Your questions

Below we answer some of the most frequent questions about the features of PlagScan. If you have any further questions, please contact us by phone +49 (0)6131 4649983 or mail us at info@plagscan.com.
Please also have a look at the comparison of PlagScan account types.

How does Plagscan indicate plagiarism? What kind of reports can I receive?

The particular feature of PlagScan is, that it marks directly in the text, where plagiarism might have occurred (by employing the commenting function of Microsoft Word, see picture). You may view this report directly in the browser as well as download an analyzed copy of the original document in .docx format.
Additionally, you get a summary of plagiarism hits, which lists sources and a number of identicalness between source and document.

Does PlagScan check for documents other than the internet? In other words, does it account for collusion?

Besides the internet, PlagScan does also search internal databases for possible plagiarism. Those databases are established by the user, i.e. documents he has uploaded, institutionally wide enabled document as well as documents voluntarily added to the PlagScan data base by all PlagScan users.

Does PlagScan allow us to integrate its functionality in our Software (e.g. Teaching/Learning management systems)?

PlagScan does provide an Application Programming Interface (API), which allows the integration of all its functionality in existing systems (see scheme to the right).
An example: After the student submits a document, analysis takes place in the background. When the teacher accesses the paper for marking, the annotated version is already there. That way possible plagiarism can already be considered during the first proof reading and no extra work is necessary.
Please have a look at our PlagScan API documentation.

I do not have access to Microsoft Word 2007. Is it still possible to work with the .docx-reports?

If you are using an older version of Microsoft Word, consider installing Microsoft's update, making older Word versions fully .docx document compatible.

I get documents of all kinds of formats, which I would like to check for plagiarism. Do I have to convert them first to a specific format or is PlagScan capable to work with them?

All popular text formats are supported and can be analyzed by PlagScan. Depending on the formats specification some loss of the original document's formatting can occur for the analyzed copy. A list of what you can expect for the different formats is attached below.
See here for a list of supported formats. Analysable document types

Preferred format:

docx - Microsoft Word 2007 [.docx]

Other possible formats (conversion to docx)

doc - Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP [.doc]
doc6 - Microsoft Word 6.0 [.doc]
doc95 - Microsoft Word 95 [.doc]
odt - Open Document Text [.odt]
ott - Open Document Text [.ott]
rtf - Rich Text Format [.rtf]
sdw - StarWriter 5.0 [.sdw]
sdw4 - StarWriter 4.0 [.sdw]
sdw3 - StarWriter 3.0 [.sdw]
sxw - Open Office.org 1.0 Text Document [.sxw]

Supported formats (formating will be lost)

docbook - DocBook [.xml]
ooxml - Microsoft Office Open XML [.xml]
pdb - AportisDoc (Palm) [.pdb]
pdf - Portable Document Format [.pdf]
latex - LaTeX 2e [.ltx]
txt - Plain Text [.txt]
html - HTML Document [.html]

Can I check several documents in parallel?

Yes, without any problems. Simply select your desired documents and press check on the right upper corner. You may for example select all documents with the same label at once. Your documents will always also be checked among themselves - keyword: collusion. For uploads of several documents, PlagScan waits before the first analysis until each single document is completely available in the data base.

Will the analysis of my documents continue, when I close my internet browser?

Yes, analyzes continue on the server. If you have activated the email notification option, you are automatically informed about the results upon execution.

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