The Use of Online Similarity Check to Improve Student’s Awareness

on Plagiarism Issues

Rohmani Nur Indah

and Khoirul Hidayah

Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Jalan Gajayana 50 Malang 65145, Indonesia

Keywords: law, online similarity check, plagiarism

Abstract: Plagiarism has been a serious concern in Indonesia especially those of Islamic Universities where the

regulation has not been settled. This study examines student’s awareness of plagiarism issue before and after

the implementation of Turnitin showing the similarity index of their papers. The technique of data collection

employed in this study covers documentation on student’s similarity index and field notes from focus group

discussion in three departments at an Islamic State University in Malang. It involves English Letters

department, Arabic Language Teaching department and Syariah Business and Law department. The analysis

shows that discussing plagiarism is inseparable from the cultural interference and perspective of the students;

as well as the understanding on the legal bases on plagiarism. The use of online similarity check is effective

to improve the student’s awareness to avoid plagiarism. The implication of this study further goes to the need

of establishing a more explicit regulation on how to handle and avoid plagiarism in Islamic Universities under

Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affair.

1 INTRODUCTION

Plagiarism has been a sporadic issue in academic

context particularly for students writing in english as

foreign language. Therefore understanding specific

academic conventions is not enough as students are

also required to avoid plagiarism. Both of these skills

are seen as essential skills for international students

(r. Barret & j. Malcolm, 2006). Teaching international

students on the importance of articulating other’s

voice and subjectivity needs long process. It should

be introduces earlier in children’s writing class as it

involves particular social implication and certain

ideologies (g. Kamberelis and k.d. scott, 1992). For

pre-intermediate students, the challenge to write a

paper in english deals with how to come to the

suggested word count, therefore they prefer to insert

more citation to cover their difficulty in developing

paragraphs (m. A. Al-khairy, 2013). In this case,

paraphrasing strategy becomes another challenge for

them which then result in high similarity index of

their paper.

Checking similarity index can be done through

various online platforms, one of which is Turnitin.

Turnitin supports the user’s need by providing helpful

clues to the part in one’s writing indicating similarity

to other text. In addition it is also equipped with

feature like peer review modules to enable users make

comments and connections with other users (J. Li and

M. Li. 2018). Turnitin is also reported as a very

supportive originality check platform due to its

capacity to provide obvious indicator of plagiarism

levels in user’s work. In addition this software is also

useful for teaching staff to assess student’s

assignments and detect plagiarism (E. Buckley and L.

Cowap, 2013).

2 METHOD

This study was carried out to students at Maulana

Malik Ibrahim Islamic State University of Malang

(MMI-UIN). They are students of English Letters,

Arabic Language Teaching and Syaria Business &

Law departments. The participants are those agreed

to join focus group discussion held in English

language, Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic language. All

participants were not familiar with the use of Turnitin

before the focus group discussion. After a short

training of using Turnitin, they were involved in focus

group discussion aimed to explore several aspects.

First aspect is on the student’s knowledge of

plagiarism issues. Second is on how students interpret

the similarity index of their paper. Third is on the

experiences of students with particular emphasis on

the ways in which Turnitin was employed as a tool

1112

Indah, R. and Hidayah, K.

The Use of Online Similarity Check to Improve Student’s Awareness on Plagiarism Issues.

DOI: 10.5220/0009923511121117

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 1112-1117

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

for writing development. The focus-group interviews

lasted approximately 45 and 60 min each.

3 FINDING AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Plagiarism in Indonesia

Indonesia regulates the prevention of plagiarism

through Law no. 28 of 2014 on Copyright as well as

the provisions of articles 9-14 of the Trade Related of

Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Copyright

under the Act is an exclusive right of the authors that

arise automatically on the basis of a declarative

principle after a work is manifested in its tangible

form without prejudice to restrictions in accordance

with the provisions of legislation. Plagiarism indeed

is a violation of the moral right of copyright (K.

Hidayah, 2017).

