Unplag Adds Plagiarism Checking for Students
Unplag, an online plagiarism detection engine, has added the ability for students to check their own papers ahead of the due date to make sure all their sources are properly acknowledged.
Unplag accounts for educational institutions include "corporate manage," "instructor" and student accounts. Corporate managers have full control over the other two account types and instructors are able to create and manage student accounts and provide access to folders with assignments. Students can only upload and submit their work. Corporate managers must turn the draft check feature on, then instructors are able to set the number of draft checks, from one to five, that students are able to perform.
"Once 'draft check' is enabled, 'students' can access the 'draft' folder and upload a file for precheck across numerous online sources indexed by Yahoo and Bing," according to a news release. "After scanning is completed, students can view detailed report with highlighted similarities and hyperlinked sources that were duplicated. Here, it's also possible to exclude already cited text parts and see plagiarism percentage for each particular source. Total number of prechecks available is indicated in the 'system settings' inside the 'student' account."
"Knowing that lots of educators adopt a democratic approach in teaching and encourage students to upgrade their practical skills through self-education, the Unplag team enabled 'draft check'", said Anastasia Parokha, chief marketing officer and product owner at Unplag, in a prepared statement. "This increases students' chances to get better grades by scanning papers across the Web and correctly citing all spotted similarities. Once 'instructors' switch on the option, students can run the set number of prechecks in their personal accounts. Precheck results remain accessible only for students, so that they can feel more at ease."
Unplag plans to add additional features throughout the year, such as student progress tracking, assignment grading and the ability to leave comments, among others.
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Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].