How can we help you learn?

eCampus NZ uses an online tool called Turnitin to check your assignment files against the content of other websites and databases.

Turnitin has informed us that from Wednesday 5 April they have added AI writing detection capabilities to their plagiarism review tools.

Turnitin helps you and your facilitator to tell the difference between original ideas and content you found through research.

Plagiarism means taking someone else’s ideas and presenting them as if they’re your own, including the use of some form of Artificial Intelligence such as Chat GPT to write your assessment.

This can happen on purpose, but it can also happen by accident.

Turnitin can also help you to find any examples of plagiarism within your document before you submit it for assessment.  

How to submit your assessments to Turnitin

Step 1: In your course, go to Assessments and select the assessment dropbox from the right-hand menu. 

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Add submissionYou may be asked to accept the Turnitin End-User License Agreement. 

Step 3: Drag and drop your files into the drop area, or select Add files

Step 4: From the File picker window select Upload a file and Choose file 

Step 5: Select the file you want to upload from your computer and select Upload this file. Select Save Changes.

Please note Turnitin can only generate reports for some file formats, including: Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx); Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt, .pptx); Plain text (.txt); Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf); Rich Text Format (.rtf); PostScript (.ps); HTML (.html, .htm).  

Man holding a clock

Turnitin will begin processing your draft document. This can take 5 – 30 minutes, or even longer if the file is a large assignment – Turnitin is very thorough. You can navigate away from the dropbox while it’s processing and come back later to see the result. If you stay in the dropbox, you can refresh the browser to view any progress. 

When your draft has been processed, Turnitin will give you a similarity score, which tells you how similar your assignment is to other sources on the internet and in databases. It is perfectly normal for an assignment to match against some of the information in Turnitin’s database; the similarity score simply highlights any matching areas in your paper so you and your facilitator can determine if the match is or isn’t acceptable. 

Unless otherwise stated, a score of less than 10% is normally acceptable..

Step 6: You can go ahead and confirm the submission by clicking Submit assignment. 

Similarity reports

To view the similarity report for your submitted file, click on the percentage bar in the File submissions area.

A full Turnitin report will be presented.

This will show you where your text matches information found on Turnitin’s database. You may need to exclude quotes and your bibliography from the report by clicking the filter button to the right of the report. 

Similarity score too high?

If you feel your similarity score is too high, take a good look at your similarity report and try these strategies:

  • We use assessment templates to guide you through the writing process. Turnitin will recognise the wording from these, so don’t include the questions and prompts in your final draft. Create your own key headings instead. For example, you could change this template prompt:


          ✘
Briefly describe how you could manage your own learning and performance.       
          To this key heading:

          ✔  Personal Learning and Performance 

  • Put quotation marks (they look like this “) before and after any words or phrases you have taken from a book, website, or someone else’s work. Note that commas and full stops are placed inside the closing quotation mark.
  • Use our APA Referencing guide to add in-text citations and create a reference list. Make sure they are formatted correctly.
  • Try taking out some direct quotations, putting the ideas in your own words instead.
  • If you’re struggling to put something into your own words, read it carefully, take a ten-minute break, then re-write it without checking it again. 

What do I do once I've lowered my similarity score?

Step 1: After you have reviewed the report and made any necessary changes to your assessment document, return to the assignment dropbox page to upload the new file.  

Step 2: Click Edit submission. You can now delete the existing files and upload new ones – but, if you do, make sure you change the file names to include a version number, such as ‘my assessment file_v2.doc’

If you need to you can upload as many drafts as you like to get the recommended similarity score. However, if you submit an assignment to Turnitin more than 3 times, you will need to wait 24hrs for the result. 

Step 3: When you are ready, submit the final version of your assignment for grading by clicking Submit assignment. 

Step 4: On the next page, check the box to confirm it’s your own work, then click Continue. 

Your assignment files have been submitted to your facilitator.