Decentralised Plagiarism Detection System for Open Textual Educational Resources based on Blockchain Technology

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran, Iran

10.22042/isecure.2026.242098
Abstract
Open Educational Resources (OER) have become a valuable tool for expanding access to quality education. However, managing intellectual property rights in OER environments remains a challenge, particularly in verifying content authenticity and protecting creators’ rights. To address this challenge, the study proposes a decentralised approach to copyright management for OER. Our solution processes OER textual content using defined windows and the Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH) algorithm to detect exact and partial similarities efficiently. By integrating blockchain technology and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), we establish a transparent, decentralised platform for storing and managing resources. To assess its effectiveness, the proposed system was implemented and tested on a dataset of 2,600 OER articles. The evaluation demonstrated perfect performance, with 100 per cent precision and recall across both direct and paraphrased plagiarism detection test sets. The results indicate that this technological integration can serve as a robust foundation for enhancing transparency and protecting authors’ rights within the OER ecosystem. 

Keywords


[1] Maedeh Mosharraf and Fattaneh Taghiyareh. The role of open educational resources in the elearning movement. Knowledge Management & E-Learning, 8(1):10, 2016.
[2] Yanhui Liu, Jianbiao Zhang, Shupei Wu, and Muhammad Salman Pathan. Research on digital copyright protection based on the hyperledger fabric blockchain network technology. PeerJ Computer Science, 7:e709, 2021.
[3] Yi Ouyang, Xianghan Zheng, Xiaoliang Lu, Lin Xiaowei, and Shengyin Zhang. Copyright protection application based on blockchain technology. In 2019 IEEE Intl Conf on Parallel & Distributed Processing with Applications, Big Data & Cloud Computing, Sustainable Computing & Communications, Social Computing & Networking (ISPA/BDCloud/SocialCom/SustainCom), pages 1271–1274. IEEE, 2019.
[4] Bo Zhao, Liming Fang, Hanyi Zhang, Chunpeng Ge, Weizhi Meng, Liang Liu, and Chunhua Su. Ydwms: A digital watermark management system based on smart contracts. Sensors, 19(14):3091, 2019.
[5] Md Mainul Islam and Hoh Peter In. Decentralized global copyright system based on consortium blockchain with proof of authority. IEEE Access, 11:43101–43115, 2023.
[6] Zhaofeng Ma, Ming Jiang, Hongmin Gao, and Zhen Wang. Blockchain for digital rights management. Future Generation Computer Systems, 89:746–764, 2018.
[7] Baowei Wang, Shi Jiawei, Weishen Wang, and Peng Zhao. Image copyright protection based on blockchain and zero-watermark. IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, 9 (4):2188–2199, 2022.
[8] Gabin Heo, Dana Yang, Inshil Doh, and Kijoon Chae. Efficient and secure blockchain system for digital content trading. IEEE Access, 9:77438– 77450, 2021.
[9] Shaoqi Yuan, Wenzhong Yang, Xiaodan Tian, and Wenjie Tang. A blockchain-based privacy preserving intellectual property authentication method. Symmetry, 16(5):622, 2024.
[10] Ujjal Marjit and Prabhakar Kumar. Towards a decentralized and distributed framework for open educational resources based on ipfs and blockchain. In 2020 International Conference on Computer Science, Engineering and Applications (ICCSEA), pages 1–6. IEEE, 2020.
[11] Susan D’Antoni. Open educational resources: Reviewing initiatives and issues, 2009.
[12] Sanjaya Mishra. Open educational resources: Removing barriers from within. Distance education, 38(3):369–380, 2017.
[13] Severin Bonnet and Frank Teuteberg. Impact of blockchain and distributed ledger technology for the management of the intellectual property life cycle: A multiple case study analysis. Computers in Industry, 144:103789, 2023.
[14] Jeonghee Chi, Jangyeon Lee, Nakyung Kim, Jeewoo Choi, and Soyoung Park. Secure and reliable blockchain-based ebook transaction system for self-published ebook trading. PloS one, 15 (2):e0228418, 2020.
[15] Franco Frattolillo. Blockchain and smart contracts for digital copyright protection. Future Internet, 16(5):169, 2024.
[16] Aristides Gionis, Piotr Indyk, Rajeev Motwani, et al. Similarity search in high dimensions via hashing. In Vldb, volume 99, pages 518–529, 1999.
[17] Anand Rajaraman and Jeffrey D Ullman. Mining of massive datasets. Autoedicion, 2011.
[18] Juan Benet. Ipfs-content addressed, versioned, p2p file system. arXiv preprint arXiv:1407.3561, 2014.

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 26 March 2026