Turnitin and iThenticate

As of Spring 2018, all course outlines must include the following boilerplate statement (whether you intend to use the software or not):

Turnitin.com: Text matching software may be used to screen assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments are documented. Students’ submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the first week of the term and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin in this course.

You must provide students with an alternative to Turnitin. Because students’ submissions are stored on a U.S. server you must give students an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography) in order to protect their privacy and security.

Turnitin can be used as a text-matching tool and/or as an educational tool. Before using Turnitin, instructors and teaching assistants (TA) should review:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Statements to Include in your Course (PDF)
• Turnitin and detecting material written by generative artificial intelligence

Instructors can refer students to the following:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Students (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Students (PDF)

Turnitin can be used by instructors to identify how much of an assignment is not original. Turnitin will generate a similiarity report, which indicates the percentage of text that was matched, and which highlights the matched text and shows the corresponding source it was matched to.

Note that there is no percentage that can fully indicate whether plagiarism has occurred. If Turnitin is being used as a text matching tool to detect plagiarism, it is important to check each paper to judge whether the overall similarity report that has been calculated is due to chance matches, matches to common terms or phrases used for an assignment (e.g., the title of a key document, process, legislation, etc.), matches to quotations or a reference list, or intentional copying from a source that has not been cited.

Before using Turnitin, instructors and teaching assistants (TA) should review:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Statements to Include in your Course (PDF)

Instructors can refer students to the following:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Students (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Students (PDF)

Turnitin can be used so that students have an opportunity to review issues in their draft, and make changes to their final submission. The following practices are recommended for using Turnitin as an educational tool:

• For each assignment, limit students to one draft submission and one final submission.
• Advise students to submit their draft early so that they have time to interpret the similarity report and make the necessary changes to their draft before the assignment is due.
• The Turnitin dropbox is to be used only for their submission of their draft of that assignment (i.e., no other assignment).
• The draft assignment will not be graded.
• The similarity report for the draft assignment will not be reviewed by the instructor or TA: it is for the student’s use only.
• Only content related to the course may be submitted to the Turnitin dropbox. Materials for use in other courses are not to be submitted. Unauthorized submissions will be treated as a breach of academic integrity

To use Turnitin as a text matching tool as well as an educational tool, allow students to submit a draft to Turnitin and make changes before submitting their final version to the dropbox. Create two dropboxes for the assignment: a ‘draft’ dropbox, and a ‘final submission’ dropbox. Enable Turnitin for both dropboxes using the ‘Using Turnitin as a Text Matching Tool’ steps (above). In the ‘draft’ dropbox folder, under "Evaluation & Feedback" and select the "Manage Turnitin", and select ‘Allow students to view Similarity Reports’. Students will then be able to view the similarity reports for their draft submission and make changes before submitting their final version. Note that Turnitin will not compare their final submission to their draft submission.  

Before using Turnitin, instructors and teaching assistants (TA) should review:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Statements to Include in your Course (PDF)

Instructors can refer students to the following:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Students (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Students (PDF)

When the similarity report is ready, you will first see the similarity index which indicates how much of the submission was not original. The similarity index is a percentage that represents the number of words that the program finds in common with database content and divides that number by the total number of words in the file. If, for example, the overall similarity index for a submission is 10%, then 10% of the total words in the document can be matched to sequences of words in the database. These words may be in one passage or may be in several, separate passages.

A lower percentage rating indicates that most of the content is original; a higher percentage rating indicates that much, or all, of the content matches content found in other sources. The percentage ranges are associated with colours, as follows:

• Light Blue: 0%
• Green: 1% to 24%
• Yellow: 25% to 49%
• Orange: 50% to 74%
• Red: 75% to 100%

Turnitin’s similarity report highlights and colour-codes the phrases and series of words that match text that exists in the Turnitin database or on the web. These highlighted areas can help you identify where students have used direct quotes and where students might have intentionally or unintentionally used poor paraphrasing when summarizing information from another source.

Note that there is no “safe” colour or percentage: no percentage or colour in the similarity report can fully evaluate whether text has been plagiarized. For example, Turnitin will identify direct quotations as matched text and this will be reflected in the similarity index score. However, as long as those quotations are properly cited, plagiarism has not occurred. Rather than focusing solely on the percentage, go through the paper and look at the highlighted sections. Along with the identification of matched text, Turnitin provides a link to the original source of that matched text as well as the option to view the original source in full. This enables instructors to evaluate the quality of students’ sources.

If Turnitin is being used as a text matching tool to detect plagiarism, it is important to check each paper to judge whether the overall similarity index that has been calculated is due to chance matches, matches to common terms or phrases used for an assignment (e.g., the title of a key document, process, legislation, etc.) or intentional copying from a source that has not been cited.

Instructors can configure Turnitin to exclude bibliographic or quoted materials under "Evaluation Feedback" and select "Manage Turnitin" when they are editing a dropbox folder, or creating a new folder. Similarity reports need to be interpreted on a case-by-case basis and any determinations of plagiarism require human judgement. Depending on the number of students in a course and the length of their papers, this process can be time consuming. However, the evaluation time will likely be reduced as the reader becomes more familiar with, and adept at, using the similarity report.

Before using Turnitin, instructors and teaching assistants (TA) should review:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Statements to Include in your Course (PDF)

Instructors can refer students to the following:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Students (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Students (PDF)

The following resources can help you use Turnitin in your courses:

• Turnitin Guidelines for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Instructors (PDF)
• Turnitin Guidelines for Students (PDF)
• Turnitin Quickguide for Students (PDF)
• Using Turnitin in your Courses (PDF)
• Turnitin documentation and support

"Turnitin has added an AI writing indicator to the Similarity Report which shows an overall percentage of the document that AI writing tools, such as ChatGPT, may have generated. The indicator also links to a report which highlights the text segments that the model predicts were written by AI. Please note, only instructors and administrators are able to see the indicator" (Source: AI Writing Detection Frequently Asked Questions | Turnitin).

While the indicator may be able to highlight some text that might have been generated by AI tools, it is not foolproof. In fact, there is evidence that this indicator tool is not reliable (Inside Higher Ed.; Scientific American; The Washington Post; Vanderbilt University), and should not be the only source of evidence used to determine if text was generated by AI.

It is important that students are informed about the use of the AI Writing Detection tool. We encourage instructors to have open conversations about generative artificial intelligence and what is/is not permitted in a specific course or assignment. For more information about generative artificial intelligence click here.

Please use this tool with caution and refer to some of these resources to inform use of the product:

• AI Writing Detection (Turnitin)

• Using Turnitin’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Detection Tool and the Process Guide for Navigating Potential Academic Offences (Conestoga College)