Turnitin Similarity

Using Turnitin Similarity is an opportunity to have a frank discussion about academic integrity with your students. The notion of intellectual property is a key pillar of the university, and academic integrity should be an explicit teaching point in your course. There are many reasons why we should not assume that all students in our classrooms already know about the academic code of conduct:

• Some students may not yet fully understand what constitutes academic integrity,
• Some students may lack skills in citing sources and paraphrasing
• Some students may not be aware of the emphasis on academic integrity in North American universities
• Some students may have been taught to value directly quoting from a source and discouraged from paraphrasing. 

Therefore, be sure to set aside some class time to emphasize the importance of academic integrity rather than assuming your students are already versed in Concordia’s standards (see section on Leverage the resources available to you at Concordia below).

• Your Moodle course page includes a short Academic Integrity Module (in the Administration Block) with a short video that defines academic integrity, examples, and a brief quiz to check student comprehension.
• The Library has resources on citation for you and your students:
  • A resource on how to cite and provides access to specific styles in different disciplines.
  • A learning module on citing from the library’s research skills tutorials. It includes resources, interactive activities and videos to help students learn why they should cite and practice citations.
  • A resource to help students manage and organize their bibliographic references and prepare a bibliography with Zotero.
• Information about Academic Conduct that students need to know while studying at Concordia.
• Student Success Centre (SSC) resources include writing assistance appointments, and tips on avoiding plagiarism and how to paraphrase.

It is advisable to first use Turnitin Similarity with a low-stakes assessment. A short assignment that emphasizes citation and paraphrasing in an authentic context (e.g., two to three paragraphs that compare and contrast two authors’ views on a topic) is a good introduction to the importance of honing citation and paraphrasing skills. Consider pulling anonymous extracts of student work to model accurate citations and good examples of paraphrasing, and using a ‘think-aloud’ protocol to talk explicitly to students about what makes them good examples. You can create a few poor examples as well and have students work in pairs or groups to revise them. This type of activity will give them active and focused practice with citing and paraphrasing skills. You could also consider offering students who had difficulties with citing or paraphrasing the option to revise their own work to help them further improve.

By default, Turnitin Similarity is configured so that students do not see their Similarity Report when they submit their work; however, it is possible to allow students to access the report after they submit their work, and to adapt their work accordingly. Enabling this feature and allowing multiple submissions supports students by providing feedback and practice to improve their writing skills. Additionally, enabling this feature for a low-stakes assignment may give students the opportunity to see what skills they need to improve. You can also facilitate a focussed class discussion (or one-on-one conversations) that could be augmented with sharing academic writing resources (see above).

No matter your approach, taking time to explicitly teach these skills and allowing for students to have low-stakes practice with them is a good way to promote success for students.

Reviewing a Similarity Report will require educators to make many nuanced decisions to determine if the matches represent plagiarism or a false-positive score. A high score may not actually identify an instance of plagiarism, just as a low score may not actually signal complete authenticity.

For example, a high score may be caused by too many direct quotes that are accurately cited if the “exclude quoted text” option is unselected. Additionally, the student may benefit from guidance on how to select and use quotes appropriately to support their ideas or helping them develop their paraphrasing and summarizing skills. On the other hand, a low score may be attributed to a small section that is copied and pasted directly from a source that is not cited. Would this merit a code report, or would the student be better served by losing a few marks and receiving a warning?

While the Similarity software will provide you with a report that identifies where there are text matches, it will not indicate if those matches accurately represent examples of plagiarism. As an educator, the interpretation of the data and resulting decisions will be yours to make. Review the Enhanced Similarity Report guides to learn more about using these reports.

Consult the Academic Code of Conduct webpage for detailed information of Concordia’s policy.

When you enable Similarity for your assignment, take time with your students to explain how it works, what the report will indicate, and how you intend to interpret the report score. Some educators create a (reusable) short video tour for students or walk students through Turnitin’s explainer demo, report guide for educators, or explanation of the Similarity Score for students.

If you intend to make the Similarity Report available to students when they submit their work, it is important to clarify that a high overall similarity score does necessarily not indicate plagiarism. For example, a high score might result from students using a template provided by the educator, accurately cited quotes, or discipline-specific language and terms that are required by virtue of the assignment. In these circumstances, students might see a high similarity score and be concerned.

Alternately, it is possible to plagiarize a small segment of an assignment and receive a low similarity score. In this circumstance, considering only the overall similarity score might give a false sense of assurance that the work did not breach the academic code of conduct.