IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v126y2021i11d10.1007_s11192-021-04140-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The frequency of plagiarism identified by text-matching software in scientific articles: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Vanja Pupovac

    (University of Rijeka)

Abstract

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the frequency of plagiarism in scientific papers estimated from publications that use text-matching software to identify plagiarism. For this purpose, a literature search of 39 bibliographic databases has been conducted and a total of 10,005 articles have been identified. Ten articles met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis and they checked for plagiarism in 6459 already published articles or manuscripts submitted to journals or conferences. All articles assessed plagiarism in a two-step process, first identifying textual similarity based on text-matching software and second, additionally inspecting detected similarity in the human verification process. The result revealed that 18% (95% CI: 12–25%) of articles have instances of plagiarism. Subgroup analyses were conducted to explain the large variance in the results. Following factors were tested: the number of plagiarism criteria implemented during the human verification process, sample size, the country where the study was conducted, the scientific discipline of analyzed papers, and publication status of analyzed papers. Plagiarism rates were higher across studies with a smaller sample size (N

Suggested Citation

  • Vanja Pupovac, 2021. "The frequency of plagiarism identified by text-matching software in scientific articles: a systematic review and meta-analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 8981-9003, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:11:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04140-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04140-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-021-04140-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-021-04140-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yuehong Zhang, 2010. "Chinese journal finds 31% of submissions plagiarized," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7312), pages 153-153, September.
    2. Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Andrew Tsou, 2015. "Team size matters: Collaboration and scientific impact since 1900," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(7), pages 1323-1332, July.
    3. Joseph Ana & Tracey Koehlmoos & Richard Smith & Lijing L Yan, 2013. "Research Misconduct in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-6, March.
    4. Xiaoyan Jia & Xufei Tan & Yuehong Zhang, 2014. "Replication of the methods section in biosciences papers: is it plagiarism?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 337-345, January.
    5. Ali Gazni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Fereshteh Didegah, 2012. "Mapping world scientific collaboration: Authors, institutions, and countries," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(2), pages 323-335, February.
    6. Ali Gazni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Fereshteh Didegah, 2012. "Mapping world scientific collaboration: Authors, institutions, and countries," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(2), pages 323-335, February.
    7. Sandra L. Titus & James A. Wells & Lawrence J. Rhoades, 2008. "Repairing research integrity," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7198), pages 980-982, June.
    8. Zhaohui Sun & Mounir Errami & Tara Long & Chris Renard & Nishant Choradia & Harold Garner, 2010. "Systematic Characterizations of Text Similarity in Full Text Biomedical Publications," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-6, September.
    9. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Howell, Bronwyn E. & Potgieter, Petrus H., 2023. "AI-generated lemons: a sour outlook for content producers?," 32nd European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2023: Realising the digital decade in the European Union – Easier said than done? 277971, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Di Costa, Flavia, 2019. "Diversification versus specialization in scientific research: Which strategy pays off?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 82, pages 51-57.
    2. Cathelijn J F Waaijer & Benoît Macaluso & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2016. "Stability and Longevity in the Publication Careers of U.S. Doctorate Recipients," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Marian-Gabriel Hâncean & Matjaž Perc & Jürgen Lerner, 2021. "The coauthorship networks of the most productive European researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 201-224, January.
    4. Seokbeom Kwon & Jan Youtie & Alan Porter & Nils Newman, 2024. "How does regulatory uncertainty shape the innovation process? Evidence from the case of nanomedicine," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 262-302, February.
    5. Rahman, Mohammad Tariqur & Regenstein, Joe Mac & Kassim, Noor Lide Abu & Haque, Nazmul, 2017. "The need to quantify authors’ relative intellectual contributions in a multi-author paper," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 275-281.
    6. Chaocheng He & Jiang Wu & Qingpeng Zhang, 2021. "Characterizing research leadership on geographically weighted collaboration network," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4005-4037, May.
    7. Ali Gazni & Vincent Larivière & Fereshteh Didegah, 2016. "The effect of collaborators on institutions’ scientific impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1209-1230, November.
    8. Wei Quan & Philippe Mongeon & Maxime Sainte-Marie & Rongying Zhao & Vincent Larivière, 2019. "On the development of China’s leadership in international collaborations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 707-721, August.
    9. Qin Zhang & Juneman Abraham & Hui-Zhen Fu, 2020. "Collaboration and its influence on retraction based on retracted publications during 1978–2017," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 213-232, October.
    10. Caroline S. Wagner & Xiaojing Cai & Satyam Mukherjee, 2020. "China’s scholarship shows atypical referencing patterns," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2457-2468, September.
    11. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    12. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2019. "A gender analysis of top scientists’ collaboration behavior: evidence from Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 405-418, August.
    13. Xie, Qing & Zhang, Xinyuan & Kim, Giyeong & Song, Min, 2022. "Exploring the influence of coauthorship with top scientists on researchers’ affiliation, research topic, productivity, and impact," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    14. António Osório, 2018. "On the impossibility of a perfect counting method to allocate the credits of multi-authored publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2161-2173, September.
    15. Wagner, Caroline S. & Whetsell, Travis A. & Mukherjee, Satyam, 2019. "International research collaboration: Novelty, conventionality, and atypicality in knowledge recombination," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1260-1270.
    16. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2019. "The value and credits of n-authors publications," Working Papers 2072/376026, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    17. António Osório & Lutz Bornmann, 2021. "On the disruptive power of small-teams research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 117-133, January.
    18. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan, 2015. "Field-normalized citation impact indicators and the choice of an appropriate counting method," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 872-894.
    19. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Di Costa, 2019. "The collaboration behavior of top scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(1), pages 215-232, January.
    20. Kaile Gong & Ying Cheng, 2022. "Patterns and impact of collaboration in China’s social sciences: cross-database comparisons between CSSCI and SSCI," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5947-5964, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:11:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04140-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.