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Turnitin FAQ
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About Turnitin
- What is Turnitin?
- What are UMUC's guidelines for faculty using Turnitin?
- How can Turnitin be used as a teaching and learning tool?
- How does Turnitin work?
- How complete is Turnitin?
- Are student papers kept confidential?
- What about student copyright?
- How long does a Turnitin check take?
- Where do I go for technical help?
Turnitin is a Web-based service that can find and highlight matching or unoriginal text in a written assignment. It uses data-mining to compile a large database of electronic academic materials which it indexes and stores. Faculty can send their students' assignments to the Turnitin database or else set up to allow students to send their own assignments to the service for checking.
Turnitin basically checks the assignment against its database of materials to look for matches or near-matches in strings of text. Turnitin then generates an Originality Report online. The Originality Report summarizes and highlights matching text.
Students find the Originality Report useful for editing papers that include too many quotes and paraphrases. Faculty find the Originality Report useful as a tool to teach students proper citation practices and highlight the need for more student originality. Faculty can also use Turnitin as a tool to detect possible instances of plagiarism.
It is up to the users of Turnitin to analyze and interpret matching text in the Originality Report. Help screens within the Turnitin interface go into more detail.
What are UMUC's guidelines for faculty using Turnitin?
- Faculty must notify their students in advance that they may be using the Turnitin service. Here is some language that faculty can place in the Syllabus:
The University has a license agreement with Turnitin, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from Internet resources. I may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or I submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let me know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin, I may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarism.
- A student cannot be compelled to have his or her paper sent to Turnitin if the student does not wish to. In these rare instances, UMUC's Information and Library Services will be happy to assist faculty and students directly.
- Student papers are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. If faculty send a paper on behalf of a student to Turnitin for evaluation, use an alias instead of the student's name.
- Please do not submit papers prepared by UMUC students to other plagiarism service providers not supported by UMUC.
- Please see the full copy of the Faculty Guidelines for Using Turnitin.
How can Turnitin be used as a teaching and learning tool?
It is easy for faculty to set up Turnitin classes and assignments in such a way that students can see their own Originality Reports and can turn in multiple drafts of an assignment. This way students can edit their first draft and resubmit their assignments if the Originality Report shows more matching text than they desire.
Note to Faculty: See How do faculty and staff get started? Use either Turnitin Account Request Form or Faculty Procedures for Using Turnitin. In either of those two sets of instructions, Step 2 will show how to let students view their own Originality Reports. Step 3 will show how to set up assignments so that students can submit multiple drafts to Turnitin and correct their own work. Use the Originality Report for the first draft to point out to students whether they need to improve their citations or include more original analysis and comment.
Note to Students: If the Originality Report for your first draft shows a high percentage of matching text, for example, review and edit your assignment for proper citation. Include more original analysis and comment, then send it to Turnitin again. Turnitin will know not to match the text in your second draft with text in your first draft, and so on.
Turnitin uses data-mining to compile a large database of electronic academic materials that it indexes and stores. Use your Web browser to access the Turnitin Web site, then submit assignments electronically by copying and pasting a digital copy of the work (e.g., a Word document or an html document) in a Turnitin text box or by attaching a file, much like in WebTycho. The service then checks the new submission against its database of materials to look for matches or near-matches in strings of text.
Users then login to Turnitin to access the Report Inbox within Turnitin to view an Originality Report generated for each assignment that is uploaded. Faculty can view Originality Reports for each student in the class, but students can only view the Originality Report for their own assignment, not the assignments of other students.
Turnitin has a database of over a million papers and assignments sent to them by students and teachers, a digitized version of the Gutenberg Collection of Literary Classics, and papers pulled from the Internet and various "paper mills," (i.e., services that sell term papers). However, the Turnitin database currently does not search books or articles in subscription databases available through the UMUC Library Databases. It may not find matching text from those sources or from subscription database such as The New York Times on the Web unless those materials also appear in assignments previously sent to Turnitin. For those resources, it is best to search the UMUC Library Databases and/or supplement your Turnitin review by using a Web search engine (e.g., Ask, Google, etc.)
