STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Ouriginal, Europe’s leading provider of text-matching solutions for plagiarism prevention and text-similarity detection, has been awarded both ‘Top Distance & Remote Learning Solution Providers in Europe 2020’ and ‘Top Student Engagement Solution Providers in Europe and the US 2020’ by the prestigious Education Technology Insights Magazine. This is the second year in a row that Ouriginal's solutions have been accredited for the benefits they bring to the educational community: by ensuring fair and equal education standards, every student gets the opportunity to develop their full potential.

Fairness and Integrity Need to be Safeguarded Even More in Remote Environments

2020 has been the year that forced the entire global education industry to move from the traditional ‘real-life’ classroom setting to courses being taught 100% remotely and online, within a few days. The slow-paced digitalization process of education was suddenly forced to adapt and change at lightning-speed.

“When the digital tsunami hit education systems worldwide, not every organization was ready to abandon traditional teaching models immediately. What educators at that time desperately needed were tools that were easy to roll-out and set up in no time”, says Andreas Ohlson, CEO of Ouriginal. “Our products provided not only this peace of mind but also helped teachers and students save time by letting them submit their assignments directly onto our platform.”

Nurturing Student Engagement is Key to Original Thinking

Another important aspect that needed to be addressed was the ‘human factor’ that is missing when education is moved online from both, educators as well as peers in the classroom. This factor is key when it comes to protecting academic integrity, and awakening students’ desire to learn – not just to pass an exam but to actually learn more about a certain subject.

“What makes receiving the Student Engagement accolade special for us, is that it acknowledges the importance of original thinking and creative writing as a foundation for successful learning environments”, continues Mr. Ohlson. “By having a routine in place that continuously checks for similarities, students get encouraged to not only creating their own original content – but also towards thinking more critically about topics. This is the kind of engagement that students should demonstrate: engagement with course content and in-depth knowledge to develop.”