Similarity Check on Crossref

Similarity check update: A new similarity report and AI writing detection tool soon to be available to iThenticate v2 users

Fabienne Michaud — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In May, we updated you on the latest changes and improvements to the new version of iThenticate and let you know that a new similarity report and AI writing detection tool were on the horizon.

On Wednesday 1 November 2023, Turnitin (who produce iThenticate) will be releasing a brand new similarity report and a free preview to their AI writing detection tool in iThenticate v2. The AI writing detection tool will be enabled by default and account administrators will be able to switch it off/on.

Turnitin will be running a webinar on their new similarity report and AI writing detection tool on ~~Tuesday 28 November~~ (EDIT 23/11/16: Monday 11 December 2023). More information on the webinar and how to register will be communicated by Turnitin in the coming weeks.

New similarity report

On Wednesday, all iThenticate v2 users will have access to the new version of the similarity report which will include:

a word count and the number of text blocks for each matched source
the ability to include or exclude overlapping sources from the overall similarity score
a clearer colour differentiation between the different sources
improved accessibility features

Enabling the new similarity report

The new similarity report will be enabled as a default for all your journals. Account administrators wishing to switch off the new similarity report can do so by going to Settings and selecting from the General tab, under the New Similarity Report Experience heading, the Disable option.

Classic view / new view

As this will be a significant change to your current experience, Turnitin have provided access for a period of time to the ‘classic view’ and you will be able to toggle between the original interface and the new one by clicking on ‘Switch to the classic view’ or ‘Switch to the new view’ buttons at the top of your report.

The similarity score will continue to be available at the top right-hand corner of the similarity report.

Exclusions

By clicking on the Filters button you’ll be able to check and/or adjust your report’s section and repository exclusions.

Please note that the exclusions previously set up by account administrators should be unchanged by this release.

Sources / Match Groups view

The Sources view will be the default view and will list all sources. By using the on/off button next to ‘Show overlapping sources’, you’ll be able to include or exclude overlapping sources. This will be ‘off’ as a default.

The Match Groups view is completely new and may not suit everyone’s needs. It is divided into four categories ‘Not Cited or Quoted’, ‘Missing Quotations’, ‘Missing Citation’ and ‘Cited and Quoted’ and will highlight matches found in your text.

PDF report

You’ll also now find the PDF report in the top right-hand corner of the similarity report, by clicking on the ‘download’ icon.

Submission details

‘Submission Details’ is located now under the ‘i’ icon in the top right-hand corner of your report. This is where you will find the oid (or unique number) for your manuscript which Turnitin will ask you to provide when you are reporting a technical issue.

Turnitin’s documentation for the new similarity report

AI writing detection tool

Many of you have been concerned about the use of AI writing in the research papers you’ve received since the launch of ChatGPT last November and have been in touch to enquire about the availability of an AI writing detection tool for Crossref members.

You will also have read that Turnitin have developed an AI writing detector tool and have made it available to their education sector customers since April. Turnitin have published an update in May, a helpful video and further information on the false positive rates in June based on the feedback they’ve received from the education community.

I am pleased to announce that Turnitin’s AI writing detection tool will be available as a free preview to iThenticate v2 users, via the new version of the similarity report, from Wednesday 1 November until the end of December 2023.

Enabling AI writing detection

Our preference was to have the new AI writing detection tool turned ‘off’ as a default, however this hasn’t been possible. Account administrators can turn this feature off by going to Settings and selecting the Crossref Web tab and scrolling down to the AI Writing section at the very bottom of the page. The feature is applied to all submissions when it is enabled.

Please note that AI Writing detection is only available in the new similarity report.

Integrations

There is currently no integration between manuscript tracking systems and the AI writing detection tool. However the AI score will be available via the similarity report. If the AI writing detection tool has been set as ‘off’ by the account administrator, there will be no score and the ‘AI Writing’ heading will not be visible on the similarity report:

File requirements

Turnitin have made some important file requirements available for the tool to run a report:

Must be written in English
A minimum 300 words
A maximum of 15,000 words
The file size must be less than 100 MB
Accepted file types are .docx, .pdf, .rtf and .txt

If your file does not meet the above requirements, iThenticate v2 will display the following message:

Turnitin’s AI writing detection tool has been developed to detect GPT 3, 3.5, 4 and other variants. More information on this is available on their FAQs page.

Turnitin have provided the following guidance regarding the AI scores:

“Blue with a percentage between 0 and 100: The submission has processed successfully. The displayed percentage indicates the amount of qualifying text within the submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI. As noted previously, this percentage is not necessarily the percentage of the entire submission. If text within the submission was not considered long-form prose text, it will not be included.

Our testing has found that there is a higher incidence of false positives when the percentage is between 1 and 20. In order to reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation, the AI indicator will display an asterisk (*) for percentages between 1 and 20 to call attention to the fact that the score is less reliable.

To explore the results of the AI writing detection capabilities, select the indicator to open the AI writing report. The AI writing report opens in a new tab of the window used to launch the Similarity Report. If you have a pop-up blocker installed, ensure it allows Turnitin pop-ups.”

Please note that unlike the similarity report, the AI writing report will only provide a score and highlight the blocks of texts likely to have been written by an AI tool and will not list source matches.

We encourage you to test the writing detection tool as much as possible during the free preview period (1 November-31 December 2023).

