Turnitin Guide for Faculty

Using Turnitin and Other Tools to Detect and Prevent Plagiarism by Ed Sadowski Arapahoe Community College Library

Turnitin Guide for ACC Faculty

Table of Contents
Assistance and training materials for faculty...next page What is Turnitin? How does it work?...1 Accessing Turnitin: website and D2L Setting up Turnitin on the Turnitin website...2 Using Quick Submit...3 Setting up Turnitin within D2L...4 Plagiarism detection techniques Rapid response plagiarism detection...5 Using Google (Google to the rescue)6 Pointers for quickie plagiarism detection...7 Plagiarism prevention Educating the student and other classroom tips...8 Student submissions of drafts as a plagiarism teaching tool...9 Resources to help the student with Turnitin Websites with information and tutorials...9 Student guide to a plagiarism checkup...9 What does my Turnitin Originality Report mean?...9 Plagiarism tutorials...10 Free plagiarism checks...10 Checklist for understanding the Originality Reports...10 Some frequently asked questions...11

Assistance and training materials for faculty

> Within Turnitin, contact Turnitin support by clicking Helpdesk. > Click Help within Turnitin to access help topics. Within the assignment inbox, click View Training Material for manuals and videos. > The same training material is available on the Turnitin.com site under Training.

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USING TURNITIN TO PREVENT PLAGIARISM

Turnitin is a subscription service available to schools and colleges to deter plagiarism and promote academic integrity. Turnitin can be accessed directly from Turnitin.com or from course management systems (CMS) such as Desire2Learn (D2L) and Blackboard when Turnitin has been integrated into these systems. Below you will find a basic introduction to Turnitin and how to use it from within D2L or, optionally, from the Turnitin website. Included also are instructions for Quick Submit, the easiest way to use Turnitin on an individual paper without the time-consuming process of having to fully enroll an entire class in Turnitin. Also included are tips for preventing and detecting plagiarism.

and indicating matches with existing content: Archived and current text and pages on the Internet All other student submissions that have been submitted to Turnitin Commercial databases of online journal articles and periodicals (ProQuest)

How does Turnitin work?

Access through Desire2Learn (D2L) and Turnitin website Instructors may use Turnitin through D2L or through the Turnitin website. Though an instructor can use either method to access Turnitin, it is strongly recommended that an instructor make the decision on which method to use before a semester begins because these two options do not work in conjunction with each other. In other words, student submissions submitted through D2L cannot be seen by the instructor who may also have a Turnitin account directly through the Turnitin Web site and vice versa. You may find that using Turnitin directly through D2L is the most efficient option as you can simultaneously use D2L to post other course materials, such as lecture notes, a syllabus, or student grades. In addition, many students at ACC are familiar with logging into D2L and using the tools. You can use both options for multiple courses or switch back and forth between semesters, but the two methods of using Turnitin are not linked in any way. The Turnitin tool is similar to other tools in D2L, and

What is Turnitin?
Turnitin helps to plagiarism proof assignments. Turnitin does not detect plagiarism but, rather, generates a similarity index indicating text matches to the Turnitin databases. Instructors and their students can use that information to determine if there are issues with intentional or unintentional plagiarism. (Turnitin blog) Turnitin helps prevent plagiarism by comparing student papers and assignments against the following sources

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grade book columns are automatically created when you create a Turnitin assignment. The Turnitin grades work in conjunction with other grades in D2L, so a calculated, end-of-semester grade is easy to obtain. If using the website, you can keep a database of Turnitin grades via the website. The basics of how Turnitin works An instructor makes the decision to use Turnitin through D2L or the Turnitin Web site The instructor creates an assignment through the Turnitin Web site or through D2L The instructor or students submit papers to the Turnitin assignment you created Turnitin compares the text in the paper against text on the Internet, other student submissions, and commercial databases (as listed above) Turnitin generates an Originality Report for each student submission and highlights any text that duplicates text found in other sources The instructor uses this information to decide if the duplicated text is plagiarized. In many cases, students will have properly cited the duplicated text, and this duplicated text may not indicate plagiarism at all. The instructor remains the arbiter of what constitutes plagiarism. Below are the instructions for getting started with the two methods of Turnitin access: through the Turnitin Web site and through D2L.

