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Turnitin

What is it?

Turnitin is a text comparison system which is available through Blackboard. When essays are submitted to Turnitin the text is compared with sources in the Turnitin database which include websites, online journals, newspapers and e-books as well as other student work submitted either at Bristol or other institutions. An "originality report" is automatically produced which highlights any text matching a source in the database, and provides links to the sources of these matches. Once matching text has been flagged up by the system staff can then determine if the content has been used inappropriately. More recently Turnitin has been extended to include online marking and peer review functionality.

It is most effectively used as part of an overall strategy for addressing plagiarism, including for example raising student awareness, supporting development of study skills and considering what forms of assessment may reduce opportunities for plagiarism.

Turnitin is developed by iParadigms and is supported by JISC, who promote the use of information and communications technology in Higher Education in the UK.

Why use it?

  • It can help students to improve their writing, reinforcing appropriate ways to use and cite source material
  • It provides a systematic, quick and easy way for staff to identify matching text in cases of possible plagiarism
  • It is integrated with Blackboard so can be easily incorporated in an e-submission workflow.

Considerations

Whilst Turnitin has a number of benefits, staff also need to bear in mind a range of considerations and limitations. These include:

  • results need to be interpreted/corroborated by academic staff with subject expertise
  • it only checks against selected electronic sources (not printed books)
  • it may highlight erroneous referencing as "matching"
  • It has limited coverage of password-protected /subscription sites (though iParadigms, developers of the system, say that they regularly negotiate with providers to try to widen the coverage of their database.)
  • the database is more limited for languages other than English
  • there can be delays (up to 24 hours) in producing the originality report, particularly at busy times

How do I start using Turnitin?

Before you begin to use Turnitin for the first time please complete a staff permission form. A copy of the form is available here: Staff permission form (MS Word, 17.7kB)

Turnitin is primarily available through Blackboard. For more information on how to start using Turnitin through Blackboard see the Online submission guide available from the Blackboard Help tab or Turnitin's own getting started guide

What support is available?

If you would like any advice or consultation on planning for e-submission, including using Turnitin, please contact bb-help@bristol.ac.uk and one of our team will be in touch.

For practical advice, for example how to set up Turnitin submission points in Blackboard please refer to the Online submission guide available from the Blackboard Help tab, which has step-by-step instructions.

For a more in-depth guide on Turnitin please refer to the Turnitin  Integration Instructor User Manual (PDF, 3MB).

Note: some of the documents on this page are in PDF format. In order to view a PDF you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader

Getting help

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