A testcase document
A forged and ripped article containing material from very diverse sources. This is intended as collection of material to give an impression how various plagiarism detection software treats the following quotes:
Plagiarism in Dutch Higher Education
By Keith Russell
The problem of plagiarism in Higher education has been growing since the advent of the internet. Copying and pasting texts is extremely simple and is a fast way to create an article. In the United States the problem of plagiarism is well known. In an article from 2003 Dr. William T. Ryan writes on the subject of online cheating:
“With the increasing number of on-line term-paper mills, such as Schoolsucks.com and Cheater.com, students have an even greater tempta tion to plagiarize. Instead of copying text out of books or journals by hand, students can now find an array of termpapers online and can copy and paste blocks of text right into their word processors (Heberling, 2002).”
Now with some alterations:
“Many rather Deceitful degree students may also copy articles from websites of conference proceedings or well-intentioned academics. Starting March 2003, the Kimbel Library at Coastal Carolina University had recognised 250 active Internet paper and essay websites (Fain, 2003). A survey conducted by Mr McCabe, a management professor at Rutgers University, found that overhalf of the students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet; 74%

had engaged in “serious” plagiarism; and just under half of students believe their teachers choose at times to ignore students who are cheating (Stricherz, 2001).”
(Website http://www.syllabus.com/summer2003/pdf/W10a.pdf, captured February 13th 2006)
A quote like this should turn up in most plagiarism software, even if it is correctly cited. It is available in a pdf document which is available on the public internet. On the other hand restricted files are harder to detect. The obvious example is texts which have been copied from publishers’ websites which have restricted access. Fortunately, also publishers are beginning to realise the necessity of combating plagiarism. In an article in the chronicle of Higher Education Scott Carlson writes:
“Publishers of academic journals and scholarly articles are starting to use specialized software to root out instances of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Such software, already used to check the work of students, can scan academic papers, compare them against others in a database, and find instances of common language and sentence structure.
The trend was first reported in Nature. The publication's article notes that major journal publishers, like Elsevier, are reviewing commercial software packages that can sniff out plagiarism and are considering incorporating them in the production process.
Plagiarism software is also under development by academics who review articles for publication and run online journal archives. Christian Collberg, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Arizona, is developing a program to find self-plagiarists--academics who republish portions of their work in an effort to pad their vitae.”
(Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume: 51, Issue: 40 (June 10, 2005))
Dutch higher education is experiencing the same problems. In 2004 SURF, the Dutch organisation responsible for stimulating the use of ICT in higher education, commissioned a report on the situation of plagiarism in higher education in the Netherlands. Please note that this is a translation of a Dutch text and will probably not show up in any software which is available at present.
“Based on a websurvey we draw the careful conclusion that plagiarism does not appear to be an issue (yet) at four universities, three universities are starting to address the problem. Three universities have plagiarism detection software in use but this doet appear to be supported by policy. Three other universities have addressed the problem from a more policy based approach. Only one university has actually has addressed the problem at the level of the entire institution.”
(Plagiaat en Anti-Plagiaat in het Nederlands Hoger Onderwijs. SURF, juni 2004)
So in conclusion, I can state that plagiarism does appear to be a problem both in the United States as well as in the Netherlands. The use of plagiarism detection software is only one tool in addressing the problem. If you wish to address the problem from an integrated point of view I would refer you to the Handbook for Deterring Plagiarism in Higher Education, written by Jude Carroll. This is available through Oxford Brookes University website.