Paraphrase detection

~~Turnitin are planning to release a beta version of their new paraphrase detection tool at the end of this year/Q1, 2024. It will be initially available as a free preview for a short period of time.~~ (EDIT 23/11/16: There is currently no timeline available for Turnitin’s paraphrase detection tool which is having a knock-on effect on the availiblity of the AI writing and paraphrase detection bundle and associated fees previously mentioned in this post)

AI and paraphrase detection bundle (EDIT 23/11/16: AI writing detection tool)

Once the free preview period ends, Turnitin ~~would like to offer Crossref members an AI and paraphrase detection bundle~~ (EDIT 23/11/16: are planning to make their AI writing detection tool available) from 2024 - this means that if you choose to subscribe to this new service, you will be charged an additional fee each time you upload a manuscript.

Fixes

Many of you have been waiting for fixes to the aggregation of URLs issues in the matched sources of the similarity report and to the doc-to-doc PDF report in iThenticate v2. Turnitin are planning to release fixes for these before the end of 2023.

✏️ Do get in touch via support@crossref.org if you have any questions about iThenticate v1 or v2 or start a discussion by commenting on this post below or in our Community Forum.

Similarity Check: look out for a refreshed interface and improvements for iThenticate v2 account administrators

Fabienne Michaud — Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In 2022, we flagged up some changes to Similarity Check, which were taking place in v2 of Turnitin’s iThenticate tool used by members participating in the service. We noted that further enhancements were planned, and want to highlight some changes that are coming very soon. These changes will affect functionality that is used by account administrators, and doesn’t affect the Similarity Reports themselves.

From Wednesday 3 May 2023, administrators of iThenticate v2 accounts will notice some changes to the interface and improvements to the Users, Groups, Integrations, Statistics and Paper Lookup sections.

Logging in

iThenticate v2 account administrators and browser users will see a new login page when logging in to iThenticate v2:

A refreshed interface

Once logged in to iThenticate v2, account administrators will see an updated design, with improved notifications to let them know whether a task/action has been successfully completed or not.

Users

There will be improvements to the user management system for account administrators, including a much clearer navigation menu for managing active, pending and deactivated users.

There will also be a filtering option on the Users page to search for active, pending and deactivated users by first name, last name, email address, group and date added. In addition coloured labels will be introduced to easily identify the level of access (or ‘Role’) for each user.

An improved bulk user import process will be available, with clearer guidance on any issues that may arise during the upload. This new development will also include new screens for adding and editing users with more notifications to help prevent mistakes.

Integrations

For account administrators managing peer review management system integrations and needing to generate API keys, the Integrations page will be improved to make copying API keys simpler.

Statistics

iThenticate v2 administrators will also notice some improvements to the Statistics page. Usage data should load faster and will be sortable by user group. They will also be able to generate large usage reports of over 100k submissions.

Paper lookup

The Paper lookup will allow iThenticate v2 account administrators to find submissions that have been made from any integration connected to their iThenticate v2 account. They can be found by searching the paper ID (or oid number) of the submission.

Please note: the ability to search for submissions by the user’s name is available for manuscripts submitted via the iThenticate v2 website only and not for papers submitted via an integration.

New password requirements

To improve the security of users’ accounts, new password requirements will be introduced, including a minimum of 8 symbols, 1 special symbol, 1 upper case letter, and 1 number.

Next in iThenticate v2

Turnitin, who produce iThenticate, are currently working on a number of new features and developments including an improved similarity report, paraphrase and AI writing detection. A detailed timeline is not yet available but we’ll be updating you on these new developments in the coming months.

✏️ Do get in touch via support@crossref.org if you have any questions about iThenticate v1 or v2 or start a discussion by commenting on this post below.

Similarity Check: what’s new with iThenticate v2?

Fabienne Michaud — Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Since we announced last September the launch of a new version of iThenticate, a number of you have upgraded and become familiar with iThenticate v2 and its new and improved features which include:

A faster, more user-friendly and responsive interface
A preprint exclusion filter, giving users the ability to identify content on preprint servers more easily
A new “red flag” feature that signals the detection of hidden text such as text/quotation marks in white font, or suspicious character replacement
A private repository available for browser users, allowing them to compare against their previous submissions to identify duplicate submissions within your organisation
A content portal, helping users check how much of their own research outputs have been successfully indexed, self-diagnose and fix the content that has failed to be indexed in iThenticate.

We’ve received some great feedback from iThenticate v2 users and user testers:

“There are a lot of new and helpful features implemented in version 2 of iThenticate.”

– Beilstein Institut

“The updates to the user interface make working with the new version a pleasure. It has a very modern feel and is easy to use, as an app on a phone. We particularly like being able to click on a link and easily exclude a source from view with just a few clicks. The response time and speed of download are also greatly improved which will cut down processing time on our end.”

– Frontiers

“I like the ability to be able to exclude content directly from the report.”

– American Chemical Society

More information for administrators and users is available on the Turnitin website: iThenticate v2 documentation.

Upgrading to iThenticate v2

In September, we started inviting new and existing Similarity Check subscribers using iThenticate in the browser to upgrade to this new version. And now some of the manuscript submission systems have completed their integrations with the new version of iThenticate too, so users of these systems can start to migrate. Morressier users are already using iThenticate v2, and in the next few days, we will be emailing all eJournalPress users. We know the other major manuscript submission systems are also working on their integrations, and we’ll be in touch with members using them as soon as they confirm they are ready.

