TurnItIn

Turnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism-prevention service created by iParadigms, LLC.

Essays written by students are submitted to Turnitin, which checks the documents for unoriginal content. The results can be used to identify similarities to existing sources or can be used in formative assessment to help students learn how to avoid plagiarism and improve their writing.

Our Learning Management System, Canvas, has Turnitin integrated inside it.

The Turnitin website has additional resources, such as White Papers, Webcasts, Research, and Blogs that showcases the features and potential of this software. Visit the Turnitin Resource Webpage to access these resources.

There are two options to use Turnitin:

Option 1: Enabling the Turnitin Online option 

You can enable Turnitin in the editing options while selecting the Online option under the submission type for an assignment. In this option, you can see the Originality Check and use GradeMark.

Students:

• Submitting the Assignment
• Viewing the Similarity Report

Instructors:

• Enabling Turnitin in Assignments 
• Accessing the Similarity Report

Option 2: Using the Turnitin External Tool

You can enable Turnitin in the editing options when selecting the External Tool option under the Submission type for an assignment. In this option, you can see the Originality Check, use GradeMark, PeerMark, Grade Anything, and the ETS^® e-rater^® technology.  

Students:

• Submitting the Assignment with Turnitin LTI
• Turnitin Assignment Dashboard

Instructors:

• How to Integrate Turnitin LTI with Canvas
• How to adjust Turnitin Assignment Settings
• Turnitin Assignment Inbox

AI Writing Detection

Turnitin also offers an AI Writing Detection capability to help educators identify text that might have been prepared using generative AI tools such as large language models, chatbots, and word spinners.

This AI detection tool is designed to support academic integrity but comes with limitations. The model may not always be accurate and might misidentify human-written, AI-generated, or AI-paraphrased text. Therefore, it is important to use the tool's results as part of a broader evaluation process.

Educators should use further scrutiny and apply their institution’s specific academic policies to determine if any academic misconduct has occurred. Turnitin advises against using AI writing detection results as the sole basis for any adverse action against a student.

Question?

Please contact cfeti@sjsu.edu for further information.