What is Turnitin
Turnitin is a web-based text-matching software system which can be used to teach students how to properly acknowledge quotations.
Turnitin have compiled a massive database of digital material by continually cataloguing and indexing the entire Internet using automated web robots. The robots retrieve millions of documents from the internet every day. When a paper is submitted to Turnitin, it uses advanced pattern-matching technology to identify suspect passages of eight words or more in submitted documents. The system returns customised Originality reports that provide links to all instances of matching sources which are highlighted and coded.
Turnitin provides a report on any text matches. Turnitin makes no attempt to interpret the report nor to dictate action in response to the report, nor does access to the software, in itself, imply any requirement to act on the report. Those questions remain properly the responsibility of the University's academic processes.
Using Turnitin is part of La Trobe University's educational approach to minimise plagiarism and ensure the highest standards of academic honesty in assessable work. Students and lecturers can use Turnitin to check that quotations in student writing have been properly acknowledged.
Turnitin has a massive database of digital material compiled by continually cataloguing and indexing the Internet using automated web robots which retrieve millions of documents every day. When a paper is submitted, Turnitin uses advanced pattern-matching technology to identify passages of eight words or more in submitted documents. The system returns customised Originality reports providing links to all instances of matching sources which are highlighted and coded.
All work submitted to Turnitin is checked against three databases of content:
- a copy of the publicly accessible Internet (more than 2 billion pages updated at a rate of 40 million pages per day) as well as archived copies of the Internet
- millions of published works (including ABI/Inform, Periodical Abstracts, Business Dateline, and tens of thousands of electronic books)
- every student paper ever submitted to Turnitin