Turnitin

Turnitin Originality is a tool that allows students and faculty to analyze written work and checks for citation mistakes, inappropriate use of text from other resources, and accidental or purposeful plagiarism.

Turnitin Feedback Studio is a tool that helps faculty offer effective and efficient feedback on student papers by offering in-browser markup, audio feedback options, integrated rubrics and a library of frequently used comments.

If you plan to use Turnitin in a course, we strongly recommend including a disclosure in your syllabus. Feel free to use the sample text below.

Some assignments in this course may be submitted to Turnitin via Canvas. Turnitin is a service that generates a report on the originality of your writing by comparing it with a database of periodicals, books, online content, student papers, and other published work. This report can help you discern when you are using sources fairly, citing properly, and paraphrasing effectively—skills essential to all academic work.

If submitting a paper to an assignment that requires Turnitin, we recommend that you submit it early enough to review your Turnitin report before the final due date. Then, if necessary, you will have time to ask for help from your instructor, TA or from the Writing Center or Library.

Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be submitted for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Usage Policy posted on the Turnitin.com site. Students who do not agree should contact the course instructor immediately.

Click here for more best practices on using Turnitin.

Faculty members are strongly encouraged to include a statement in their syllabus if using Turnitin. Additionally, when submitting work to Turnitin through Canvas, you’ll be presented with a statement that outlines the use of the tool.

A high score in your Originality report could mean a number of things outside of having plagiarized. Commonly, students with high scores just need to more carefully include correct citations, paraphrasing or referencing of your resources. In this case consider seeking support

• The Goddard Library can offer student support about how to correctly use resources in your written work.
• The Writing Center can offer individual conferences.

Less commonly, it’s possible that you submitted a previous draft or other work using similar text, someone else copied your essay and submitted it or if you worked with a collaborator, that the person who wrote your essay with you, plagiarized.

The Originality Score and Report are not a definitive indication of plagiarism and faculty need to interpret the work in the context it’s offered.

The rights to your work are always your own, whether or not your work is in the Turnitin content database. Student papers may be removed only by request of the class instructor. Also, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously affirmed that Turnitin’s archiving of work was not a copyright infringement because it falls within the fair use exception. Please see Turnitin’s Privacy and Security page for more information.

Using Turnitin through Canvas and allowing all students to submit their work is our recommendation in order to support student learning and transparency.

If you have the need to submit a single paper, you can do so by accessing Turnitin directly. Click here to log in with your Clark credentials. From there you can create a Turnitin class and assignment and submit the paper for review.

• Turnitin Support (choose Instructor)
• Contact your ATS liaison for more support.