Turnitin.com is a web-based plagarism prevention tool that compares documents submitted by students to a database of existing published articles and papers, in addition to all student papers submitted to the site. Through UMBC Blackboard, students can now submit assignments in any course to Turnitin.com's database without the need to log into Turnitin.com itself.

For more information on Turnitin.com click here.

Your instructor will create a given assignment under a content area (such as "Assignments" or "Course Documents").

1. Click on the View/Complete link under the assignment and its description.

2. Under Paper Information, enter the title of your paper, then click the Browse button to find the file on your computer / disk (such as an MS Word document, Adobe PDF, etc.).

NOTE: Any document submitted through a Turnitin assignment must have at least 100 characters of text.

3. When the path of the file appears under File, (for example: C:\Documents and Settings\Profile\My Documents\finalpaper.doc), click the button.

NOTE: You cannot submit a Turnitin Assignment more than once for a given assignment. If you have submitted a document that you did not want to send, you must ask your instructor to delete the submission. Turnitin.com will then allow you to resubmit the document.

Step 2 - Viewing Submitted Assignments and "Originality Reports"

To view your submission and Turnitin.com's Originality Report:

1. When you see the "Turnitin Assignment Already Completed" message, click the OK button.

2. Click the title of the assignment to view the submission.

3. Click the percentage score to view the Originality Report. Higher percentage scores indicate matching text from Turnitin.com's database. This does not necessarily represent plagiarized material as students may correctly cite material that matches.

NOTE: Viewing your submitted assignment and Originality Report will not show you the grade received. To do that you must visit the View Grades option under "Student Tools".

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Bob Armstrong at 410.455.3885 or rarmstro@umbc.edu or blackboard@umbc.edu.