Software Profile | Testoverview | Summary| Screenshots | Business Promotion | Links
Software Profile
| ID | S10-02 |
| Product | Ephorus |
| Company | Ephorus B.V. Vondellaan 40 3521 GH Utrecht The Netherlands |
| Web Site | http://www.ephorus.com |
| Software Type | Online |
| Costs | not stated |
| Test Date | 2010-09-02 |
Testoverview
| Ranking for all tests: | 4 |
| Ranking for tests 10-40: | 9 |
| Ranking for tests 31-40: | 5 |
| Usability: | 2 |
| Professionalism | 4 |
| Middle Ranking | 4,8 |
| Effectiveness (Grade): | C- |
| Overall Ranking: | 3
partially useful |
Summary
Third in the overall ranking is Ephorus, a Dutch system that took first place in 2007, dropping to 7th place in 2008. The system has been completely redone and now ranks second in usability, up from 8th place. It is now possible for students to hand in their papers directly to the system using a hand-in code, similar to what Turnitin offers. The system still has many navigational areas, but it is not as confusing as it used to be. A nice touch is that the teacher can set a threshold for amount of plagiarism detected and have the system send an email when a report is detected to be above this value. Umlauts in file names are problematic – the system reports no plagiarism, although it does find the plagiarism in an identical file with a name that does not have an umlaut in it. It also skips some words with umlauts in them, which is problematic for German texts. We could not determine why some could be found and some not.
Highly problematic is that Ephorus still stores all of the documents in its database. There are a number of sub-databases called “pools” that are available, and schools can apply to have their papers only checked against a sub-pool, for example, all schools in one city or one country, or just restricted to the university. But the same problem exists here as for Turnitin – the author (in this case the student) must give permission for the paper to be stored in the database, even if it is not passed on to others, according to what Ephorus states on its site.
Company Statement
„Beim Hochladen erscheint folgende Meldung, wobei man “Private Prüfung“ wählen kann:
Jeder Kunde bekommt seine eigene individuelle Datenbank, worauf nur der betreffende Kunde Zugriff hat. Kontraktuell wird festgelegt das der Kunde Eigentümer der Datenbank ist. Verknüpfung mit Datenbanken von anderen Schulen ist nur mit gegenseitiger Zustimmung möglich.
Wenn der Kunde seine Arbeiten nicht speichern möchte hat er ebenfalls die Möglichkeit unserer Dienst „Ephorus Internet“ zu wählen Bei diesem Dienst werden die hochgeladenen Dokumente nur mit dem Internet verglichen und nicht in einem Datenbank gespeichert.“
–> Wir verwenden immer die Defaulteinstellung bei allen Tests. — D. Weber-Wulff
Screenshots
Screenshot 1: The report
Screenshot 2: Sehr viele Links, was bedeuten sie alle?
Screenshot 3: Ephorus has a problem with umlauts
Screenshot 4: Sometimes there has been talked about „Fachcode“ and sometimes about „Einreichungscode“
Screenshot 5: There is a list of pools, where the papers can be compared with. Interesting Vienna is in Germany.
Business Promotion
„Never search for plagiarism yourself again? An end to all irritations and qualitatively better papers? No problem. With Ephorus, you can prevent plagiarism with no extra effort. Moreover, with this anti-plagiarism market leader, you will be assured of the best service and the lowest prices. With Ephorus, teaching will be fun again! Would you like to try out Ephorus?“
Links
official website http://www.ephorus.com
