Turnitin at Webster University Emerson Library
Faculty
Students
Policies
Questions
About the Turnitin Service
Turnitin.com allows faculty at Webster University to submit digital copies of student papers and assignments to be checked for originality against Internet sources and a database of previously submitted student work. Within 24 hours, the Turnitin.com website will return an Originality Report ™ , which consists of copies of the student papers highlighting any text that has been copied from the Internet. Turnitin can also be customized to enable students to review their originality reports as a teaching and revision tool prior to submitting a final draft.
Apply for a Turnitin Account
Webster University faculty may apply for a Turnitin.com account by filling out an account request form. Once your request has been processed, you will be emailed an account login and password as well as instructions for using your account directly from Turnitin.com. You can then log in to the Turnitin site.
Getting Started
Turnitin has a number of instructional materials that guide you through the initial process. All can be accessed under Training on the Turnitin.com website. A good place to start is Plagiarism Prevention Quick Start Instructor Video.
Instructions for Enabling Student Access
You may prefer to have your students submit their own papers to Turnitin. If so, faculty should complete the following steps:
- Make sure you have created a class (including class ID and password).
- Create assignment(s) for each series of papers to be submitted.
- Give your students the class ID and password (that you created previously) to have them submit their own papers.
Instructions for Student Access to Turnitin
Your instructor will give a course id and password. Step-by-step instructions on how to use this information and upload your file are found in the Plagiarism Prevention Quick Start Student Video, Quick Start Student User Guide or Student User Guide.
Webster University Plagiarism Policy Statement
Webster University strives to be a center of academic excellence. As part of our Statement of Ethics, the University strives to preserve academic honor and integrity by repudiating all forms of academic and intellectual dishonesty, including cheating, plagiarism and all other forms of academic dishonesty. Academic Dishonesty is unacceptable and is subject to a disciplinary response. The University reserves the right to utilize electronic databases, such as Turnitin.com, to assist faculty and students with their academic work.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I change how the student's paper is screened?
When you create assignments, you can choose the option "Show advanced assignment options?". This will give you the option of "Compare submissions against these search targets:" where you can pick and choose from student paper database, current and archived internet, Proquest, and Gale InfoTrac OneFile.
I created a revision assignment in Turnitin.com so that the student could resubmit based on an assignment but the paper is still checked againt the first submission. I understood when creating an revision assignment that would never happen.
If the student is re-submitting to an assignment in the same class as you deleted the original assignment for, it should not show up as a match against the same student's previous submissions within the same class. If you view an originality report in the 'show matches one at a time' view, it will indicate if there are any previous submissions by the same student that are being excluded due to coming within the same class.
This is set to allow students and instructors to use the Turnitin originality reports as part of a review/resubmit process without generating a 'false positive' by checking the work of the same student within the same class. The determination of whether or not it is a work submitted by the same student is tracked by E-mail address used to log into Turnitin.
However, if there is a false positive due to a student's submission under different e-mail addresses or any other cause, you can use the following instructions to exclude a source from your originality report view.
To view your Originality Report and remove a source from the Originality Report, please do the following:
- Sign in to your account
- Click on the class your assignment is in.
- Click on the inbox for the assignment.
- Click on the Originality Report icon (colored square containing a percentage) for the submission
- The right side of the screen contains the matching information for the submission. Click on the small grey 'x' to the right of the match percentage and source, and it will prompt you to choose if you want to exclude this match from your view of the submission.
- Click OK to exclude this information.
- The Originality Report will change to omit the matches from the source you have excluded.
To re-include a source, use the ‘mode’ pull down menu at the top right of the originality report and choose ‘show matches one at a time’. A small ‘+’ icon will be displayed to the right of any source you have excluded. By clicking this icon, you can re-include a previously excluded source of match.
I forgot my password. Can you reset it?
We cannot but you can! Goto Turnitin.com and choose "Password Help" at the top of the screen.
Can Students submit more than one time?
Students usually only submit one paper per assignment. If you want the students to turn in multiple drafts of a paper, click the "revision" button underneath the assignment name. This will create a revision assignment which will be listed directly below the original assignment.
What type of files can be uploaded?
Turnitin can process files saved as Word, WordPerfect, RTF, PDF, PostScript, plain text, and HTML formats. You can also 'cut and paste' (used to submit a paper in a file format they do not accept, by cutting and pasting the text into a text box).
Why do I get an error when I upload my PDF file?
PDF's are tricky; the type of PDF file that Turnitin.com can process is a "searchable" PDF. If you scanned a hard copy of your paper using Acrobat and saved it as a PDF, the file that was created is an image file and isn't "searchable". To convert an image file to a searchable file you must do a document "capture". Instructions can be found under "Acrobat Help", Look under "Converting paper documents" then "Converting scanned pages to searchable text".