Plagiarism is one of the most prevalent problems in scholarly publishing. Both journal and book Editors need to be aware of what constitutes problematic overlap, how to investigate it, and how to deal with it. This free four module course provides a comprehensive overview of the subject.
Editor Resources
English
20-40 minutes
per module
No editor wishes to damage their journal by publishing content that overlaps with another source. It is important to understand all the reasons why overlap can occur, and why it can be problematic for ethical and legal reasons. This course explains the basics of plagiarism, how to access and use Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate, how to assess the degree of overlap when it is found and take appropriate action in both submitted and published manuscripts.
These modules are aimed at Editors of all levels. Even those who are familiar with the problem of overlapping text may find useful information that enables them to detect problems earlier or more easily, and prevent plagiarized material being published. You can take a single module, or all of them, at your own pace, and you can leave a module and return to it at another time.
The first module explains the basics of what plagiarism is and the different types that exist, why people plagiarize and why it is damaging, and when it may be detected. It also discusses text recycling (sometimes called self-plagiarism). The second module covers the practicalities of using Crossref Similarity Check, including the different ways of uploading a manuscript, accessing a report and evaluating the Similarity Score. The third module shows how to refine and interpret the results obtained from a Crossref Similarity Check in order to determine if any overlap is present, and whether that overlap is problematic or not. The final module discusses how to assess any text overlap you detect and decide what action to take to take to correct it.
This is a two-page document that may be used as a quick reference guide for getting started.
Crossref tips and tricks – first time users
(PDF, 2.61 MB)
This is a one-page document that may be used as a quick reference guide.
Crossref tips and tricks – how to interpret the results
(PDF, 2.05 MB)
This longer document provides a full guide to using Crossref.
SSCI Journal Indexing Crossref Guide
(PDF, 3.64 MB)