The Faculty Guidelines for Using Turnitin to detect possible plagiarism provide the following cautionary notes about completeness:
"When a paper is evaluated, Turnitin provides originality reports which tell you that text in the evaluated project or paper is similar to or identical to text Turnitin has in its database. Faculty must still evaluate the quality of the report independently and determine if the parts identified by Turnitin that are similar or identical, are actually plagiarized text. This is because all matches are shown, even those where students cited properly. As a result, faculty must critique the report they receive, use their best judgment and follow University policy before approaching a student about possible plagiarism.
"Similarly, if a paper is reported as "original" by Turnitin, that is not necessarily airtight evidence that the paper is original. Instead, it may mean that the student plagiarized from a work that is not available in the Turnitin database. If a faculty member has a concern, and strongly suspects plagiarism, it is best to ask the library staff to assist him/her to check further and/or check the student's paper references in addition to digital sources. No database is entirely comprehensive and many sources are not digitally available. Therefore, plagiarism can occur and be undetectable by services such as Turnitin."
Are student papers kept confidential?
Yes. Faculty are not permitted to release student assignments either to other UMUC faculty or to faculty from other institutions. If a faculty member receives a request for permission to release a student's assignment, faculty shall deny the request. The UMUC license with Turnitin specifies a privacy pledge in accordance with FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The U.S. Department of Education's FERPA Regulations give the requirements on the confidentiality of student records and information. If faculty are concerned about student privacy, it is a good idea for them to use aliases for actual student names when submitting assignments for review by Turnitin. UMUC recommends that faculty use aliases to ensure that student privacy is protected.
The UMUC license with Turnitin also specifies that students retain copyright to their submitted assignments and that the assignments will be stored only temporarily and "solely for the purpose of using such papers as source material to prevent plagiarism of such papers."
How long does a Turnitin check take?
Originality Reports should usually be ready within 1 hour. However it may take up to 24 hours during peak times such as the middle or the end of semesters when many papers are being submitted to Turnitin.
Where do I go for technical help?
Ask a Librarian if you experience technical problems with Turnitin.
How do faculty and staff get started?
Go directly to the Turnitin Account Request Form to sign up and follow the instructions to register with the UMUC account. After registering, you will be taken to a secure server that is not publicly accessible. You should first of all see a split screen with a top frame and a lower frame. In the top frame are the instructions for setting up, including the UMUC ID and password for faculty and staff only to join Turnitin. Please do not give this information to students or other non-faculty. In the lower frame will be the Turnitin interface. Use the top frame instructions to fill out the lower frame interface step by step.
If you register but do not see a split screen, see the Faculty Procedures for Using Turnitin for instructions on setting up. These instructions are on a publicly accessible Web page. Therefore you will have to contact Information and Library Services directly for the UMUC ID and password since we do not want to put that information on the publicly accessible Web.
The library's brief audiovisual presentations also provide an overview of the process.
Faculty who want students to use Turnitin should set up with the instructions given here. Faculty need to give students their unique Turnitin Class ID and the enrollment password that they created. Copy the Turnitin Class ID and the enrollment password you create when you set up, then give students this information in a class announcement, for example, or in the instructions for an assignment.
Follow the instructions that your faculty member gives you for using Turnitin. The faculty member should give students their Turnitin Class ID and class enrollment password in order to complete the following steps:
- Go to Turnitin and click on New Users to create your Turnitin profile.
- At the line are you a student or instructor?, use the drop down menu to select student and click Next.
- To join the Turnitin account for this class enter the Turnitin Class ID _________and the class enrollment password _________.
- Click the Submit button or icon on the line with the assignment.
- Enter the title of your paper.
- To upload a file click on the Browse button, find the paper on your disk, and click Submit.
- Be sure it is the paper you want to send, then click yes, submit
The library will not have your faculty member's Turnitin Class ID or class enrollment password. Please contact your faculty member directly for that information.