Most plagiarism cannot be judged solely by the similarities discovered when using CrossCheck. Based on experience of cross checking more than 2000 manuscripts from approximately 50 countries in different parts of the world per year, this project aims to provide 3-5 typical cases of cross checked plagiarism in three different disciplines covered by the Journal of Zhejjiang University-SCIENCE A/B/C (http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/) (JZUS-A: Applied Physics and Engineering; JZUS-B: Biomedicine and Biotechnology; JZUS-C: Computers and Electronics). The typical plagiarism case analysis will be made into a list or a handbook that will be classified by discipline. For editors, they can learn how to deal with different kinds of plagiarism in different disciplines when using CrossCheck. For authors, these lists can act as an instruction for authors on plagiarism, from which they can learn more about plagiarism and CrossCheck, and know how to avoid being accused of plagiarism.
This research project was proposed by Professor Yuehong (Helen) Zhang and Dr Xiaoyan JIA, and will be conducted by them and their team (editors: Hanfeng Lin, Ziyang Zhai, Xinxin Zhang, Meiqing Jin, Chunjie Zhang).
Update
The results of part of this research were presented at the CrossRef 2011 Annual Meeting, USA, 15 November 2011 (download the presentation, (PDF 745kb). The purpose of this survey was to investigate journal editors' use of CrossCheck to detect plagiarism, and their attitude to potential plagiarism once discovered. The following publication has arisen from this project: Helen Zhang, Xiaoyan JIA (2012). A survey on the use of CrossCheck for detecting plagiarism in journal articles. Learned Publishing 25:292–307 (doi:10.1087/20120408).
Several English papers arising from this project are listed below and can be downloaded from this site http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/editorpaper.php:
1. Zhang YH, Jia XY. A survey on the use of CrossCheck for detecting plagiarism in journal articles. Learned publishing 2012;25(4):292–307.
2. Zhang YH, McIntosh I. How to stop plagiarism: blacklist repeat offenders? Nature 2012;481:22. doi:10.1038/481021a
3. Zhang YH, Jia XY, Lin HF, Tan XF. Editorial: Be careful! Avoiding duplication: a case study. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B (Biomedicine & Biotechnology) 2013;14(4):355–358. doi:10.1631/jzus.B1300078
4. Jia XY, Tan XF, Zhang YH. Replication of the methods section in biosciences papers: is it plagiarism? Scientometrics 2013. doi 10.1007/s11192-013-1033-5 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-013-1033-5
5. Zhang YH, Jia XY. Republication of conference papers in journals? Learned Publishing 2013;26(3):189–196. doi:10.1087/20130307
6. Zhang XX, Huo ZL, Zhang YH. Detecting and (not) dealing with plagiarism in an engineering paper: beyond. CrossCheck—a case study. Sci Eng Ethics DOI 10.1007/s11948-013-9460-5 http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/download/editorpapers/Detectingand.pdf
7. Zhang YH. Bilingual (multilingual) publications and duplicate publications: for or against? Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Appl Phys & Eng) 2013;14(9):687–90.
8. Zhang YH, Lin H-F, Ye Q. Anti-plagiarism policy of JZUS-A/B & FITEE. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Appl Phys & Eng) 2015;16(6):507–12.
http://www.zju.edu.cn/jzus/download/Policy_new.pdf
Helen Zhang, has published a book, Against Plagiarism. The book is based on work that was partly funded by the COPE grant.