High time for a common plagiarism detection system

Abstract

Plagiarism represents a serious and growing problem in science, with only a fraction of such publications detected and retracted. Any initiative to deal efficiently with the problem of plagiarism would require a joint effort of academic publishers and editors. The most effective measure would be to establish a common plagiarism detection system, adopted by all peer-reviewed journals and major publishers, with automatic uploading and cross-checking of each newly submitted manuscript with both published material and all further and ongoing submissions. If adequately implemented, such system would fully resolve the problem of multiple submissions, and detect instances of plagiarism of unpublished material. Significant portion of scientific misconduct cases would be resolved, in most cases much before the publishing stage. This would greatly benefit the scientific community and science in general. The need for publishing retraction notices would be also diminished, thereby reducing the publishing costs. Lastly, the system would probably act as a deterrent, passively contributing to plagiarism frequency reduction.