Originality Reports

» What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is not only a tool to allow electronic submission of your work, it is also a powerful web-based tool to help students and tutors reduce plagiarism and improve quotation, citation and referencing skills.

Once assignments have been submitted to Turnitin, students and tutors will be able to see an originality report which shows where text in your assignment matches pre-existing text from:

• Assignments submitted to Turnitin,by other students
• Periodicals, journals, and publications
• Current and archived internet sources

The Turnitin databases check submissions against 14 billion current and archived web pages, 150 million student papers and millions of articles from libraries and publications.

» Where do I find Originality Reports for submissions?

The originality report is not immediately available after a student has submitted their work as the system needs time to check it against the database, it should become available within 24 hours.

To view the originality report:

• Log in to Course Resources.
• Click on the module which the students have submitted to.
• Click the Module Tools link in the Control Panel on the left.
• Select Turnitin Assignments from the list.

• Click the name of the submission area.
• The Originality Report is normally opened by clicking on the % number underneath the column headed Similarity.

• It opens up in a separate window that is called the Document Viewer.

» My students have submitted their work, why can't I see the Originality Report?

There are a number of reasons why you might not be able to see an Originality Report:

• The submission point has originality report generation switched off.
• The student has not long submitted their work and Turnitin as not generated the report yet.

» Is the Originality Report, a report about how much a student has plagiarised?

The text matched in the report is not an assessment of how much a student has plagiarised. The Originality Report can help you to locate potential sources of plagiarism. The decision that the work has been plagiarised, should be made only after a careful examination of both the submitted academic work and the suspected sources.

» What does an Originality Report look like?

The Originality report displays an assignment with any matching text highlighted. The highlighted areas are then colour coded with the right hand panel displaying which sources the text has matched with. The information provided in the side panel is often referred to as the Similarity Index.

» What does the percentage produced by Turnitin mean?

Turnitin shows how much of the your academic work matches content from web sites, electronic books or electronic journals and previously submitted academic work, so that you can quickly understand how much of the paper is unoriginal. It can not identify if a student has correctly cited and referenced text so you should check this yourself by looking at a match and any reference associated with it.

A high percentage value (%) is not necessarily proof of plagiarism just as a low value (%) is not necessarily an indicator that work is clear of plagiarism. The similarity index is the starting point for later evaluation.

» Is there a percentage figure which indicates a student has plagiarised?

There are no clear cut rules for this, as all work will probably contain some words from other sources. For example you might think that a returned percentage of 15% or less may indicate that plagiarism has not occurred.

However, if there is a single continuous block of text this might suggest that plagiarism has occurred but this might make up only 5%.

The only way to identify if a student has plagiarised is to assess the matches in the report to see if they have been quoted, cited and referenced correctly.

» How should I interpret the Originality Report?

You can start to interpret a report by looking at the percentage in the Overall Similarity Index. The colour of the report icon indicates how much matching text has been found.

Next you need to consider the originality report in more detail and look beyond the percentage of the Overall Similarity Index. Matched sources from the paper appear in an easy-to-understand format revealing colour-coded sources corresponding to non-original work.

Any significant matches should be assessed to see if they need quotation marks to identify quoted text and they are cited and referenced correctly.

You can filter what information appears in the originality report in three ways:

1. Small matches of words like a phrase

2. Excluding text in quotation marks quoted

3. Removing bibliographic information

This can also be done before the report is generated through the options available when you create the submission point.

» What are "small" matches?

1. Common phrases: "and this describes" or "analysis shows that"
2. Established terminology used in technical, scientific or legal in assignments.
3. Descriptions used in the textural analysis of poems or novels.
4. Common words used by students on the same module.

It is possible to filter your view of the Originality Report to exclude small matches. To do this click on the filter icon at the bottom of the side panel on the right.

Select the option to Exclude matches that are less than and specify the number of words or percentage to exclude from the report.

Then click on Apply Changes.

The report will no longer show small matches of text or matches with the same percentage or lower that you specified.

» Will quotations appear as matches?

Even if a quote has been correctly presented within an assignment it will still appear as a match. This helps tutors to check whether the text has been correctly cited and referenced. It is possible to exclude quotations from your view of the Originality Report by using a filter.

Click on the filter icon at the bottom of the side panel on the right.

Tick the Exclude Quotes tick box.

Click the Apply Changes button.

The report will no longer show quoted text as a match.

» Will the bibliography or references appear as matches?

Even if a reference has been correctly presented within an assignment it is likely that another student may have referenced the same text. For this reason it is likely that some of the references you have included will appear as matches.

Tutors will usually check the reference section or bibliography to ensure that they are cited and referenced correctly. It is possible to exclude these sections from your view of the Originality Report by using a filter.

Click on the filter icon at the bottom of the side panel on the right.

Tick the Exclude Bibliography tick box.

Click the Apply Changes button.

The report will no longer show the references or bibliography text as a match.

» What happens if a student submits work done previously for another assignment?

Your latest academic work submitted to Turnitin will be added to the Database and be matched against previously submitted work. If the work is submitted again to another submission point it will pick it up as a match.

» Can a student resubmit their work after seeing the Originality Report?

If you have enabled the submission area to show the originality report and allow resubmission then students will be able to resubmit as many times as they like up until the due date. Each version overwrites the previous submission. This allows students to improve their use of quotation marks, citations and references and clear work of what could be regarded as plagiarism.

» Why are there matches to sources the student hasn't used?

Many other sources of information will draw upon the same work a student has used to write an assignment. This means that when Turnitin checks for matches it is likely to find these sources as well (other student papers, internet sources, periodicals, journals and publications). Turnitin is not able to identify the original source of the text which might not be the one that the student has used so will show matches to other sources of the same text.

Although Turnitin may find several matches for one piece of text the Originality Report will display showing an overview of these matches and this might not reference the one that was used. However although it appears that the report is only showing one match for this text it will have matched it from several places.

To see these details at the top of the side panel click the All sources icon.

Under each match has its own list of sources.

» Why can't I view the student paper the work has matched to?

Papers submitted to Turnitin remain the intellectual property of their authors, instructors, and respective institutions, so can not be viewed without asking for permission.