Turnitin Submitting Assignments

Always be on the lookout for potential plagiarism or work that closely resembles the work of another student. Occasionally, a student may copy work directly from the source. All written assignments will go through a two-part system. Aspen uses a software called Turnitin as a way to help monitor how much of the written assignment is original work versus language copied from another source. When a student submits his/her assignment to the Dropbox, it will automatically go through Turnitin. When the assignment is pulled down for grading, faculty members will be able to see the students Turnitin similarity score. As we guide students and help them learn to be a better scholar, faculty can choose to send a paper back to a student for the opportunity to resubmit. Their paper must cite all sources or they could be held accountable for plagiarism. This is a serious offense that faculty are required to report to the university.

We are providing Turnitin as a tool and a way for faculty and students to discern and correct how much of their paper is original work. Please note that Turnitin is simply a tool and not always perfect. Often a paper can show similarity through titles and lists of references. Faculty should always open a paper and review the report to see what areas of the paper are duplicated. Aspen always defers to the faculty to make the appropriate grading decisions.

When a high percentage of similarity exists in a student’s submitted work (>20%), follow these two starter rules: 1) Ask the student what happened (it is possible that he/she is retaking the course), and 2) open the Similarity Report and examine where the similarities exist. Often, these two behaviors can shed considerable light on what is happening. If, however, plagiarism is strongly suspected, the faculty should fill-out a plagiarism form and submit it to the Registrar.

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