The universities and colleges admissions service (ucas).
15 years, and 10 million students.
COPYCATCH allowS THE AUTHENTIC VOICE OF EACH APPLICANT
CopyCatch compares new applicant personal statements to the millions of previous UCAS applicant statements for potential collusion or copying.
HELPING UCAS FOR 15 YEARS
Universities use personal statements to better understand their applicants.
Maintaining a university's reputation for excellence involves many factors.
Ensuring new students are accurately assessed before being offered places is a starting point for being able to maximise the value of the education provided.
Since 1964, the UK has run a centralised approach to managing applications.
UCAS is the organisation charged with managing a process whereby suitably qualified applicants are passed on to individual university admissions teams for a final decision on selection to be made.
As a part of this process, applicants write a personal statement, which universities may use to understand their applicants' motivations and background.
“Before Copy Catch, as many as one statement in 20 featured copying”
Back in 2007, UCAS was facing a growing problem with fraudulent applications. Personal statements were being copied wholesale from previous applications, often several from a single source. An estimated one in 20 submissions contained copied content.
Their processes at that time were struggling to cope with the volume of applications. A solution was needed to allow universities to continue to feel confident in the information UCAS provided about applicants.
They chose CopyCatch ahead of other recognised solutions on the market.
hearing the authentic voice of each applicant.
UCAS use Copy Catch to compare statements against those they have previously received. The software highlights similarities in the text. Above a pre-set threshold, the statement is referred for a check, and if adjudged a copy, the applicant and the institution applied to are both informed. Thus UCAS have provided the university with as good a picture as possible of the quality of the applicant.
UCAS are upfront with applicants that they check for copying, and the stringency of the check is an important factor in encouraging applicants to be scrupulously original when preparing their personal statements.
This has contributed to a reduction in fraudulent applications for university entry. University admissions teams are reassured that they are hearing the authentic voice of each applicant.
UCAS continues to use Copy Catch in this way today, and has checked an estimated 10 million applications.
Infosys Cloud Implementation allows faster Processing
Infosys is the IT services partner for UCAS, currently contracted to provide outsourced IT services until 2024.
Infosys worked closely with Elute to implement CopyCatch Batch API via a cloud implementation.
To give an idea of volumes (for the 2022/23 submission year alone), by the 26th January 2022 deadline there were 610,720 applicants, and a high number were submitted close to the deadline. See latest statistics on UCAS applications here.
With the recent CopyCatch implementation all applications received on deadline day were processed within a day.