Answered By: Signe Boudreau
Last Updated: Sep 02, 2020     Views: 294

Turnitin is a feature in Canvas for checking the originality of student work. The software uses text-matching to identify content that appears to be copied from other sources. When a draft is submitted, the software generates a report where instances of text that the computer feels are not the student's original work are highlighted with a link to the original source for comparison.

Some UNL instructors use Turnitin as part of class assignments, but the UNL Libraries also have a confidential Turnitin Service where students can submit drafts as a tool for learning about plagiarism and to ensure they have given proper credit for the work of others before submitting a paper to their class instructor.

To use the service, fill out this form to request a Turnitin account. A librarian will create an account for you and tell you how to submit a draft, how to interpret the results, and what type of files are accepted by the software.

Originality reports can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours to process, so please plan ahead!

SafeAssign, a similar feature in Blackboard, will no longer be available after the Spring 2018 semester.