Turnitin®
Your instructor may ask you to submit your assignment through Turnitin®. Turnitin® is a text matching tool that works by comparing your written assignment with a database of web pages, academic books and articles, as well as other students’ papers. After comparing your assignment to the database, Turnitin® generates a similarity report for your submission. The similarity report (displayed as a percentage %) indicates how much of your writing matches writing from previously existing sources. The report highlights all phrases that match the text in an existing source and provides links to those sources.
iThenticate®
iThenticate® is text matching software that is designed to be used by researchers to ensure the originality of their written work. For example, graduate students and researchers can check their articles and book chapters to be submitted for publication, grant proposals, theses and dissertations.
Turnitin® and iThenticate® check against virtually the same databases, but these services are designed for different categories of users. While Turnitin® is designed to meet the needs of instructors and their courses, iThenticate® is a tool for researchers.
For support and more information, review:
- iThenticate Guidelines (PDF)
- iThenticate Quickguide (PDF)
To request an iThenticate® account, contact Sean Warren.
iThenticate Frequently Asked Questions
How is iThenticate different from Turnitin?
What databases does iThenticate check against?
Who might benefit from using iThenticate?
What are the University of Waterloo's guidelines for graduate students using iThenticate?
Can iThenticate be used to check someone else’s work?
Can iThenticate be used to check a co-authored work?
Can supervisors use iThenticate to check their students’ theses or dissertations?
Who has access to the report and can it be shared among colleagues and collaborators?
Can uWaterloo faculty use our iThenticate license to check manuscripts that they are reviewing?
Can an undergraduate student request an iThenticate account?
Do visiting scholars have access to iThenticate?
Is an iThenticate account holder charged a fee for document checking?
What file types are recognized?
Can various versions of a document be submitted to iThenticate over time?
How to start using iThenticate?
| What is iThenticate? |
| iThenticate is text matching software that is designed to be used by researchers to ensure the originality of their written work. |
| How is iThenticate different from Turnitin? |
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Both are provided by the same vendor, but they are designed for different categories of users, and at Waterloo they are both accessed in different ways. Turnitin is course-based in our learning management system (LMS) LEARN, and requires instructors to set up courses and assignments. The instructors control the parameters of dropbox and submissions for each course. iThenticate is accessed through a front-end website by individual account holders and the individual controls what they upload and run through the system - they also have the ability to delete their files from the system. |
| What databases does iThenticate check against? |
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CrossCheck Internet archive Aggregators, databases, content providers PQDT |
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uWaterloo authors can check documents such as articles and book chapters to be submitted for publication, grant proposals, theses and dissertations, and writing created by individuals in connection with their role at the University of Waterloo. *NOTE: iThenticate is not for use with coursework. There is a limit on the number of accounts and submissions uWaterloo has with iThenticate. |
| What are the University of Waterloo's guidelines for graduate students using iThenticate? |
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1. Graduate students are encouraged to use iThenticate with support from their supervisor as a tool to advance their understanding of good academic integrity practices. 2. Graduate students are especially encouraged to employ iThenticate to review their research milestones - theses, research proposals, or other substantive elements - and discuss the results with their supervisors prior to submitting these elements formally. 3. PhD students are normally required to employ iThenticate to review their comprehensive exams. Further information can be found in the Graduate Studies Academic Calendar section on Comprehensive Exams. |
| Who might benefit from using iThenticate? |
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| Can iThenticate be used to check someone else’s work? |
| No, iThenticate is provided for uWaterloo authors to check work that they themselves have authored or co-authored. |
| Can instructors use iThenticate to check papers that their students have submitted as a course assignment? |
| No, instructors wishing to check that assignments submitted by their students have not been plagiarized should consider using Turnitin in their course structure. Turnitin is built into LEARN and can be easily deployed. All course outlines must contain the Turnitin boilerplate text in order to use this software. |
| Can iThenticate be used to check a co-authored work? |
| Yes, iThenticate can be used to check works that you have co-authored. Resulting reports can be shared among co-authors. |
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Can supervisors use iThenticate to check their students’ theses or dissertations? |
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No, graduate students should request their own accounts and submit their own papers to iThenticate. Their reports can be shared with their supervisor via email or by sharing their folder if their supervisor has an iThenticate account. |
| Who has access to the report and can it be shared among colleagues and collaborators? |
| Your iThenticate account and reports are accessible only to you. You may share your reports via email, printout, or download or by giving another iThenticate user access to your folder. |
| Can uWaterloo faculty use our iThenticate license to check manuscripts that they are reviewing? |
| No, iThenticate is intended for use by authors to check their own work. Many academic publishers use iThenticate to check manuscripts prior to considering them for publication. |
| Is a document submitted to iThenticate retained by the vendor and used in the iThenticate or Turnitin comparison database? |
| No, iThenticate does not add your manuscript to any databases. However, your submissions are archived privately until you delete them. |
| Can an undergraduate student request an iThenticate account? |
| iThenticate is a tool for researchers. An undergraduate student can request an iThenticate account to check an undergraduate thesis/essay or a manuscript to be submitted for publication. iThenticate should not be used to check papers or essays to be submitted to instructors as a course assignment. |
| Do visiting scholars have access to iThenticate? |
| Yes, but they must indicate in the publication that they prepared the paper being reviewed by iThenticate while they were visiting at uWaterloo. |
| Is an iThenticate account holder charged a fee for document checking? |
| No, the University has purchased a site license for use by members of the uWaterloo community. Waterloo researchers are not charged a fee to create an individual account nor are they charged a fee to submit and check their documents. |
| What file types are recognized? |
| MS Word, Word XML, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT) and plain text. |
| Can various versions of a document be submitted to iThenticate over time? |
| A revision of a previously uploaded manuscript can be uploaded and checked again, to a maximum of five times. You may choose to submit a substantially revised manuscript as a new submission. |
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First step is to request creation of a personal iThenticate account. Contact: |
| Where to get help? |
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Documentation and training materials are available on the iThenticate website: http://www.ithenticate.com/training For support and more information, review:
Contact Sean Warren for technical support. |
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To find out more about iThenticate or suggest changes or additions to this FAQ Contact: Office of Academic Integrity academic.integrity@uwaterloo.ca |
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