Turnitin is an intellectual property verification tool that includes features for grading and reviewing student assignments. As a plagiarism checker, Turnitin: flags text that has been identified as closely matching other online resources, including student-submitted work and published articles; displays possible sources where that text is located; and indicates the percentage of a paper that is attributable to other sources. The tool will ideally reduce overt and accidental plagiarism by helping students understand quotation attribution and citations.

Turnitin and Turnitin Feedback Studio can be used interchangeably. The Feedback Studio is one of the Turnitin products SIUE has adopted to integrate with Blackboard. 

Turnitin Feedback Studio consists of three parts:

• Similarity Report - an intellectual property verification tool that flags text that has been identified as closely matching other online resources, including student-submitted work and published articles; displays possible sources where that text is located; and indicates the percentage of a paper that is attributable to other sources. The tool will ideally reduce overt and accidental plagiarism by helping students understand quotation attribution and citations.

• GradeMark - An online tool for grading student work, such as papers, presentations, and images. Turnitin can be configured to analyze or identify spelling, grammatical, or usage errors by enabling the GradeMark e-rater feature within the Turnitin assignment settings.

• PeerMark - An online tool for distributing student work for electronic peer review.

Instructors can set up Turnitin assignments in their Blackboard courses to let students submit a variety of coursework, including papers. If students are submitting text files, the submissions are checked against Turnitin's comprehensive databases of source materials and Originality Reports are generated that list the results of the matching process. Visit the See Also links below to learn more about using Turnitin in your classes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Turnitin have an AI detection component?

No. Turnitin did have an AI detection on a trial basis until Dec. 31, 2023. The University decided not to fund it, so the AI detection tool was dropped from our Turnitin license agreement. One of the reasons was cost, but we in IDLT found that, in our experience with faculty using it, the AI detection in Turnitin was not as robust and reliable as we would like it to be. Faculty reported false flags when they did not use AI on their own work.  We have yet to identify an external tool yet and the Faculty senate is in discussion about the ramifications of AI.

What resources are used by Turnitin to check for plagiarism?

The software checks all submitted papers against:

•   Internet - comprehensive index of current and archived documents available for public access on the Internet
•   Publications and newsletters - Cengage Academic OneFile, Emerald, ABC-CLIO, Sage e-Reference and CrossRef
•   Student paper database - containing student papers submitted by students using Turnitin around the globe to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism

What file formats does Turnitin support?

All file types are allowed and can receive marks in GradeMark and PeerMark, including text documents, images, and presentations. However, only Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), Google Docs, and plain text files with at least 20 words of text will be eligible to receive Originality Reports. PowerPoint content will be converted to a static PDF.  No dynamic elements (animations, transitions, notes and/or audio/video) will be available. Verify your file format is accepted on this page. 

Files must be less than 20 MB and must be less than 800 pages in length. 

How do I interpret a Turnitin Similarity Report?

Consult this page for details on how to interpret the report.

How many Turnitin Similarity Reports can be generated?

According to the Turnitin site, when multiple submissions are permitted, only one Similarity Report will be processed in a 24-hour period; reports "for second or subsequent submissions will require a 24-hour delay before the Similarity Report begins processing."

What are the technical requirements of Turnitin?

Turnitin runs a compatibility checker that will notify users of any issues. However, to make sure that Turnitin will correctly operate, check the Turnitin system requirements and supported web browsers. Both cookies and JavaScript must be enabled.

Will there be times when I cannot access Turnitin?

View the Turnitin scheduled maintenance times to see when the system will be unavailable.

Why do I not see the PeerMark option when adding a Turnitin assignment in Blackboard?

Instructors must first set up a Turnitin assignment in their Blackboard course to have students submit their papers and enable the PeerMark option. Once the initial Turnitin assignment has been created, that assignment can be edited by opening the Turnitin Link in the course content area and editing the PeerMark setup options.