Plagiarism Checking

• U of A
• Graduate School and International Education
• Graduate School
• Faculty and Staff
• Plagiarism Checking

The University of Arkansas has purchased a license for faculty to use turnitin.com for plagiarism checking for graduate student papers. (Please note that our license does not allow us to check papers for undergraduate students.)

Tips for Using Turnitin.com for Plagiarism Checking

First Time Faculty

1. Contact Chris Bray (cbray@uark.edu) the Blackboard Administrator, to have an account set up in Turnitin.

Setting Up an Instructor for Departmental Monitoring of Student Academic Documents

1. Log in to Turnitin.com at the top of page with your email and password.
2. Click on the “+ Add Class” button at upper right.
3. Generally you will use the Standard Class designation for departmental monitoring of theses, dissertations, etc.
4. Enter an informative class name. It is probably easiest to use a common format for class naming that starts with the departmental four letter designator (MEPH, ELEG, PHYS, etc.)
5. Create a password for that class.
6. Select a class end date (e.g. 5/31/2013).
7. It will show you your class ID.
8. Click on that class name in your list of classes.
9. Click on the “+ Add Assignment” button at the upper right.
10. For departmental monitoring of academic documents such as theses/dissertations, it might be useful to create four assignments: Draft 1, Draft 2, Draft 3, and Final Submission, or some version of this that works for you. Each “student” enrolled in a class can submit one document per day to each of the draft assignments, and you can create more draft assignments in a class if more than three submissions are needed each day.
11. To create the “Draft 1” assignment, fill in the name and set the due date and post date (e.g. use the end date of the semester for the post date and the day before that for the due date).
12. Click on the optional settings button.
    1. For draft documents in the special instructions block, put something like “This is a draft document assignment that is used for educational purposes during document creation to assure that no plagiarized material exists in the document. You may submit one document to this draft assignment every 24 hours, with the prior originality report being overwritten with each new submission.”
    2. Keep everything the same except as noted:
       1. Change the “Generate Originality Reports for student submissions” drop down menu from the “first report is final” default to the “can overwrite reports until due date” selection.
       2. Make sure yes is checked to allow students to see Originality Reports.
       3. Check the Student paper repository box under search options.
    3. Press “Submit”
13. Add the other two drafts using the same instructions.
14. Add the “Final Submission” class, but change the optional settings as follows:
    1. Special instructions should read something like “This assignment may only be used for one submission, and it must be the final document submitted to meet the academic requirements for your degree completion. This submission will be used to judge whether or not your document contains plagiarism, and cannot be overwritten by a second submission. If you have any questions about any potential plagiarism shown in a draft submission then consult with your departmental reviewer prior to submitting a document to this assignment.”
    2. Change the dropdown menu selection to “immediately first report is final,” then submit.
15. Click on the All Classes tab to see your class list.
16. To create a second similar class for the same semester, click on the copy icon for the class you wish to duplicate.
17. Enter the new class name and new password. All assignments from the original class will be duplicated, and you can then add other assignments or delete unwanted assignments.

Setting Up a Personal Account as a Graduate Student

A TurnItIn course is available for graduate students who wish to self-enroll and check their work in TurnItIn before submitting it to their instructor. Turnitin is a leading plagiarism detection software, and this service comes at no additional cost to University of Arkansas graduate students. This is a great way to check and submit written work stress-free. Directions on how to enroll in the Turnitin course are below: