Turnitin is an electronic text matching system that can be used to find text matches between students’ submitted work and existing electronic sources, including extensive databases of electronic articles, other student assignments, and the internet. Since Turnitin is a web-based system, student papers (essays or assignments) need to be made available in electronic format. Equally, Turnitin cannot find any matching text with sources that are not available electronically – even then, the system cannot search databases that are password protected. The resulting Originality Report (which reports the percentage of words in the student paper that match existing electronic sources) requires careful consideration and interpretation.
- CSUC’s Policy
Given the disciplinary implications if plagiarism is found, from the point of view of transparency and fairness, all students should be aware that their work may be subjected to specialist plagiarism detection software.
- Originality Reports
After student papers have been submitted and compared to various repositories and databases, an Originality Report (OR) is produced for each submission. The OR highlights parts of the student’s text which match with text already held in the Turnitin and other online databases. An overall score (the similarity index) is assigned recording the percentage of the submitted work which is found elsewhere.
‘Originality Reports should not be taken as an indication that plagiarism has occurred. They are simply a tool to help an instructor find sources that contain text similar to submitted papers. The decision to deem any work plagiarised must be made carefully, and only after in-depth examination of both the submitted paper and suspect sources in accordance with the standards of the class and institution where the paper was submitted’ (Turnitin Instructor Manual, 2010, p. 48).
- Plagiarism Advice Website
The website www.plagiarism.org offers a wealth of support material, videos and free training webinars on a regular basis, on both pedagogical and technical aspects.
- Face-to-Face Sessions
IT Services offers a variety of free lunch-time sessions each term. The courses are mostly for staff, but there is one for students. Kindly visit us for a booking.
- How to use Turnitin
Click on this link to complete the submission of your file for processing. The file must be preferably in MS Word or PDF format.
