At UWA all text-based assessments which count towards the final grade must be passed through originality software and submitted through the LMS and are subject to review by Turnitin Tools. This guide provides an overview of the tools used at UWA.

Turnitin is available through the Learning Management System (LMS).

Turnitin is UWA’s chosen tool to review student work due to its extensive database, with over 25 years presence in academia, and ease of integration with university systems, making it one of the most comprehensive tools available. 

Turnitin tools, when used in partnership with other academic integrity resources like STUDYSmarter, Academic Conduct Essentials, Communication and Research Skills, and the University Library referencing guides, can assist you to improve your writing and referencing skills and develop a better ethical awareness of academic integrity. 

UWA Staff use these tools to more effectively assess written work and provide in-context feedback, which can make assessments more engaging and relevant in a teaching and learning context. 

Assessments submitted through Turnitin are compared against databases containing millions of journal articles, past student assignments, and websites. When an assessment is submitted through the LMS, an originality / similarity report is generated that highlights any text in the assessment that matches other sources. The assessment paper can be added to the database for future submissions to be compared against.

It's important to note that the originality / similarity report does not determine if the assessment is correctly referenced. A text match does not necessarily signal plagiarism, and a lack of matches does not in itself confirm that no academic misconduct has occurred.

For example, as a text matching tool, Turnitin may highlight text from the cover page and title, as well as quotations and the bibliography. Although these may be highlighted as text matches, it doesn't mean that they need to be changed. However, if blocks of text are highlighted, and the text doesn't contain any quotations, then this may indicate that the text needs to be re-written to ensure the ideas are expressed in the students' own words. 

Using the Turnitin Authorship tools, staff can compare all of a student’s submissions at UWA to analyse various data points and patterns to detect whether the work being reviewed was genuinely produced, in whole or part, by the student who submitted it. This allows UWA to receive flags which indicate when assignments may have been produced by someone other than the student, whether another student, family member/friend or other third party.

Students do not receive copies of these reports when an assignment is submitted, like they do for originality reports for text-matching. This is because each assignment is compared to a wide-range of other materials and data. If students receive an allegation of academic misconduct for contract cheating, the reports are provided at this time.

If you are a UWA student enrolled in a higher degree by research course and would like to check the text of a draft paper or thesis chapter, you can now do so through the LMS. Simply email GRS Graduate Education Officer with your request to be enrolled into the Research Text Matching LMS unit. Please provide your student number and copy your supervisor into the email to indicate their tacit approval of your request to use Turnitin.

If you are a UWA staff member and/or researcher and you would like to check the text of a draft publication prior to submission, you can now do so through the LMS. Simply email the GRS Graduate Education Office researchtraining-grs@uwa.edu.au with your request to be enrolled into the Research Text Matching LMS unit. Please provide your full name or staff number.

This unit has been configured so that your draft text will be checked against the Turnitin database, but it won't be added to the database. You will be provided with a Turnitin Originality / Similarity Report after each check, and there is no limit on the number of drafts you can check.

Students can seek guidance on how to cite sources from the University Library referencing guides or make an appointment via the Book a Librarian service for expert advice from librarians.