Turnitin Software - an introduction
The University has a site licence for the Turnitin2 software, this tool can
- support students in their understanding and avoidance of plagiarism
- be used to quickly and efficiently locate sources of material in suspected cases of plagiarism
- Turnitin2 originality reports can be used to highlight to students, with real examples, the exact meaning of the term plagiarism within your School
Turnitin2 is usually accessed as an Activity via Moodle but some Schools use it via the Turnitin website
It can be used to support students in the development of their University level assignment writing skills. This is achieved by encouraging them to learn how to quote and reference sources of information correctly and selectively and by helping them to develop their skills in understanding, interpreting and reflecting on information rather than simply paraphrasing. Turnitin2 may also be used retrospectively as a simple detection tool by staff of the University if there are concerns over the originality of a piece of work and Turnitin2 has not been used with the whole class for the given assignment.
Students upload their assignments into the Turnitin2 database via Moodle or the Turnitin website. These assignments are then compared to billions of stored web pages, both current and archived, to a database of formally published academic literature and to work submitted by students at other institutions that subscribe to Turnitin2. Some essay purchase sites and many commercial publishers are now adding their material to Turnitin2 in order to protect their commercial interests.
The system looks for similarity and not exact pattern matches and then produces an 'originality' report based on its findings. The originality report is given a percentage score and colour depending on how much of the submitted assignment is similar to works known about by Turnitin2. The interpretation of these originality reports is vital to understanding and being able to utilise Turnitin2 in a helpful manner. There can be no magic number or good score which indicates whether plagiarism has or has not occurred.
Turnitin2 does not state whether plagiarism has or has not occurred, that decision must be made by staff and students through their interpretation of the reports produced.
There is a basic course, hosted on Moodle, available to all students of the University which will help you understand what your report is telling you.
The current policy for the use of Turnitin (which should be read in conjunction with the University’s Plagiarism Statement) is summarised as follows:
- The University’s primary focus in using Turnitin is to provide a means whereby students may enhance their knowledge and understanding of plagiarism
- Turnitin is available to all academic schools and it is recommended that, where appropriate, all schools make use of Turnitin as an educational tool
- In cases where a school has not elected to use Turnitin, either generally, or for a given assignment, they can retrospectively ask a student to submit to Turnitin if there are concerns over the originality of a piece of work.
- Schools using Turnitin must utilise the multiple part functionality within Turnitin2 on Moodle. This allows students to self-submit drafts of their assignments, receive originality reports, and then, as appropriate, revise their assignments and resubmit them. Schools may limit the number of times an assignment may be resubmitted, and may determine whether students must include originality reports when presenting assignments for assessment.
- Students are permitted to submit only their own work to Turnitin - submitting the work of others is expressly forbidden.
- Assignments submitted to Turnitin may be retained on the system. During that time student confidentiality will be preserved and student material held on the database will not be released to any third party.
