Turnitin – DLaT Hub

Turnitin is an online plagiarism detection tool widely used in educational institutions and academia. It analyzes written documents, such as essays, research papers, and assignments, to identify potential instances of plagiarism by comparing them against a vast database of academic and non-academic content. Turnitin generates similarity reports, highlighting matching or potentially copied text, providing educators with a tool to ensure the originality of student work and promote academic integrity. It helps educators and institutions uphold academic standards by discouraging plagiarism and fostering responsible research and writing practices among students. Turnitin also offers feedback and grading features where Instructors can digitally annotate and comment directly on the submitted documents.

Click this link to view the process for Setting up and deploying a Turnitin submission portal in LearningZone

Contents

Similarity Report info and guides

Using Turnitin to digitally mark assessments (Feedback Studio)

The Similarity Report

TurnitinUK will generate a similarity report for each student submission. You can view submissions as soon as students have submitted assignments; however, it is wise to do this after all assignments have been submitted so that you can detect any collusion. We strongly recommend that if you are using Turnitin for the first time with your students that you consider giving an induction if they have not had one before; as this can help reduce anxieties they may have about the tool (e.g. what if it says I’ve copied something when I haven’t?). You could consider creating a short practice submission task, or use the first submission assignment as a draft through which to provide formative feedback.

Some key pointers you may consider relaying to your students:

TurnitinUK can identify similarities with online internet resources (including digital academic journals and books); work of students within a module and across the home institution; and other students’ work across other institutions globally.
TurnitinUK does not make blanket judgements about the submitted work and whether each submitted piece of work has been plagiarised or not. What it does do is highlight the extent (%) of matched text of the work to other resources to make it easier to identify intentional plagiarism and collusion. It is the responsibility of the individual tutor to check the work and identify potential academic offences prior to reporting the work to their APO.
If students are allowed to view the similarity report, students need to be reassured that having a high percentage can indicate a number of things and not just plagiarism. Using TurnitinUK formatively by allowing students to view the similarity report can be used as an aid to improve writing and their understanding of plagiarism and bad academic practice (e.g. poor referencing).

Similarity report guides

To access a Turnitin submission to view the similarity report – from the assignment submission list in your module click the similarity score.

similarity report button

Navigating through the similarity report

Similarity Score ranges (turnitin.com)

Downloading the Similarity Report (turnitin.com)

Viewing sources (turnitin.com)

Generating a new Similarity Report (turnitin.com)

Accessing the text-only Similarity Report (turnitin.com)

Multicolor highlighting in the Similarity Report (turnitin.com)

Flags (turnitin.com)

Feedback Studio (marking submissions in Turnitin)

To access a Turnitin submission and mark it using the Turnitin Feedback Studio – from the assignment submission list in your module click the pencil icon.

grade button