If a lecturer has not given the opportunity for a student to see the originality report or submit more than once, a student can use their Turnitin Self-Check Page in Moodle to check their own work. A low percentage in the originality report might indicate that there is not enough reference to the work of others to back up the student’s own work. For example, a high percentage in the originality report might suggest an over-reliance on the words and work of others and a student might decide to paraphrase text in order to rectify this. The student can get an overview of how they are using their own academic voice in their paper and also how they use the voice of experts in their field to back up their own work and revise and improve their work. If a lecturer has set the Turnitin upload activity to allow students to see the originality report, and to submit more than once, students can check that they are correctly referencing cited material that shows up in the matched text. It also gives a breakdown of the percentage found and links to where each piece of matched text was found. This report highlights any matches it finds and gives an overall percentage of matched text found in the submitted paper.

Turnitin matches submitted text against its own database of electronic materials and the internet and produces an Originality Report. At Maynooth University Turnitin is accessed through Moodle, our virtual learning environment (VLE). It allows students and lecturers to check submitted pieces of writing for unclear referencing, citation issues, or potential instances of plagiarism. Turnitin is a system that can help with managing the online submission of assignments and coursework.

Turnitin class login