The University of Manitoba has integrated leading plagiarism detection technology iThenticate into their Research Integrity framework, and made the service available to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and faculty to ensure academic integrity and avoid plagiarism.
The University of Manitoba website has a section dedicated to answering common questions about iThenticate and detailing the institution's guidelines for its use. The university strongly encourages all faculty and students to check their own work prior to submission for publication, grant applications, or theses. And while using iThenticate is not required, the school has empowered faculty to request proof of originality if questions arise.
The university's policies also emphasise that iThenticate is only intended for use to verify the originality of one's own work. By placing the responsibility on the individual authors - even within the context of co-authored work - this type of strategy helps instill a sense of personal responsibility for ensuring originality from the very start of a researcher's academic career.
Developed specifically for the research community, iThenticate compares written works against an extensive database of more than 45 billion web pages and 130 million content items, including restricted-access scholarly works that are typically outside the range of search engines. Within minutes, the service can identify similar or matched content, allowing authors to catch unintended duplication or uncited references prior to submitting a paper for publication.
Plagiarism and research misconduct are consistently among the leading concerns cited by researchers and scholarly publishers. In 2013, iThenticate surveyed nearly 1,000 academic researchers and editors of scholarly publications. When asked to identify their top concerns about the publishing industry, plagiarism and misconduct ranked near the top of the list for both groups, along with related factors including pressure to publish and image or data falsification.
