1. The IEEE IPR Office CrossCheck Tutorial
Part of the IEEE IPR Tutorial Series
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2. This tutorial will provide an overview of the CrossCheck plagiarism detection tool, and how it benefits IEEE publications.
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3. General Terms
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4. Plagiarism
IEEE defines plagiarism as the use of someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original author and source. Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable and is considered a serious breach of professional conduct.
IEEE separates plagiarism into five levels:
Level 1: % of a paper is copied
Level 2: % of a paper is copied
Level 3: < 20% of a paper is copied
Level 4: Improper paraphrasing (copied with only minor word changes)
Level 5: Credited reuse but unclear delineation of the copied material
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5. Plagiarism
There are several basic factors to consider when evaluating possible plagiarism:
Amount or quantity (full paper, a section of a paper, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, phrases)
Use of quotation marks for all copied text
Appropriate placement of credit notices
Improper paraphrasing
IPR Office staff will alert volunteers to possible incidents of Levels 1, 2 or 3 plagiarism detected by CrossCheck.
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6. Multiple Publication/Submission
IEEE policy states that authors must submit original work that:
has not been published elsewhere
is not under review for another refereed publication
cites previous work
indicates how it differs from the previously published work
Authors must also inform the publication volunteer when submitting any previously published or submitted work.
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7. Multiple Publication/Submission
There is no IEEE policy-related threshold for the amount of an author’s previous work that can be included in a new manuscript. As long as the previous work was properly referenced and the publication volunteer was informed, it is not considered to be author misconduct.
Many publication volunteers have established their own measures of how much of an author’s previous work is acceptable to be included in a new submission.
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8. Other General Terms Similarity Report Alerts
A record of those portions of a manuscript that have similarity to previously published content in the CrossCheck database. Matches are color coded and numbered and listed from highest to lowest percentage of matching word counts within the manuscript. All manuscripts submitted to CrossCheck produce Similarity Reports.
Alerts
Automated messages sent to volunteers and IPR Office staff when Similarity Reports exceed a predetermined threshold (e.g., 30%).
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9. CrossCheck Overview
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10. CrossCheck Overview
CrossCheck compares submitted manuscripts against a very large database of published articles contributed by members of the publishing industry.
The tool automatically flags manuscripts that surpass a predetermined similarity threshold.
IEEE recommends a 30% threshold. Therefore, any manuscript with 30% or more similarity to previously published content will be flagged for further review.
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11. CrossCheck Matures
Four major milestones have been reached since the introduction of CrossCheck in 2009:
PSPB/BOD approval of policy mandating CrossCheck in all publications (November 2012)
Automatic upload of manuscripts from S1M into CrossCheck (February 2013)
Launch of the CrossCheck Portal (April 2013)
Two dedicated CrossCheck staff added to IPR Office (May 2013)
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12. CrossCheck Improves Quality
Publication volunteers and Technical Program Chairs have benefited from CrossCheck by being able to avoid a time-consuming plagiarism review process.
Volunteers now have the opportunity to resolve problems simply by invoking an editorial-rejection decision during the peer-review process.
In this way, the volunteers’ use of CrossCheck can be seen as preserving the integrity of their respective publications, as well as IEEE Xplore.
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13. How to Access CrossCheck
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14. Accessing CrossCheck
Volunteers can access CrossCheck from the CrossCheck Portal hosted by IEEE Intellectual Property Rights
Paper management systems or peer review tools may have CrossCheck integrated into it.
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15. Accessing CrossCheck
ScholarOne Manuscripts (S1M) is used by nearly all IEEE periodicals.
CrossCheck access is integrated.
S1M automatically submits manuscripts to CrossCheck at original manuscript submission.
Editors can resubmit revised manuscripts as needed.
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16. Accessing CrossCheck
Conference vendors such as EDAS and PaperCept also have CrossCheck built into their manuscript submission systems.
Submissions are uploaded by the vendor submission system and Similarity Reports are generated.
Vendors who are interested in integrating CrossCheck into their submission systems should contact the IPR Office to get more information.
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17. Accessing CrossCheck
Developed by IEEE, the CrossCheck Portal is the option for all publications that do not use a peer-review system with Crosscheck already in it.
For more information or to register to use the Portal, please go to
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18. Using CrossCheck
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19. Accessing CrossCheck
At manuscript submission: Use CrossCheck to remove bad manuscripts before using valuable reviewer time.
After manuscript acceptance: Recommended for extensively revised manuscripts, or for manuscripts that are resubmitted due to high similarity detected by CrossCheck at submission.
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20. Upload Overview
As mentioned earlier, uploading manuscripts into CrossCheck is handled differently depending on how the manuscript submission is managed.
