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Turnitin Frequently Asked Questions

Overview

This page contains answers to commonly asked questions about Turnitin.

Faculty

  1. Do Pepperdine instructors have to use Turnitin? Is there a University requirement for faculty to use this tool?

  2. If I forget to enable student access to Originality Reports, can I do so afterward?

  3. How do I create a multi-draft assignment?

  4. I would like to completely remove a student's paper from the Turnitin repository (database) to prevent a violation of FERPA. Is there a way for faculty to do this themselves?

  5. How do I exclude quoted and bibliography material from an originality report?

  6. How do I exclude any of the sources that show in the originality report?

  7. How do I locate the time stamp for an assignment?

  8. Is there a time limit on assignments using Turnitin?

  9. What should I consider before submitting student papers to the Turnitin repository?

  10. What languages does Turnitin support?
  11. Where can I learn more about Turnitin's AI Detection feature?

Students

  1. Why can't my instructor download my file properly?

 

 

Faculty

1. Do Pepperdine instructors have to use Turnitin? Is there a University requirement for faculty to use this tool?

There is no requirement that all faculty must use the Turnitin service. This is an optional tool, licensed for the benefit of the faculty and students of Pepperdine University. Pepperdine does have a policy for Turnitin usage: Pepperdine Turnitin Policy.

2. If I forget to enable student access to Originality Reports, can I do so afterward?

Yes, with the expectation that it may take 10 – 15 minutes for the change to propagate to the students' view. To accomplish this:

  1. Navigate to the Assignments tool, find the assignment in the list, choose the more options button (3 dots icon), and select "Edit."
  2. Scroll down to the Plagiarism Review section, and choose a desired option in the "Show reports to students" menu.
  3. Scroll down and select "Save."

3. How do I create a multi-draft assignment?

In order to get students to submit a Rough Draft, Second Draft, and Final Draft of the same paper, you would need to create three (3) assignments with Turnitin enabled. It is critical that you do not select the option to index all submissions (i.e., save papers to the Turnitin repository) in the Rough Draft and Second Draft (etc.) versions. For the Final Draft assignment, the professor may choose to index (save) or not index paper assignments to the repository, depending on the instructor's goals. Remember to always inform students if you plan to index their assignments permanently in the Turnitin repository. You must add a statement in the syllabus and follow the guidelines in the Pepperdine Turnitin Policy.

See Creating a Turnitin Assignment.

4. I would like to completely remove an indexed student's paper from the Turnitin repository (database) to prevent a violation of FERPA. Is there a way for faculty to do this themselves?

No. Once a paper has been indexed and submitted to the Turnitin repository, there is no way for a faculty member to remove it themselves. Pepperdine University faculty will need to contact the Technology & Learning team for a consultation. Please provide the name of the course (e.g., ENG 101.01 Sp28), the name of the assignment to which it had been submitted, the name of the student who submitted it, and if possible the Turnitin paper ID.

Since we have received several inquiries from non-Pepperdine institutions, we want to clarify that we cannot help anyone from other academic institutions, schools, colleges, or universities with Turnitin requests. Be sure to contact the local technical support of your own institution for assistance or contact Turnitin support directly.

5. How do I exclude quoted and bibliography material from an originality report?

When configuring the Turnitin option in a Pepperdine Canvas assignment, you can select the checkboxes to exclude Bibliography and/or Quotes from the similarity report by default.

Within the report, you may also filter the view to include or exclude quotes or bibliography information:

When you exclude material, the Overall Similarity score on the report is updated to reflect the exclusion of matching text.

6. How do I exclude any of the sources that show in the originality report?

If you would like to exclude a source from the report, click the Overall Similarity tab on the right side of the report, and then select the gear icon (Classic view) or Filter funnel icon(Enhanced view) located near the top of the interface. From there, toggle whether you would like to exclude the "Internet" or "Submitted Works" repositories, etc.

7. How do I locate the time stamp for an assignment?

Select the Document Details tab, located to the right of the report, immediately beneath the Overall Similarity score tab. Once there, you will be able to view the Submission Timestamp.

8. Is there a time limit on assignments using Turnitin?

Yes. While Canvas (powered by Instructure) can be configured to extend the deadline on an assignment for a long time, Turnitin has a limit on the length of assignments. In general, a Turnitin assignment will have a lifespan of 6 months. Beyond this time, you must create a new assignment.

9. What should I consider before indexing (i.e., submitting) student papers to the Turnitin repository?

The purpose of the Turnitin repository is to prevent plagiarism on future submitted works. Prior to indexing and submitting to the repository, professors should consider the following:

  • Length of the Paper: If the paper is very short, then it may not make a meaningful contribution to the repository.
  • Academic Nature of the Content: If the content of the paper is academic in nature (and is a frequently discussed topic in academic discourse), then submitting to the repository should be considered. On the contrary, assignments like personal reflections should not be submitted to the Turnitin repository.
  • Final Papers: Only final papers should be submitted to the repository. If drafts are submitted to the repository, then the final paper will be later flagged for self-plagiarism.
  • FERPA: Additional steps are required if a faculty member wants to mandate the use of Turnitin for one or more assignments. For more details on what constitutes a "mandated" Turnitin submission, please see the University Turnitin Policy. In order to comply with FERPA, faculty members must always include the statement of intended use of Turnitin within the class syllabus and ensure that no personally identifiable information is included within the submitted assignment by informing students to remove such content. Prior to submission, this requires the student (or instructor if submitted on behalf of the student) to remove any instances of the following:
    • Student's Name
    • Campus-Wide ID (CWID)
    • Network Username (e.g., "jdoe2")
    • Email Address
    • Mailing Address
    • Phone Number
    • Or similar personally identifiable data

10. What languages does Turnitin support?

According to Turnitin, their plagiarism platform supports 176 languages. Some fo the languages include; English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese, Thai, Korean, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmal, Nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Farsi, Russian, and Turkish. Learn more from Turnitin's blog titled "How Turnitin supports languages to ensure integrity in a global marketplace of ideas."

IMPORTANT: AI Writing Detection only supports English at this time.

11. How can I learn more about Turnitin AI Detection?

Please visit:

 

 

Students

1. Why can't my instructor download my file properly?

If you copied and pasted your paper into the Canvas text editor, then your instructor will not be able to download it in the format you wrote it in. You should always upload your file. If your instructor allows resubmission, then you can remove an earlier version and resubmit a revised version of your paper as a file attachment. Be sure to meet the file requirements of your professor as well as the requirements of Turnitin. For example, if your professor requires you to submit a Microsoft Word document, then be sure you submit a .doc or .docx file. Many word processor applications allow you to save or export a document in other formats, such as Microsoft Word or PDF. Consult the documentation for your word processor software or service.

 

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