Academic integrity is essential for all faculty and students, and part of academic integrity is insuring that all academic work is the original product of the author. While academic work is often built on the research of others, that research and writing must be clearly attributed to the original author. Part of the learning process for students is to be able clearly to delineate the distinction between the students’ own work and that of others.

Turnitin is a tool that can assist both faculty and students not only in detecting plagiarism but in preventing it as well.  Your instructor may opt to use Turnitin in order to check the originality of your written work. In many cases, your instructor may give you the opportunity to submit assignments for originality review via Turnitin, a tool within your BlazeVIEW course section. Turnitin will then return an "originality report" on your submission. However, please note that Turnitin only helps to identify passages that are unoriginal, which could include correctly cited quotations and information. Working with your instructor, you should review the originality report to distinguish between possible plagiarism and correctly documented research.

According to the Family Compliance Office of the U.S. Department of Education, your course work documents are education records within the meaning of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). Education records may not be disclosed to third parties in a form that identifies you without your consent. As a third party product, Turnitin is governed by this provision of FERPA. Course work documents submitted to Turnitin may include but are not limited to papers, blog postings, journal entries, presentations, discussion postings, emails, or any other written work, in electronic or hardcopy, submitted in the format and on the schedule required by the course instructor.

Your course work document may be submitted to Turnitin via one of two methods. The different options simply determine how the work is submitted to Turnitin, and whether the work includes identifying information.

1. You Submit to Turnitin, thereby Consenting to Disclose Personal Information. 
You may consent to possibly release your personal identification to Turnitin by uploading your course work documents through the Turnitin tool provided in your online course section.  All submitted work will be included as source documents in the database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism in other papers.

*(NOTE: The Privacy-Conscious option has been set for BlazeVIEW.  This means student information from BlazeVIEW is not sent to the Turnitin database and instead student names are replaced by a personal ID number.  However, student information is still viewable by instructors inside of BlazeVIEW and any personally identifiable information found in the text of the submission will still be added to the Turnitin database).

OR

2. Your Assignment is Directly Submitted by your Instructor after your Personal Information is Removed.
If you choose not to consent to release your personal identification to Turnitin, your instructor may choose to have you send TWO COPIES of your work to your instructor by the mail tool in the online course section. Your work will be uploaded to Turnitin by the instructor for you. YOU MUST send your work as an electronic attachment in the format and on the schedule required by the assignment. Your work must be saved in a file format that can be opened by Microsoft Word and saved with a file name in the following format:

COPY 1:
Copy 1 should be in the EXACT format specified in the assignment. Your work must be saved in a file format that can be opened by Microsoft Word and saved with a file name in the following format: 

yourname_coursenumber_assignmentnumber.doc

EX: janedoe_ENGL2201_assignment2.doc

COPY 2:
Copy 2 must be identical to Copy 1 EXCEPT that you must remove all identifying information, including ALL references to your name or other information that specifically identifies you. Your work must be saved in a file format that can be opened by Microsoft Word and saved with a file name in the following format:

NOID_coursenumber_assignmentnumber.doc

EX: NOID_ENGL2201_assignment2.doc


Identifying information will be removed from your document in order to comply with FERPA, and your instructor may directly submit to Turnitin for textual similarity review.

At the option of the instructor, a Turnitin originality report on your document may be provided for your review.

** At any time, an instructor may choose to submit your work after removing your identifying information.