DETECTION OF PLAGIARISM WITH TEXT SIMILARITY SOFTWARE IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS - ASST PROF KSENIJA BAŽDARIĆ, PHD

Detection of Plagiarism with Text
         Similarity Software in Scientific
                     Journals

Asst Prof Ksenija Baždarić, PhD

Croatian Medical Journal – Research Integrity Editor
European Science Editing – Chief Editor
Research Integrity and Peer Review – Editorial Board

1st Google search result for „antiplagiat”

Scientific misconduct
Major             Minor            AND
• Fabrication     • Questionable   • Does not
• Falsification     research         include
                    practices        honest
• Plagiarism
                                     errors

Plagiarism

• “appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes,
  results or words without giving appropriate credit to the
  source or author” (Federal Policy on Research Misconduct. White House
   Office of Science and Technology Policy. 2000)

• AND images, power point presentations.....

                                                        https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=iehb6ZFi&id=CE1D1
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                                                        content%2fuploads%2f2017%2f04%2fES1.png&exph=898&expw=2079&q=plag
                                                        iarism&simid=608000636545601382&selectedIndex=13

Plagiarism types
Major                       Minor
• Blatant (major, gross)    • Inappropriate
  plagairism                  Paraphrasing
  – Translation without     • Technical plagairism
    acknowlodgment             – Appropriation of Materials
                                 and Methods
• Patchwork plagiarism
  (patch writing, mosaic
  writing)

                  Similarity rate!
                    Position!

Text similarity software

• Various, hundreds on the market

• Free: Antiplagiat, DupliChecker, Plagiarsma, Small SEO
  tools, Quetext, Viper, WCopyFind and many others
• Commercial:
   – Academic integrity – Turnitin, SafeAssign, EVE, Compilatio…
   – Scientific integrity – CrossRef Similarity Check (previously
     CrossCheck (iThenticate))

Free text similarity software - Quetext

https://www.quetext.com/

Free TSS - WCopyfind

                       Offline program

                       Avaliable at:
                       http://plagiarism.bloo
                       mfieldmedia.com/wor
                       dpress/software/wcop
                       yfind/

Antiplagiat (https://www.antiplagiat.ru/)

CrossRef similarity Check

https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/

Patchwork plagiarism

Plagiarism rates
        committed plagiarism                                       witnessed plagiarism

      1.2 % (N=7, 95%CI: 1.2%-2.4%)                               29.6% (N=11, 95%CI: 17.4%-45.5%)

Pupovac V, Fanelli D. Scientists Admitting to Plagiarism: A Meta-analysis of Surveys. Sci Eng Ethics. 2014 Oct 29.

Prevalence of plagiarism in
submitted manuscripts
Authors            Journal, manuscripts       Prevalence/   Method of
(publication)                                 Treshold      detection
Zhang (Learn       Journal of Zheijang        23%           Not specified
Publ, 2010)        University Science
                   (2008-2009); N=662         OSI ND
Bazdaric et al     Croatian Medical Journal   11%           >10% similarity in
(Sci Eng Ethics,   (2009-2010); N=754                       one source
2012)                                         OSI ND        Manual verification
Higgins, Lin,      Genetics in Medicine       17%           80 % in a sentece
Evans              (2013-2014); N=400                       Methods excluded
(RIPR; 2016)                                  OSI 15%       Manual verification
Taylor             American Journal of        11%
(AJR, 2017)        Roentgenology                            Manual verification
                   (2014)                     OSI 12%
                   N=110
                   (10% sample)

Plagiarism framework

• Rohwer, Wager, Young, Garner. Plagiarism in research:
  a survey of African medical journals (BMJ
  Open 2018;8:e024777. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024777)

Actions to be taken

• COPE flowcharts:
  https://publicationethics.org/files/Full%20set%20of%20E
  nglish%20flowcharts_9Nov2016.pdf

• In submitted manuscripts  rejection
• In published articles  retraction

https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts

Cooperation with institutions

 The COPE Code of Conduct notes that “Editors should not simply reject
 papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. They are ethically
 obliged to pursue alleged cases.”

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/19/139170

Correcting the literature - COPE gudielines on retraction

Retraction watch database
(http://retractiondatabase.org/)

     http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx

Dissernet (https://www.dissernet.org/)

Maintaining ethical standards in journal

• Editor’s responsibility

• Education of editors, peer-reviewers and authors:
  journal’s instruction, workshops, articles, informations
  from relevant organizations

• Institutional education – courses in scientific
  methodology, statistics and research integrity

Спасибо Вам большое за внимание!
                 Faculty of Medicine,
                 Rijeka, Croatia
                 www.medri.hr

                 Opatija, Croatia