Turnitin website access

(To use Turnitin without D2L) You must first register with Turnitin as an instructor. To do so, Click New Users on the upper right page at turnitin.com. 1. Enter your schools Turnitin account number provided to you by your Turnitin administrator. 2. Enter the account join password provided to you. Follow the sign-up instructions. There are two ways of using Turnitin: (1) the full features and (2) Quick Submit. To fully access Turnitin requires establishing classes and assignments, then signing up students. Once the instructor establishes a class, instructors can sign up students or students can join themselves. Instructors can submit papers to Turnitin themselves or instructors can have students submit their own papersin either case, instructors need to create a Turnitin assignment first. Other features of Turnitin include Grademark, Gradebook, Peer Review, Digital Portfolio, Calendar, Discussion Boards, and Libraries. For explanations of all these features, manuals, videos, and help topics are available on the Turnitin site and linked from within Turnitin (see Assistance and Training Materials on last page of this handout). Quick Submit is a fast and easy method for occasional plagiarism checks and a good way to try out Turnitin be-

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fore using its full features. Whether using Quick Submit or the full features, you will have to know how to use the plagiarism reports (Originality Reports)explained in the Turnitin manuals and videos. Instructions for Quick Submit (non-established classes) are as follows: 1. Start at your instructor homepage. This is the page you start with after you log in with your e-mail address and password from the Turnitin homepage at turnitin.com. 2. Quick Submit will not appear as an option until you activate it. To activate Quick Submit, click the User Info tab 3. Under Account Settings on the right side, change activate Quick Submit to Yes. 4. Click the large Submit button on the bottom to create the change. 5. When you go back to your main page again, you will now notice a Quick Submit button on the left side or on the top. 6. Click this Quick Submit button to enable you to upload anything you want checked. 7. The quick submit inbox will appear. This inbox contains all papers you will have plagiarism reports (Originality Reports) made with quick submit (color coded for levels of plagiarism). 8. To quick submit a paper, click the submit paper button on the upper right. 9. Under customize your search, check off any or all of the sources to be checked for plagiarism: search the Internet; search student papers; search periodicals, journals, and publications. 10. If you might be re-submitting the same paper again (revised by a student), do not check off search student papers. If you do check off search student papers, your second submission of the same paper will be treated as plagiarism, mistaking the second paper as a plagiarism of the first paper. A way to avoid this problem is to create the assignment as a Revision Assignment. 11. Click the submit button. 12. Under submit paper, make selections for your submission. 13. First select type of upload with the pulldown menu under submit a paper by: file upload; cut and paste; zip file. If you are uploading a document stored in your computer, select file upload. You will then click the browse button below to select the document after you have filled in the name of the student and title of the paper. If you are submitting some text from a document, you may select cut and paste. 14. You will now upload the paper for quick submit. Click the browse button to locate the document file from a floppy disk (A:), computer hard drive (C:), CD (D:), or flash drive (E:). Or, you can cut and paste from the submission pull-down menu. 15. Double click the file you wish to upload, or select the file then click the open. 16. Click the submit button. 17. A box will appear asking, Is this the paper you want to submit? The text of the paper will be displayed.

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Click yes, submit. 18. A digital receipt will appear with the paper title, author, and ID. If you wish to submit another paper, click submit again. 19. To see your Originality Reports, go back to the quick submit inbox (click inbox). 20. An Originality Report will be generated in a few minutes (the report icon will be grayed out until the report is completed, then the icon color will display, indicating the proportion of matches). If the gray does not change color, click the refresh button of your Web browser. Submitting papers for established classes Click the submit icon next to the desired assignment on your class homepage (after you have set up classes and assignments and signed up students). Instructions for submitting a paper are basically the same as above. Detection Work?). When you enable Plagiarism Detection, an options area appears at the bottom of the Edit Folder page. Here you can enable detailed Originality Reports for Dropbox submissions and adjust options that control end user visibility and report frequency.
Thereafter, all assignments submitted will be analyzed by Turnitin and Plagiarism Reports will be generated, viewable and accessible from within the Dropbox folders.

More detailed instructions (from D2L Wiki from University of WisconsinOshkosh, at idea.uwosh.edu/D2Lwiki go down the page for Turnitin info)
1. Go to Dropbox in the navigation. 2. Select New Folder

Setting up Turnitin within D2L

Turnitin automatically works with assignments that are submitted within D2L > Log in to D2L > To use Turnitin with D2L, you must first enable Plagiarism Detection. When you create a New Folder and Folder Properties, check off Enable for this Folder (How Does Plagiarism

(NOTE: Dropboxes do not have to be new to enable Turnitin, existing dropboxes can be modified by editing the folder.) 3. Give your dropbox a name usually the name of the assignment 4. Check the box labeled Plagiarism Detection Fill in additional fields as necessary (How do I use the dropbox) 5. Modify Plagiarism Detection Options as necessary.

