What is TurnItIn?

TurnItIn is an electronic assignment submission tool within Learn.UQ. The tool provides your instructor with:

• a record of the exact submission time of an assignment
• an originality report indicating the percentage of your work that is an exact match of existing materials within the TurnItIn database

Does my course use TurnItIn?

Details on how your course is delivered are available in your Electronic Course Profile (ECP). This document is usually available within your Learn.UQ course and details course assessment and method of submission along with other essential information.

If you are required to use TurnItIn:

• Your instructor will set up a TurnItIn assignment
• The assignment may be visible from the start of semester or appear within your course just prior to the due date

When you submit your assignment

• TurnItIn will generate an originality report which should be available within a few minutes
• For resubmissions you will need to wait 24 hours from the production of the first report to receive a subsequent report

Group work assignments

It is possible that a nominated member of your team will be responsible for the team submission. As always it is vital to read all the instructions and be clear on the assignment requiremens before attempting to submit an assignment.

Why does TurnItIn check your work?

• TurnItIn helps guarantee high quality, original, academic work by ensuring that lecturers can gauge a student's understanding of academic writing and referencing and citation
• TurnItIn also helps to ensure that students are unable to plagarise published works or the work of other students

Can I test my assignment?

The only way to get an originality report is to submit your assignment. TurnItIn works this way so that students cannot plagarise each other.

In some cases your instructor will allow assignment resubmissions. In this case - you are able to view your TurnItIn report and then revise and resubmit the assignment. If you did not submit a revised version of the assignment your instructor would mark the version they had received.

What % match is Okay?

This is a complicated question. It is one that you should take up with your instructor as part of a wider discussion on academic integrity and the specifics of your assignment.

TurnItIn works by matching phrases within your work and source materials. So often it's phrases and sentences which are a match rather than a % over all.

Remember you could be set an assignment where each student is required to use the same data. This would lead to a high match percentage accross that student group. This is an inbuilt percentage that does not indicate plagarism.

This is distinct from an essay with a relatively low percentage overall but a number of phrases or sentences which are an exact match indicating they were lifted directly from a piece of source material.

What can I do if my originality score is high?

You should use your originality report to locate areas of your assignment need to be fixed. UQ has a lot of resources to assist you to refine your academic work, including:

• UQ's Academic Integrity Tutorial
  This tutorial will help you understand the types of content that should be referenced.
• Avoiding plagarism
  A How-To guide on citation.
• Student Services workshops
• Library research skills workshops

Additional resources:

• TurnItIn FAQ's from the Australian College of Applied Psychology.
  Highlighting the difference between originality reports and plagarism.
  
• Interpreting your originality report - Queen Mary Univeristy, London.

What about accidental plagarism?

Your instructors and tutors want you to succeed and produce high quality, original, academic work. Make sure you initiate a dicussion on the required standards for assignments and avenues through which you can improve your academic writing.

Your instructor may include materials inside your Learn.UQ course or recommend some Library training to improve your skills. You may also be able to consult a reference Librarian for assistance with specific concerns.