Using Turnitin

The University of Edinburgh uses Turnitin's OriginalityCheck, a service supported by Zaojiance System, for deterring and detecting plagiarism. The service matches text from student work against extensive databases of websites, academic reference materials, and previously submitted student papers, producing both anoriginality score and detailed originality report.

Use of the service not only allows the University to systematically check for plagiarism, thus helping to ensure that all students' work is original and graded accordingly, but can also help students to improve their academic writing skills by providing active feedback on citation and referencing.

Staff should note that originality scores, and originality reports, do not tell you whether plagiarism has taken place; they simply highlight sections of text which match other sources. All work must therefore continue to be reviewed by the course tutor; it is always an academic decision as to whether a text match indicates the possiblity of plagiarism.

Accessing Turnitin

Turnitin assignments can be set up in:

• Blackboard Learn;

• Moodle;

• PebblePad;

• or directly at the TurnitinUK website: www.submit.ac.uk.

Turnitin OriginalityCheck Website: 

http://www.zaojiance.net/turnitin-rank.html

Informing your students

It is important that students are aware that the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service is being used for their assignments and that they consent to it.

In 2005 the College Academic Misconduct Officers decided that assignments will be submitted with a coversheet which asks students to verify that their work is original and in no way plagiarised. On the bottom of the coversheet should be information about the plagiarism detection service (Turnitin).

Staff need to ensure that students understand that their work will go to the plagiarism detection software's database. We also urge staff, where appropriate, to allow students to review their work and the originality reports, before final submission, as part of learning good practice in referencing. If you intend to do this you should ensure that students understand and can interpret the Originality Reports.