Plagiarism detection

Award Force has a plagiarism detection integration with Copyleaks which will review content submitted by entrants to ensure originality.

Note: you will need to sign up for an account with Copyleaks to use this feature.

Copyleaks

Copyleaks pricing is based on the volume of scanning done. They sell monthly subscriptions for scanning "credits", or credits can be purchased in a prepaid volume. You can get a Copyleaks free trial account with 25 credits per month if you would like to test it out.

  1. Create an account via https://copyleaks.com/
  2. Create an Access key in Copyleaks via this page https://api.copyleaks.com/dashboard by checking the box next to Key 1

Access Keys checkboxes

Setting up for plagiarism detection

Once you've got a Copyleaks account you're ready to set things up in Award Force.

  1. In the Manage workspace, go to Settings > Integrations > Legacy integrations
  2. Click New integration
  3. Name the integration and select Copyleaks from the App drop-down
  4. Type in the email address of your Copyleaks account and the Access key you generated in your Copyleaks account
  5. Click Save

What gets scanned?

Fields

Text area (multi-line) and file upload (single) field types are scanned for plagiarism. 

Attachments

All attachments of the following types are scanned for plagiarism in addition to files uploaded via a file upload (single) field that is marked to be scanned for plagiarism:

pdf, docx, doc, txt, html, rtf, xml, pptx, ppt, odt, chm, epub, odp, ppsx, pages, xlsx, xls, csv and LaTeX

For further detail, refer to https://api.copyleaks.com/documentation/specifications

The maximum file size Copyleaks will scan is 25MB. It is therefore recommended to ensure a 25MB cap on attachments and file uploads that need to be scanned for plagiarism.

Requesting scans

There are two ways to request a scan: for an individual entry; or in bulk for the whole season of entries.

Individual scan

  1. In the Manage workspace, open the Entries list
  2. Click the three dots associated with an entry
  3. Choose Scan for plagiarism
    Entry ellipsis menu with 'Scan for plagiarism' option

OR

  1. In the Manage workspace, navigate to Entries
  2. Click on an entry's name or ID
  3. From the entry overview page, click the Scan now link
    Scan now link in manager's view

Bulk scan

Scanning all entries in a season in one bulk batch can be initiated as follows:

  1. From the Manage workspace, go to Settings > Integrations > Integrations
  2. Click your Copyleaks configuration
  3. Press Initiate scan...; this will let you know how many files, fields and entries will be scanned, and what your current Copyleaks credit balance is
  4. Confirm to start scanning with the Scan button
Tip: only submitted entries in the currently active season, which have not been marked 'Rejected' are scanned.

Entries to be scanned are sent to a queue, and completing all scans can take some time depending on volume, and how busy the Copyleaks service might be.

If you run out of credits, or if there is some problem with the scan, the batch scan will stop. After purchasing more credits, or addressing any problem, you can reinitiate the scan. Only entries that have not already been scanned will be queued again for scanning.

If a scanned entry is edited, the scan status will be marked as "Out-of-date". Another bulk scan, or an individual scan will rescan the whole entry.

Tip: if the scan status is 'Error', click on the entry to see the entry overview, and in the Plagiarism scan status row, below the Error is information about the issue. You will also see the control there to Scan now
Tip: in the Entries list view, you can add the column "Plagiarism scan" by clicking the cog at top left of the table, this displays the scan status for the entry

The scan results are shown in the entry preview. Each field, file and attachment that has been scanned has a % suspect score.

% suspect score example

Plagiarism visibility for judges

The % suspect scores can optionally be made visible to judges via the score set:

  1. In the Manage workspace, navigate to Judging > Score sets
  2. Click the score set
  3. Go to the 'Display' tab
  4. In the 'Display' module, select the % suspected plagiarism checkbox
    % suspected plagiarism checkbox
  5. Save

 

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