Monday, January 3, 2011

Plagiarism Detection Software: Silver Bullet or Waste of Time?

„Plagiarists beware – we use software!“

Many universities attempt to coerce their students into compliance with good scientific practice with the use of plagiarism detection software. And there are many systems that offer such services. They suggest a fast, cheap, and easy way to winnow out the plagiarists from the honest authors. But do they work as promised?

Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff, professor for media and computing at the University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin has been testing plagiarism detection systems since 2004 and has published widely on the topic. In this fourth test series that was just completed at the end of 2010 26 systems out of 47 available systems were closely examined. Particular focus was given to seeing how well the systems detect a known amount of plagiarism, and how they react when offered original material.

Prof. Weber-Wulff and her student research assistant will be presenting what works – and what fails spectacularly – in an online press conference. 

Online Press Conference: „Plagiarism Detection Systems“ 

Friday, January 7, 2011

9:00 UTC (10:00 German time) in German: https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiat10/
Technical prerequisites: Standard browser with Flash
Technical problems can be solved half an hour before the conference by
 Katrin Köhler, Tel: +49-30-5019-3499

15:00 UTC (16:00 German time) in English: https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/plagiarism10/
Technical prerequisites: Standard browser with Flash
Technical problems can be solved half an hour before the conference by
 Katrin Köhler, Tel: +49-30-5019-3499

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