Manuscript tracking system integrations

All Similarity Check subscribers using a manuscript management system will particularly appreciate a closer integration with iThenticate v2 which means that users will be able to view their Similarity Report and investigate sources within their manuscript tracking system.

eJournalPress

eJournalPress users will also be able to customise their iThenticate v2 settings via a configuration interface and to decide, for example, to include or exclude bibliographies from their Similarity Reports. The new integration will also show the top five matches returned by iThenticate directly in the eJournalPress interface.

eJournalPress configuration settings in iThenticate v2

Editorial Manager and ScholarOne

Aries (Editorial Manager) and Clarivate (ScholarOne) are planning to release their iThenticate v2 integrations later this year and we will be inviting users to upgrade in the coming months.

Please check our community forum for updates on manuscript tracking system integrations.

More new and improved features

User-friendly PDF report

“The report is clean and easy to read.”

– The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

“The clickable links will save us a considerable amount of time as they make it easy for the author to understand where the overlap is coming from, meaning we do not need to spend time clarifying overlap reports to the authors. The summary page is also very useful as authors and editors are easily able to see which sections have been included and excluded from the report.”

– Frontiers

The PDF version of the Similarity Report has been completely redesigned and can easily be downloaded, emailed and printed. It contains a summary of the report i.e. word count, character count, number of pages, file size, excluded sections, submission, and report dates as well as the similarity score and a list of the top sources with clickable links.

First page of the Similarity Report in iThenticate v2

Summary and clickable links in the new Similarity Report in iThenticate v2

Custom section exclusion filter

In iThenticate v2, users can now exclude sections that are standard such as authors, affiliations, ethics statements, acknowledgments, etc. from the Similarity Report which often impacts similarity scores. You can choose from the templates available and/or create your own custom section exclusions from the admin portal.

Custom section exclusion filter in the iThenticate v2 admin portal

Summary of excluded custom sections on the iThenticate v2 Similarity Report

“The user interface is definitely more responsive than v1, especially when I am looking at the full-text viewing mode, scrolling through the text to compare matches, reading through the box of text in the matching source […] I also especially like the options around excluding, I was able to see our submitted work was also taken into the database and showed matches against the papers we’d uploaded already. Going forward, this is a really interesting thing for us, especially if we are looking at duplicated content in the same journal.”

– Taylor & Francis

User reporting

Details of user activity including folder names, similarity scores, word count, and file format are now also available in iThenticate v2 and downloadable as Excel and csv. files.

Up next

Product development

Further enhancements to existing features and interface such as the view full-text mode, user groups, and custom section exclusions are planned for this year. Paraphrase detection and citation matching are currently in development.

iThenticate v2 training

iThenticate v2 documentation is available from the Turnitin website. Training videos and webinars will be available later on in the year.

✏️ Do get in touch via support@crossref.org if you have any questions about iThenticate v1 or v2 or start a discussion by commenting on this blog post below.

Image integrity: Help us figure out the scale of the problem

Fabienne Michaud — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Some context

The Similarity Check Advisory Group met a number of times last year to discuss current and emerging originality issues with text-based content. During those meetings, the topic of image integrity was highlighted as an area of growing concern in scholarly communications, particularly in the life sciences.

Over the last few months, we have also read with interest the recommendations for handling image integrity issues by the STM Working Group on Image Alteration and Duplication Detection, followed closely image integrity sleuths such as Elizabeth Bik and have, like many of you, noticed that image manipulation is increasingly given as the reason for retractions.

Image integrity issues are often associated with paper mill activity but can also originate from an individual’s intentional or unintentional unethical behaviour. Currently, such issues with figures and images are being identified manually or by using an image integrity tool, comparing images within the same article and/or the publisher’s past publications only - and we know that this is a source of frustration for the Crossref members we have spoken to.

What next ?

As reported in Nature last December, we believe Crossref is in a unique position to spearhead a cross-publisher solution, similar to what we do for text-based originality checking, as part of our Similarity Check service.

Before we start exploring potential software options, we need your help to understand:

the scale of the issues and whether these are focused on specific disciplines
the type of issues we should prioritise e.g. duplication, beautification, rotation, plagiarism, GAN-generated images/deep-fakes, etc.
what software (if any) members are using or trialling
whether a cross-publisher service with the collective benefit of shared images would be of sufficient interest to the community

✏️ Let us know what your experience and thoughts are on image integrity by completing this survey.

We’re planning to complete our research and share with you the results along with our proposed next steps soon.

Similarity Check news: iThenticate v2.0 ready for launch

Fabienne Michaud — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref Similarity Check news: iThenticate v2.0 ready for launch

Last year, we announced the upcoming launch of a new version of iThenticate, the product from Turnitin that powers Crossref Similarity Check. We know some of you have been waiting a long time for this upgrade and we are very happy to share with you that we are now ready to release it.

We will be rolling out this new version in stages, so not everyone will be able to upgrade to the new version immediately. We’ll start with new Crossref Similarity Check subscribers who use iThenticate in the browser, and one member who uses iThenticate via the eJournalPress API integration.

Next month, we will reach out to existing Crossref Similarity Check subscribers who use iThenticate in the browser (rather than through a manuscript tracking system), and further eJournalPress users. From then on, we’ll be contacting those of you who use Similarity Check through your manuscript tracking system, as and when your providers are ready to work with the new version.