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Index files for Plagiarism Detection: Check this box if

you would like the students papers to Turnitins database. Click the Save button

Rapid Response Plagiarism Detection

Instant coffee. Minute rice. Turnitin Quick Submit. Google.
Generate Originality Reports: check this box to en-

able Turnitins originality reports Allow submitters to see Originality Reports: check this box to let students view their report Automatic plagiarism detection on all submissions: check this box to have Turnitin generate reports for all submissions. Identify individual submissions for plagiarism detection: This option is not functional, an originality report will be generated for every submission Check Submissions Against: Use Paper Database: This will compare the students paper to Turnitins large database of papers submitted by other students from around the country. Current and archive internet: This will compare the students papers to text on the internet. Periodicals, journals, & publications: This will compare the students papers to articles available in a variety of online databases.

There are the quicker solution, shortcut options to tasks we are faced with. Checking a students paper for plagiarism is no exception. An instructor can sign up the whole class under Turnitin, and every paper routinely gets the Turnitin scrutinty, a report generated to show the percentage levels of legitimacy, or originality, in the paper. Or the instructor can pick and choose the occasional paper that looks suspicious and check it for plagiarism. The simplest way is to simply google some phrases from the paper and see if it guiltily matches something on a website. Another relatively simple way is to use Turnitins Quick Submit. To use the Turnitin Quick Submit, the whole class does

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not have to be set up within Turnitin. All that is required is that the instructor be registered (joined) within Turnitin, and that the Turnitin Quick Submit option is enabled. The downside of using something like Google or Quick Submit is that its less labor intensive for the busy instructor pressed for time than using the full-featured Turnitin. Saving time with the abbreviated plagiarism checkups using Google or Quick Submit means that many other cases of plagiarism might be missed by not using the full Turnitin. A glaring case of plagiarism may catch the instructors eye, but less obvious cases will escape notice. Several instructors have told me they used Google to catch plagiarism that Turnitin missed. Wow, is that an eye opener. Turnitin is not perfect? Turnitin is not everything its cracked up to be? Well, yes. Why? What gives? Well, lets cut to the chase. Heres an excerpt from an economics professors blog that I found, yes, by googling: teachers might think, Im using Turnitin, so I dont have to watch out for plagiarists. The instructor quoted on Turnitins website certainly thinks so, implicitly arguing that Turnitin is a perfect substitute for her own investigations using Google. Not surprisingly, Turnitin encourages this belief. On its websiteright next to her quoteTurnitin advertises that it has crawled and indexed 14+ billion web pages. Choosing between Turnitin and instructor investigations seems like a nobrainer. But wait, how many web pages are there on the Internet? A few years ago, Google announced that it had crawled and indexed a trillion web pages. That makes TurnItIns crawlers look puny, having searched and indexed only 1.4 percent as much of the Internet as Googles. Im not here to debunk TurnitinIm one of its strongest supporters. But we have to be realistic that no single tool is perfect or infallible. I teach this to students about

Turnitin users and non-users: Google to the rescue

Plagiarism sleuths: dont throw Google out with the bathwater just yet. Ive gotten feedback from instructors about their use of Google to detect student paper plagiarism (pasting in some parts of a student paper into Google may identify the Web pages the text came from). My stance about Google for plagiarism detection has been, Well, now that weve got Turnitin, the proprietary Web-based plagiarism detection service, we wont need Google anymore (and thats how instructors probably view this modern marvel called Turnitin). Wrong.