Efforts to emphasize the prevention of

supported by the facts of the scholars who forbid the

unauthorized use of copyrights. The cleric issued

Decree of Fatwa MUI Number: 1 / MUNAS VII /

MUI / 5/2005 on the Protection of Intellectual

Property Rights (IPR).

Educational institutions in universities have

also regulated through Article 1 Paragraph 1 of

Minister of Education Regulation no. 17 of 2010

which explains that plagiarism is the act of

intentionally or unintentionally in obtaining or trying

to obtain credit or value for a scientific work. That is

to quote part or all of the work and / or scientific work

of others, without declaring the source appropriately

and adequately (K. Hidayah, 2017). Sanctions for

students who perform plagiarism are given in the

form of administrative sanctions. If the student is

proven to have plagiarism despite graduation, then

the sanction is the cancellation of the diploma (Article

12 paragraph [1g] Permendiknas 17/2010).

Inspite of the fact that nowadays plagiarism

issues are increasing, in Indonesia the regulation to

treat directly on such issues is not available in all

Indonesian universities. Take for example in

Universities under the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Some universities depend on religious morality and

academic ethics in dealing with plagiarism. In the

context writing in English as foreign language (EFL),

students faced several difficulties particularly in

combining ideas from some resources without

tempting to copy paste the wording of the author cited

(B. Y. Cahyono and R. N. Indah, 2012). There are

actually several causes of plagiarism in EFL setting.

The most factor is time constrain, the lack of

knowledge about plagiarism, poor citation skill, poor

academic skill, inability to paraphrase properly and

the challenge to struggle with grammar and

vocabulary as well (Y. C. Sun, . 2013).

In addition, the research in Maulana Malik

Ibrahim Malang in 2013 showed that the law attitude

of students in the university does not show the

positive of law attitude in protection of the

copyrights. Although the students respect the creation

of mine (literary), but they still do not have the law

attitude to obey the law of copyright (K. Hidayah,

2013). It is important in the campus, that the students

must know about the copyright regulation and moral

right in the copyright.

3.2 Legal Perception of Plagiarism

Plagiarism belongs to wrongful conduct that may

harm the author that has the copyright legislation.

When a person fails to attribute the voice or ideas of

another author then it results in violence of moral

property of the original work (W. Sutherland-Smith,

2005). International agreement on copyright were

signed by countries including those in South-East

Asia which then is translated into plagiarism

regulation in universities (B. Y. Cahyono, 2005). In

Indonesia the policies regarding plagiarism is as

deciphered in Table 1 (B. Y. Cahyono,2005).

Table 1: Plagiarism policies in Indonesian

outstanding universities.

Based on the data of the sample papers, the highest

similarity index is 84 and the lowest is 14. Half of the

students (54%) got moderate level of similarity index

ranging from 20 to 40. While 37% falls with the

The Use of Online Similarity Check to Improve Student’s Awareness on Plagiarism Issues

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category of high similarity (40 to 100). The rest (9%)

had low similarity index as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Similarity index of sample papers

The improvements were found through the

intervention of Turnitin with first drafts. As shown in

Table II, the average of the improvement is 30 while

the average number of pages of student’s paper is 9.

There was a weak correlation (0.3) between the

improvement and the number of pages. Accordingly,

it means that the problem is not on the quantity of

student’s paper but on the quality of the wording in

the paper which is to some extent similar to other text.

It also shows different finding compared to the study

examining student’s paper taking Master diploma in

UK where there is tendency to reduce the use of other

authors’ words (M. Davis, 2007).

