What is TurnItIn?
Turnitin is the originality checking and plagiarism prevention service licensed for use by SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Instructors get an Similarity Report with a percentage score and links highlighting text matched in the submitted paper.
How does Turnitin work?
An instructor turns on TurnItIn checking for an assignment dropbox inside their course site in D2L Brightspace. Student submissions are checked by Turnitin against a vast database of 12+ billion pages of digital content (including archived internet content that is no longer available on the live web) as well as over 110 million papers in the student paper archive and against professional, academic and commercial journals and publications. Instructors can review the paper and the Similarity Report, then enter a grade as well as comments.
What if Turnitin finds text matches in my paper?
Each match is highlighted and included in a list on the Originality Report. A, Originality Score reflecting the percentage of paper text matched to prior source materials is also generated.
Keep in mind that, depending upon the settings, legitimate materials can show up as a match - quoted text and reference lists. The Originality Score alone is not sufficient for making a determination. You must review the full report if you wish to interpret any significant Match Score.
For more information, see Turnitin FAQs and tutorials, especially on Similarity Report at:
D2L Integration - Instructor Guidance
To get help on using Turnitin at Downstate, book a live session with an ACT staff member:
ACT Office: Schedule a Session
JMN - rev 12/14/2022