Dear Helen,

Thank you for asking these questions, and thank you to everyone who has responded.

I have recently fought for the opportunity for students to submit drafts to TURNITIN for self-checking – and lost. Central admin and some academics are unable to validate it as a teaching tool. I am, therefore, collecting your insights for future battles. At the same time, I am resisting the push to standardise acceptable levels of ‘similarity’ across the university. Each discipline has research methods and information values that affect what is acceptable. I see standardisation as a move that potentially undermines disciplinary authority.  

On a related note, I believe it is possible to limit the number of draft submissions students can make to TURNITIN within a module, which significantly reduces opportunities for ‘gaming’ the system. Is that correct?

Best wishes,

Juliette Smeed     

Good afternoon,

We have been using Turnitin for the past 3 years and during that time I have been pushing for the following:-

1.       Students to be allowed to submit work to Turnitin prior to the actual submission date so that they can receive an originality report, to check their level of plagiarism. They could then seek guidance on how to address this, thus increasing their understanding of plagiarism.

2.      For the University to have a clear policy of what constitutes an ‘acceptable level’ of originality? Some lecturers are failing students for having a 30% originality score, others a 50%.

Lecturers have been told to use their own academic  judgement, but this has left the students somewhat confused by the marking associated with the varying levels.

I was wondering if any of you would be willing to share what happens in your Universities if you are using electronic submission, with regard to student submission, and if you have any policy documentation regarding originality reports.

Kind regards,

Helen Heywood