iParadigms, creators of leading plagiarism-checking software Turnitin, has announced the release of an automated translation technology that enables Turnitin to identify potentially plagiarized content that has been translated.

In the growing international education market, cases have been reported whereby students take existing source material in English, translate it into the language used at their institution and misrepresent it as their own work.

However, with the introduction of this multilingual translation technology, Turnitin is able to take assignments written in a variety of non-English languages, translate them into English, compare them to Turnitin’s massive content databases to highlight any matches found in the assignment.

Chris Caren, iParadigms president and CEO, said:

“Over one billion students around the world are English Language Learners (ELLs) and their proficiency in English is quickly matching that of their first language, leading to a rise in translated plagiarism.

“Translated matching has been a ‘much requested’ innovation from our international customers who are struggling with translated plagiarism and previously didn’t have a solution to help them.”

The current software offers versions in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese and Turkish, with the ability to read translated works in Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Romanian.

This comes as Claire Aronson at the Indiana Daily Student reports on the increase of technology coursework in our nation’s schools.

Anne Leftwich, an assistant professor in the School of Education, said that the school has increased its coursework for future teachers focusing on privacy, cyber-bullying and electronic plagiarism.

“I think it is important because students and parents aren’t aware of the issues out there, and the school is held responsible.

“It is such a new issue. We have to educate the populace that the information stays out there even if they delete it.”

With the rapid increase in technology and Internet use in the classroom, focusing on online identity protection is inevitable, writes Aronson.

“This increase in teaching about the Internet is definitely a result of how absolutely unavoidable and prevalent the Internet is within our culture,” said Jake Summer, a sophomore math education major.

“With online classes, electronic submissions of assignments, as well as the invention of search engines, students are essentially required to be online at least part of the day.”