Verdict: Fares less well than most of the online scanners available.
Service: www.activehistory.co.uk/plagiarizr/ | |
| What are the subscription options? e.g. free, paid only, paid and free. If paid options, what length of subscription/price structure is offered? | Free online checker. |
| Maximum word count? (if any) | Unlimited/ not specified. |
| Resubmissions allowed? If so, is this limited? | Unlimited checks. |
| Type of scanner E.g. software download, copy and paste, upload document online. Say if multiple options are offered. | “Copy and paste’ online scanner. |
| Sources checked E.g. internet, any specific journal databases mentioned, any electronic book databases such as Google docs mentioned, past submissions from other students etc | Website – no words altered; Website – some words removed; Website – some words changed; Website – fully paraphrased; Online pdf; Electronic book. |
| File types supported E.g. doc, docx, rtf, open office, pdfs, ppts | None – the user can only cut and paste text into the online scanner. |
| Extra features? E.g. grammar checker, spelling checker | None. |
| Support offered? E.g. phone, email etc | There is no support offered for the online plagiarism checker although the website does have an integrated facebook page where users can leave comments. |
| Report / results | |
| Type of report Downloadable? Shareable? | Reports are generated within the website’s browser but these can’t be downloaded or shared. |
| Side by side comparison to plagiarism? | No. |
| Accuracy of results – Which sections were detected and which were not (make sure the correct source is identified) | |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from a website source | Detected. The online scanner correctly identified the webpage which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from an online pdf | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the online pdf which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Some words removed – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Some words changed – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Full paraphrasing – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from an electronic book | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the electronic book which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| General observations Ease of use, overall experience. If other features were included (e.g. spelling, grammar check), how easy were they to use and how useful were they? | |
| Activehistory.co.uk predominantly functions as an online history resource for secondary school and college students. The design of the website is basic although it serves its overall purpose well. Amongst its huge collection of resources it features a plagiarism checker in which text can be copied and pasted directly into it and scanned for plagiarism – a “document upload’ facility is not offered.The website doesn’t feature any kind of online support although users can engage by “liking’ their page on facebook or following them on twitter. There is also an online newsletter which users can sign up to.The scanner works by analysing each sentence and highlighting in red any plagiarised content. Sentences pop up, line by line, in a new page and plagiarised content can be clicked on to reveal its source on the internet. Only online reports are produced within the browser and a facility to create downloadable reports is not offered. Users could get around this by copying the text and pasting it elsewhere to create their own report – something which can be done with every online scanner which doesn’t automatically generate reports for its users to download and share.During tests, the plagiarism scanner only detected plagiarism in one out of the six test documents, failing to detect a plagiarised pdf, website content where words had been removed, website content where words had been changed, paraphrased content and blanket plagiarism from an electronic book. It only detected plagiarism in a website source where none of the words have been changed or removed. Accordingly, it fares less well than most of the online scanners available. Activehistory.co.uk, although useful for its history resources, should be avoided when checking for plagiarised content. | |
