The Austrian newspaper Tiroler Tageszeitung reports on the case of a scientist at the University of Innsbrück who received a doctorate in building materials science for a thesis which included plagiarized portions.
A German scientist was shocked to find an article in BetonWerk International reporting on the results of his own doctoral thesis, which he defended in 2001. He was not the author of this article, however, it was from the Austrian researcher.
He complained to the university, and the university did start an investigation. The surprising results: Yes, indeed, this is plagiarism. But the researcher - who appears to be working in the laboratory of the dean at the University of Innsbrück - gets to keep his doctorate if he submits a thesis within the next four months in which he corrects the "incorrect citations". Just a bit of carelessness with footnotes, it seems. The plagiarism was not "enough" for the doctorate to be revoked.
One wonders, given the current state of citation (un)culture in Austria, just how much needs to be plagiarized in order to warrant revocation. An other case in Germany, which has not yet hit the presses, involves a doctorate that is largely a word-for-word plagiarism of diploma-theses written under the tutelage of the "doctor". After 2 years of investigation, it seems the university is finally "considering" a revocation - and of course, the person so threatened is taking his university to court.
What has to happen in order for this system to change? We need proper mentoring of theses - the adviser must know the work well enough to know if it is a plagiarism or not. It must be clear at all levels that it is not acceptable to publish work done by dependent persons - or by third parties - under one's own name. And there must be effective punishments for people caught doing so, not just lashes with a wet noodle.
Any ideas?
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
First post-test: Attributor
[Hmm. Just found this in my drafts. Sorry.]
I have been made aware of the company Attributor, that is to help web publishers find plagiarisms of their web content. Of course I signed up for a free report! These post-tests will be done as I find the time.
The company is run by Jim Brock, a lawyer who was with Yahoo!, and Jim Pitkow, a computer science Ph.D. who developed and sold two start-up companies, Moreover and Outride.
Their goal is to help web publishers find the "re-mixers", for example the bloggers who comment and link to articles enabling interested parties to bypass the home page of the news organization and go straight for the article. This does not sound like a bad thing, until you realize that many blogs now make money with ads, revenue that is then missing in the presenting organization, who may have their most lucrative ads on the first page.
I have been made aware of the company Attributor, that is to help web publishers find plagiarisms of their web content. Of course I signed up for a free report! These post-tests will be done as I find the time.
The company is run by Jim Brock, a lawyer who was with Yahoo!, and Jim Pitkow, a computer science Ph.D. who developed and sold two start-up companies, Moreover and Outride.
Their goal is to help web publishers find the "re-mixers", for example the bloggers who comment and link to articles enabling interested parties to bypass the home page of the news organization and go straight for the article. This does not sound like a bad thing, until you realize that many blogs now make money with ads, revenue that is then missing in the presenting organization, who may have their most lucrative ads on the first page.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Another Plagiarism Detection Test
The JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) in the UK has just released their study of plagiarism detection systems: http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/documents/resources/PDReview-Reportv1_5.pdf (September 2007).
It was interesting to see that they tested some of the same systems we did, often having similar experiences with the systems although they only tested a few cases using computing-related texts. They did, however, have a very fine-grained points system looking at things such as legal issues and the technical basis for the server systems and the presence of licenses for using search machines such as Google or Yahoo.
Not surprisingly, Turnitin comes out on top. Why do I say "not surprisingly"? Well, JISC seems tightly entwined with the NorthumbriaLearning and the latter are the European re-sellers for Turnitin as well as a resource center for teachers. I am not quite clear on how close these two organizations are.
JISC did give this survey to an outside person to conduct, and had an academic advisory board look at the evaluation questions and suggest products to test. But the appendix entry on turnitin is a glowing sales document that avoids all of the issues with Turnitin (such as being overeager to store copies of papers in their database), whereas the others are more apt to have problems noted - problems that we, too, had in many cases.
The survey is still a very valuable collection of data - all the more so because they used questionnaires to elicit more data (or more refusals to give information) from the various companies. I am just curious as to how independent the study really is.
Update October 5, 2007: William Murray from NorthumbriaLearning has sent me this clarification of the relationship JISC/NL. Thanks, William, glad to post it!
Turnitin won a national tender in 2002 put out by JISC to run a national detection service in the UK and Northumbria University (our original parent company) won a second national tender for the advisory service JISC-PAS (Plagiarism Advisory Service) that supports it.
We (Northumbria Learning) have been managing JISC-PAS and reselling Turnitin ever since with JISC’s endorsement. JISC wanted an independent survey to reaffirm (or otherwise) their support for their original choice of detection solution in 2002. NCC Group Ltd were chosen because they are independent of NL and JISC-PAS.
Within JISC-PAS our primary aim is to encourage holistic change within institutions through better information literacy, better course design, better research practice and better teaching of core skills. We happen to think that solutions like Turnitin provide the ‘ah-ha’ moment (Jude Caroll’s term not mine) that focuses the minds of all concerned. In my view detection is a change agent for better practice (I taught informatics at Northumbria University for ten years so I think this is a good thing. I would have loved to be able to use Turnitin, our class sizes were huge 300+ in some cases which made consistency in marking a nightmare). But specifically to address your points:
It was interesting to see that they tested some of the same systems we did, often having similar experiences with the systems although they only tested a few cases using computing-related texts. They did, however, have a very fine-grained points system looking at things such as legal issues and the technical basis for the server systems and the presence of licenses for using search machines such as Google or Yahoo.
