Receiving feedback and feature suggestions is something that we at Unicheck love doing. Usually, the most valuable insights come from the customers who continuously utilize Unicheck products and applications. At the same time, we want to avoid excessive functionality to meet users’ needs without ‘’feature overload’’.
Your latest contributions put together with Unicheck’s technological advance resulted in a set of updates rolled out over the first half of 2018. Catch them everywhere: in the new handy version of Unicheck Add-on for Google Docs, an updated version of Moodle plugin and integrations for Canvas and Google Classroom.
Moodle LMS – Explore a Treasure Box of Features
A couple of new features are accessible now within Unicheck Moodle Plugin. These include a major update of Moodle Plugin coupled with a bunch of polishes of the report.
Email Notifications for Students
Our team has updated Unicheck plugin for Moodle to the version 3.2.2. As you navigate through it, you’ll notice that we added email notifications for students. This option works in all 3 activities: Assignment, Workshop, and Forum.
Large Files Upload Faster
We’ve improved handling of large files, so when multiple submissions are being added, no performance drops happen.
Improved Controls for Administrators
Managing roles in Moodle plugin got a lot easier. Now the administrator can adjust levels of access for teachers in line with institution’s requirements and, therefore, prevent teachers from changing default Moodle plugin settings.
Async Upload
When running checks for plagiarism for the whole institution, the right timing is the first “basic need” to meet. With Async upload feature, file uploads happen in the background. This creates a better user experience with large files: concurrent submissions are getting added without lags or drops in performance.
Excluding Self-Plagiarism
Admins can now exclude self-plagiarism from the report. With this new option, instructors have the choice to report it or not, which wasn’t possible before. The option is available within the latest version of Unicheck plugin for Moodle – 3.2.2.
Canvas Functionality Brushed Up
In addition to the rich and comprehensive feature set already available within LTI and native integrations, we’ve introduced some long-awaited options to make your Unicheck experience more efficient within Canvas LMS.
Canvas Course Copy Support
We’ve enhanced Unicheck functionality for Canvas native integration with Canvas Course Copy support. This feature allows copying existing assignments from one Canvas course to another. Being accessible to admins, it saves a lot of time via importing course content instead of creating assignments manually.
Updates Available Through All LMSs
WCAG Level A 2.0 Accessibility Standards
We have implemented WCAG Level A 2.0 standard for accessibility to make Unicheck report accessible for students with disabilities. The feature is highly important since it aligns with inclusive education principles. The standard is fully functional within all supported integrations.
“Plain Text Mode” Feature
Regardless of the file format students use, we have developed functionality that allows displaying submission in a plain text mode. Default display mode still remains “original formatting preserved”, while in a plain text mode all pictures and font styles will be removed as if the text was opened on a notepad. It is used to better identify advanced forms of cheating like font replacement, text as a picture, etc.
New Buttons for Enhanced Filtering
Now teachers can better manage the report results with 2 buttons added: as you browse the final report, hit “Internet” or “Library” button to eliminate all sources in the category (Internet or Library). This is useful for excluding all sources in the category at once and saves time when omitting multiple sources. Currently, this feature is applicable to individual reports only.
Color Highlighting of the Similarity Score
The similarity report has now become even sleeker: the new feature – color-highlighted similarity score improves usability and provides a visual point to quickly identify high-scoring matches.
New Options for Students
Accessible as Google Docs Add-on and exclusively available within Google Classroom, Unicheck continues to evolve its functionality for successful collaboration in Google Services. Now you can also find Unicheck on G Suite Marketplace. From now on, administrators can easily give access to professional plagiarism detection available as a lightweight Add-on.
If your institution uses Unicheck, students may use fully functional version through the invitation from LMS administrator. Unicheck creates an account with 50 free pages for running checks for students to find out if their essays are plagiarism-free and citations and references are delivered properly. It comes in handy when checking papers prior to final submission. Currently, the administrator can invite up to 50 students.
By introducing this feature we want to demonstrate to students that their assignments are checked in a transparent way to ensure authenticity and correct formatting of the text.
Work the Way You Want: Google Docs Add-on
Everything you can do with Unicheck through your standalone account is now available within the new version of Unicheck Add-on for Google Docs.
You can instantly check your text with this professional plagiarism detection tool while writing in Google Docs.
Unicheck adds more versatility to the report with the Color Mask feature. The mask is a colored overlay that acts as a guiding light by pointing out similarities, incorrectly formatted citations and references in your text. Whether it’s a short essay or a coursework of 100 pages, you can easily browse through the report and spot all inaccuracies.
New Partners joined Unicheck
Populi LMS
Unicheck’s new partner, cloud-based Populi LMS, is a perfect tool for managing educational workflow cycle, spanning assignment collections, revisions, and grading in small to medium-sized institutions.
D2L
By partnering with D2L, award-winning e-learning solutions provider, we deliver automated search of potential plagiarism into Brightspace LMS. Available as LTI integration, Unicheck provides transparent and personalized learning experience.
Both committed to the high standards of academic integrity, we are excited to support ethical writing and provide the best assessment practices.
eThink Education
This year we’ve also partnered with eThink Education, fully-managed eLearning model for open-source Moodle and Totara LMSs. Having multiple integration options with the market-leading LMS software, Unicheck is as a highly flexible tool for multiple environments.
We Keep Getting Better: New Updates Are Coming Soon
Soon we are going to share the series of updates to help you make the most of high-end similarities detection. Here’s what you can experience first hand in the coming weeks:
- The new version of the website for better browsing experience;
- Enhanced Personal Dashboard to run checks faster and easily manage your documents;
- Secure API integration in Personal Dashboard to integrate Unicheck into your own sources.
We are grateful to all of you, who take time to send their feedbacks as it is the greatest contribution to the product development. If you want to share your thoughts or suggestions, please contact ourHelp Center.
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