid=0&rau=0

Carbone, N. (February 1, 2002). Re: a rebuttal of Turnitin.com. Email communication retrieved January 24, 2007 at http://bedfordstmartins.com/technotes/hccworkshop/missedplagiarism.htm

Crisp, G. T. (2004) Plagiarism and the reputation of the university: How to distribute effort between educating students on attribution and rigorous detection of cheating. Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum. Retrieved January 25, 2007 at http://www.auqa.edu.au/auqf/2004/program/papers/Crisp.pdf

Emerson, L., Rees, M. & MacKay, B. (2005). Scaffolding academic integrity: Creating a learning context for teaching referencing skills. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice 2(3) Retrieved through JSTOR, September 2006.

Royce, J. (2003). Trust or trussed? Has Turnitin.com got it all wrapped up? Teacher Librarian, 30(4).

Satterwhite, R. & Gerein, M. (n.d.). Downloading detectives site: Plagiarism detectives links & selected bibliography. Retrieved January 25, 2007 at http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/library/course/webplag2a.html

Satterwhite, R. & Gerein, M. (2002) Downloading detectives: Searching for on-line plagiarism. Retrieved January 25, 2007 at http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Library/Course/downloading_detectives_paper.htm