UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Senate office

Plagiarism - Prevention Software Turnitin

Key Information: The Turnitin software which had been tested in some departments on a pilot basis since 2006-07 will be rolled out across the University from 2008-09 on an ‘opt in’ basis.  A policy on use of the software has been developed to confirm an emphasis on helping students to adopt good academic practice when referring to the work and ideas of others.

For whom: All students and staff engaged in the assessment of student assignments.

Summary: The University has a site licence for the software Turnitin which is used in many UK Universities and is supported by JISC. Turnitin compares student assignments against a database to produce an ‘originality report’. The Policy for the use of Turnitin (which should be read in conjunction with the University’s Plagiarism Statement) is summarised as follows:

  1. Academic departments may decide for themselves whether to ‘opt in’ to Turnitin but all are encouraged to use it as an educational tool where appropriate, allowing their students to submit at least some of their assignments for checking.
  2. Departments ‘opting-in’ to Turnitin are not required to submit all student assignments to the system but they must inform the relevant Faculty of the cohort(s) of students concerned.
  3. If a department has elected not to use Turnitin either generally or for a given assignment, it may still retrospectively ask a student to allow Turnitin to check a piece of work which has been submitted for assessment if there are concerns about its originality.
  4. Departments using Turnitin must select the Revision-Revision-Submit (RRS) mode. This allows students to self-submit their assignments, receive originality reports, and then, as appropriate, revise assignments and resubmit them. Departments 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.
  5. Students are permitted to submit only their own work to Turnitin - submitting the work of others is expressly forbidden.
  6. Assignments submitted to Turnitin may be retained on the system for five years. During that time student confidentiality will be preserved and student material held on the database will not be released to any third party.

URL:

Date effective: From 2008-09

Policy Number: N/A

Approved by: EdPSC, 13 June 2008; Clerk of Senate (summer powers), 28 July 2008; revised policy approved by Senate, 3 June 2010.