Turnitin FAQs

These Frequently Asked Questions are here to support students with their use of Turnitin similarity detection software at UCL. Unless stated otherwise these FAQs relate to the use of Turnitin via UCL Moodle. Staff should refer to the Staff Turnitin FAQs page.

Turnitin is a software tool that UCL uses to help students learn about and avoid plagiarism, to support the production of strong academic writing practice through proper citation and originality.

How do I access Turnitin?

Submission links/assignment inboxes will normally be placed on your Moodle course. If you do not know where submission links are, please contact your course administrator or tutor.

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Pop-ups and accepting the terms and conditions.

To use Turnitin on Moodle, you need to allow pop-ups for the Moodle site. Please make sure you allow pop-ups for "moodle.ucl.ac.uk" in your browsers and any pop-up blocking software you are using.

When I click to accept the agreement prior to submitting my work, nothing happens?

When using Turnitin for the first time you need to accept an agreement prior to submitting your work.  In order to do this, you need to have pop-ups enabled on your browser.  Click here for information on how to enable pop-ups on different web browsers.

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What file formats will Turnitin accept?

Turnitin will accept most common word-processing formats, including: 

• Microsoft Word RTF (.rtf)

• Microsoft Word® (.doc/.docx) *

• text-based PDF (.pdf)

• Microsoft Powerpoint

• OpenOffice Text (.odt) **

• WordPerfect (.wpd)

• PostScript  (.ps)

• HTML

• Excel documents (.xls. .xlsx) ***

• computer programming code

• plain text (.txt)

Turnitin CANNOT check the following file types for similarity
Depending on the settings of your Turnitin assignment, you will either be prevented from submitting such file types or a similarity Report will not generate:

• Apple files, including Microsoft Word for Mac.  Documents created on Microsoft Word for Mac will need to be saved as a text-based PDF or RTF before submission, or opened with Microsoft Word for PC and re-saved.

• Apple Pages files.

• Image-based PDFs (e.g. scanned files, or files which do not contain searchable (highlightable )text. If you need to include scans as part of your submission, we recommend you include the scans as images within a word document, and ensure there is a minimum of 20 words, and the file size is less than 40 MB).

• Google Docs created documents - We recommend that such documents are saved in a different format, such Microsoft Word (.docx).

• Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (e.g. .ods)

* We would advise that the students access the ‘Check for issue’ area within Microsoft Word (go to File -> Info -> Check for issues -> Inspect document), inspect the document and look for any custom XLM errors and then click on the 'remove' button to see if this removes the errors and try submitting the work again.  This may allow the report to be generated.

** Except where a .odt file is created in Google Docs

*** The Excel file will display to the marker as if it was saved as a PDF. 

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How do I upload an assignment / dissertation to Turnitin?

To upload your assignment to Turnitin via Moodle:

1. Navigate to your UCL Moodle course.

2. Click on the Turnitin assignment.

3. Click on the Submit file icon.

4. Fill in the required details, browse for your file, agree to the declaration and click Add Submission.

Use Adobe software or Microsoft Word to save a ‘text' based PDF file, which Turnitin can search and process for similarity. Turnitin cannot process ‘image-only’ PDFs therefore you will not receive a similarity score if your file was created by taking a screenshot, or does not contain searchable text.

Note:  When submitting a PDF, please create the file via Adobe software or Microsoft Word (using File > Save As, and selecting PDF file type.)

Please refer to the following document for further information on using Turnitin via UCL Moodle: Guidance for students submitting work via Turnitin in Moodle.

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How do I view my Turnitin assignment grade and feedback in Moodle?

To view your Turnitin assignment grade and feedback via Moodle:

1. Navigate to your UCL Moodle course.

2. Click on the Turnitin assignment.

3. If graded, your grade will be displayed in the ‘Grade’ column.

4. Click on the pen icon to view any feedback your tutor has left for you within Turnitin. Any Text Comment feedback your tutor has left is visible on the right-hand column.

