Urkund

What is plagiarism?
plagiarize, v.
to take and use as one's own (the thoughts, writings, or inventions of another person); to copy (literary work or ideas) improperly or without acknowledgement. (Source: Oxford English Dictionary.)

What is Urkund?
Urkund compares documents and flags similarities as a possible instance of plagiarism.

Help desk

support(at)urkund.com

urkund(at)oulu.fi (usually vacation on July)

About Urkund

• Only copyright owners can submit their own documents to Urkund.
• Submitter of the document can be a student or an employee of the University of Oulu.
• The receiver of the Urkund analysis is always employee of the University of Oulu. Students cannot use Urkund independently.
• Documents are submitted to Urkund via this webpage, via Laturi system or via Optima learning environment.
• All submitted documents are saved permanently to Urkund.
• All submitted documents are used later as comparison material in Urkund archive.
• Urkund compares a document submitted into it with it's own archive of all previously submitted documents, material on the internet and in the protected databases of Urkund's partners.
• Documents saved into Urkund are not publicly available. Urkund analyses include links to the archived documents that contain similarities, unless the author of the document has prohibited it (Exempt document).
• Documents in Urkund cannot be searched.
• Users can not delete or remove documents from Urkund. If it is necessary to remove a submitted document teacher must contact the Urkund support: support(at)urkund.com.
• In Urkund analyses teacher can deactivate the version submitted earlier from the list of documents against which the document is compared.

Urkund process is represented in following pages

• Student / Submitter of the document; student or employee of the University of Oulu.
• Teacher / Receiver of the analysis; employee of the University of Oulu.

Doctoral theses

• University of Oulu Graduate School (UniOGS) recommends that an Urkund anti-plagiarism inspection is carried out before the printing and publication of the thesis.
• In the case of compilation theses, only the Introduction of the doctoral thesis is to be uploaded into the Urkund system.
• If the doctoral candidate is not an employee of the University of Oulu, she/he can authorize the supervisor to submit the thesis to Urkund.
• If the principal supervisor is not an employee of the University of Oulu, another supervisor or a degree supervisor must be selected as the recipient, who will then forward the Urkund analysis to the principal supervisor by email, or directly via Urkund.
• More information: http://www.oulu.fi/uniogs/thesis.

Bachelor and master theses

• Urkund inspection is integrated into Laturi system.
• Laturi and Urkund instructions.
• It is recommended by the Education Council that teachers use the Urkund system to check all bachelor and master theses for plagiarism after the student has submitted the work for grading/approval. (Koulutusneuvoston päätös B3/2010).

Essays and other course writings

• Teachers are obliged to use the Urkund system in the courses they teach and to recommend that students submit their work to the Urkund database for check.
• On the same occasion, the teachers shall also instruct the students in referencing techniques and familiarize them with the principles of high-quality scientific practice, which every member of the academic community must know.

Writings of the staff members

• Employees of the University of Oulu as copyright owners can submit their own documents to Urkund.