Existing plagiarism detection techniques. A systematic mapping of the scholarly literature
| Pages | 383-400 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-12-2014-0315 |
| Published date | 08 June 2015 |
| Date | 08 June 2015 |
| Author | Taiseer Abdalla Elfadil Eisa,Naomie Salim,Salha Alzahrani |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
Existing plagiarism
detection techniques
A systematic mapping of the
scholarly literature
Taiseer Abdalla Elfadil Eisa and Naomie Salim
Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia, and
Salha Alzahrani
Department of Computer Science, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to analyse the state-of-the-art techniques used to detect
plagiarism in terms of their limitations, features, taxonomies and processes.
Design/methodology/approach –The method used to ex ecute this study con sisted of
a comprehensive search for relevant literature via six online database repositories namely; IEEE
xplore, ACM Digital Library, ScienceDirect, EI Compendex, Web of Science and Springer using search
strings obtained from the subject of discussion.
Findings –The findings revealed that existing plagiarism detection techniques require further
enhancements as existing techniques are incapable of efficiently detecting plagiarised ideas, figures,
tables, formulas and scanned documents.
Originality/value –The contribution of this study lies in its ability to have exposed the current
trends in plagiarism detection researches and identify areas where further improvements are required
so as to complement the performances of existing techniques.
Keywords Taxonomy, Detection, Techniques, Processes, Plagiarism
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Plagiarism is described as an unrecognised utilisation of someone’s new idea(s),
expression(s) or text(s). It has long been considered to be a serious research,
academic or publishing offence. Many wheels have been re-invented and so
many are still being re-invented: a term that refers to the recycling of research,
ideas or texts for consumption within the academic or research community.
However, with the advent of new technology, plagiarism is now being curbed
and reduced since detection systems are readily available to track it. This was made
possible by ensuring that billions of ideas, texts, code sources, images, sounds
and videos are readily accessible in web databases in order to perform the
necessary matching to detect plagiarism. The focus of this study is to investigate
techniques used in the past for detecting plagiarism. There are various types
of plagiarism:
•exact copy plagiarism: lifting a sentence or a substantial phrase from a source
without using quotation marks to reference the source;
Online Information Review
Vol. 39 No. 3, 2015
pp. 383-400
©Emerald Group Publis hing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-12-2014-0315
Received 28 December 2014
First revision approved
18 March 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
This work is supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and the Research
Management Centre at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia under Research University Grant
Category Vot:Q.J130000.2528.07H89.
383
Existing
plagiarism
detection
techniques
•modified plagiarism: taking a sentence from a source and changing the order
of a few words;
•style plagiarism: copying an author’s reasoning style or concept even when the
texts are fully paraphrased;
•metaphor plagiarism: copying someone else’s metaphors in describing
a particular subject; and
•idea plagiarism: articulating another person’s novel idea or solution as though
it is ones’own.
This research therefore centres on the identification of existing plagiarism detection
techniques, descriptions, taxonomies, limitations and features. The analysis contained
in this paper covers the strengths and limitations of existing techniques particularly
in terms of whether they are able to detect plagiarised tables, figures or formulae across
various fields such as papers from chemistry, physics or mathematics amongst others.
The findings of this research will help developers, practitioners and scholars propose
optimised or more efficient plagiarism detection techniques with the aim of addressing
the limitation(s) of existing techniques.
Plagiarism has become a crucial research area in recent years as various research,
publishing and teaching institutions seek to drastically eliminate the re-invention of
the wheel associated with many research studies.
An example of plagiarism detection can be seen in Figure 1: the shapes and direction
of arrows were modified but the idea is actually plagiarised.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section describes the
research method used in this review. The section after that discusses the threats
to validity. The subsequent section presents the results and discussions while the final
section concludes the study.
Research method
The approach proposed by Kitchenham and Charters (2007), known as review protocol
as reflected in Figure 2, was adopted in conducting this study.
Analog
Specifications
Bilinear
Transformation
Digital
Specifications
Digital
Design
Inverse Bilinear
Transformation
fs , fp
Microwave
Synthesis
Analog
Specifications
Bilinear
Transformation
Digital
Specifications
Plagiarised figure
Source figure
Digital
design
Inverse Bilinear
Transformation
Microwave
Synthesis
(a)
(b)
Notes: (a) Proposed general method of design; (b) proposed
design technique
Figure 1.
Example of modified
or idea plagiarism
384
OIR
39,3
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