Ephorus. This document explains the working procedures of Ephorus, the plagiarism detector used at Högskolan Dalarna. Created:

Transcription

1 Ephorus This document explains the working procedures of Ephorus, the plagiarism detector used at. Created:

2 Contents What is plagiarism detection?... 3 What benefits does a plagiarism detecting system have?... 3 What file formats does Ephorus support?... 4 How do I start using Ephorus?... 4 How do I use Ephorus within Fronter?... 7 How do I create an Ephorus folder within Microsoft Outlook?... 9 How do I interpret Ephorus result s? ICT-pedagocical centre

3 What is plagiarism detection? Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else's work as their own. Plagiarism is considered poor academic practice and can lead to suspension for the students. To avoid plagiarism, it is important that students learn how to cite their sources properly. For further reading, please go to Sources/. For our students, Refero is a web based tutorial which guides them in this matter and how to avoid plagiarism: What benefits does a plagiarism detecting system have? Today, plagiarism comes in many forms; citing work without using proper quotation or the practice of copying full text essays and papers. The reasons behind this are many but it is always frowned upon and should be brought to attention. According to the Higher Education Ordinance, disciplinary measures may be taken against students who: use prohibited aids or other methods to attempt to deceive during examinations or other forms of assessment of study performance, (...). It is fairly easy to copy texts from books or from digital sources and a plagiarism detection system could help in this matter. However, no anti-plagiarism tools are one hundered percent accurate. They should always be accompanied by manual follow-ups, for instance using Google searches. Texts can also be translated in many rounds until it is unrecognizable to the plagiarism detection system. It should also be noted that when an anti-plagiarism 3

4 control session returns zero hits, something could be wrong because most academic papers do quote other sources. Likewise, a 30 percent hit result could mean that the citing has been carried out properly. In other words, a plagiarism detection system like Ephorus should never fully replace manual authentication because it's lacking the skill to "read between the lines". What file formats does Ephorus support? TXT DOCX DOC RTF ODT Documents made in Fronter (the editor) PDF SXW (No support for Power Point (PPT) files) How do I start using Ephorus? Get in touch with the ICT pedagogical centre and they will create an account. You will receive an from Ephorus with the following: You will have to activate your Ephorus account by clicking "Activate your Ephorus account". 4

5 You will then get to a page where you will have to fill out your personal information and agreement form. Click "Skicka (send). You will get a message saying that your account has been activated and that you can start using Ephorus. By clicking the link here, you ll be able to log in by entering your address and password. 5

6 6

7 Since you ve just created an account, your inbox will be empty. How do I use Ephorus within Fronter? Start off by creating a new hand-in folder, or edit the preferences on an existing folder. On the bottom of the page, you will see the Ephorus settings. Enter your address in the Notification address field and click Save. 7

8 When students have uploaded their hand-ins, open the folder as per usual and check which students (i.e. their work) you want to send to Ephorus. A successful transfer to the Ephorus plagiarism detection system will show up like this: Within a day, you will receive the results by . The results are presented in individual PDF files that are attached to the . Opening one of these results will reveal a comparison between the hand-in and the different digital findings, if there are any. 8

9 Since you will get a lot of results from Ephorus, a functional way is to let all s automatically sort themselves into specific folders in Microsoft Outlook. Please use the instructions below on how to do this. How do I create an Ephorus folder within Microsoft Outlook? Start the procedure by creating a new folder in Outlook. Right click on your inbox and choose New folder. Name the folder and click OK. 9

10 In the Tools menu, please click the Rules and Alerts item. 10

11 Click New Rule In step 1: Choose Move messages from someone to a folder. In step 2: click people or distribution list. 11

12 In the field to the right of From, please enter Click Ok Again, in the Rules Wizard and in step 2, click the word specified and choose your newly created Ephorus folder. 12

13 Click OK. Click Finish in the Rules Wizard window. 13

14 Back in the Rules and Alerts window, choose Apply and then OK All done! Now all Ephorus results will end up in a separate folder. How do I interpret Ephorus result s? In the with the comparison results, you will be able to read out the percentage of how the document that you ve sent for control compares to other findings on the internet. In the example below, the result is 3%. To get more information on which these sources are, either click the attached PDF result documents, or go to the extended report link on the Ephorus website. 14

15 Please note that the result is not an interpretation, it is just a report. The result percentage gives no indication of whether the findings are proper quotations or plagiarism. Follow s routines if you are suspecting plagiarism. This is what an attached result PDF document looks like (example taken from an essay in Swedish): 15

16 When logging onto Ephorus, you will be able to see all of your uploaded documents. All uploaded documents will, by default, register into the Ephorus databases. If you want to upload a revised version of an already uploaded document (for instance, if a student has made considerable changes to his or her essay) you would get a very high hit percentage on this document. To avoid this, you have to manually close (by clicking) the eye to the right of your documents inside Ephorus. In the example below, I ve already uploaded a document called Curriculum analysis.docx and now, I have a revised version of the same document that I want to check for plagiarism. The eye is closed so it won t interfere with the Curriculum analysis.docx that I am about to upload. Please note that the process could take up to 24 hours, until you get results from Ephorus. 16

17 ICT-pedagocical centre This manual is created by ICT-pedagogical centre. If you discover defects or other failures, please let us know by us at For more manuals, please visit: Manuals for teachers: Do you want to know more about ICT-pedagogical centre? Please visit: 17