Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Anti-Plagiarism Experts Raise Questions About Services With Links to Sites Selling Papers By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Two online services that help professors check student papers for plagiarism -- PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com -- appear to have ties to Web sites that sell term papers to students. That has some professors worried that the two services might be secretly selling the very papers that they claim to check. However, an official of the two anti-plagiarism services denies that they have any connection to term-paper sellers. PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com are run by Oleksiy Shevchenko, who identified himself in a telephone interview as a computer-science student at a university in Ukraine, though he declined to name the institution. As of last week, Mr. Shevchenko was also listed in a public database of Internet registrants as the "administrative contact" for a company called Cyber Breeze Networks, which is based in Carson City, Nev. That company runs at least three sites that sell papers to students: mightystudents.com, essaymill.com, and essaysonfile.com. Last week, Louis Bloomfield, a physics professor at the University of Virginia, sent out an e-mail message to several professors and administrators warning "that the two 'plagiarism detection services' are actually fronts for paper mills (AKA 'cheat sites') and that you may want to avoid using those services." Mr. Bloomfield said that the connection between the sites raises conflict-of-interest questions. "It is entirely possible that papers you submit to those services will later be sold to other students," he wrote. Mr. Bloomfield added in an interview, however, that he has no proof that any papers have been passed from the anti-plagiarism services to the paper-selling sites. Mr. Bloomfield is known for having developed a computer program to help detect plagiarism, which he used to turn up more than 100 cases of possible cheating in one of his courses last year. He also runs a Web site with links to other resources that professors can use to try to catch cheating. Soon after Mr. Bloomfield posted his warnings about the sites, Mr. Shevchenko's name was removed from the listing for Cyber Breeze Networks. Reached by telephone on Monday in Ukraine, Mr. Shevchenko said that he works for Cyber Breeze, which he described as a "hosting service," but that he has no current connection to any of the term-paper sites that the company hosts. He said that he had worked for essaymill.com in the past, but that he severed ties with it two years ago. "I'm not affiliated with a paper mill," said Mr. Shevchenko. He also said he started PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com completely independently of Cyber Breeze. And he firmly denied that his anti-plagiarism services sell papers that are sent in by professors. "We never ever, ever sold any papers that were uploaded to our service." "What I'm doing now as a student in Europe is trying to make software [that is] the ultimate source to find plagiarism," he added. After being told by a reporter about Mr. Shevchenko's explanation, Mr. Bloomfield said that the situation "just doesn't look good." "Maybe he's broken away from Cyber Breeze, and maybe he is really trying to become legit," Mr. Bloomfield said. "But I think the burden of proof is on him, at least temporarily, while he explains why he's coming out of a background of paper mills." Mr. Bloomfield had been recommending PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com on his Web site since November, until he got an e-mail message alerting him to the possible conflict of interest. The tip was sent by John M. Barrie, president of another anti-plagiarism service, turnitin.com, which had done research about the sites after customers asked questions about them. According to Mr. Barrie, Nevada incorporation records list Mr. Shevchenko as president of Cyber Breeze Networks. Attempts by The Chronicle to telephone the offices of Cyber Breeze Networks were unsuccessful. Late Monday, Mr. Bloomfield received a more detailed explanation in an e-mail message from another official of PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com, Maksym Lytvyn. The message stated: "Oleksiy and I (Maksym Lytvyn) were hired to do some programming and Web design work for a hosting company [Cyber Breeze Networks]. ... They ordered from us a paper-mill site, a copy of the one they once hosted (EssayGlobe.com) but better. We did the job well (the sites you mention), but we perfectly understood that the whole idea of paper-mills was unethical. We decided to do something to nullify the effect of paper mills on education," the message said. "And the domains for paper-mill sites, as well as for many other sites, are registered with Oleksiy's name just because he initially opened the account ... and that account is still used for registering domains for most of the sites hosted on that server," the message said. Mr. Lytvyn's message added that there was "no logic" in accusing the anti-plagiarism sites of being a front for anything else. "It is insane to spend over a year of work and make a fully-functional plagiarism detection service just to collect essays to sell them to students," he wrote. "Hundreds of thousands of term papers are already available on the internet for FREE!" After receiving Mr. Lytvyn's message, Mr. Bloomfield added a new note to his Web site backing off from his earlier speculations: "They vehemently deny any ongoing relationship with the paper mills and state that their plagiarism detection sites are entirely legitimate and safe. I have asked them to write a statement of their own and will post it here when I receive it. In the meantime, don't make any rash decisions about whether or not to use their plagiarism detection sites. If they are truly legitimate, they deserve our support, not our condemnation." Background article from The Chronicle: The Cat-and-Mouse Game of Plagiarism Detection (7/6/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

U. of Massachusetts at Amherst will drop 7 varsity teams to cope with budget cuts U. of Michigan teaching assistants stage a 1-day walkout Hebrew Union College cuts short this semester's programs in Jerusalem Letter to China's president calls for early release of imprisoned professor Anti-plagiarism experts raise questions about services with links to sites selling papers Distributed-computing project identifies 12,000 compounds that may block anthrax infection Pakistan plans restructuring of higher education, with emphasis on technology and engineering An anthropologist studies universities' approaches to distance education