TurnItIn

TurnItIn is an assignment setting. It automates a “plagiarism” check (more accurately described as similarity reporting and AI detection) which can initiate conversations about whether the originality of student content might be a concern.

How-to

To enable TurnItIn on an assignment in your course:

  1. Create an assignment
  2. Click on the assignment name
  3. Click the Edit button
  4. Scroll until you see the box labeled “Submission Type”
  5. Select “External Tool” from the drop down menu
  6. Click the Find button
  7. Scroll until you see TurnItIn on the list
  8. Select TurnItIn
  9. Click the Select button
  10. Save the changes to your assignment
  11. Adjust the settings of your TurnItIn assignment using the instructions here.

Best Practices

“Plagiarism” is just shorthand for what TurnItIn actually does. TurnItIn has historically functioned mostly by detecting how much of an assignment matches what has already been run through TurnItIn by other assignment submitters, so it’s not precisely a plagiarism detector so much as a “similarity to other things in our database” tool. In 2023, they added functionality that compares student submissions against AI models including GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and other variants. It does not determine whether there’s been a violation of academic integrity; that is for you, your department or Adler to determine. It is merely an indication that there may be an issue that needs to be explored.

  1. What does the percentage in the AI writing detection indicator mean?
    • The percentage indicates the amount of qualifying text within the submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI (with 98% confidence based on data that was carefully collected and verified in a controlled lab environment). This qualifying text includes only prose sentences, meaning that we only analyze blocks of text that are written in standard grammatical sentences and do not include other types of writing such as lists, bullet points, or other non-sentence structures.

      This percentage is not necessarily the percentage of the entire submission. If text within the submission is not considered long-form prose text, it will not be included.
  2. What is the difference between the Similarity score and the AI writing detection percentage? Are the two completely separate or do they influence each other?
    • The Similarity score and the AI writing detection percentage are completely independent and do not influence each other. The Similarity score indicates the percentage of matching-text found in the submitted document when compared to Turnitin’s comprehensive collection of content for similarity checking.

      The AI writing detection percentage, on the other hand, shows the overall percentage of text in a submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model predicts was generated by AI writing tools.