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‘Similarity Reports’ are one of the main features of Turnitin. Turnitin is able to scan for similarity on text based filetypes (MS Word, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF and plain text). Depending on how this is configured for each assignment, tutors may use this to identify potential breaches of academic integrity, or may simply use it as a learning tool to help students learn how to correctly reference their work.
Note that the ‘similarity index’ % score should only be used as a guide, and you should not rely simply on the overall % score when considering issues relating to potential breaches of academic integrity.
Viewing originality reports – This guide will take you through the process of viewing individual originality reports for each student who has submitted (assuming that you have configured the assignment to generate these reports). Originality reports help to identify possible cases of plagiarism or incorrect referencing.
Excluding sources from an originality report – This guide explains how to exclude sources from an Originality Report. This may be useful if you need to remove matches for a legitimate reason (for example if a student is re-submitting something which they have previously submitted to a different assignment link).
Filtering an originality report – This guide explains how to filter an originality report, for example to filter out any text appearing within quotation marks, or to filter small matches (less than a specified % or fewer than a specified number of words). Course instructors can turn filters on or off for any submission.
Turnitin ‘Paper View Request’ emails – Every now and then, tutors may receive an email requesting permission to view the text of a paper which has been submitted to an assignment on a Blackboard course you are enrolled on as an Instructor or TA. This guide explains what this email is about and how to tell if the email is genuine.
Please note that if a student makes a re-submission to a Turnitin assignment, the originality report for the re-submission may not be available for 24 hours after the re-submission date and time. This delay is usually enforced upon the third re-submission.