Table 2: Similarity index of sample papers

Datum Check 1 Check 2 Difference Pages

1.1 73 13

1.2 28 17

1.3 59 20

1.4 59 36

2.1 20 10

2.2 19 6

3.1 14 4

3.2 23 0

3.3 23 9

3.4 25 0

3.5 26 3

3.6 26 9

3.7 26 8

3.8 27 3

3.9 29 13

3.10 45 9

3.11 32 8

3.12 39 16

3.13 43 9

3.14 48 0

Datum Check 1 Check 2 Difference Pages

3.15 50 0

3.16 66 9

3.17 84 22

4.1 81 5

4.2 66 7

4.3 54 1

4.4 15 1

5.1 31 2

5.2 31 4

5.3 25 9

5.4 27 13

5.5 46 17

5.6 31 12

5.7 44 14

5.8 29 15

∑= 35 Avg 39 Avg 9 Avg 30 Avg 9

After the short training on the use of Turnitin,

students in focus group discussion reflected their

learning about similarity checking. They agreed that

the use of online similarity check like Turnitin gave

opportunities for them to engage more in improving

their awareness not only about plagiarism but also on

their own weakness. They realized the need to learn

more about many areas of source use, such as citation,

quotation and paraphrasing. This is similar to the

demand in any academic context that writing a paper

should also involve the ability to express one’s own

voice, how to use phrases, and acknowledge all

borrowed text (M. Davis and F. Yeang, 2008). Many

students experienced the sense of a real turning point

in understanding what they needed to do to use

sources effectively

The use of online system is helpful to support

students’ writing proficiency as they can assess their

own work (K. Ma, 2013). In this study, the use of

online similarity check has shown several benefits,

not only to identify the phrases, clauses or sentences

which are similar to other texts but also to guide the

students mind their wording by implementing several

paraphrasing strategies.

Regarding the first question on student’s

knowledge on plagiarism, students had several

responses.

“I thought that when I copy one’s sentences but I

acknowledge the source then it doesn’t belong to

plagiarism.”

“When I paraphrase other person’s sentences into my

own word, I think that becomes my ideas too. I don’t

think it is plagiarized.”

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“Plagiarism occurs when one borrow other’s data,

opinion or thought without stating the citation

properly.”

From the feedback above, it is obvious that student’s

knowledge on plagiarism is varied but relatively poor.

On legal consequence of plagiarism, not many can

describe well. Based on these feedbacks, it is clear

that plagiarism is not merely lack of language skill or

lack in integrity because they plagiarise without

knowing exactly the detailed meaning of plagiarism.

Therefore blaming plagiarism to international

students by relying on language skills and integrity is

arguable (N. Handa and C. Power, 2005).

This fact is similar to student’s low understanding

on the meaning plagiarism in a Hong Kong College

where the first year students had little familiarity with

the Western notion of plagiarism and poor ability to

recognize it (G. Deckert. 1993). It also brings another

impact that there exist culturally based interpretations

of plagiarism (G. Hu and J. Lei, 2012).

The focus group interview describes how students

affirm that their difficulty to rephrase the ideas from

the resources is directly linked with their weakness in

reading. They cannot extract large amount of sources,

synthesized the information and put into a concise

paragraph. Only expert readers can specify meaning

to elaborate in the paragraphs of their paper (D. Biber

and B. Gray, 2010).

The similarity check is supposed to be understood

as a tool to develop one’s writing quality. However,

students felt accused by saying:

“It seemed that the high index of my paper told me

that I was cheating though I didn’t plagiarize at all. I

have made the references clear and the citations are

also proper.”

“It’s getting more difficult. I guess I have combined

several ideas from some sources and I have also

checked my grammar and vocabulary in all

paragraphs. But then, Turnitin said that I plagiarized

to some extent.”

“I worry that my teachers will base the scoring on

the index. I know my weakness on the language that

I cannot paraphrase well. But it does not mean that

I am dishonest as what the index said.”

In this case, students need to acknowledge that the

online similarity check is not merely plagiarism

detection platform but as a tool for plagiarism

education and it helps constructing academic literacy

by reviewing the proportion of one’s voice in the

paper. Then it contributes to building one’s writing

skill in co-articulating other people’s voice in the text

(G. Kamberelis and K.D. Scott, 1992).

