About Turnitin.com
Introduction
Plagiarism has been on the rise in recent years because of the emergence and expansion of the Internet, and serves as a strong barrier to UAH’s goal of achieving and maintaining academic integrity. Plagiarism can be defined as using another person’s words or ideas as one’s own, without giving credit to the original source of the information (Guiliano 22). Instructors need resources to assist them in accurately detecting plagiarism and preventing plagiarism before it occurs. Students need resources to assist them in properly citing sources and avoiding plagiarism. Hence, UAH has recently subscribed to Turnitin.com, an online collaborative learning tool for faculty and students, which supports members of the UAH academic community in their quest to uphold academic integrity.
What is Turnitin.com?
Turnitin.com is a collaborative learning tool which was created in 1996 by a group of professors from the University of California Berkeley who were concerned with the rise of Internet plagiarism. Turnitin.com allows the student or educator to upload a paper into the Turnitin.com database, where software will then use algorithms to create “digital fingerprints” that can identify similar patterns in text (“About Turnitin.com”). Then the paper is matched to billions of web pages, paper mill essays, and student papers submitted online. In an hour or less, Turnitin.com creates an “originality report” that highlights any passages from the paper that might not be authentic, and lists web sites and other resources with content that matches that in the paper (“About Turnitin.com”).
Resources for Faculty
• Faculty can use Turnitin.com to:
• Quickly and conveniently identify how much material in a student’s paper is available on the Internet.
• Deter students who may otherwise be tempted to use sources inappropriately.
• Address the issue of proper citation of sources in a paper.
• Pick up tips for writing assignments that discourage plagiarism and encourage independent thought.
• Find handouts for students on plagiarism, proper citation, and writing and research skills.
Resources for Students
• Students can use Turnitin.com to:
• Quickly track down sources used in their essays, minimizing the chance that they will forget to cite sources.
• Learn about the concept of plagiarism and its consequences for the student, course, and the academic community as a whole.
• Acquire tips on how to avoid both Internet and conventional plagiarism.
• Learn guidelines for proper citation.
• Gain strong research and writing skills.
• Clarify misunderstood concepts like fair use, public domain, and copyright laws.
Other Advantages of Turnitin.com
• Turnitin.com helps to advance the academic reputation of UAH courses, programs, and the university as a whole.
• Turnitin.com does not breach students’ copyrights, because instructors cannot submit student papers without permission from the student.
• Turnitin.com does not breach students’ confidentiality because the student’s personal information and papers are not available to anyone without the students and professor’s consent.
Final Thoughts
Turnitin.com provides faculty and students as an online collaborative
learning tool by faculty and students to promote academic integrity
in programs and uphold the reputation of UAH as one of the leading research
universities in the Southeast.