Crossref Similarity Check - first things first

Crossref Similarity Check is a content comparison tool, powered by iThenticate and produced by Turnitin, to check the originality of scholarly works and detect potential cases of plagiarism. Crossref members are eligible for this service, which offers them a reduced rate for document checking (plus enhanced functionality) in exchange for making their own published content available to be indexed into the iThenticate database.

The Crossref Similarity Check service continues to grow in membership (1,531 members in 2020; 1,964 members in 2021, to date) and in the number of documents checked (1,922,621 manuscripts checked between January and July 2020 and 2,419,612 over the same period this year).

Just as with the current version of iThenticate, Crossref Similarity Check subscribers will be able to compare documents against a vast database of internet sources and over 78 million full-text documents contributed by the Crossref members that use the service:

Crossref - research articles, books, and conference proceedings provided by publishers of scholarly content all over the world
Crossref posted content - preprints, eprints, working papers, reports, dissertations, and many other types of content that has not been formally published but has been registered with Crossref
Internet - a database of archived and live publicly-available web pages, including billions of pages of existing content, and with tens of thousands of new pages added each day
Publications - third-party periodical, journal, and publication content including many major professional journals, periodicals, and business publications from sources other than Crossref Similarity Check members
Your Indexed Documents - other documents you have uploaded for checking (within your Crossref Similarity Check user account only, and not added to iThenticate’s main indexes)

What’s new

We are delighted to introduce the following new features and enhancements with iThenticate v2.0:

Increased document upload capacity
Suspicious and hidden character detection
Preprint exclusion filter
Refreshed and responsive interface
Similarity reports - save and share
Annotations
Content portal
Improved API

Increased document upload capacity

This new version of iThenticate has an increased document upload capacity of up to 800 pages/200 MB and a Google Drive document upload functionality. Please note that per-document fees allow for a maximum of 25,000 25,000 ~~characters~~ (EDIT 21/11/4: words), as one billable unit (25,001-50,000 25,000 ~~characters~~ (EDIT 21/11/4: words) is two billing units, and so on).

Suspicious or hidden character detection

A new ‘Red flag’ feature, highlighted at the top right hand side of the Similarity report and with in-line markers, signals the detection of hidden text such as text/quotation marks in white font or suspicious character replacement e.g., the substitution of a Latin e for a Cyrillic е or a Latin o for a Greek ο, which may have been deliberately added to avoid text-matching detection.

Red flag feature: Hidden characters in the iThenticate v2.0 Similarity report

Preprint exclusion filter

Increasingly, authors are making available a preprint of their article, either before or at the same time as submitting it to a journal. With Turnitin, we have therefore developed a new exclusion filter for ‘Preprint Sources’, which can be applied directly from your Similarity report.

Refreshed and responsive interface

The new iThenticate has a cleaner, more intuitive and accessible interface, with responsive design for ease of use on different screen sizes. The Similarity report is no longer a static image but a text that can be searched, copied and pasted. The display of matches has been improved and simplified with two views only: ‘Sources overview’ and ‘All sources’.

Similarity report in iThenticate v2.0

You can now save Similarity reports as a PDF file and share them via email through the iThenticate interface with authors. Please note: this is still work in progress and enhancements to this feature will be released in the coming months.

Annotations

Annotations in Similarity reports is a brand new feature available in private mode only (in shared folders) in this initial release. Annotations will display the date, time and comments and can be edited or deleted as required. These private annotations will not be included in the ‘save and share’ features mentioned above. Public, shareable, annotations will be included in a future release.

Private annotations in the new Similarity report

Content portal

The new ‘Content portal’ is a useful tool to check how much of your own published content has been successfully indexed into the iThenticate database and is now searchable. It will also help you self-diagnose and fix the content that has failed to be indexed.

Improved API for subscribers who integrate Similarity Check with their manuscript tracking system

API users will benefit from a new integration with manuscript tracking systems which will allow the display of the largest matching word count and the top 5 source matches alongside the Similarity score.

What’s next

We’re expecting a number of new features and enhancements to iThenticate version 2.0 as well as further manuscript tracking system API integrations in the coming months:

User/usage reporting functionality
Editorial Manager API integration
Further enhancements to the Similarity report user interface
Parent/child account management reporting, to assist Crossref Sponsors
Public vs. private annotations
Document resubmission flow
Customisable welcome email

We’ll keep you posted

We will post updates here as soon as new features, enhancements and API integrations are available and/or we are ready to upgrade the next group of members.

We’ll be contacting subscribers in stages to upgrade you to the new version, so keep your eyes open for an email from us. As you know, you have to supply full-text Similarity Check URLs in your Crossref metadata for over 90% of your own published content in order to be eligible for the service. We’ll be checking that anyone who wants to upgrade to v2.0 is still at 90% or above. You can check this yourself in advance on our eligibility checker - if you’ve fallen below 90%, the tool will give you instructions for adding your missing full-text Similarity Check URLs.

In the meantime, you will find the Similarity Check service documentation for the current version of iThenticate on our website. The documentation for the new version can be found on the Crossref Similarity Check site provided by Turnitin.

✏️ Do get in touch via support@crossref.org if you have any questions or suggestions or start a discussion on our Community Forum

Similarity Check news: introducing the next generation iThenticate.

Kirsty Meddings — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref’s Similarity Check service is used by our members to detect text overlap with previously published work that may indicate plagiarism of scholarly or professional works. Manuscripts can be checked against millions of publications from other participating Crossref members and general web content using the iThenticate text comparison software from Turnitin.

