Similarity (by Turnitin)
- Easily check the similarity score: the similarity score is the percentage of matched text your submission contains. It is calculated by dividing the total words in a submission by the amount of words matched to outside sources.
- Easy to interpret plagiarism report
- Directly integrated in Canvas assignments
- Also integrates with FeedbackFruits
Create an assignment with plagiarism check and understand the plagiarism report
This guide is for educators using a plagiarism check to effectively manage and review student submissions with Turnitin's Similarity tool. It provides step-by-step instructions on setting up assignments, accessing plagiarism reports, and utilizing features like exclusions and filters to ensure fair assessments.
Go to the page Links to an external site.
Online Similarity Guides
Similarity offers various guides to help you understand Similarity or to help you use the functionalities of Similarity. You can find an overview of the guides on the website of Turnitin. Please note to select guides from Similarity
Go to the Turnitin Guides Links to an external site.Similarity and FeedbackFruits
Similarity also integrates with Peer Review, Assignment Review, Self-Assessment of Work, Discussion of Work and Automated Feedback in FeedbackFruits. Please see the link to find instructions about FeedbackFruits and Similarity.
Go to the FeedbackFruits Guides on Turnitin Links to an external site.Resubmit a document to Similarity
If a documents fails to generate a Similarity report, you can resubmit the document to Similarity. Go to the submission in Speedgrader and select 'resubmit to Similarity'. Please note: if you forgot to turn on the plagiarism check and students have already submitted work, the best solution is to create a new assignment.
Go to the page Links to an external site.Similarity and AI
Similarity does NOT detect AI.The current policy at the VU is: "Students are not allowed to use Generative AI, unless..." This means that as the teacher, you have the freedom to prohibit the use completely. However, there is no way to detect or proof that students used genrative AI, so we don't recommend prohibiting it completely. Instead, students need to learn how to use generative appropriately. Therefore, in collaboration with VU Amsterdam programme directors, teachers, experts, privacy officers, legal officers, and others, VU Amsterdam crafted a document providing recommendations for managing and adapting to the emergence of generative AI in education. This is a must-read for all VU teachers.
Go to teacher info Links to an external site.Assignment design
Good assignments are at the heart of active learning and Ouriginal can be used to check academic integrity of written work. On vu.nl, we have collected to-the-point didactic information, with tips, tricks, guidelines and ideas on in-class and out-of-class activities and assignments. Let it inspire you!
Go to the pageTake home exams
Take home exams should incorporate plagiarism checks. However, what are advantages and challenges of take home exams and what are guidelines for effective and engaging take home exams? Read more about it on vu.nl website.
Go to the siteAcademic integrity
Plagiarism checking is part of preventing or detecting academic misconduct. Do you want to point your students to information about this concept and consequences of academic misconduct? Then point them to this information page en vu.nl
Go to the pageVU-specific FAQ
Questions regarding the setup of an assignment with the Similarity plagiarism checker
+ Is it Similarity or Turnitin?
+ Which sources does Similarity use?
+ A student may have used Turnitin to submit drafts of the same paper, meaning their final draft has resulted in a score of 100%.
+ Does a high percentage mean there is plagiarism?
+ Which type of file formats does Similarity support?
Questions regarding the interpretation of the analysis report
+ I would like to get an overview of percentage scores of all submitted documents whithin my course
+ I forgot to turn on the plagiarism check in a Canvas assignment and students have already submitted work. What to do?
However, if a document is submitted twice, using different email addresses then this will be included in the analysis report.Hence, it’s key to check the analysis report thoroughly.
If a teacher submits a document from their connected email address to the same assignment in the Canvas course, then this will be analyzed against all other documents currently in our database. This is to ensure teachers can submit all student documents from a specific assignment and can check them against all the submissions.
+ Where can I get help interpreting the analysis report?
+ I can not open the source file of a matched previously submitted student document, what's wrong?
Questions regarding ownership of uploaded documents
+ What happens to the ownership of documents submitted to Similarity?
The VU has a contract and a data processing agreement with the supplier. These contain all kinds of provisions that prohibit the supplier from using personal data of VU employees and VU students for their own purposes (such as reselling). There are also a variety of security agreements in the agreement about when employees of the supplier may view data (almost never) that enters the application and what the supplier must do to minimize the chance that third parties can view or change data.
Additionally, the VU enforced specific security settings to prevent other institutions or companies access to the VU data (student assignments and plagiarism reports).
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