Getting Started with Turnitin
Turnitin is a phrase matching service that Brock University uses for students and instructors to promote integrity and work collaboratively on written assignments.
Turnitin is integrated into the Assignments tool in Brightspace. When enabled, instructors will receive a similarity report shortly after a file is submitted to Brightspace’s Assignments tool. The Centre for Pedagogical Innovation strongly encourages instructors to choose to release similarity reports to students and continues to investigate making this the default option with Turnitin’s integration into Brightspace.
Turnitin similarity reports can be generated for assignment submissions in timetabled Brightspace courses as well as Project courses that can be created by any Brock University staff member.
Instructors should make it clear that they intend to use Turnitin, for example in the course outline and in the description of assignments. Students should be given the option of not submitting to Turnitin. Brock University requires that students be given the option to declare that they do not want to use Turnitin in advance and submit revisions or drafts of their work in advance of the due date (or other similar accommodation). As per the faculty handbook, students with a principled objection must be offered an alternative: https://brocku.ca/university-secretariat/facultyhandbook/section3#_genIndex63
Instructors are welcome to contact the CPI with any questions they have about using Turnitin or interpreting results.
Getting Started with iThenticate
iThenticate is owned by Turnitin and designed to meet the needs of individual researchers by checking submitted papers against a range of scholarly journals without uploading the submitted manuscript to any database. Researchers, authors, undergraduate and graduate students preparing to submit a thesis or dissertation at Brock, might find this tool helpful.
We are limited in the number of iThenticate licenses we can provision, please reach out to cpi@brocku.ca to indicate your interest and to receive next steps.
More about Academic Integrity
Individuals interested in similarity checkers may also be interested in Brock University’s Academic Integrity website.