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information literacytrust, but verify the information you find. Take everything, no matter how authoritative, with a grain of salt. Instructors who use Turnitin should consider it just one gadget in their toolbox. Google is a good supplement to Turnitin, or, for those who dont use Turnitin, a useful tool by itself. Remember, though, that Google will identify lots of text from Web pages, but little or nothing from periodical articles and books. Thus Google is incomplete without Turnitin. And vice versa. And even Google is not all-encompassing. No single search engine can index the entire vastness of the Internet. Thats why, along with Google, the savvy plagiarism sleuth will use other search enginessuch as Bing, Yahoo!, and Yippy. I might also mention some free plagiarism checkers that can be useful: Dustball and Plagium. These free tools are useful not just for teachers, but also for students who wish to check their work before they turn it in. output?). Sometimes it could be just a sentence or paragraph that is different, a direct quote or poor paraphrase that is not credited. > If you decide to google for a quickie check, find an odd or distinctive phrase in the paper to throw in the search engine and see what results come up. Beginning sentences from papers sometimes yield good hits. Place phrases within quotes for best results. Additionally, use Yahoo! and other search engines if Google comes up with nothing. (See the discussion of Google as a detection tool on the next page.) > If Turnitin fails to find the elusive text, even searching through its designated library database, like ProQuest, try a keyword search of the papers passages in other library databases. What if, after trying the above tools, your plagiarism check is unsuccessful? You feel certain the paper or sections of the paper are not the students work. The search engines and even Turnitin have not located elsewhere the text in question. Keep in mind that no search engine or even Turnitin is 100 percent effective in detecting plagiarism in the vastness of the publishing world. Interrogating a student can be effective in eliciting answers. Here are some ways one can question a student, as suggested by Montgomery College Libraries:

Pointers for quickie plagiarism detection:

> Be on the lookout for shifts in writing style and quality (does a suspicious paper suddenly deviate in certain stylistic ways from the students usual

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Give the student a chance to prove that the paper is Quiz the student and see if he or she can define

not plagiarized. some of the words in the paper. A question such as: Why did you use egregious' here? can be enlightening.

a portfolio can completely prevent plagiarism, according to this site: bedfordstmartins.com/technotes/ workshops/avoidplagiarism.htm. Still yet another way to help prevent plagiarism is to allow a student to use a plagiarism detection service such as Turnitin or free websites to run a preliminary check; seeing that there are plagiarism problems in the paper, whether intentionally-created or inadvertent, will persuade the student to use more care in the preparation of papers. A student can be allowed to submit a draft to Turnitin to identify originality problems. Turnitin also has an inexpensive service for students to use before it is submitted to Turnitin, called WriteCheck, on their plagiarism.org site. A couple of free plagiarism checking sites are available for the same kind of preliminary check by students: plagium.com and The Plagiarism Checker.
In addition, a Turnitin blog on plagiarism proofing suggests the following to help prevent plagiarism:

Copy some sentences from the paper and leave

blanks for some important words. If the student cannot fill in the blanks with the word used in the paper itself or a synonym, the student did not write the paper.

Ask questions about one of the sources used in the

paper. This article by X looks fascinating, why did you choose it? Can I see a copy? Ask the student how he or she searched for the information. Ask what database they used.

Plagiarism prevention
Remember also, its best to prevent plagiarism than trying to detect it. A lot of plagiarism can be achieved by simply educating the student about plagiarism and the power of Turnitin. Turnitins site plagiarism.org is a good place to start for students to learn about plagiarism. Another deterrent: require students to keep a portfolio that logs and records research. Keeping such

Emphasize the recursiveness of writing. Require significantly revised multiple drafts. Break an assignment into parts that are to be turned in at different stages of the creation process: prewriting, drafting, revising, reflecting. (The above three pointers are from Colorado State Universitys Writing@CSU.) This idea of plagiarism proofing assignments makes sense, suggesting that students are less likely to leave the work to the last minutewhen research and writing skills may deteriorate or students might be tempted to

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use writing that is not their ownif they are engaged in writing as a process, according to the Turnitin blog.

Resources to help the student with Turnitin

Websites with information and tutorials
> turnitin.com/static/training/student.php (includes video, articles, student manual about using Turnitin and Originality Reports) > umuc.edu/library/tutorials/turnitin/ originalityreports.shtml video: Reading and Understanding Turnitin Originality Reports > Plagiarism.org (Turnitins portal for plagiarism information)

Student submissions of drafts as a plagiarism teaching tool

Turnitin allows multiple submissions of papers by students, from draft to final revision. Students can upload their own papers to Turnitin for Originality Reports and see their own Originality Reports. Originality Reports are useful for editing papers that include too many quotes and paraphrases and not enough original analysis and comment. Thus the Originality Reports are useful to faculty as a tool to teach students to use proper citation, highlighting the need for more student originality. An instructor can, for instance, facilitate two submissions, setting up two separate assignments for the same paper. The two submissions could be named as follows: Paper 1First Draft; and Paper 2Final Revision. (Note: do not use the pound sign (#) or any other special charactersonly letters and numbersas an error message will be created when attempting to download a student paper.)

