Turnitin UK - the JISC Plagiarism Detection Service
1. What is the Plagiarism Dectection Service?
2. How are my assignments used by the Service?
3. Who controls the Service?
4. How long will my data be kept by the Service?
5. What if I want my data to be removed by the Service?
6. What if I want to find out what personal data the Service holds on my?
7. Who owns the copyright to the work I have submitted to the Service?
8. Further information
The University uses the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) approved Plagiarism Detection Service TurnitinUK (“the Service”), a method of systematically checking student assignments for plagiarism. The Service is operated by iParadigms, in conjunction with Northumbria Learning, the European reseller of the Service, who manage sales and support of the service to UK universities.
1 What is the Plagiarism Detection Service?
The Service searches the world wide web, extensive databases of reference material and content submitted by other students to identify any duplication with your work. The software makes no decisions as to whether a student has plagiarised, it simply highlights sections of text which have been found in other sources. In most cases this text will have been correctly cited. All work will continue to be reviewed by the academic department setting the assignment.
2 How are my assignments used by the Service?
Students (or staff, on behalf of students) can submit assignments to the Service. Your department(s) will have their own arrangements for this. Your work will be stored electronically on a database together with your name, email address, course details and institution. Your work will then be compared for similarity against work submitted by other students at Bristol and from other universities and will be included as source documents in the iParadigms reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of submitted papers.
In the event of the Service detecting a high degree of similarity with content in the database, this will be reported back to the University. Your academic department can then investigate as they see fit in line with the University’s Examination Regulations. Any investigation is at the discretion of the University. In this circumstance it is possible that the personal data you have provided may need to be disclosed to academic staff within the other institution(s) from where matching content has been submitted. By signing the University of Bristol’s registration form you are giving your consent for your data to be transferred and used in this way.
3 Who controls the Service?
The University is the recognised Data Controller (being the person who controls the extent and use of data) for the data held or processed by or on behalf of the Service. iParadigms are the Data Processor.
In order for the University to make use of the Service it will be necessary for personal data relating to you to be transferred to countries not governed by EU Data Protection legislation. However, it should be noted that iParadigms, the company processing your data on the University’s behalf, is bound by terms of contract to abide at all times by the Data Protection principles.
4 How long will my data be kept by the Service?
The Service is a long-term initiative and it is the intention that student assignments will be retained indefinitely.
5 What if I want my data to be removed from the Service?
If you do wish to remove your data from the Service at any time you should contact the University TurnitinUK administrator (via email: turnitinuk-admin@bristol.ac.uk), who can make the necessary arrangements with Northumbria Learning. You will receive written confirmation when this has been completed.
6 What if I want to find out what personal data the Service holds on me?
If you wish to find out exactly what personal data the Service holds about you please contact the Information Rights Officer in the Office of the University Secretary. You will be required to prove your identity before any personal information is disclosed to you – please see the ‘subject access request’ process referred to below. The process will involve the Information Rights Officer contacting Northumbria Learning and iParadigms on your behalf.
It is possible that the University also holds personal data on you in relation to plagiarism which it has received from the Service or elsewhere. Details of how to obtain access to such data is given below in the ‘Further Information’ section.
7 Who owns the Copyright to the work I have submitted to the Service?
The copyright in the content submitted to the Service by you (or by staff on your behalf) remains yours at all times. The Service has no interest in acquiring the intellectual property rights for the content submitted by you. By submitting content to the Service, you are granting a licence to the Service for it to use the copyright in the content for the purposes set out in these Regulations. Please refer below to the 'Further Information' section for details of the University's policy Intellectual Property.
Please note that neither the University, the Service nor its data processors will seek to exploit the content submitted to this Service for any further commercial gain outside the remit of this Service.
8 Further Information
Please see the University of Bristol’s Intellectual Property Policy for Students, which is set out in the Rules and Regulations for Students booklet and on the web at http://www.bris.ac.uk/secretary/studentrulesregs/intelprop.html
Information about how to making a ‘subject access request’, the official process for requesting copies of information held about you, is available from the Office of the University Secretary at http://www.bris.ac.uk/secretary/dataprotection/individ/subjectaccess.html
Further information on TurnitinUK is available from http://www.submit.ac.uk/.
Introduced September 2003. Revised June 2008.