Turnitin Paper View Request Guidance

This help sheet offers some guidance for if you have received an email from Turnitin (noreply@turnitin.com) with the subject header ‘TurnitinUK Paper View Request’. 

“Why have I received this email?”

Many institutions around the world use Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool for student submissions.  When a submission shows a similarity to a piece of student work from another institution; tutors can request the view the matching work.

The request will be emailed to all staff on the corresponding module and Turnitin admins.  You will receive this email request if you are enrolled on the Blackboard module site associated with the requested submission.

“What should I do about this email?”

If you are not involved in teaching/assessment on the corresponding module, you do not need to take any action on this email, the request will have been sent to multiple members of staff.

If you have been involved in assessment on this module, the second paragraph of the email will display the percentage similarity between the queried submission and the Lincoln student’s work.  Check the percentage match to decide if the similarity is low or high.  It is worth considering the overall length of the work, i.e. low match percentages on long theses may be more significant than a low match percentage on a short submission.

If the % match is low: Sometimes requests are sent based on only a few percentage match.  You may choose to take no further action on this email if you do not feel the match to be significant.  

If the % match is high: If you feel the requesting institution would benefit from having access to the paper due to a high similarity you can grant access by following the instructions below.

“How do I grant access to the requesting institution?”

To grant the requesting institution access to the work:

1. Click ‘Reply’ and check that the student’s text is displayed in the body of the email.
2. You will need to remove any identifying information from the text in the email; this includes the student name and ID.  This is usually found at the start of the document, however, may also be found in declaration pages, or in appendices.  
3. If the subject matter of the work is explicitly personal to the student, i.e. a personal reflective piece, removing all personal data may not be feasible and so the paper should not be shared.
4. Send the edited email and Turnitin will pass the information on to the requester.  

For further help and guidance, click on the Help & Support tab for support materials and contact details, or email helpdesk@lincoln.ac.uk.