For S1M and vendor users, uploading manuscripts is done automatically at submission.
For Portal users, manuscripts must be uploaded manually, either individually or as a batch upload.
Batch upload is a great time saver!
Volunteers can also submit papers to CrossCheck after the technical program committee has accepted the paper but before author notification occurs.
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21. Email Alerts IEEE Staff IEEE Volunteer Alerts
When manuscripts are submitted to CrossCheck through a vendor, Alerts will automatically be sent to volunteers and staff when a manuscript’s similarity score is over 30%.
When manuscripts are submitted through the IEEE CrossCheck Portal, notices are sent simultaneously to volunteers and staff to inform them that the Similarity Reports are ready for review, regardless of the similarity score.
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22. Alerts
IPR Office staff will review all Similarity Reports with a score of 30% or higher.
A significant time saver for a conference organizer!
Publication volunteers and Technical Program Chairs can access the full Similarity Report of any Alert to review what material was detected to be similar.
In the following section of this webinar, you will learn how to use the CrossCheck tool to identify any misconduct issues in author submissions and what actions you can take when you find them.
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23. Similarity Reports
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24. Similarity Reports
CrossCheck generates a Similarity Report for every paper, regardless of the percentage of similarity.
All Similarity Reports can be examined in two viewing modes:
Document Viewer
Text-Only Report
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25. Similarity Report—Document Viewer
Link to “Text Only Report”
Generate Report feature
Matching sources, listed from highest to lowest percentage of similarity
Highlighted manuscript
Total percentage of similarity
Sources match by color and number to the highlighted manuscript
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26. Similarity Report—Document Viewer
The Source list can be viewed in two modes to help evaluate similarities.
Match Overview mode lists the largest sources as they are highlighted on the manuscript. Any overlapping sources (covered by larger matched sources) are not included on the list.
All Sources mode lists every matching source found. A link to the online source appears (a small arrow within a circle) when hovering the cursor over the source title. Clicking the link will launch the online source in a new window.
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27. Similarity Report—Document Viewer
Clicking the highlighted section of the manuscript will open a box that shows the source text, highlighting the matching words.
Clicking the “Full Source View” will open a side-by-side comparison of the text of the individual source and manuscript.
Clicking the source link on the box will open the online source in a new window if the content is not behind a pay-wall.
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28. Similarity Report—Text-Only Report
Link to the “Document Viewer” Report
Source Match by Color and Number to the Highlighted Manuscript
Total Percentage of Similarity
List of Sources of Similarity
Highlighted Manuscript
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29. Similarity Report—Text-Only Report
Click a section of highlighted text to bring up the side-by-side view.
Click on a different color/number portion to view that matching source in the side-by-side view.
Click the “Next Match” arrows to advance to the next portion that matches the source.
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30. Evaluating Reports
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31. Things to Consider
Is the similarity to the author’s own work, creating a “false positive” result ?
Is the similarity to work that has been properly referenced and cited in the manuscript?
Is there a high percentage of cumulative similarity (30% or more), but individual sources are lower (less than 10%)?
If previously published content was cited and referenced properly, is there a sufficient amount of new or original material?
CrossCheck is only able to compare text. Figures and equations embedded as images in the manuscript are not included in the results.
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32. Options When a High Similarity Score is Found
Publication volunteers & Technical Programs Chairs have three options when deciding on an appropriate action to take if a manuscript has reused content improperly.
Editorially reject submissions with minor amounts of plagiarized material.
The volunteer should alert the IPR Office and provide details of the decision for future reference.
Allow the author to revise and resubmit the manuscript.
Initiate a formal plagiarism review.
The volunteer should report the incident to the IPR Office. Staff will advise the volunteer on the process for reviewing the case.
IPR Office Staff is available to help with any questions or concerns.
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33. Summary of the Process
Access CrossCheck through a vendor’s submission system or the IEEE CrossCheck Portal
Batch upload papers to be reviewed
CrossCheck runs similarity comparisons
CrossCheck produces Similarity Reports for each paper
Conference leadership and IPR staff review similarity reports
IPR staff recommends corrective actions; conference leadership makes final decision on problem papers
Appropriate action is taken with papers (and authors if necessary).
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34. Publications volunteers who have any questions, or wish to discuss CrossCheck results and possible actions to take, should contact the IEEE IPR Office:
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35. The IPR Tutorial Series
For other tutorials on IPR-related topics, such as
Patents
Copyrights
Plagiarism
Please visit the IEEE IPR Office web site
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36. This concludes the IEEE IPR Office CrossCheck Tutorial.
We hope it helped to provide
a better understanding of CrossCheck.
Copyright © 2015 IEEE