TurnitinUK Software
What TurnitinUK does
- Matches student’s text with:
- Current websites (there may be a three day lapse so it is advisable to wait three days before checking the reports).
- Archived websites.
- Content in various ProQuest databases (including periodicals, newspapers, dissertations, out-of-print books and other scholarly content from over 9000 international publishers).
- Gale InfoTrac OneFile (indexes of 659 computer journals with full text articles from 354 journals from 1980 onwards).
- Other student content which has been submitted to the TurnitinUK database (all colleges and universities in the UK subscribe to this service).
- Saves time.
- Acts as a deterrent against plagiarism.
- Can be used as an educational tool to illustrate to students any inadequacies in their approach to paraphasing and citing.
What TurnitinUK CANNOT do
- Will not match student’s text with:
- Material which is not available online (eg most textbooks).
- Online books and journals to which it does not have an access agreement.
- Other student content which has been submitted to databases from detection software other than TurnitinUK.
- ‘Original’ essays purchased from essay banks/auction sites etc.
- Make a judgement as to whether plagiarism has taken place.
Once an assignment has been submitted to the originality checking service an originality report is generated.
Relevant Articles
- Turnitin Data Processing Fact Sheet (PDF, 2.8MB)
- The Role of Turnitin within the Formative Process of Academic Writing (Oxford Brookes University, 2007).
Useful Case Studies
