When a student submits an assignment an Originality Report is generated. This is displayed as a coloured coded similarity percentage in the submission inbox.

It's important to open the student submission and use your judgement when reviewing the Originality Report. A high similarity index does not necessarily indicate plagiarism, and a paper with a low similarity index does not indicate no plagiarism is present. Turnitin looks for strings of text that match sources in its database and there may be many reasons why it has found a match.

Video: Originality Report overview

View the above video Originality Report overview in Echo360.

For more information about the Turnitin iPad, refer to Turnitin page and accordion Turnitin IOS app.

To view the originality report of a submission:

  1. Click on the title of the assignment or the percentage in the Similarity column. A new window or tab will open to display the submission.
  2. The Turnitin menu is collapsed on the right side. To view more detailed information about text matches, click the match overview button (this is represented by a number at the top of the red section). This will open the match overview panel:
    Turnitin originality report text match

A list of matches will appear in the panel on the right, as well as being highlighted in the submission.

To close the panel, click on the cross next to the Match Overview.

Turnitin released A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) writing detection capabilities on 5 April 2023.

The A.I. feature should be used with caution, especially in the case of false positives, for more information refer:

Pedagogical resources:

Writing prompts checklist and rubric:

Students support resources

To view the A.I. writing detection capabilities in the Originality report

  1. The Feedback studio displays a new feature called the A.I. indicator in the right-hand panel (the A.I. indicator is not visible to students)
  2. Click on the A.I. percentages indicator to view the highlighted sections of text where the model has predicted areas of text linked to A.I.
  3. The A.I writing detection panel will display additional support including educational resources and FAQs

Video: Originality Report what it includes and excludes

View the above video Originality Report: What it includes and excludes on Echo360

Flags for review

Flags for review highlight inconsistencies in the students work for markers to review:

Flags shown in the review panel

The algorithm can flag two types of inconsistencies

Replaced characters

Certain characters may be replaced in the text from other alphabets e.g. Latin P looks like the Greek rho.

Hidden text

The hidden text highlights white text that may appear invisible on a white background ie dashes between words, quotation marks.

Document Details

Document Details provide insights into a file's metadata, as well as spelling usage, paper size and fonts:

The document details panel

Dawson, P. and Sutherland-Smith, W. (2019) Can training improve marker accuracy at detecting contract cheating? A multi-disciplinary pre-post study? in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, v 44, n. 5, [online] access December 2019

https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1531109

Harper, R. et al (2021) Contract cheating; a survey of Australian university staff in Studies in Higher Education, v44, n. 11 [online] access June 2021

https://acu-edu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/sb9f4f/TN_cdi_crossref_primary_10_1080_03075079_2018_1462789

Rogerson, A. (2017) Detecting contract cheating in essay and report submissions: process, patterns, clues and conversations in International journal of educational integrity, v. 13, n.1 [online] access June 2021

https://acu-edu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/sb9f4f/TN_cdi_proquest_journals_2419940461

Chugh, R. et al (2021) Back to the classroom: educating sessional teaching staff about academic integrity in Journal of academic ethics, v. 19, no. 1 [online] access June 2021

https://acu-edu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/sb9f4f/TN_cdi_proquest_journals_2507363651

For more information about academic integrity and the procedures and policies, refer to the Academic Integrity and Misconduct - policy and procedures

Page last updated on 09/05/2023

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