Software Profile | Description | Pros & Cons | Coverage results | Usability results | Screenshots
Software Profile
Number | S19-03 |
Product | Copyscape |
Company | Address: Email: sales@copyscape.com Phone: |
Web-Site | https://www.copyscape.com/ |
Software-Type | Online, can be integrated with API and WordPress |
Costs (04.05.2020.) | Contact sales |
Test Date | November 2018 – November 2019 |
Description
Copyscape declares itself to be a plagiarism checker. The primary aim is to provide a tool for owners of websites to check if their original content was not used by others. They also provide a service of regular checks and email alerts. Copyscape, which started in 2004 (Greenspan, 2019), is operated by a private company, Indigo Stream Technologies Ltd., which is apparently based in Gibraltar. It does not have its own database but uses Google services to crawl the web.
Pros & Cons
- Copyscape system found more than half of similarities in manually paraphrased text when one Wikipedia article was used for English, German, Czech and Turkish languages.
- Can upload url or paste text for testing, but not a document.
- The system did not find any similarities (more than one sentence) in both manually and human translated texts.
- This system has very low usability results – test results are displayed online and can’t be saved or downloaded, evidence of similarity is not displayed side-by-side with the source.
- After seeing results, if user again presses to test the same text, system again takes money and shows the same results.
Coverage results
Single source
![](https://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/wp-content/uploads/Copyscape_single-1-1024x398.png)
Multi source
![](https://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/wp-content/uploads/Copyscape_multi-1-1024x248.png)
Usability results
Workflow process usability
- Can upload and test multiple documents together
- Auto-fill metadata for documents
- The system uses original file names for report
- There are no word limit for the testing document
- The system display text in the chosen language only
- The system can process large documents (for example, a bachelor thesis)
Result presentation usability
- Reports are downloadable
- Results are saved in the user’s account and can be reviewed afterwards
- Matched passages are highlighted in the online report
- Matched passages are highlighted in the downloaded report (offline)
- Evidence of similarity is demonstrated side-by-side with the source in the online report
- Evidence of similarity is demonstrated side-by-side with the source in the downloaded report
- Document formatting is not changed in the report
- Document page numbers are shown in the report
- The report is not spoiled by false positives
Other usability aspects
- System costs are clearly stated in the system homepage
- Information about a free system trial version is advertised on the web-page
- The system can be integrated as an API to a learning management system
- The system can be integrated with the Moodle platform
- The system provides call support
- The call support is provided in English
- English is properly used on the website and reports
- There are no external advertisements
Screenshots
References
Greenspan, G. (2019). Gideon Greenspan. Retrieved from http://www.gidgreen.com/
Company Statement
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