Home For Faculty For Students FAQ Known Issues

Using Turnitin to Prevent Plagiarism

Instructors at the University of North Texas have access to Turnitin’s plagiarism prevention system to deter plagiarism and promote academic integrity. Please click a link below to learn more about this tool:

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin helps prevent plagiarism by comparing student papers and assignments against the following sources and indicating matches with existing content:

Instructors may use Turnitin through Vista or through the Turnitin website. Though an instructor can use either method to access Turnitin, it is strongly recommended that an instructor make the decision on which method to use before a semester begins because these two options do not work in conjunction with each other. In other words, student submissions submitted through Vista cannot be seen by the instructor who may also have a Turnitin account directly through the Turnitin website and vice versa. Please review the "For Faculty" link to learn more about these two options.

How does it work?

Here are the basics of how Turnitin works:

  1. An instructor makes the decision to use Turnitin through Vista or the Turnitin website.
  2. The instructor creates an assignment through the Turnitin website or through the Turnitin tool in Vista..
  3. Students submit papers to the Turnitin assignment you created.
  4. Turnitin compares the text in the paper against text on the Internet, other student submissions, and commercial databases (as listed above).
  5. Turnitin generates an Originality Report for each student submission and highlights any text that duplicates text found in other sources.
  6. The instructor uses this information to decide if the duplicated text is plagiarized. In many cases, students will have properly cited the duplicated text, and this duplicated text may not indicate plagiarism at all. The instructor remains the arbiter of what constitutes plagiarism

Getting Help with Turnitin

A wealth of support materials (user guides, training videos, FAQ) are available from Turnitin’s Help Center. Instructors and students using Turnitin through their website can get assistance through the Turnitin Help Desk. Faculty and students using Turnitin through Vista can get additional assistance from the Vista support desks at UNT:

Faculty Students
Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment, and Redesign (CLEAR)
940-369-7394
vistafac@unt.edu

CITC Helpdesk
940-565-2324
helpdesk@unt.edu