How to pick the best plagiarism checker for your academic institution

Learn how to find the best-fitting plagiarism checker solution for your educational establishment and what criteria to pay attention to before adopting it

Choosing and implementing new technology for an educational establishment can be a perilous process. The quantity of the available solutions and their variety can overwhelm administrators. Nonetheless, using the right plagiarism checker technology is crucial for boosting the productivity of the institution. As Bill Gates once said: 

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

How to make the right decision and invest in the best tool? Let’s go over the list of factors to consider.

1. Functionality and efficiency

Every LMS administrator knows the educational technology needs of their department or institution. As a representative of your school, you can tell for sure what features you require to boost the performance of teachers and students. As Craig Kemp, global edtech and digital transformation consultant and educator, said, “we need to focus on what makes our jobs as educators more efficient and effective and how tools can support students to learn easier, better, and more effectively.”

A chosen solution should help teachers save time while being more efficient and effective. If software under consideration adds extra effort to the workflow, keep looking for a better one.

2. User experience

Another essential thing to consider when picking a tool for your academic institution is its user-friendliness. The tool you choose should not be hard to figure out. After being introduced to it, teachers should be able to get the most of its functionality right away, and the navigation should not be confusing or inconsequential. After all, technology should simplify things for us instead of complicating them.

Every modern school needs an up-to-date plagiarism checker. It helps teachers evaluate the papers of their students faster and more comprehensively while discouraging cheating. If you’re looking for a Turnitin alternative, take a solid look at Unicheck – an easy-to-integrate plagiarism checker that doesn’t need any workflow change. 

3. Speed

Naturally, every new tool requires time to install and learn. Yet, after the installation and introduction processes are over, there shouldn’t be any more standbys and hindrances in its performance. Make sure that the solution you choose for your establishment works quickly enough. 

Let’s take a plagiarism checker for teachers, for example. While some services put your papers in a queue that might last for hours and take a long time to check every document, Unicheck takes just up to twenty seconds per page. Teachers have dozens of papers to grade every week; this means every minute counts.


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4. Integration

No matter how functional and promising a solution might look, don’t forget to consider its integration process. Will it be easy for your academic institution to integrate it? Will you need help from the support team to set it up? Is there any onboard training and implementation help provided by the service supplier? Clearing out these points will save you from nasty surprises along the instalment process.

5. Continuous innovation

One of the things you should check before committing to a product is whether its creators continuously update it. The provider should enhance its existing features and roll out the new ones whenever there’s any demand or complaints from the users. Anticipating user needs before they voice them is even better. Check user reviews of the product to find out whether the updates and improvements are smooth and bug-free. A good plagiarism checker for teachers would adjust in response to new cheating techniques like digital text modifications.

6. Team and support

The people behind the product are also of great significance. When it comes to education technology, its creators need to show a comprehensive understanding of the contemporary educational system, its processes, goals and challenges.

Their customer support service should be responsive, competent and quick. In case you have any problems with the chosen solution, you need to be sure that it will be quickly addressed and fixed.

7. Pricing model

Things get complicated when it comes to the budget of an educational establishment. Educators are always pushed to do more with fewer resources. It’s also true when speaking of tech solutions. As an LMS admin, you probably have to search for the most price-efficient option. Yet, saving a few hundred dollars at the start might not be worth it in the long term. Check what you will get before paying for it and consider how the tech solution can impact your institution long-term.

Final Thoughts

Technology is far from substituting real teachers, but it can help them get more efficient and effective. When you are choosing between Unicheck or Turnitin, or any other two modern plagiarism checkers, evaluate the functionality and efficiency, user-friendliness, integration time and complexity, tech support, product update, and pricing model of every option. It will help you make a weighted decision and choose the tool that best suits the needs and resources of your institution.