Document A - Guide to JISC Plagiarism Detection Service
Introduction
The JISC plagiarism detection service is an online service, which enables institutions
and staff to carry out electronic comparison on students’ work against electronic
sources including other students’ work. The service is based in the UK and
accessed via standard web browsers. JISC hope that this service will be a valuable
support tool for institutions and staff in their efforts to prevent and detect plagiarism.
However, it is important to note that electronic plagiarism detection cannot solve the
problem of plagiarism. Detection should be used as part of a wider approach to
prevention. With this in mind, the JISC is also supporting a plagiarism advisory
service based at Northumbria University. It is therefore, strongly recommend that, as
well as making use of this detection facility, you review the advisory services web
page and consider the recommendations on good practice provided.
Both the advisory and detection services will be fully funded by JISC for the first two
years (Sept 2002 to August 2004). During this time the services will be available to
JISC sites at no cost.
Overview of the Registration Process
To make use of the service sites must first register with the JISC plagiarism advisory
service. This process includes
Advisory
signing a letter of agreement.
Service
Once
this
is
process
is
completed, the advisory service
will provide a single institution
contact with access details
Institution
Administration
including administration user
name and password.
The
institutional administration team
then provide individual tutors with
Tutor 1
Tutor 3
Tutor 2
access. Each Tutor can then
create class details and inform
students of when and how to
Class
Class
Class
Class
submit their work to the site.
Class
Overview of the Service
The JISC detection service is based on the ‘turnitin.com’ developed and supplied by
the US company iParadigms. This product was selected by JISC following EU
procurement. Once the students have submitted their work, the service carries out a
comparison of it against the following:



A database of previously submitted material (i.e. other students essays and
assignments)
Over 800 million web sites
Essays from cheat sites
Further details on the service and how to register are available on the JISC
Plagiarism Advisory Web site at http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/jiscpas
The tutor can then access the results. It is important to note that the software itself
cannot identify plagiarism: it simply provides a colour coded 'originality report’. This
report highlights text within the assignment that has been found at another source
and provides links to it. The report does not make decisions about a piece of work or
its author; it provides information on which a tutor can make a judgement about
whether plagiarism has taken place.
An example of an ‘originality report’ is provided on the following page.
Integration of Electronic Detection
In 2001, JISC carried out a pilot to see what implications the use of electronic
plagiarism detection has on sites wishing to incorporate it into their assessment
process. Details of the findings of this pilot are available on the JISC Plagiarism
Advisory Service web site at http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/jiscpas, and may be
found in the Publications and Reports section.
Further details on the service and how to register are available on the JISC
Plagiarism Advisory Web site at http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/jiscpas
Further details on the service and how to register are available on the JISC
Plagiarism Advisory Web site at http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/jiscpas