What does my Turnitin Originality Report mean?

A checklist for self-evaluation
Adapted from Edinburgh Napier University

Student guide to a plagiarism checkup

The following guide (available on the ACC Library Research Assistance page is designed for students, but also

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helpful for instructors to add to their understanding of plagiarism and Turnitin. Why a plagiarism check? The savvy student does a spell check before turning in a paper to catch errors. Its educational too, helping to teach you how to spell better. So why not do a plagiarism check on your paper also? A plagiarism check will help you see where you didnt properly give credit to the sources of your information. Did you leave out quotation marks to identify direct quotes? Did you fail to properly paraphrase (put in your own words) the information you are using? Did you accurately identify (cite) the sources of the information and ideas you are using? Plagiarism tutorials: First, are you clear about what plagiarism is? Plagiarism can cause you to fail your course and even moredeliberate plagiarism is a serious academic offense. These tutorials will make it clear what plagiarism is all about: > You Quote It, You Note It! library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism > USM Plagiarism Tutorial: lib.usm.edu/legacy/plag/plagiarismtutorial.php > iParadigms plagiarism information site: Plagiarism.org. > A plagiarism portal: bit.ly/plagiarism2 Free plagiarism checks: If you dont have access to Turnitin, use these sites to do a plagiarism check: the free Plagiarism Checker (dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker) and Plagium.com, or the inexpensive WriteCheck.com

Checklist for understanding the Originality Report

Use this to evaluate and to get an understanding of what the Originality Report means. Doing this at the draft stage gives you a chance to take further action to revise your work in response to the Report. Check the following, as appropriate: STEP ONE The Similarity Index is below 5%___ above 5%___ If your Similarity Index is below 5%, you need to take no further actionyour Report is acceptable. If your Similarity Index is above 5%, there may be issues with your work. Proceed to Step 2. STEP TWO You have nothing to worry about if the colored text in the Report is mostly made up of the title of your paper. ___

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Excluding the title should bring the Similarity Index to below 5%. If this doesnt explain the Report, proceed to Step Three. STEP THREE You probably have nothing to worry about if the colored text in the Report is made up of any combination of the following: references___ short sentences or fragments from a variety of sources___ cited quotes___ However, if this is not the case, you may need help with correct referencing or paraphrasing. Proceed to Step Four if Steps Two/Three do not explain the majority of colored text in your Report. STEP FOUR Your Report is probably borderline if the majority of the colored text is in paragraphs with a few words changed from the original___ and from a variety of sources___ If you have checked off any of these, it is likely you have trouble with paraphrasing. If Steps 2-4 do not account for your report, proceed to Step Five. STEP FIVE Your Report shows your work was probably plagiarized if any of the following apply: The colored text, excluding titles, cited quotes and references, makes up a significant portion of your paper.___ There are more than three paragraphs in any one color.___ The majority of the text in any one color is unchanged.___

Some frequently asked questions:

What percentages in the Originality Report are safe? There are no clear-cut rules, with some variation of percentages to be expected within an acceptable range. Turnitin only identifies and tabulates matches, many of which are normal and legitimate, and the instructor has to interpret these matches to determine which ones indicate problems that should not occur. Approximate rules of thumb are as follows. Zero percent would indicate the student has not done enough reading or referencing of other sources. Excluding cited quotes and references, matches under five percent is a safe level. Under 15 percent is probably acceptable, or borderline. Continuous blocks of uncited matching text indicate problems. Over 25 percent is probably too high (yellow, orange, red indices).

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Isnt it normal to have matches that are not really plagiarism, and what kinds of matches are considered acceptable? Yes, matching of text in itself is not an indication of plagiarism, as legitimate matches are normal, and requires interpretation. The following are normal and therefore acceptable matches. The title of the submitted paper, or parts of the title. Cited quotations and student-generated references (bibliography). (Quotations and references can be automatically excluded in the Originality Report operation.) Proper nouns (names of people, places, things). Commonly used jargon and terminology. Common phrases, causing matches of parts of sentences. What kinds of matches are considered red flags? Matches consisting of sentences, or large parts of sentences, within paragraphs, or entire paragraphs, that are not within quotations are problematic. Even when this text is cited, it means the student is inadequately paraphrasing the source (the information is not properly rendered in the students own words). Here are some guides to proper paraphrasing: > Plagiarism.org >>> > FindingDulcinea.com >>>