AssignmentsFrequently asked questions about Assignment Submission



Turnitin logoWhat is Turnitin?

Turnitin is an online assignment submission service that Majan College subscribes to. It provides 2 key benefits to us:

  1. It compares any submission to hundreds of thousands of online sources, essay banks and other student submissions. This allows it to assign the submission a "similarity score”. This helps lecturers to ensure none of your fellow students are unfairly benefiting by passing off someone else's work as their own.
  2. It provides an online marking system called Grademark. Lecturers can use this to provide feedback to you. Feedback delivered through grademark is clear and easy to understand. It appears on your document next to the section they are feeding back to you about.

Turnitin is directly accessed through MOVE, you do not need another account.

Back to the top

How do I submit my assignment?

There are full instructions on this page.

Back to the top

What file types are accepted?

Most Wordprocessor formats are accepted, as long as they are less than 20MB in size. Formats supported include: Word, Wordperfect, Postscript, PDF, HTML, Rich Text and Plain Text.

Back to the top

My lecturer says they never received my submission!

This is where you need your submission receipt. Check your college email and if your submission was received, you should have a receipt there to prove it. You will need to forward this to your tutor as proof that you did in fact submit your assignment. Without this receipt, there is little you can do.

Back to the top

How do I view my similarity report?

Simply click on your assignment submission link then within [MY SUBMISSION] page and under [SIMILARITY] label you can find your similarity percentage. By clicking on this percentage you'll be taken into a detailed report analyzing your percentage and guide you to properly reference your resources.  

Turnitin report

Back to the top

How long does it take for my similarity report (percentage) to be generated?

This depends on whether this is the first time you've submitted to the assignment or not.

First submission to an assignment

Normally this report is generated within minutes, however at busy times it can take slightly longer.

Second and subsequent submissions to the assignment

For your second and subsequent submissions to an assignment, it takes 24 hours for your report to be generated. If it is less than 24 hours before the due date, this means you won't get it before the assignment is closed.

In case you don't get the similarity report/percentage

If it is your first submission and if you don't get a similarity percentage within 4 hours OR if it is your second submission and you don't get the similarity percentage within 30 hours, you need to meet one of our IT support personnel at the IT Support office in the Library. 

Back to the top

My similarity percentage has changed!

Similarity reports are not final until the due date of the assignment. This means that if someone submits the same work as you, your similarity percentage will increase when their report is generated. For example:

  • Student A submits an original piece of work
  • Student A's report comes back at 20%
  • Student B gets a copy of Student A's submission and submits it as his own work
  • Student A and Student B now have a report at 100%

Back to the top

What is an acceptable percentage?

The percentage is a measure of similarity not a measure of plagiarism, the important thing is that your submission represents your own work, and any references to other people's work have been properly cited in your bibliography. If a 40% paper has properly cited all their sources, it would not be considered plagiarism (although it may fail for other reasons, for example a lack of original thought). If a 10% paper had a section directly lifted from another source without citation, it would be considered plagiarism and could result in a fail. All academic work is expected to draw from other sources, so some level of similarity is expected. As long as all sources are acknowledged in the accepted way, it would not constitute plagiarism. The question to ask is not "what is an acceptable percentage?”. The real question to ask is "Can I honestly call this my own work?”.

Back to the top

Last modified: Thursday, 19 May 2016, 11:00 AM