This article will explain how to interpret Turnitin's similarity scores from the similarity reports. This article has the following structure:
Opening a similarity report
To finf the similarity report:
- Open the Assignments tool via Course Tools. Here you see all assignments (formative and summative), all student submissions, and information about the assassment. Click on the assignment of which you want to see the similarity report of.
- The column Turnitin similarity shows all generates reports
- If you want to open a similarity report, click on the percentage in the Turnitin Similarity column. A new window opens.
The Similarity Report will open in a new window.
How does the similarity report work?
Student's submissions are checked against the Turnitin-database. This database contains internet content, past Turnitin-submissions, scholarly publications, et cetera. If there are passages that match against entries in that database, these will be flagged for review in the similarity reports. Similarity Reports provide a summary of matching or highly similar text found in a submitted paper. See this explanation on the Turnitin website.
A high score does not necessarily mean plagiarism. Similarities may be due to proper citations. As an instructor, always determine whether plagiarism is actually the case.
The colors in the Turnitin Similarity column indicate the level of similarity. This enables you to quickly scan for high similarity scores:
- Blauw: No matching text
- Groen: One word to 24% matching text
- Geel: 25-49% matching tekst
- Oranje: 50-74% matching tekst
- Rood: 75-100% matching tekst
Similarity Report: An overview
After clicking on percentages in the Turnitin Similarity column, you can see details in the similarity report. In the report the text for which matches have been found will be highlighted. The highlighted passages have a number that refers to the source(s) where the similarity has been found. If you click on the number you can see the source publication and assess whether the agreement concerns plagiarism.
Reviewing the detailed report
This article assumes 'New view'. If the formatting does not match, click Switch to the new view.
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Overall similarity: Gives the number of similarities found in percentages.
In this example 87% of the submitted product matches the comparison sources of Turnitin.
It cannot automatically be concluded from the overall similarity that the submitted work contains plagiarism. Bij een hoge similarity index zullen de tekstovereenkomsten beoordeeld moeten worden om te bepalen of deze daadwerkelijk ongewenst zijn. If it concerns a high similarity index, the text similarities will have to be assessed to determine whether they are actually unacceptable.
- This list shows the sources with which the paper has similarities.
- If you want to see all sources in one list, you can enable Show overlapping sources
Click on the individual sources to compare the text in the source with the text in the product with the corresponding number:
- View other sources: It is possible for a text to have similarities with multiple sources. .
The source with the most similarities is always shown first. If multiple sources match the exact same number of words, they will be displayed in the following order:
- Internet resources
- Publications
- Submitted works (student papers)
Set filters and exclude matches
To refine the similarity scores, you can use filters and/or exclude similarities.
More information about this can be found on the Turnitin website.
If you want to exclude an individual source, do as follows:
- Go to the source you want to exclude
- Click on the 'Exclude Source' icon
Integrity flags
In addition to text matching, Turnitin also indicates when text contains suspicious symbols and formatting using Integrity Flags.
There are two types of integrity flags:
Hidden text: This is a way in which similarity matching can be bypassed and plagiarism potentially can not detected
Similar characters: Sometimes characters are so similar that a student can use those characters to bypass the plagiarism check. Turnitin reports these as similar characters.
