Plagiarism is not a new issue in the world. People have learned to plagiarize since they started painting horses on the walls of their caves. However, fighting with plagiarism and plagiarism detection are flourishing themes because of the development of modern plagiarism check software.
First Plagiarism Check Software
The first plagiarism check software appeared around the 1990s. It was far from the online systems available now. However, it could detect plagiarism much better than a simple man. There was a problem: insufficient comparative database.
The new stage of plagiarism check software began in 2010. The number of plagiarism check software rose. Many of them are created and registered in India and are not appreciated by European or American users because of their poor quality.
Researchers About Fighting Plagiarism
Z. Ercegovac (2004) in his study said that the best way to fight plagiarism is starting from the very beginning. Not in university, but in middle school. In many countries, students learn about plagiarism at universities – not at school. For example, our plagiarism check survey (2013) shows that education discouraging plagiarism appears at university for the first time for 78% of students in the EU.
In some universities it is a very common point of view that students shouldn’t be able to use such tools freely.
Bilic-Zulle and partners’ (2008) study showed, that simply knowing the fact, that teachers using plagiarism check software decreases the cases of plagiarism by 64%. Our practice shows that students that know teachers use plagiarism check software use the same tool and withdraw any plagiarism from their papers. In case their teacher doesn’t inform them about using plagiarism check software, students also feel free submitting plagiarized papers. This fact shows that teachers may have a large part in decreasing plagiarism rates by its influence.
Plagiarism Check Software Is Not Only For Teachers
In some universities, it is a very common point of view that students shouldn’t be able to use such tools freely. If plagiarism check software were institutional tools only, it would be unavailable for students. The survey (Koshy 2009) shows that about 60% of students feel positive toward plagiarism check software. This is the best proof that such tools are useful for students.
Other researchers (Wallis 2010) say that most mistakes when estimating acceptable/unacceptable rates of plagiarism in certain papers are made by teachers. They usually accept submitted papers that are plagiarized even after plagiarism check software detected plagiarism. He says the best solution for the human factor, in this case, is to fully transfer the responsibility of evaluating plagiarism percentage to a computer. It is already possible. However, most universities are still discussing that. To sum up, it seems that we will have self-driven cars a long time before self-evaluating plagiarism check software.