Turnitin Similarity Check

Turnitin is a web-based plagiarism detection tool used to evaluate student academic work for originality. It compares submitted text against a vast database of academic sources and web content and highlights any instances of matching or similar text in a detailed report that includes a percentage of similarity, a list of matching sources, and the actual text passages that match published works. The software is commonly used to assess student work authenticity and promote academic integrity.

As noted in Section 10.4 of the Brock University Faculty Handbook, "students must be informed in writing at the beginning of the course if phrase matching software such as Turnitin is to be used”.



Adding Turnitin to an Assignment

  1. Go to the Assignments tool on the course site.

  2. Select the New Assignment button or edit an existing assignment.

  3. In the Assignment settings under the Evaluation & Feedback tab select the Manage Turnitin link.

Screenshot of the assignment settings with Turnitin Integration highlighted
The Turnitin options are available under Evaluation & Feedback when editing an Assignment.

Adjust Turnitin settings

Click Manage Turnitin to review the default Turnitin settings or make adjustments.

CPI’s recommended settings are emphasized below.

  1. Turn on Turnitin phrase matching by selecting Enable Similarity™ check for this folder

  2. Select Allow learners to see similarity scores in their submission folder so students can review their similarity reports.

  3. Submissions checked:

    1. Automatic similarity checking on all submissions - all submissions are checked automatically

    2. Identify individual submissions for similarity checking - instructor identifies specific submissions that should be checked

  4. Feedback Studio TM

    1. select Enable Feedback Studio™ for this folder if instructors wish to use Turnitin’s online grading tool to grade, and annotate submitted documents. (Try Turnitin’s Feedback studio in their demo site: Turnitin Feedback Studio Demo).

  5. Transfer

    1. determine how grades will be shared from Turnitin to Brightspace.

      1. Automatically sync grades as Draft in Brightspace

      2. Manually sync grades as Draft in Brightspace

  6. Select Save or select More Options to review advanced Turnitin Integration settings.

Turnitin Integration settings. Described in adjacent text.
Turnitin Integration settings

More Setting Options

 

Submissions Settings

  • Determine where the papers will be submitted to, and held options include:

    • Standard paper repository, Institution paper repository, or Do not store the submitted papers. Recommendation for this setting depends on the assessment’s intentions and the type of document students are submitting (email edtech@brocku.ca for assistance).

  • Other settings include:

    • Allow submission of any file type

    • Allow late submissions,

    • Enable grammar checking, and

    • Attach a rubric (it is recommend to use rubric in Brightspace)

Review Comparisons Sources

  • (e.g., Student paper repository, Current and archive website content etc.).

Similarity Report

  • select the frequency of the Generated Similarity Reports, the options include:

    • Generate reports immediately (no resubmissions permitted)

    • Generate reports immediately (resubmissions permitted until due date, and each resubmission generates a similarity report)

    • Generate reports on due date (students can resubmit until due date, but only receive one similarity report on the final submission)

Exclude assignment template

  • Instructors can upload a template or create a custom template document exclude specific assignment formatting from being flagged. Adding a template can decrease the similarity percentages in the report.

Additional Settings

  • Save the Turnitin settings as the default configurations for consequent assignments with Save these settings for future use

Submit” to save changes.

For more information on Turnitin Integration please review this article: Turnitin assignment settings | D2L

Acceptable File Types for Submission

  • Microsoft Word

  • PowerPoint

  • WordPerfect

  • PDF

  • PostScript

  • OpenOffice (ODT)

  • Hangul (HWP)

  • Plain text files (i.e. textbox submissions)

  • HTML

  • RTF

  • Google Docs

    • (submitted via the Google Drive submission option), contact edtech@brocku.ca for details


 


Please contact CPI at edtech@brocku.ca with any questions or comments about the contents of this site.