Software Plagiarism Detection Trials 2004/2005

Why trial the software rather than waiting to see if it becomes a necessity?

Well, for one, you might find it useful, most of our previous volunteers have been interested in the results which came back from the trials. But beyond that, this is your chance to affect how the system itself is run, both in terms of training and in terms of software provided.

What type of trial should I carry out?

There are three different classes of trial being run this year:

• Run the software yourself and see how it goes
• Step through use of the software with Angie’s help
• Supply Angie with work electronically and talk through the results after processing

It’s really up to you which you choose. If you choose to run the software yourself, there is a web page to help you, but you should probably only consider this option if you’re already quite comfortable with computers as otherwise you might end up wasting time trying to work out what’s going on! It’s not that hard, but when you’re inexperienced even quite minor mistakes can be difficult to spot.

On the other hand, if you choose to simply hand work over and look at the results, you’re not really providing much information about what sort of training will be required for staff to use the system, so if you’re relatively inexperienced with computers this might be the perfect time to really make us appreciate areas of the process which you might find difficult which the rest of us using it have long since forgotten about. Doubtless other people will experience the same problems, so we want to know!

So to summarise – option 1 is best for experienced computer users, option 2 for inexperienced computer users and anyone who’s interested, and option 3 for those who perhaps don’t have much time to spare.