The 2000 members who already make use of Similarity Check upload almost 2,000,000 documents each month to look for matching text in other publications.

We have some great news for those 2000 members –– a completely new version of iThenticate is on its way, and will start to roll out to users in the coming months.

New functionality has been developed based on your feedback over the past few years and includes:

An improved Document Viewer that makes PDFs searchable and accessible, with responsive design for ease of use on different screen sizes. All of the functionality of the Viewer and the Text-only reports in the previous version have been streamlined into just two views: Sources Overview and All Sources.
Improved exclusion options to make refining matches even easier. Smarter citation detection now identifies probable citations both inline and in reference sections.
A new “Content Portal” where you can see what percentage of your own content has been successfully indexed for the iThenticate comparison database, and download reports of indexing errors that need to be fixed.
A new API for integration with manuscript submission systems allows display of the largest matching word count and the top 5 source matches alongside the Similarity Score.
The maximum number of pages and file size per document has been doubled to 800 pages/200 MB.

The new document viewer in iThenticate v2.0

Improved reference exclusion

Crossref members can use Similarity Check directly by logging in, or via an integration with a submission/peer review system. We are working with many system providers to bring v2.0 to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are looking for members to help us test the new system directly in the iThenticate user interface. If you are interested and can spare a few hours some time in the next month please let me know.

And if your organisation is not yet using Similarity Check to assess the originality of the manuscripts you receive do take a look at the many benefits the service has to offer.

Similarity Check is changing

Jennifer Lin — Thu, 30 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Tl;dr

Crossref is taking over the service management of Similarity Check from Turnitin. That means we’re your first port of call for questions and your agreement will be direct with us. This is a very good thing because we have agreed and will continue to agree the best possible set-up for our collective membership. Similarity Check participants need to take action to confirm the new terms with us as soon as possible and before 31st August 2019. Instructions will be circulated early June via email.

Background

Many of our members use Similarity Check which gives their editors reduced-rate access to Turnitin’s iThenticate system for plagiarism checking. Some use Similarity Check directly and some as part of a submission system.

The service launched in 2008 when we announced our initial partnership with Turnitin. Since then it’s gone from strength to strength and now has over 60 million full-text documents (from over 87 thousand titles) available for text comparison and almost 1500 members using the service.

The way that the Similarity Check arrangement works is changing, and it’s important that users know what’s happening. We have worked with Turnitin to set up a process that will transition participants easily and swiftly into the upgraded service with no access interruptions to iThenticate access.

So, what is changing and why?

We know that Similarity Check is a critical service for our members, and we want to improve people’s experience of using it. So, in consultation with members, we’ve strengthened the service by updating our relationship with Turnitin to consolidate all the components of the service under our care and stewardship. From next week, Similarity Check participants will move from having an agreement with Turnitin to one with Crossref. And at Crossref, we have a new agreement with Turnitin as the technology provider for the service.

The new arrangement puts us in a strong position to improve support and drive future improvements of the system. Representing our collective membership, we’ve agreed better terms than what people have today and what members would get acting individually.

There are five key changes specifically:

Members’ Similarity Check service agreement will be with us and not Turnitin.
Per-document checking fees will be invoiced by us, and not Turnitin. They’ll be included in members’ regular invoices, reducing international transfer fees for many.
The first 100 documents checked each year will be free of charge.
Turnitin will operate as a vendor for Crossref. We’ve already agreed a range of additions to their technology roadmap. Turnitin will remain responsible for fixing any bugs or technical issues with the system, but we’re in a stronger position to ensure these are fixed quickly.
Users will get training and on-boarding support from Crossref. This will cover both how to use the interface and how to interpret the results.

What’s staying the same?

The system itself and how it’s accessed - people’s logins will stay exactly the same and nothing will change about how participants have their systems set up.
The fees - the annual Similarity Check fee and the per-document checking fees will remain at the same level (although under the new arrangement users will get the first 100 documents each year for free - see “what’s changing” above!)
Your service obligations - members still need to make at least 90% of all their journal article content available for Turnitin to index. This is achieved through the dedicated full-text URLs that members register in their metadata.
Licensing and privacy - there are no changes to the licensing of members’ content or the privacy requirements for Turnitin’s use of member content.

For existing users

We’ve worked closely with Turnitin to ensure an easy transition to the new Crossref terms. You can transition to the new terms at any stage from next week through to 31st August, and Turnitin will end your contract with them in the month you take that action.

Next week, we’ll email your main Crossref membership contact with a link to a form asking them to click-through accept the new terms. This will confirm and commence the transition process.

You’ll then need to:

Pay your final Turnitin invoice, which will be sent at the end of the month you complete the form. This will cover your per-document checking fees up to the 25th of that month.
Continue to use iThenticate as usual.

Your service agreement will officially move from the Turnitin agreement to the Crossref agreement on the 25th of the month that you complete the transition form. The next Similarity Check invoices you receive will be from Crossref in January 2020 and will include your Similarity Check annual fee and your per-document checking fees for the remainder of 2019.

If you haven’t transitioned to the new agreement by 31st August, you risk losing access to the iThenticate system as Turnitin will not be able to automatically renew your direct contract.

If you have any questions about these changes, do contact our membership specialist. We’ll be in touch next week with a link to a new form where you’ll be able to check your details and accept the new agreement directly with us.

