PlagScan is a plagiarism detection software, mostly used by academic institutions. PlagScan compares submissions with web documents, journals and internal archives. The software was launched in 2009 by Markus Goldbach and Johannes Knabe.

Functionality

PlagScan is offered as a

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and as an on-premise solution. Users can either register as a single user or as an organization. Upon first-time registration, single users receive a free test credit and can purchase additional credits for future submissions, after the completion of a satisfactory trial. Organizational users verify the organization's address prior to using the software. An obligation-free quote can be requested immediately on the website. Organizations can choose from a variety of options and create multiple administrators and groups, for example, to divide different departments within one institution. After scanning a submission for plagiarism, PlagScan provides users with a detailed report that indicates potential plagiarism and lists the matched sources.

Markets

PlagScan serves schools and universities worldwide. The software aims to help academic institutions to increase students’ awareness toward plagiarism and

academic integrity Academic integrity is the moral code or ethical policy of academia. The term was popularized by the R.C (USA), who is considered to be the "grandfather of academic integrity". Other prominent academic integrity scholars and advocates include Trace ...

. PlagScan also offers its services to the commercial market and publishers. Business users employ the software to improve SEO rankings or secure the proper usage of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

material. They mostly aim to ensure unique content and its protection. The most common commercial customers are publishers, journalists, advertising agencies and law firms.

Privacy and data security

PlagScan is compliant to the European General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, particularly following the German

Bundesdatenschutzgesetz The German (BDSG) is a federal data protection act, that together with the data protection acts of the German federated states and other area-specific regulations, governs the exposure of personal data, which are manually processed or stored in I ...

(BDSG), data security and

regulations. Each user has a variety of options regarding their data and submission settings, for example, whether to keep, delete or include submissions in an internal archive. According to the European data security and privacy laws.

Technology

PlagScan's two-step algorithm was developed in 2008 and compares submissions with millions of web sources and internal archives that users can optionally participate in. The software recognizes plagiarism as soon as at least three consecutive words match a different source. PlagScan built an indexing tool based on Apache Solr and relies on

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Bing’s search index for web documents. The software can be integrated into

Learning Management Systems A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...

such as Moodle, Canvas, Schoology, etc through an API and LTI integration.

Reviews

The plagiarism blog ''plagiarismtoday.com'' ranked PlagScan as the fourth-best plagiarism detection software on the market in 2011. PlagScan participated in "Captivate", a three-month acceleration program by the German Accelerator in 2014, promoting German technology startups to enter the U.S. market. PlagScan was ranked as one of the best information and communication technologies at the European Venture Summit in 2014.

Spotlight on Spanish Media, Congress and Senate

PlagScan came under the spotlight in Spain in September 2018 and created a lot of social debate, having even been discussed in Spanish Congress Of Deputies and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, after the Spanish Government used it to check alleged plagiarism on Spanish President

Pedro Sanchez Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for '' Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meani ...

's Doctoral Thesis. The program allegedly reported a 0.96% match when run by the Spanish Government, however those figures were later corrected by PlagScan CEO, Markus Goldbach to be 21% with the default configuration. Rival software TurnItIn had reported a rate of plagiarism of 15%, several times more than that reported by Spanish Government using PlagScan. The company replied "After applying the software internally – using the default settings and no filters – PlagScan cannot confirm this number. An initial scan revealed 21 percent of duplicated content. In order to receive a 0.96 percent result, one must have applied specific settings and actively disqualified sources. PlagScan has reached out to the Moncloa in order to gain an insight on the government’s procedure and methodology." This is an ongoing controversy and different newspapers, depending on their political bias, defend one result or the other. "Comunicado íntegro de PlagScan"
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References

{{Reflist Software for teachers Plagiarism detectors