S19-15-Viper

Software Profile

Number	S19-15
Product	Viper
Company	Address: Scan My Essay, Venture House, Cross Street, Arnold, NG5 7PJ Email: support@scanmyessay.com Phone: 01159667954
Web-Site	https://www.scanmyessay.com/
Software-Type	Online
Costs (04.05.2020.)	Student – 1 credit 3,60 €, 3 credits 9,00 € … 50 credits 50,00 €, over 50 credits contact sales Institution – contact sales Enterprise – contact sales
Test Date	November 2018 – November 2019

Description

Viper presents itself as a plagiarism checker. It was founded in 2007. Viper focuses on all types of customers; the pricing is based on the pay-as-you-go principle. Currently, it is owned by All Answers Limited (2019), which according to the information at the website, gives an impression of an essay mill. It is interesting to see the progress in the way Viper uses the uploaded content on their “Terms and conditions” page. In 2016 the page stated „[w]hen you scan a document, you agree that 9 months after completion of your scan, we will automatically upload your essay to our student essays database which will appear on one of our network of websites so that other students may use it to help them write their own essays“ (Viper, 2016). The time span was shortened to 3 months some time afterwards (Viper, 2019a). These paragraphs have been removed from the current version of the page (Viper, 2019b). On a different page, it is noted that „[w]hen you scan your work for plagiarism using Viper Premium it will never be published on any of our study sites“ (Viper, 2019c). In e-mail communication, Viper claims that they are not using any essay without the author’s explicit consent.

Pros & Cons

Viper system found some similarities in translated texts from English to German, Slovak to Czech and Russian to Latvian.
To upload documents from computer to the system user needs to choose a category and project for each document separately to finish the upload.

Coverage results

Single source

Multi source

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

Viper. (2016). Viper – Terms and Conditions. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20161208104222/http://www.scanmyessay.com/terms.php

Viper. (2019a). Viper – Terms and Conditions. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20190408055752/https://www.scanmyessay.com/terms.php

Viper. (2019b). Viper – Terms and Conditions. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20200204214603/https://www.scanmyessay.com/terms.php

Viper. (2019c). How does Viper use my essay/dissertation? Retrieved from https://www.scanmyessay.com/viper-use-essay.php

Company Statement

Viper is a plagiarism checker designed with powerful features to help you check for duplicate content and potential plagiarism across all of your submissions. Available for individual students, educational institutions and business users, Viper operates a simple pay-as-you-go model with bulk pricing available for institutions.

We pride ourselves on a personalised experience for all institutions. We work closely with all of our partner institutions to make sure they’re getting exactly what they need, when they need it. We’re constantly evolving our features and the text matching algorithms to keep bringing you the best text matching and the features our institutions and users are asking for! This includes expanded LMS integrations and student feedback features. The best place to keep up to date with the latest features is via our website.

Viper response to publication

The 2019 terms are actually substantially different from those referenced in the 2016 version. In the 2019a referenced terms at 5.6 you can see the clause begins ‘When you scan a document using the free scan service’ i.e. this does not apply to the paid service the majority of users and all institutions use. Your 2019b referenced terms are actually the same revision of the terms in 2019a, but wayback has accessed the content from a country that cannot access our free scanning product, so these terms are not required.

We feel your summary of the terms from 2016, while saying we adjusted just the timeframe in 2019, implies we might publish work that people or institutions have paid to be scanned. This is not the case and, in fact, our current terms and the terms you referenced as 2019a both contradict that. We have no problem if you wish to point out our terms allow for users who have scanned their work for free to have their work published later (they all pass through a pop up to make sure they’re aware of this when scanning for free). However, we feel the current summary on the page is misleading to the point of being erroneous on both of the mentioned points.

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