This year marks 20 years since the Indiana University Plagiarism Tutorials and Tests (IPTAT) service has been available. This service has helped almost a million students from 225 countries learn about and avoid plagiarism. 

The service was first offered in 2002 for students in Instructional Systems Technology, but soon other instructors started using it for their classes. By 2013 the service had improved and grown to two tests: one for advanced high school and undergraduate students and one for graduate students. More updates came in 2015, as an IST research group started working on a new design that used five tutorials, arranged from simple to complex. 

Ted Frick, Professor Emeritus in IST, helped created IPTAT as a faculty service to the IST department, never intending for it to grow this big. Though he retired in 2012, he continues to be active in maintaining, researching and presenting information about IPTAT, a service that remains completely free and available to anyone interested.

“College and high school teachers typically require their students to pass an IPTAT plagiarism test and submit their Certificate. Usually this is an assignment for credit in a course or class they are taking. Instructors want students to avoid committing plagiarism in their writing and presentations. If students later get caught for committing plagiarism, then they cannot claim ignorance as their excuse,” Frick explained. “That was the original motivation for the IST department: help students understand plagiarism so they won’t do it in the future. The IST department brought this to their attention during new student orientation (and still does).”

Even with more technology now available to detect plagiarism, offering a free service like IPTAT is an educational, preventative measure for students. 

“Learning to recognize plagiarism can help prevent students from getting caught in the first place. While plagiarism detection software is getting better and better, and can serve as a deterrent, it’s better to try to nip the problem in the bud when we can. Generally speaking, we educate people so they don’t make as many mistakes later in their lives,” Frick added.