Similarity check (Turnitin)
Turnitin is used to perform similarity checks through Brightspace or the Copyright Information Point.
How to request or perform a similarity check?
Students
Students are requested to contact their teacher or supervisor if they would like to have their work checked. The CIP does not provide a similarity check for students.
Teachers with access to Brightspace
Teachers are requested to use Turnitin in Brightspace to check students' work, for example, by creating a Brightspace Course for MSc-thesis students where students can submit their thesis. The outcome of the check is available as soon as the student has uploaded the assignment. If you have issues with Turnitin in Brightspace, you can refer to the user manual or contact the helpdesk.
WUR staff members without access to Brightspace
WUR staff members or PhD candidates without access to Brightspace can send us the document by e-mail and we will use Turnitin to perform the check. The outcome of the check, the similarity report, will be sent to you as soon as possible and if necessary, an information specialist from the Copyright Information Point will explain how to interpret it.
Check for similarity - how does it work?
Turnitin compares the text of the submitted document with the text of all documents saved in the Turnitin repository. A similarity report is then generated.
In the Turnitin similarity report, you will have access to the similarity score. The similarity score is the percentage of the document’s content that matches the content of the Turnitin repository. The report also indicates which parts of the text match the repositories content.
Be careful when you interpret the Similarity Report and always check the similarity score in relation to the sources of the match. There is no “magic score” that indicates plagiarism. Turnitin provides information on how to interpret the Similarity Report on their website.
Last updated on 04/01/2022.