Before choosing the software the University will test and pilot the Turnitin and Urkund systems. These are the most commonly used systems at universities and other institutions of higher education. The usability and functionality of the systems will be compared during the pilot phase. System integration into the Optima environment will also be tested.

Using the systems is easy for both students and teachers.

In the Urkund system, students send their assignments to their teacher's Urkund mailbox from which they continue to the detection system. Through a personal user interface the teacher can check the documents analyzed by the system.

In the Turnitin system, the teacher enters a course into the system and adds the students to it. The students can personally upload their documents into the system for analysis. Both students and teachers can examine the analysis reports.

Plagiarism means presenting other people's thoughts, ideas, writing, etc. as one's own. It may be intentional or unintentional. By launching the plagiarism detection system the University aims to promote good research and studying practices and to support the supervision of academic writing.

The systems are tested in the teaching environment by Richard Foley (Language Centre), Arja Kilpeläinen (the Faculty of Social Sciences), Rauno Korhonen (the Faculty of Law), Maija Mäkikalli (the Faculty of Art and Design), Riikka Niukkala (Language Centre), and Sai Väyrynen (the Faculty of Education). The teachers will inform the students included in the piloting about the testing practices.

Further information:
Kaarina Määttä, Vice-Rector, tel. 0400 696 480
Sirpa Purtilo-Nieminen, Development Manager, tel. 040 742 1270