For prospective users

When you apply to participate in Similarity Check you will be accepting terms directly with Crossref and not Turnitin. Eligible members can apply any time from next week.

Any questions?

There are many benefits to this new set-up, but we understand these things can be a bit of a hassle. We’ve welcomed a new colleague (say hello to Kathleen!) to help people transition and get the best from their use of Similarity Check. Please contact her via Support with any questions.

[Update June 5th: we’ve added a new FAQ page for members who signed up for Similarity Check prior to June 2019]

Now put your hands up! (for a Similarity Check update)

Madeleine Watson — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I’m thinking back to 2008. A time when khaki and gladiator sandals dominated my wardrobe. The year when Obama was elected, and Madonna and Guy Ritchie parted ways. When we were given both the iPhone 3G and the Kindle, and when the effects of the global financial crisis lead us to come to terms with the notion of a ‘staycation’. In 2008 we met both Wall-E and Benjamin Button, were enthralled by the Beijing Olympics, and became addicted to Breaking Bad. And lest we forget, 2008 was also the year in which Beyoncé brought us Single Ladies; in all its sassy hand-waving, monochrome glory. For Crossref though, 2008 holds another important milestone as it was the year we launched our Similarity Check initiative. Today, the artist formerly known as CrossCheck provides our members with cost-effective access to Turnitin’s powerful text comparison tool, iThenticate.

Fast forward nearly a decade, and it’s wonderful to see just how Similarity Check membership has grown in the nine years since launch; from 16 original members in 2008 to over 1,300 today.

Figure 1.1 The number of publishers participating in the Similarity Check service each year between 2008 – 2017 (to April)

Usage of iThenticate is also consistent with this growth in membership, and throughout 2016 our members checked over four million manuscripts for similarity using the tool. As Similarity Check members contribute their full-text content into Turnitin’s database, this increase in membership also has a dramatic impact on the volume of content indexed by Turnitin. Today, members can compare their manuscripts against Turnitin’s database of over 60 million full-text works provided by Similarity Check members. With over 88 million works currently registered with Crossref, this means that 68% of all content deposited with us is now available for comparison in iThenticate.

Over the years we have worked very closely with Turnitin to help champion new iThenticate feature developments that best support our member’s use of the tool as a core function of their editorial workflow. Many of our members too have also worked together with Turnitin to provide feedback on user experience and design.

Below, Turnitin’s Product Manager for iThenticate, Sun Oh, shares an insight into their research process and how Similarity Check member’s feedback has been critical in developing new and improved functionality in iThenticate.

Read on to learn more from Sun…

Sun Oh is a Senior Product Manager at Turnitin. She is currently the Product Manager for iThenticate and backend systems including the Content Intake System and similarity reports.

Last year we surveyed our Crossref customers to find out what Similarity Check improvements they would like to see and noticed a recurring request for the ability to compare two or more personally sourced documents.

We were intrigued and decided to run with it. We contacted the respondents who had asked for this, and started conversations to find out more. This helped us gather invaluable data, which in turn helped us to build the feature based on real use cases and with a clear view of what was wanted.

The design prototypes were reviewed for usability and effectiveness each step of the way by the respondents and once we had the feature up and running, those who requested it in our initial survey were among the first to trial it.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve now launched the new Doc-to-Doc comparison feature, available through iThenticate’s native interface. Simply select the Doc-to-Doc comparison upload method from the document submission panel.

If you are a Crossref member using Similarity Check, you have exclusive early access to this new feature, which allows you to use iThenticate’s powerful similarity check functionality and apply it to your own, private documents.

How does Doc-to-Doc Comparison work?

Doc-to-Doc comparison allows users to upload one primary document and compare it against up to five other documents.

Figure 1.2 The document upload screen for Doc-to-Doc comparison

When the upload is complete, a similarity score is generated for the primary document based on the amount of similar content found in the comparison documents. A full comparison report is also available.

The comparison report will open in the document viewer, and will display the primary document along with a list of the comparison documents and with their similarity percentage. If one of the comparison documents doesn’t include text that matches the primary document, iThenticate will still display it anyway, with a 0% score, allowing users to rule it out of their inspection. The similarity report will be stored securely in the user’s folder until they delete it.

Figure 1.3 Similarity report for Doc-to-Doc comparison

As these documents will not be stored in a shared database, they won’t affect the similarity score of any future submissions. Primary and comparison documents remain completely private and will not be indexed into the shared iThenticate content database.

To get a better idea of how Doc-to-Doc comparison works, check out the iThenticate feature guide on the Turnitin website.

Start using Doc-to-Doc Comparison now!

If you’re a Crossref member using Similarity Check, you can log in to your iThenticate account now and select the Doc-to-Doc comparison link on the homepage.

What else is new in iThenticate in this new release?

New Look

In addition to Doc-to-Doc comparison, we decided to refresh the look and feel of iThenticate; the same tools our users know and trust, now with a modern interface. Users will also notice that iThenticate now has more readable font and friendlier styling throughout.

Report Mode Memory

To make life easier, iThenticate now remembers whether users were in the All Sources or Match Overview mode when they last used the Document Viewer. iThenticate will then open documents in this mode automatically hereafter.

Improved Submission Process

We’re also enhancing our submission process by making the upload requirements more inclusive. We’ve increased the possible file size limit from 40MB to 100MB when uploading to either the database or to Doc-to-Doc comparison, and PowerPoint (.ppt) and Excel (.xlsm) file formats are now accepted.

