Staff should in the first instance refer to the University's Policy on the Use of Turnitin. This page provides a summary of the main points in the policy and information on accessing Turnitin.
Who can use Turnitin?
The licence is made available to any member of academic staff across the collegiate institution. This extends to College staff where they are supervising or teaching for a University degree or award, but not for College use for non-registered students (for example, in admissions or commercial activity). Students are not provided with access to the licence, except where this is provided by the course or College as part of a formative exercise on their course of study.
It is only permissible to use Turnitin as part of the University's licence where the check is in relation to one of the University's courses of study; it may not be used for checking research or commercial work.
How is Turnitin used?
You are not required to use Turnitin on your course, or to check all work. However, Turnitin can be a powerful tool and we encourage its appropriate use.
As detailed in the Policy, we have identified three models of use:
- Selectively, screening individual pieces of work only when concerns about academic misconduct have been raised.
- Blanket screening, either to provide formative support for students prior to submission, or to check all pieces of work post-submission.
- To carry out screening on a random sample of submitted work.
Which you choose will depend on your individual course of study, discipline, and other factors.
How can I access Turnitin?
Turnitin may be accessed in one of two ways:
Via Moodle
Using the Turnitin Assignment Tool, Moodle can provide a Turnitin originality report for each piece of work submitted. Students submit the work to Moodle, and all access with the Turnitin report is managed via Moodle. This method is most appropriate for those choosing blanket screening.
The tool is available to use for anyone with a 'teacher' role on that course; however, note that anyone with a 'teacher' role will also be able to view the resulting reports. It is therefore important to ensure that when you use this tool, robust mechanisms are in place to ensure appropriate interpretation and understanding of the reports, and that action is taken in line with University Policy.
Guidance on the Turnitin Assignment Tool is available from the Moodle help pages, or from the Moodle team (moodlehelp@uis.cam.ac.uk). You will be required to agree to the Terms and Conditions for use of the University's licence each time you set up a Turnitin Assignment, detailed on our Turnitin Policy page.
Turnitin account
Before requesting a Turnitin account, please see below regarding an upcoming change in functionality
You may request a user account for Turnitin to submit work directly for checking. This is a manual process, though you are able to upload files in bulk; note that while it is possible to for students to submit via Turnitin, at this time we do not provide support for that method.
Your account will be linked to your CRSid. We cannot provide access to generic inboxes, for example teaching@cam. The account holder will be responsible for accessing appropriate training and guidance on interpretation of reports, and ensuring that actions taken in response are in line with University policy. It is possible to share reports with others, for example Chairs of Examiners, but the account holder remains responsible for actions taken.
If you wish to request a direct access account, please complete our Request Form. You will be required to agree to the Terms and Conditions for use of the University's licence before access is granted, detailed on our Turnitin Policy page.
Upcoming Turnitin change - Sept 2023
In September 2023, the University was notified that Turnitin will discontinue support for assignment submissions on behalf of non-enrolled students on 19 September 2023. This workflow is only available to users with a direct access account to Turnitinuk.com. It does not affect users accessing Turnitin via Moodle. From this date, the option to submit an assignment on behalf of a student will be removed.
Future submissions will require an association with an enrolled student, which will send a submission receipt to the student (the receipt does not include the originality report). You can use Turnitin via Moodle, which will make the association automatically, or enrol students on Turnitin for them to submit their work.
There is a Quick Submit option on the Instructor homepage where you can still spot check a paper without the need for a student to be enrolled. You can upload a single file, a zip file containing multiple papers or cut and paste text. All reports will appear in the quick submit inbox; they will not be separated by assignment. View the Turnitin guides below to learn how:
We will continue to review functionality with Turnitin directly and via Moodle, and update users as this progresses.