Learning Environments Learning Management System

Turnitin

Turnitin is online web-based text-matching software that works by comparing electronically submitted papers to billions of pages of content located on the Internet and proprietary databases as well as the work of other students whose papers have also been submitted into the system. This software is currently used by many universities in Australia and internationally. Turnitin is now available for use within the LMS.

Updates and changes

Resources

Step-by-step guides
Animated guides
University of Melbourne web sites
Turnitin documentation

Updates and changes

Changes from July 1, 2009

1. Default setting for all new assignments to exclude bibliographic and quoted material from originality reports.

Staff now indicate their preference for excluding this material from originality reports during creation of a Turnitin assignment. This assignment-level preference can be changed up until the first paper has been submitted. Staff can view an originality report and change the individual paper’s settings to include or exclude bibliographic and quoted material. Originality Reports generated prior to June 30, 2009 will be unaffected.

Changes from August 1, 2009

1. Supported browsers

Turnitin will work best with Firefox (v.2+), Safari (v.2+) and Internet Explorer (v.7+). Earlier versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported.

2. Optional exclusion of small matches in the originality report

Staff may choose to indicate that the similarity index for every originality report for an assignment should exclude matches equal to or less than a certain percent (1% - 100%). The default setting is that ALL matches are shown. The size of matches that have been excluded (if any) is clearly indicated on each originality report. Staff may sometimes find limited value in seeing large numbers of small percentage matches for an assignment. By adjusting the size of matches to exclude while viewing each originality report, those adjustments are immediately reflected in the originality report providing an additional degree of control in evaluating student papers.

3. Expanded similarity index shows sources of matches

In addition to the overall similarity index (defined as the percentage of words in a paper that match sources in the Turnitin databases), each originality report will display the percentage of the paper’s content that matches each of the following: (1) other student papers, (2) the web, and (3) periodicals, journals and publications. This will provide richer information to help determine if a paper contains potentially problematic matches due to copying, collusion, citation oversights, or other issues.

4. Improved handling of document submissions and multiple file uploads

New productivity and usability enhancements include:

 

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