Turnitin is Penn State’s web-based writing assessment toolkit. It allows instructors to provide feedback to students, and to detect plagiarism. As a reminder to instructors, we take academic integrity very seriously. If you have any questions or concerns on this topic, please contact Amy Stever at astever@ist.psu.edu or by phone, (814) 863-3575.
Getting Started
Instructors interested in using Turnitin for their course should activate their faculty account. Step-by-step instructions on how to do so are found online.
After activating your faculty account, instructors should visit the “Get Started” area of the PSU Turnitin site for more information and documentation online.
Turnitin Overview Video
The following video will provide additional information about Penn State’s use of Turnitin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKEiDta33Co
Best Practices
The following is from Penn State’s Teaching & Learning with Technology department regarding general recommendations of best practices for Turnitin:
If you plan to use Turnitin for a course, we recommend taking the following steps:
- Announce that Turnitin will be used in your course for all students as well as what tools will be used within the program. Note that many students may associate Turnitin with just the “Originality Report,” so be clear about your intentions to use that tool or not.
- Provide instructions to students for logging in to your Turnitin course and uploading papers as needed.
- Follow best practices for each tool. See links to details in the following sections.
This tool is supported university-wide and is used by the College of IST.
More information: http://turnitin.psu.edu/