Are We Ready for Large Scale Use of Plagiarism Detection Tools?

One strategy in the prevention and detection of plagiarism and collusion is to use an automated detection tool. We argue that, for consistent treatment of students, we should be applying these tools to ALL written submissions in a given assignment rather than merely using a detection tool to confirm suspicions that a single text has been plagiarised. In this paper we describe our investigations into two plagiarism detection tools: the widely used commercial service Turnitin, and an in-house tool, Ferret. We conclude that there are technical and practical problems, first in the large scale use of electronic submission of assignments and then in the further submission of these assignments to a plagiarism detector. Nevertheless, the reporting mechanisms of both tools are fast and easy to use. Turnitin is more useful in detecting plagiarism from web sources, Ferret for detecting collusion within a group of students.