Plagiarism detection
Aarhus University uses Ouriginal (formerly Urkund) for the screening of exam assignments. The screening of texts is carried out in order to detect any plagiarism.
The primary use of Ouriginal is found in the digital exam systems Wiseflow and Digital exam. Ouriginal is integrated with this and checks all submitted material in these systems.
You can see a short guide from ouriginal, on how to read an analysis here.
As a student, you cannot access Ouriginal for checking your own materials, as the system is not intended for this purpose.
As a teacher and examiner, you have access to external analyses via Wiseflow or Digital exam, this support can help you can make the most out of your Ouriginal rapport.
We are also able to help you run checks of papers not turned in the examsystems (i.g. termpapers)
We do not check scientific material in Ouriginal prior to submission to conferences or journals.
If I suspect plagiarism
If you suspect plagiarism in an assignment, it is important that you do not consider the Ouriginal analysis to be concrete proof the student has committed plagiarism.
Ouriginal highlights only duplicate text areas between documents, and duplicate text does not necessarily equal plagiarism. Duplicate text may, for example, be a quote that has been viably inserted into a task and where a clear source has been documented. An Ouriginal analysis must be read in its context in order to determine whether any plagiarism has occurred.
The Ouriginal analysis must be studied with a view to determining whether it is just a matter of careless citation practice or plagiarism. If you need help finding out how to read an Ouriginal analysis, AU Library Ouriginal Support is here, to assist you.
If, after having studied an Ouriginal analysis thoroughly, you have decided to proceed with a case, you must report and document the case to Educational Law. Educational Law will handle the subsequent processing of the case, based on your documentation.
What is Ouriginal?
Ouriginal is a plagiarism detection tool, accessible to all lecturers at Aarhus University via the Digital Exam systems.
Ouriginal can detect overlaps between texts and thus help to spot cheating in written assignments. Ouriginal searches in 3 different sources: the Internet, material from publishers and previously screened tasks from institutions with a license to the system.
Please note that Ouriginal does not work in conjunction with all the publishers that AU Library provides access to. See a list on Ouriginal's own website. The list is not exhaustive. Please contact your faculty representative if you have any questions about specific publishers, or if you have suggestions for journals that you would like to see included in Ouriginal's comparison base. We will then contact Ouriginal in order to discover what possibilities are available to meet your needs.
More about plagiarism - for students and lecturers
It is important that students are made aware of the rules on documenting sources and managing references, in order to avoid plagiarism. AU Library has a made number of resources available, which you can share with your students.
- AU Library's page on how to avoid plagiarism - for students - includes information on reference management, stopplagiat.nu, etc.
- AU’s page concerning cheating in exams - for students - on the consequences of plagiarism, how to avoid cheating, etc.
- Avoiding pitfalls in exams – a guide for students on how to avoid cheating in exams.
As a lecturer, and researcher, we have the following information pages for you:
- AU Library's page on how to avoid plagiarism - for lecturers - "what do I do if I encounter plagiarism?", "what can I do to prevent plagiarism?", etc.
- Plagiarism, crediting and good citation practice - the researcher portal's page on plagiarism, etc.
- AU's page on responsible research practice - includes, among other things, a code of conduct for responsible research practice and guidelines for research integrity.
- Exam cheating, what procedures to follow