iThenticate – Similarity check for researchers

Plagiarism is using someone else’s work or findings without stating the source, implying that the work is yours. Researchers should be cautious not to fall into sloppy referencing or even plagiarism when using previously established ideas that add pertinent information to a research paper.

Plagiarism is not confined to papers, articles or books; it can take many forms (for more information, see this infographic by iThenticate).

The Similarity Check Service can help you to prevent only one type of plagiarism: verbatim plagiarism, and only if the source is part of the corpus.

The software does not automatically detect plagiarism; it provides insight into the similarity in the text between the uploaded document and other sources in the software corpus. This does not mean this text part is viewed as plagiarism in your field. For instance, the methods section in some subfields follows very common wording, which could lead to a match. If there are instances where the submission’s content is similar to the content in the database, it will be flagged for review and should be evaluated by you.

Getting started

1. Login

Go to iThenticate and enter your UM username and password in the appropriate fields. Select ‘login’.

2. First-time user

As a first-time user, you must check your personal information and declare that you agree to the Terms and conditions.

3. My Folders and My Documents iThenticate

iThenticate will provide you with a folder group, My Folders, and a folder within that group titled My Documents.

You can submit a document by selecting the Submit a document link from the My Documents folder.

4. Upload a file

On the Upload, a file page, enter the authorship details and the document title. Select Choose File and locate the file on your device.

Select the Add another file link to add another file. You can add up to ten files before submitting. Select Upload to upload the document(s).

5. Similarity Report

To view the Similarity Report for the paper, select the similarity score in the Report column. It usually takes a couple of minutes for a report to generate.

Finding your way around

The main navigation bar at the top of the screen has three tabs. Upon logging in, you will automatically land on the folders page.

Folders

This is the central area of iThenticate. From the folders page, you can upload, manage, and view documents.

Settings

The settings page contains configuration options for the iThenticate interface.

Account Info

The account information page contains the user profile and account usage.

Options for exclusion

There can be various reasons why you may want to exclude specific sources that your document is compared to or certain parts of your document in the similarity check. You can specify options for exclusion in the Folder settings.

If you exclude ‘small matches’, you will be asked to specify the minimum number of words you want to be shown as a match.

If you exclude ‘small sources’, you will be asked to specify a minimum number of words or match percentage.

Once you click Update Settings, the settings will be applied to the particular folder.

iThenticate provides a scale of up-to-date manuals and instructions on its website. Please consult them here.

You can also use these training videos to learn how to use the service.

Please be aware that information in these manuals and videos about logging in and account settings does not apply to UM users of this service.

The similarity report provides the similarity percentage between the submitted document and content in the iThenticate database. This is the type of report you will use most often for a similarity check.

It is perfectly natural for a submitted document to match against sources in the database, for example, if you have used quotes.

The similarity score simply alerts you to potential problem areas in the submitted document. These areas should then be reviewed to ensure no sloppy referencing or plagiarism.

iThenticate should be used as part of a larger process to determine whether a match between your submitted document and the database content is acceptable.

This video shows how to read the various reports.

This video shows how the Document viewer works.  

Everyone involved in teaching and research at Maastricht University shares the responsibility for maintaining academic integrity (see Scientific Integrity). All academic staff at UM are expected to adhere to the general principles of professional academic practice at all times.

Adhering to those principles also prevents sloppy referencing or plagiarism in your publications.

Additional information on how to avoid plagiarism can also be found in the library’s Copyright portal.

iThenticate compares the submitted work to 60 million scholarly articles, books, and conference proceedings from 115,000 scientific, technical, and medical journals, 114 million Published works from journals, periodicals, magazines, encyclopedias, and abstracts, 68 billion current and archived web pages.

Doctoral candidates or their supervisors can use the similarity check service (iThenticate) to assess the work. Find out about the level of similarity with other publications and incorrect referencing before you send (parts of) the thesis to the Assessment Committee or a publisher or deposit it in the UM repository.

We kindly request you submit the whole thesis as one document (i.e. not per chapter) and only once to prevent unnecessary draws on the maximum number of submissions, as our contract provides a limited number of checks.

iThenticate does not add manuscripts to any database. However, submissions are archived privately for each account until deleted.

Link to this FAQ: https://umlib.nl/ithenticate-faq-1

iThenticate does not add manuscripts to any database. However, submissions are archived privately for each account until deleted.

Publishers, other users or the public have no access to your files. Your manuscript will not become part of the iThenticate index with published research output.

Link to this FAQ: https://umlib.nl/ithenticate-faq-2