Urkund

NOTE! The name of Urkund will change to Ouriginal during the spring of 2021. This does not require any action from students and teachers. Both names can appear in user interfaces and messages.

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

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 or via Laturi system.
• 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 without bibliography 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.