Developments completed in 2016

If Similarity Check members haven’t had a chance to check out the improvements we introduced in iThenticate throughout 2016, here’s a quick recap. You can always find our updates on the What’s New page of the iThenticate website.

Download User List

The ability for administrators to download a list of all the users in their account has been added. This list will allow administrators to easily send emails to users.

Similarity Score Calculation Update

We updated how the similarity score is calculated when bibliographic material is excluded from a similarity report. Now, when bibliography exclusion is enabled, the word count of the bibliography is not included when calculating the overall percentage. This update to the similarity report calculation helps to provide users with a more accurate similarity score.

Improved Security

We are fully committed to keeping user’s data safe and secure at all times. To that end, we’ve added additional security logging, put in measures to enforce stronger passwords, and enabled Captcha after failed login attempts.

Faster Report Generation

We’ve increased the number of resources dedicated to the generation of similarity reports for our iThenticate service. As a result, users should see faster turnaround times for similarity reports.

Support for Eight Additional Languages

The iThenticate user interface is now available in eight additional languages: German, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, French, and both Simplified & Traditional Chinese. When adding new users to an account, administrators can specify the language of the new user, which will then send a welcome email in the selected language. Individual users can also set their preferred language by selecting a language from the Language dropdown in the Settings menu.

Content Intake System

We’ve developed a new Content Intake System which enables our publication content database to scale so that our users can compare against a constantly growing database of the most recently published content. This allows us to index Similarity Check members’ data in a much more reliable and efficient way than legacy intake methods. And recently, we’ve made the collecting and processing of content from Crossref members using Similarity Check even faster by parallelising our processors. This means that we have more processors running simultaneously to process data.

By removing the need for crawling, we will also minimize our impact on traffic to a Similarity Check member’s public-facing website. The Content Intake System is able to directly collect full text URLs from members DOI metadata. This results in a huge reduction in the time it takes from when a publisher first deposits a new DOI with Crossref, to when the content is indexed by us into our full-text publication database. To date, we’ve been able to index the content associated with 60 million Crossref DOIs, and have indexed more than 165 million published works in total which submissions are compared against in iThenticate.

Walker (web crawler)

We’ve developed a new web crawler. Referred to as “Walker”, the crawler makes it possible to provide quicker and more reliable similarity matches to content available on the web. Not to be confused with the Content Intake System mentioned above, Walker’s purpose is to crawl the public web and is not used for indexing full-text content from Similarity Check members.

Using Walker, we’re adding an average of nearly 10 million new web pages to our content database per day, ensuring we have the freshest internet content available to find matches against.

We’d love to get your feedback!

As we design and develop new features, we want to make sure we’re fully understanding Similarity Check member’s needs and would love the opportunity to engage with users for further research. If you’d like to sign up to participate in user research for upcoming feature developments, please take a few minutes to fill out our Feedback Program Form. We look forward to connecting with you!

Contact Turnitin (EDIT 30/04/24: Support for iThenticate, contact details updated )

Please go to our Get help with Similarity Check page

~~For iThenticate technical and billing support, please email tiisupport@turnitin.com~~

~~For questions about content indexing, please contact Gareth at gmalcolm@turnitin.com~~

~~For iThenticate product development questions, please contact Sun at soh@turnitin.com~~

* Sun Oh, Product Manager for iThenticate*

**Thanks to Sun and the whole team at Turnitin for sharing this update.**

For more information about Similarity Check, visit our service page.

Want to join Crossref Similarity Check? Please contact our membership specialist.

Important changes to Similarity Check

Madeleine Watson — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

New features, new indexing, new name - oh my!

TL;DR The indexing of Similarity Check users’ content into the shared full-text database is about to get a lot faster. Now we need members assistance in helping Turnitin (the company who own and operate the iThenticate plagiarism checking tool) to transition to a new method of indexing content.

For existing Similarity Check users: please check that your metadata includes full-text URLs so that Turnitin can quickly and easily locate and index your content. Full-text URLs need to be included in 90% of journal article metadata by 31st December 2016.

2016 has seen some exciting new developments

(And there are plenty more in store as we strive towards 2017). But first: in April we renamed the service from CrossCheck to Similarity Check and we now have a new service logo available to reference via our logo CDN using the following code.

<img src="https://assets-crossref-org.pluma.sjfc.edu/logo/crossref-similarity-check-logo-200.svg" width="200" height="98" alt="Crossref Similarity Check logo">

Earlier this year Crossref also signed a new contract with Turnitin. As part of this, we negotiated the inclusion of dedicated development time each year from Turnitin’s engineering and product teams to focus on developments in the iThenticate tool that will specifically support Similarity Check users and their needs. Many of our members will have been contacted recently by Turnitin and asked to complete a survey regarding how they use the tool and what improvements they would like to see made in the future. The results of this survey are currently being analyzed and will be used by Turnitin to inform a development plan.

Finally, throughout 2016 we have also been working with Turnitin to help them develop a new Content Intake System that provides a faster, more reliable and robust method for collecting data from Crossref and indexing users’ content into the Similarity Check full-text database. Previously Turnitin was only able to collect prefix data from Crossref’s system on a monthly basis whereas today, with the new Content Intake System up and running, they are able to pull full-text content links from deposited metadata on a daily basis. This means that if you are a Similarity Check user currently depositing full-text URLs with Crossref, your content is being indexed by Turnitin faster than ever before.