The 'Instructor feedback' button is enabled by default and will display any comments the tutor has made about your submission overall, including Text Comment and bubble comments.

•  If Bubble comments exist, clicking the speech bubble icon within your text will reveal your instructors comments.

•  If a rubric was used within the assignment, clicking the 'Rubric' button will show you how your assignment was graded against each criteria.

1. To return to Moodle, close down the feedback window.

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What percentage similarity score is sufficient to indicate plagiarism?

The similarity score indicates text matches with other documents, including for example quotations that are used. We advise students that there is no score they should aim for as a target. The important thing is to ensure that ideas and quotations used are properly referenced in an appropriate academic style, not to aim for a particular similarity score. The similarity score indicates similarity but this does not necessarily equate to plagiarism. There may be legitimate reasons for a match.

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A piece of work has a similarity score of 0%. Does this mean it is not plagiarised?

No, a similarity score of 0% does not guarantee the work is not plagiarised. Turnitin has a large database of web sites, books, journal papers and other sources, but does not (and cannot) include everything ever written.

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If I resubmit to an assignment, won’t it show up as a 100% match?

No, work re-submitted within a single assignment by a the same student will never match. Turnitin will only match the work of the same student when submitted across multiple assignments. (The same student’s work will not match across two assignments if one of the assignments was set as a draft assignment by the tutor, or if one of the submissions was made to the Turnitin Similarity Checker course).

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Why has my similarity score increased after the due date?

Instructors have the option to allow students the ability to resubmit papers to an assignment and get updated Similarity Reports for their newly submitted drafts (e.g. where the assignment is set to “Generate similarity reports for student submissions: immediately (can overwrite report until due-date).”.

• The similarity report that is immediately generated and provided to the student, before the assignment Due Date does NOT include matches to other student papers in the same assignment.

• Before the assignment Due Date passes, the similarity report only includes matches to existing student papers within the Turnitin database, journals and publications, and other internet sources. 

• After the Due Date has passed, the similarity report is completely and automatically re-generated for ALL papers in the assignment, thus also comparing papers between students in the same assignment. This may result in the similarity percentage that is displayed after the Due Date differing from the result displayed at the time of submission.

If late submissions are allowed to be made after the assignment Due Date, the late-submitted paper will be added to the database immediately. The report generated for that late submission will search every other paper already submitted to the assignment (i.e. the papers submitted on-time, and produce its similarity score accordingly). The assignment will NOT regenerate similarity reports for any already-submitted papers just because a student submits late. So, the scores of the existing "submitted-on-time" papers will not consider or include the late-submission.
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Will Turnitin accept documents containing images?

Turnitin only accepts documents containing images if those documents also contain some text. Files must have a minimum of 20 words. Files containing less words will likely not produce a similarity report.

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Will Turnitin accept documents containing equations?

Equations created in other applications and then converted to PDF are likely to cause problems when the document is displayed in Turnitin. As long as you use Word (with Microsoft Equation) to create your document, Turnitin should have no trouble displaying your assignment. Word is available to all students free of charge, see Software for students. 

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What is the maximum file size that can be submitted to Turnitin?

The maximum file size is 100 MB and 800 pages. (See: Turnitin File Requirements)

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How can I minimise the file size of my submission?

It may be necessary to compress a document so it is small enough to be uploaded to Turnitin. This is especially true for long documents (such as dissertations) and documents that contain many images.

If you are submitting a Microsoft Word document then you may need to compress the images within this document in order for it to meet the requirements of Turnitin.
Advice on how to reduce the file size of a Word document can be found on the Microsoft Office website.

Additionally, saving Word documents to PDF format will often compress the document to a small size, but if your file is still above the maximum upload limit of 100 MB, you can follow these instructions to compress the PDF further:
To compress or minimise the file size of large PDF documents:

On a PC:

If you don't already have software to compress PDF documents you can install the following free software and then follow the steps below.

