(Revised: August 05, 2008)

The CrossCheck service officially launched on June 19th, 2008, as announced in our
recent press release and covered in such publications as the Chronicle of Higher
Education, ISMTE EON and Fox Business. Benefits of CrossCheck.

CROSSCHECK MEMBERS

• American Academy of Pediatrics

• American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR)

• Ammons Scientific

• Annual Reviews

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• BMJ Publishing Group

• Cambridge University Press

• Elsevier

• Fundacion Infancia y Aprendizaje

• Hindawi Publishing Corporation

• International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)

• Oxford University Press


What is CrossCheck?

CrossCheck powered by iThenticate is a new initiative from CrossRef to help the scholarly publishers verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. The need of a plagiarism tool was identified as a top priority by CrossRef members in 2006 and as a result CrossRef researched the best plagiarism tools on the market to provide a solution for the CrossRef members. CrossCheck is really two products, a database of scholarly publications and a web-based tool to check an authored work against that database. The web-based tool can be used in the editorial process to identify matching text but it can not, on its own, identify plagiarism.  A human has to look at the matching text and use their best judgment to identify if plagiarism has occurred or not.

1. By signing the service agreement that includes terms and conditions that have been vetted by CrossRef.  Publishers are at liberty to negotiate the terms of this agreement with iParadigms if needed; if you accept the terms as is, iParadigms will countersign promptly and begin the process of crawling your content. To request the template agreement, please contact Amy Brand at abrand@crossref.org.

   Please sign and mail two copies to:

   
   Bob Creutz
   General Manager
   iParadigms, LLC 1624
   Franklin St. , 7th Floor
   Oakland, CA 94612

2. By allowing their content to be crawled and text-fingerprinted by iParadigms for inclusion in the CrossCheck database. This is associated with a small administrative fee to CrossRef. Pricing information can be found in exhibit A of the service agreement and in the pricing sheet available upon request.
3. By temporarily uploading documents which they wish to check for plagiarism for comparison against the CrossCheck database and against, if they so choose, the open web. This is associated with per-document submission fees, tiered to the volume of documents checked each year (see exhibit A of the service agreement).

Important point: Note that you can start participating by including your content in the CrossCheck database without undertaking submission checks. In fact, we encourage all CrossRef members to contribute to the CrossCheck database whether or not they are prepared to undertake plagiarism screening.

What are the terms and conditions?

Terms and conditions.

What is the CrossCheck database?

The CrossCheck database is the aggregation of full-text works made available for indexing by CrossCheck participating publishers. When you submit documents for checking, you will be able to indicate whether you would like to check against just this database or, in addition, against internet content.

All CrossRef members are encouraged to contribute to the CrossCheck database regardless of whether they decide to check submissions at this time. This will make this tool easier to implement into your editorial process in the future, will benefit the community using this tool and will help prevent other publishers from unknowingly publishing your content. The initiative will only be as successful as it is robust, and the administrative fee for participation will go down as more members join. Refer to exhibit A in the service agreement to see what your maximum possible administration fee would be for a full year or contact Amy Brand at abrand@crossref.org for a quote. This fee will be prorated and billed at year end. 

How will my content be indexed?

All content associated with a DOI will be included in the DOI sitemap used to point iThenticate’s crawlers to appropriate full-text content. If you have registered as-crawled URLs for each of your DOIs, the crawlers will use those to get to your full text. Otherwise, you must redirect the crawlers from your DOI landing page to the full text itself. Regular uploads to a FTP site are another possible approach, via special request. More information and crawler IP addresses here.

Where can I learn more about the API?

API Guide

For questions about the API, please use the following listserv: api-info@ithenticate.com.

What is the definition of document?

Documents submitted for checking are defined to be article or chapter length works of no more than 50 pages. (Note: documents submitted for checking do not get stored or included in the database and can be deleted at your request.)

How do I check a document for possible plagiarism?

To check a document for possible plagiarism you will upload the document using the web-based tool and choose what databases you would like to check that document against; you can check the document against the CrossCheck database, iThenticate’s database of other proprietary content, and/or the open web.  The system will then produce a matching report. The report will show you the percent of the document that matched other content, where that content came from, and the matching content itself.  You can share a document with other users within your organization, and you can delete an uploaded document at any time.  Uploading a document to the web-based tool does not add the document to the CrossCheck database.

What are the benefits of CrossCheck compared to iThenticate?

CrossCheck is based on the iThenticate system. Please see the iThenticate FAQ at http://crosscheck.ithenticate.com/faq.html and tour some screenshots at http://crosscheck.ithenticate.com/tour.html.

CrossCheck members can view the full text of overlapping content exposed within the matching report, while iThenticate users only see twelve lines of text above and below the matching text. 

CrossCheck members have unlimited user accounts while a basic iThenticate account comes with two user accounts and each additional is an additional charge.

CrossCheck members can check up to 50 pages per document while iThenticate users are limited to 2 pages. 

CrossCheck members have special discounted pricing.

CrossCheck members can add 'CrossCheck deposited' and 'CrossCheck depositor' logos to their published works and web site.

What is the role of manuscript tracking vendors?

Manuscript tracking vendors are encouraged to implement CrossCheck into their manuscript tracking process in a way that is flexible enough for the publishers to use CrossCheck where they see fit in their editorial process. CrossRef is currently meeting with manuscript tracking vendors to discuss how to implement CrossCheck.

If you have any additional questions please contact Amy Brand at abrand@crossref.org.