There are plenty of other benefits this new method provides. This is why we have agreed with Turnitin that from 1st January 2017 onwards, indexing via full-text URLs will be the only method supported for Similarity Check.

Not convinced? Let me share my top four reasons for advocating Turnitin’s exclusive use of the full-text URL indexing method for Similarity Check:

1. Reduced traffic to publisher servers. Indexing via full-text URLs means that the crawl is targeted specifically to the location of the full-text PDF or HTML content, thereby reducing the amount of traffic Turnitin puts through publisher’s servers.

2. Lower margin for error and simplified issue recovery. Turnitin will no longer need to make multiple fetches for any content item, meaning there are now fewer steps in the process. This means there will be fewer places for indexing errors to occur and also reduces the reliance on users setting meta tags or span tags correctly in their markup. Furthermore, if problems do arise, using the one method of indexing for all users will mean that Turnitin is able to pinpoint the issue faster and work with members to resolve it quickly.

3. Quicker turnaround on indexing with fewer delays. Turnitin will no longer need to investigate and set up bespoke indexing methods for different Similarity Check users and they will be able to access the location of full-text content from the one place (ie. within the specific resource tag in member’s metadata deposits). More accurate data from only one location will result in a quicker turnaround on indexing, meaning newly published content will be added into the Similarity Check content database sooner for all members to check other new manuscripts against.

4. Daily ingest is better than monthly! Full-text links can be collected daily from Crossref-rather than monthly for other methods-meaning a more regular ingest of content.

The presence of full-text URLs within the metadata is critical to the functioning of Turnitin’s new indexing system. All new Similarly Check participants are now asked to ensure they have these links in place within their deposited metadata before they participate in the service.

Already a user of Similarity Check?

If you’re an existing Similarity Check participant who joined the service before 2016, your content is likely to be currently indexed via different methods, such as following links contained in your page meta tags. If you’re not currently depositing full-text links with Crossref for Similarity Check, you will have received an email from us about this in August. If you’re unsure though, you can check your XML to see if you have included the full-text link in the field or you can send us an email at similaritycheck@crossref.org as we’d be happy to check for you.

Help, don’t leave me behind!

Us? Never! We’re here to help. But we really do need those full-text links… Everything existing Similarity Check publishers need to know about adding full-text links into new or existing metadata can be found on our help site. These URLs should be included as part of all standard metadata deposits going forward and can be easily added into existing files in bulk. So there’s no need to redeposit the full metadata, unless of course you would prefer to do so!

That’s a wrap

Looking back, it really has been a busy year for Similarity Check and it will continue to be so as we persevere in laying the groundwork for a more streamlined, robust and scalable service for 2017 and beyond. Remember, we need Similarity Check users to ensure they have full-text URLs in at least 90% of their journal article metadata by 31st December 2016 in order to continue using Similarity Check from 2017 onwards.

And please keep us updated! With over 1,200 publishers using Similarity Check, we’ll need a little nudge to know when metadata has been updated to include these links. So once updates have been deposited, please email similaritycheck@crossref.org to confirm. And of course, as always, if there are any questions or if some advice would help, we’re just an email away.

Similarity Check on Crossref

Similarity check update: A new similarity report and AI writing detection tool soon to be available to iThenticate v2 users

New similarity report

Enabling the new similarity report

Classic view / new view

Exclusions

Sources / Match Groups view

PDF report

Submission details

AI writing detection tool

Enabling AI writing detection

Integrations

File requirements

Next

Paraphrase detection

AI and paraphrase detection bundle (EDIT 23/11/16: AI writing detection tool)

Fixes

Similarity Check: look out for a refreshed interface and improvements for iThenticate v2 account administrators

Logging in

A refreshed interface

Users

Integrations

Statistics

Paper lookup

New password requirements

Next in iThenticate v2

Similarity Check: what’s new with iThenticate v2?

Upgrading to iThenticate v2

Manuscript tracking system integrations

eJournalPress

Editorial Manager and ScholarOne

More new and improved features

User-friendly PDF report

Custom section exclusion filter

User reporting

Up next

Product development

iThenticate v2 training

Image integrity: Help us figure out the scale of the problem

Some context

What next ?

Similarity Check news: iThenticate v2.0 ready for launch

Crossref Similarity Check - first things first

What’s new

Increased document upload capacity

Suspicious or hidden character detection

Preprint exclusion filter

Refreshed and responsive interface

Similarity reports - save and share

Annotations

Content portal

Improved API for subscribers who integrate Similarity Check with their manuscript tracking system

What’s next

We’ll keep you posted

Similarity Check news: introducing the next generation iThenticate.

The new document viewer in iThenticate v2.0

Improved reference exclusion

Similarity Check is changing

Tl;dr

Background

So, what is changing and why?

What’s staying the same?

For existing users

For prospective users

Any questions?

Now put your hands up! (for a Similarity Check update)

How does Doc-to-Doc Comparison work?

Start using Doc-to-Doc Comparison now!

What else is new in iThenticate in this new release?

New Look

Report Mode Memory

Improved Submission Process

Developments completed in 2016

Download User List

Similarity Score Calculation Update

Improved Security

Faster Report Generation

Support for Eight Additional Languages

Content Intake System

Walker (web crawler)