Not surprisingly, Turnitin comes out on top. Why do I say "not surprisingly"? Well, JISC seems tightly entwined with the NorthumbriaLearning and the latter are the European re-sellers for Turnitin as well as a resource center for teachers. I am not quite clear on how close these two organizations are.
JISC did give this survey to an outside person to conduct, and had an academic advisory board look at the evaluation questions and suggest products to test. But the appendix entry on turnitin is a glowing sales document that avoids all of the issues with Turnitin (such as being overeager to store copies of papers in their database), whereas the others are more apt to have problems noted - problems that we, too, had in many cases.
The survey is still a very valuable collection of data - all the more so because they used questionnaires to elicit more data (or more refusals to give information) from the various companies. I am just curious as to how independent the study really is.
Update October 5, 2007: William Murray from NorthumbriaLearning has sent me this clarification of the relationship JISC/NL. Thanks, William, glad to post it!
"The relationship between JISC (the government funded Joint Information Systems Committee in the UK) and NL needs explaining. The confusion occurs because all JISC services are branded with JISC in front of them. We run JISC-PAS not JISC!
Turnitin won a national tender in 2002 put out by JISC to run a national detection service in the UK and Northumbria University (our original parent company) won a second national tender for the advisory service JISC-PAS (Plagiarism Advisory Service) that supports it.
We (Northumbria Learning) have been managing JISC-PAS and reselling Turnitin ever since with JISC’s endorsement. JISC wanted an independent survey to reaffirm (or otherwise) their support for their original choice of detection solution in 2002. NCC Group Ltd were chosen because they are independent of NL and JISC-PAS.
Within JISC-PAS our primary aim is to encourage holistic change within institutions through better information literacy, better course design, better research practice and better teaching of core skills. We happen to think that solutions like Turnitin provide the ‘ah-ha’ moment (Jude Caroll’s term not mine) that focuses the minds of all concerned. In my view detection is a change agent for better practice (I taught informatics at Northumbria University for ten years so I think this is a good thing. I would have loved to be able to use Turnitin, our class sizes were huge 300+ in some cases which made consistency in marking a nightmare). But specifically to address your points:
JISC are not entwined with Northumbria Learning, we run the JISC-PAS and Turnitin service on behalf of JISC.
NCC group ran an independent survey
NCC group allowed *ALL* providers to vet *ALL* the information in their report and agree it as factually correct before publication.
All providers were given the opportunity to improve their scores prior to publication
The extent to which they contributed ‘sales’ information was entirely up to the companies concerned.
Its aim was to identify which system could be deployed enterprise wide, with high volumes of through put and used on a national scale *in the
Having a central database was on of the reasons Turnitin was selected by JISC. This is why (in this context) it was not a flaw."
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Test of Plagiarism Detection Software
It's finished, it's published. We worked feverishly right up to the wire. On Sept. 26 we sent copies of the preliminary reports (they were still in line for some language polishing) to the companies tested, so that they could prepare a statement, if they so chose.
We held a press conference this afternoon, cutting over to the new version of the plagiarism portal and the E-Learning unit on plagiarism detection ("Fremde Federn Finden", in German) at the start of the conference. We had 5 reporters in attendance and many who requested virtual press materials. The online magazine "Spiegel Online" had requested that we write a summary article for them, so we just cut out sleep for a few days in order to get it done.
We have had a lot of interest from reports and of course the companies tested. If we learn of other systems, we will be glad to test them as we have time (which will be spare time, as the financing for this project runs out tomorrow), although the results might not be comparable, as the Internet is constantly changing.
Here is a copy of the ranking page:
We held a press conference this afternoon, cutting over to the new version of the plagiarism portal and the E-Learning unit on plagiarism detection ("Fremde Federn Finden", in German) at the start of the conference. We had 5 reporters in attendance and many who requested virtual press materials. The online magazine "Spiegel Online" had requested that we write a summary article for them, so we just cut out sleep for a few days in order to get it done.
We have had a lot of interest from reports and of course the companies tested. If we learn of other systems, we will be glad to test them as we have time (which will be spare time, as the financing for this project runs out tomorrow), although the results might not be comparable, as the Internet is constantly changing.
Here is a copy of the ranking page:
Ranking
Excellent Systems
No system was ranked as excellent - but there have been many people who attended plagiarism detection seminars who scored 100% on the same tests!
Good Systems
Nr. 1 : Ephorus
Acceptable Systems
Nr. 2 : Docoloc
Nr. 3 : Urkund, Copyscape (premium), PlagAware
Nr. 6 : Copyscape (free)
Nr. 7 : TextGuard
Nr. 8 : turnitin, ArticleChecker
Nr. 10 : picapica
Unacceptable Systems
Nr. 11 : DocCop
Nr. 12 : iPlagiarismCheck, StrikePlagiarism
Nr. 14 : CatchItFirst
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Blog post on plagiarism detection
I am busy round the clock tidying up and getting my report about plagiarism detection finished for Thursday, and one major online publication has requested that we also write an article for them, so sleep is down to a minimum at the moment.