The way students interpreted their high similarity

index results in the need to differentiate the labels, not

directly given to plagiarism as cheating versus misuse

of source texts (Y. Li and C. P. Casanave, 2012).

After introduced to Turnitin, students reflect on their

experience.

“Now I realized that I have to be more cautious with

the citation. I used to take sources and combine with

others, but apparently it’s not enough. It’s all about

paraphrase and check.”

“I learn that when I took the source from other

language, for example from a reference in Arabic

language, Turnitin cannot detect it.”

“This tool uncovered that I referred too much to

certain source in my paper. It seems I need to

develop my reading as well.”

“Last semester I got A in my paper project just

because I used a lot of references. Yet, I’m not sure

whether I can get another A if the scoring also

involves Turnitin check.”

The fact that students experienced differently about

the exposure to online similarity check to some extent

deals with the changing awareness of plagiarism. In

the beginning the students might think that they are

away from plagiarism, but after introduced to

Turnitin they realized that they have to be more

responsible to what they write in their papers. Despite

the negative feedback, more students appreciated the

use of this online similarity check to improve their

writing proficiency. Students who state that they need

to learn more about how to use sources and to develop

their interpretive reading as well demonstrate good

stage of learning as they can reflect more on their

experiences (N. Hayes and L. D. Introna, 2005).

The use of plagiarism detection is only a small part

of the construct in building student’s writing

competence. However, online plagiarism detection

also to some extent has limitation. It cannot detect

complex paraphrase and high density of paraphrase

mechanism. Further, the lexical substitution as the

dominant mode in paraphrasing cannot be traced by

automated plagiarism detection. Some writers also

tend to shorten the plagiarized text (A. Barron-

Cedeno, M. Vila. M, A. Marti and P. Rosso, 2013)

The implementation of Turnitin as noted in this

study has created a discussion focus of student

writing development (C. Penketh and C. Beaumont.

2014). More importantly it increases student’s

responsibility for writing. It makes students more

careful to their wording in the paper as it is also

potential to be used for marking. In general students

were aware that their skill to paraphrase results in a

better writing development. This will also result in an

increase on academic honesty and integrity( J. Orr,

2018).

The Use of Online Similarity Check to Improve Student’s Awareness on Plagiarism Issues

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Students reported that after introduced to Turnitin

they would want to do their best to improve their

paper quality in terms of writing the citation. They

also stated that they need to learn more to sharpen

their skill to use references and synthesize ideas from

the sources. This process also supports the learning

opportunities for academic literacy and plagiarism

education (M. Davis, 2007). In addition, improving

the skill on academic language is also effective to

help reduce incidences of plagiarism (M.

Perkins,U.B. Gezgin, and J. Roe, 2018). Although

this research has focused on a particular cohort of

students with a small number of sample, to some

extent the findings have some transferability to other

contexts. Students share the same experience being

introduced to online similarity check for the first time

will face adjustment issues. Further, when plagiarism

issues are ruled within campus policy, the reduction

of cheating would support the realization of personal

and academic integrity of the students through the use

of more holistic practices (R. L. Young, G.N.S. Miller

and C.L Barhardt, 2018).

4 CONCLUSION

This study uncovers the use of online similarity check

that is Turnitin to improve student’s awareness of

plagiarism issues. Previously students did not realize

that plagiarism issues are broad. Therefore blaming

poor language skill and academic integrity for the

problem of plagiarism is arguable as this study shows

that it is a matter of insufficient knowledge on how to

use sources more effectively. On how student’s

interpret the similarity index of their paper, the

finding shows that the high index is mostly labeled as

cheating not as misuse of source. In this case, students

need to acknowledge the essence of the use of online

similarity check, not merely to label as plagirism.

Students also had various experiences with particular

emphasis on the ways in which Turnitin was

employed as a tool for writing development. Hence,

it is considered essential to enhance student’s critical

reading and note-taking skills to avoid plagiarism. In

addition, students should also develop their skill on

summarising and paraphrasing so that they are able to

incorporate evidence appropriately into their writing.

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