Turnitin has the facility for assignment submissions to be checked for matches to other online sources. This can help to determine originality and be used in formative assessment to assist students’ understanding of academic integrity. When setting up a Turnitin Assignment, the option exists to generate a Similarity Report for the submission. Turnitin will compare work against:

• Internet pages and archived internet data,
• Previously submitted student assignments (from UK institutions that use Turnitin),
• Subscription periodicals, journals, and publications. (Publishers partnered with Turnitin.)

The comparison it produces is called a Similarity Report. This document details the matches made between a submitted assignment and the online sources it was checked against.

At the discretion of the instructor, students can view the Similarity Reports for their own submissions on Turnitin.

Please note: Turnitin does not determine if work is plagiarised. The judgement about whether a student has plagiarised still lies with the academic. The similarity report is simply a tool to help both academics and students identify the sources of matched text.

Staff Guide – Viewing the Similarity Report

Staff Guide – Interpreting the Similarity Report

Staff Guide – Including PowerPoint slide notes in Similarity Report

Bibliography and/or Quotations excluded

You can set up the assignment, or filter an individual paper, to exclude references and quotations. Please see the Turnitin support site for details of exactly what is and is not excluded from the Similarity Report.

Generative Artifical Intelligence (AI)

Please refer to the Artifical Intelligence webpage for information on the use of AI in assessments, academic integrity policy & guideance and the University postion on the use of AI detection tools.

Paper view requests

Make a request to see a student’s paper

Official procedure for handling a request – to meet UK copyright and data protection law

Page last updated on September 29, 2023 by adambailey