Welcome to the
Turnitin.com Instructor
Quickstart Tutorial!
This brief tour will take you
through the basic steps teachers
and students new to
Turnitin.com will need to get set
up and submitting papers. More
detailed instructions are
available by downloading the
Turnitin.com user manuals from
our website.
This is the Turnitin.com home
page. From here, potential users
can navigate through a variety
of screens to learn more about
our service. It is also the point
of entry for all registered users
of Turnitin.com, who enter our
system using the "login" button.
Logging In
This is the Turnitin.com login
page. You will need to access
this page every time you begin a
new session with Turnitin.com.
New users must first create a
user profile by clicking on "New
user? Click here to get started"
and following the step-by-step
instructions. During this
process, you will enter your
email address and create a
password, which will constitute
your user profile. When you are
finished, return to the login
page.
Every Turnitin.com user is one
of four user types: Student,
Instructor, Administrator, or
Free Trial. Before logging in,
you must select the appropriate
user type. As a teacher, select
“instructor” as your user type.
Next, enter your email address
and password, and then click
"submit" to access your
homepage.
Instructor Homepage
The first time you login as an
instructor, your homepage will
not contain any active classes.
Before you can create classes
and submit papers to
Turnitin.com, you will need to
join an active account.
If you have an individual
account with Turnitin.com, you
are the account administrator
and will already have the
information necessary to join. If,
however, you are part of an
institutional account, you will
need to contact your account
administrator and secure the
account ID and account join
password for your institution's
account.
Once you have this information,
click on "join new account" to
join a Turnitin.com account.
Joining a Turnitin.com
Account
This is the "join new account"
page. You will use this page to
enter your account ID and
account join password.
After you enter this information,
click on "submit" to take you to
your revised homepage, which
will now show that you have
joined an active Turnitin.com
account.
Revised Homepage
Your revised homepage now
shows your new account. In this
example, it is an account at The
New Art College. The account
in which you actually enroll will
reflect the name of your
institution's account.
The next step is to create a
class. The classes you create at
Turnitin.com can correspond
with the classes you teach or
can be created simply to
organize your submissions to
Turnitin.com. To create a new
class, click on "add class."
Class Add/Update Page
The class add/update page,
allows you to add or update a
class. You will be asked to enter
the class name as it will appear
on your class list.
You will also need to select a
class enrollment password,
which students will use when
enrolling in this class. Next,
select the level of the class you
are creating from the class level
menu. Finally, you may enter an
optional class number and class
description for your class.
Note: It is important to
remember that the class number
is not the class ID number that
students will use to enroll in this
class; that number is generated
by Turnitin.com and appears
next to the name of each class
on your homepage.
This is your new homepage,
which now reflects your active
account and the class you just
created.
To enter the class and access
your class inbox, click on the
class name. You can also click
on the "U" icon if you want to
update the information for this
particular class. Clicking on the
"A" icon will archive this class
and remove it from your list of
active classes.
Important: the five-digit
number in red is the class ID for
this class. When students enroll
in this class, they will need this
number in addition to the class
enrollment password you
created. You may access this
password at any time by
clicking on the "U" icon next to
your class or by clicking on the
"stats" link from your class
preferences.
This is your class inbox. Every
class has its own class inbox,
which is accessible by clicking
on the name of a class on your
homepage. Because no papers
have been submitted to this
class, the inbox is currently
empty.
The next step before you can
submit a paper is to create an
assignment. To create an
assignment, click on the
"assignments" button on the
account navigation bar.
Remember: All papers
submitted to Turnitin.com,,
must be submitted to a given
assignment within a given class.
This is the "assignments" page,
which displays all the
assignments you have created
for this class. Currently, this
class has no assignments. To
create a new assignment, click
on the appropriate link.
This is the assignment creation
page, which allows you to create
new assignments or modify old
ones.
Each assignment must have a
start and due date. The start date
specifies when the assignment
will become available to
students, while the due date
indicates when the assignment is
due.
Next, you can choose the targets
that the papers will be searched
against. The default is “internet
+ database” and will provide the
most comprehensive search for
potential plagiarism.
