Turnitin scans student work, comparing this work to a large database of student work, publications, and materials on the Internet, and generating an "Originality Report" detailing how much of a student's work matches work in the database.
The "Originality Report" alone cannot determine plagiarism. The report flags matched text but it does not tell you whether this matched text has been used and cited correctly. Similarly, the report does not pick up many instances of plagiarized paraphrasing. Thus, while Turnitin can detect plagiarism, it can not by itself teach students how to use sources well or correctly.
Turnitin can serve as an effective deterrent to plagiarism but may be problematic if not incorporated into a larger educational approach of promoting and teaching academic integrity. Students' attitudes towards Turnitin have varied markedly depending upon whether their instructors used Turnitin solely as a detection tool or rather as an educational tool.
Turnitin can be used as a teaching tool, for example, by allowing your students to submit their own work and view their "Originality Reports." You might also allow your students to submit their papers to Turnitin while still in draft stages so that they can check and correct their papers before submitting them to you.
Suggested methods for preventing plagiarism are available at http://theuniversityfaculty.cornell.edu/AcadInteg/suggestedMethods.html.
This memo, courtesy of the Department of English, Cornell University, provides additional methods for preventing plagiarism.
The Essential Guide to Academic Integrity at Cornell was developed to help students learn the requirements and key concepts of academic integrity. The guide includes the Code of Academic Integrity; Acknowledging the Work of Others; Dealing with Online Sources: Sethe's "Rough Choice"; and Working Collaboratively. It also includes a list of online resources.