But I must post this link from "Hardcore Ambiguity" entitled "A few more stabs at plagiarism". The author is spittin' mad about services such as www-dot- academicintegrity -dot-com. We had found a different one during our tests, but this is just outrageous. I won't link to them either (but you can easily find the page). They write about academic integrity on the same page that they offer you their paper-writing services. Just disgusting.
Now back to work
But I must post this link from "Hardcore Ambiguity" entitled "A few more stabs at plagiarism". The author is spittin' mad about services such as www-dot- academicintegrity -dot-com. We had found a different one during our tests, but this is just outrageous. I won't link to them either (but you can easily find the page). They write about academic integrity on the same page that they offer you their paper-writing services. Just disgusting.
Now back to work
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Coming soon: plagiarism detection software test
I have been super busy lately, as we are testing as many plagiarism detection software systems as we can get our fingers on. The final results will be announced on September 27, 2007 at 12.00 UTC+1, so if you are considering obtaining such a system, you might want to wait a few weeks.
We looked at 15 plagiarism detection systems, one collusion detection system and two code sharing detection systems. We used 20 short papers of known plagiarism degree, two files for collusion detection and two 400-line program code files specifically prepared with 14 different types of "masking" behavior.
Stay tuned for the results - in German first, I'm afraid, but we will get around to putting it in English soon, I hope!
We looked at 15 plagiarism detection systems, one collusion detection system and two code sharing detection systems. We used 20 short papers of known plagiarism degree, two files for collusion detection and two 400-line program code files specifically prepared with 14 different types of "masking" behavior.
Stay tuned for the results - in German first, I'm afraid, but we will get around to putting it in English soon, I hope!
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Stealing from a Plagiarism Site
We are currently testing plagiarism detection software and were evaluating the results from one system when we discovered a strange link. Some blog at Windows Live had plagiarized one of our plagiarism test cases about the history of Döner, a Turkish fast food popular in Germany.
The site did give a source - plagiat.fhtw-berlin.de is listed at the bottom as being a source. Of course, this is our portal, not the E-Learning unit and most certainly not the exact source. A large chunk and a smaller one are taken verbatim from our page without using those pesky "..." signs that just mean extra typing for the author, I suppose.
I wanted to send the "author" a take-down notice, as my texts may only be quoted or used as per copyleft, that is, that the derivative work also be under the same license and that a link to the license and the authors remain intact. But I have to sign up for Microsoft's "Windows Live" in order to contact the author!
I was just about to sign up in order to contact the author when I found a little link at the bottom of the page labeled "Legal". Following this I find a large page with a paragraph entitled Notices and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement. This is interesting, there is even an E-Mail address given and a procedure for issuing take-down notices.
Okay, so this is a test for Microsoft. I wrote an email, detailing the amount of the plagiarism and the problem: I have permission from the original authors of this plagiarism to use this content - my plagiarizer doesn't. I will report on whether Microsoft bothers to answer, and if they do indeed get the page taken down.
I find it very troublesome that someone just uses the text they found without bothering to understand the context in which it was written. It seems we must not only educate our students on avoiding plagiarism, but also the general public. I am happy when people write - that's what blogs are for. But I do not understand that people find it okay to just copy other people's texts - and publish it on their blogs!
This makes it clear that the schools must act and teach about the proper use of content and good research practices, something I thought was self-evident, but apparently is not.
The site did give a source - plagiat.fhtw-berlin.de is listed at the bottom as being a source. Of course, this is our portal, not the E-Learning unit and most certainly not the exact source. A large chunk and a smaller one are taken verbatim from our page without using those pesky "..." signs that just mean extra typing for the author, I suppose.
I wanted to send the "author" a take-down notice, as my texts may only be quoted or used as per copyleft, that is, that the derivative work also be under the same license and that a link to the license and the authors remain intact. But I have to sign up for Microsoft's "Windows Live" in order to contact the author!
I was just about to sign up in order to contact the author when I found a little link at the bottom of the page labeled "Legal". Following this I find a large page with a paragraph entitled Notices and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement. This is interesting, there is even an E-Mail address given and a procedure for issuing take-down notices.
Okay, so this is a test for Microsoft. I wrote an email, detailing the amount of the plagiarism and the problem: I have permission from the original authors of this plagiarism to use this content - my plagiarizer doesn't. I will report on whether Microsoft bothers to answer, and if they do indeed get the page taken down.
I find it very troublesome that someone just uses the text they found without bothering to understand the context in which it was written. It seems we must not only educate our students on avoiding plagiarism, but also the general public. I am happy when people write - that's what blogs are for. But I do not understand that people find it okay to just copy other people's texts - and publish it on their blogs!
This makes it clear that the schools must act and teach about the proper use of content and good research practices, something I thought was self-evident, but apparently is not.
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