1. Download and install PDFCreator from the PDFforge web site.

2. Launch the PDFCreator.

3. Drag your document on to the PDFCreator window OR click Document > Add and locate and open the file.

4. Click OK when the message appears saying: "It is necessary to temporarily set PDFCreator as default printer".

5. Click save.

6. Change the filename if you want to retain the original uncompressed version.

7. Once the file has finished compressing, the default printer will be changed back and the compressed PDF file will open.

On a Mac:

1. Open the PDF in the Preview application.

2. Click File > Save As... or if this isn't an option File > Export...

3. In the Quartz filter drop-down menu choose 'Reduce File Size'.

4. If you want to keep the original uncompressed version, change the file name.

5. Click Save.

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Why can't I see my Turnitin assignment?

In some cases your tutor will set up the assignment submission box so you are unable to view your Similarity report. Please check with your tutor whether this is the case. If your tutor has enabled students to view Similarity reports then please check your web browser has the latest updates.
If your tutor has not enabled you to view the similarity report, UCL provides a centrally available assignment draft checking service via it's Turnitin Similarity Checker course that you can use instead.

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Why won't the new title of my submission appear when I rename it?

Sometimes if you have named your assignment submission title incorrectly (forgetting your candidate number, or including your name for an anonymous assignment) you will need to rename it when you next upload a version of your submission to Turnitin. This must be done before the Due Date, otherwise you will need to ask your tutor or course administrator to do this on your behalf.
Turnitin will only display the new assignment title when the next report is generated. As Turnitin will only generate a new report every 24 hours, it may take up to 24 hours for the new assignment title to display.

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How do I resubmit my assignment?

You can re-upload over the top of your old submission. When you do this the submitted date should update to show the date and time of the latest submission. With subsequent submissions you will only receive a new similarity report every 24 hours, so if you submit multiple times within a 24 hour period you will not see the new report immediately.

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I have uploaded my work again (re-submitted), but no similarity Report has been generated, why?

You can now view your initial similarity report from your first submission within 30 minutes, then revise and resubmit your work up to three times to the same Turnitin assignment, without having to wait 24 hours for an updated report. After three resubmissions have been made, the 24-hour report generation wait time will be restored.

For example, if you re-submitted your assignment for a fourth time say, at 08:00 on Tuesday it will take until at least 08:00 on Wednesday for the new similarity Report to be generated. In this example if you initially re-submitted at 08:00 on Tuesday, but then made another re-submission to the same submission inbox at 09:00 on the same day it would now take until at least 09:00 on Wednesday for a new similarity Report to be generated.

While you are waiting for Turnitin to generate your similarity report, you may see the word 'Pending' displayed. When it is ready you will see a percentage value and a coloured rectangle.

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I have uploaded my work, but I get the error ''The similarity service is not available for this paper: a problem occurred when processing the application URL"

In order to resolve this, you will need to eliminate file type issues (see the section above ‘What file formats will Turnitin accept?’) then resubmit your work.  Do note that only one Similarity Report is generated every 24 hours, so you will need to allow enough time before checking again.

When I click on the pencil icon to view my graded submission, I get a notice 'Loading error: This paper is not available. M14: 11'

This is a known bug which will not allow you to access your work via the pencil icon.
As a workaround please click on the title of your submission, this will load the Turnitin area correctly.

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I use Word for the Apple Mac and my Tracked Changes are showing up on my similarity report

Even if you save your document as a ‘Final' copy, you may find that Microsoft Word’s Track Changes are shown in the similarity report.  You will need to either save your 'Final' document as a PDF or accept ALL changes to prevent them from showing within Turnitin. (Please ensure that you require all included changes before selecting accept all).

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I have received a digital receipt for a submission that I did not make

You may receive an email digital receipt for a submission that you did not make, if a marker of a Turnitin assignment accidentally clicks the grading pencil next to your name.  Such instances are very rare. You can disregard the message but for reassurance, please contact your course administrator.