You can also enter a specific
assignment description and
additional assignment
instructions, which students will
be able to view from their own
Turnitin.com assignments page.
Please note that this information
is optional. When you are done,
click on the "submit" button.
This is your revised assignments
page, which now shows your
recently created assignment. If
you ever need to revise the
assignment information, click
on the "U" button next to the
assignment you wish to update.
Once an assignment has been
created, you may submit papers
to Turnitin.com. If you choose
to submit an assignment, click
on the "turn it in!" button on the
account navigation bar.
Note: You will be able to delete
an assignment using the "trash"
icon as long as no papers have
been submitted to that
assignment. Once a paper has
been submitted to a given
assignment, it can no longer be
removed.
Submitting papers
In this case, you are submitting
the paper for a student, Bobby
Thornton. As you can see, the
student's name and ID number
have been added, the paper has
been given a title, and
"assignment 1" has been
selected.
Next, you must choose how you
would like to submit the paper –
as a file or by copying and
pasting the text into your
browser. The easiest method
way to submit a paper is by file
upload. To select a file, click on
the “browse” button. Papers
can be submitted in MS Word,
WordPerfect, RTF, PDF,
PostScript, and plain text.
Clicking on "submit" uploads
the paper to Turnitin.com. We
then send off a digital receipt
confirming the submission and
begin processing an Originality
Report. Originality Reports
become accessible from your
inbox within 24 hours.
This is your revised class inbox,
which now shows the paper you
just submitted.
As of yet the report is not ready.
When the report is finished, the
black "overall similarity index"
box on the far left will change
color to reflect this paper's
score, and an "Originality
Report" icon will appear in the
"R" column next to the paper's
date of submission. The
following page shows the same
paper after the report has been
processed.
Note: Here, the student's name
appears in red, and is not
linkable. This indicates that this
paper was submitted by an
instructor. If the student had
submitted this paper, the name
would appear in blue, and
would link to a page containing
a list of all the student's
submissions to date.
The class inbox now shows the
paper's similarity score (the red
box to the left) and the
"Originality Report" icon (just
right of the date the paper was
submitted).
You can view the Originality
Report for any paper by clicking
on the "report" icon. Clicking on
the "paper" icon to the left
shows the paper in text form
before it was analyzed by our
system. Clicking on the icon in
the “file” column displays the
paper in its originally submitted
file format.
Typically, your inbox for any
given class will display all the
papers and results your students
have submitted in a given
semester or year. Your inbox
functions much like the inboxes
in many popular email
programs, and allows you to
sort results by a variety of
criteria. Details on the advanced
functions of the report inbox can
be found in our user manuals, or
on our online help pages.
This is the detailed Originality
Report for the submitted paper.
As you can see, this paper
received a high "overall
similarity index," which means
we found matching online
sources for over 80% of the
paper. The red text corresponds
with material that can be found
by clicking on the displayed
link.
Often, a paper has matches to
more than one online source; in
such cases all relevant addresses
are displayed and linked to their
online location.
Users also have the option of
clicking on "dsc", or "direct
source comparison." This
function not only opens up a
new window to the suspect
source, but also underlines
specific matching passages,
making comparison easy. For
detailed explanations of other
Originality Report functions,
please consult our user manuals.
This page shows two
overlapping browser windows.
The top window is opened to
the Originality Report from the
preceding page. The bottom
window shows the results after
clicking on "direct source
comparison." The website that it
links to happens to be from a
university site in Germany.
Note how the text is identical;
the matching passages have all
been underlined. Every source
uncovered by our search is
linked and can be easily viewed
in this manner with the direct
source comparison function.
Thanks for taking the time to
learn the basics of
Turnitin.com. The goal of this
presentation was to help you
get up and running quickly;
there are many advanced
functions not touched upon
here that are explained in
greater depth online and in our
user manuals.
If you experience any
difficulties getting started and
can’t find the answers here or
at our website, our helpdesk
(helpdesk@turnitin.com) is
available 24 hours to help you
with any problems.
Again, thanks for supporting us
in the ongoing fight against
digital plagiarism. Good luck!