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Interpret a similarity report

At a glance

Interpret the components of a Turnitin similarity report, including the similarity index, match overview, sources and filters, to determine whether a student submission indicates plagiarism or poor academic practice. Understand how to access reports, filter quotations and references, review matched submissions, and apply caution when using the AI detection tool.

Jump to these sections:

How do I access a similarity report?
How to filter direct quotations and/or reference lists?
How to view matched student submissions?
Downloading Turnitin similarity reports in the eAssessment platform

When you select a similarity report, a new window will open displaying a live version of the similarity report. A typical workflow is to identify which student assessments have a higher than expected similarity score. For these, use the turnitin system and the match overview to compare the submission to the discovered similar text. Turnitin allows a fast review of all texts from a single source.

Click on each icon to read the brief description of the different settings in the Turnitin report below.

1. Click on the assignment activity dropbox.
2. Select View all submissions.
3. In the file submissions column, each submission will display a numbered score that has been highlighted with a colour. Colours are coded, ranging from blue(low similarity score) to red(high similarity score), to provide a quick overview of the similarity results for submitted assignments.
4. Click the coloured number to open the TurnitIn similarity report.
There are two ways that you can exclude direct quotations and or reference lists.
Option 1: when you set up the assignment
In the integrated Turnitin Assignment settings, you can include or exclude the Bibliography, Quoted Materials and Small matches. This will set it up for all assignment submissions.
Option 2: directly in the individual Turnitin similarity reports.
You can modify the filters and settings directly in the similarity report by selecting the filters tab and excluding or including the quotes, bibliography and sources that are less than the number or percentage of words. This can be modified only for the individual assignment to help you compare the score when you exclude certain elements.
Click on the Sources tab in the right-hand menu pane.
The source tab contains a full list of all matches found in order of highest to lowest percentage of similarity. The matching word areas in the submission will be highlighted in different colours based on the source. You can select Show overlapping sources to show all sources with high percentages of overlap in similarity, otherwise, the source with the highest level of similarity will be displayed and sources with overlapping matches will be hidden.
Clicking on a source will jump you directly to the matching text in the document.
You can expand the card for each source to view more details about the matched text. You can click Exclude Match to exclude the highlighted text or click the cancel icon in the top right corner of each source to exclude the whole source and all matching text blocks from the similarity report.
You can undo this at any time by reviewing the Exclusions.
Note: If you find that a student has a very high similarity report and could potentially be breaching Monash academic integrity policies, you will need to follow the Academic Integrity procedure. Additional information about reporting a potential breach can be found here.
In semester two 2021, Turnitin was integrated into the eAssessment platform, providing markers visibility of similarity scores for long form assessment responses.
In the event a student’s eAssessment response displays a high similarity score, you can download the related Turnitin report identifying the text similarities. This report can be used as evidence for a suspected breach of academic integrity. You’ll need to generate a new report download for each response.
Find out how to download the Turnitin report

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Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ

Interpret a similarity report

At a glance

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