Hello Carma:

Yes, I had this issue several years ago. When I first encountered it, I was informed to verify the student's work and to ensure everything is okay, to ensure the student is not copying and pasting material into their assignments. If you know the work is coming up on a recurring basis and everything is okay with it, just approve the assignment. This is one of the flaws of Turnitin. 

Joseph

Hi, Carma!

Yes, I have the same issues. Typically if a student does not format correctly (no space between the last word and the open parenthesis, for example), it will show as a potential problem. And, yes, TII seems to pick up correct citations as problems. I don't know what the issue is, but my concern is when I get the email that says due to a high similarity score and a high grade, something may be up. The first time I received one, I responded, but it seems to go to email purgatory as I never got a response back. I carefully look at all TII reports and student's submissions and make my own judgment. If I do not find issues, I give an appropriate grade for the work and move on to the next one.

My best to you!

Kathleen

The emails that you get about high TII are automatic and not from a specific person. I get them whenever my students use  a template for an assignment and still submit it through TII. In any case we are required to make a note of why the TII is high in the comment box if we accept an assignment where the TII is higher than 20 percent. 

You should have the option of filtering the TII report to exclude bibliographies. Tell students to click the filter option on the bottom right and make sure the box is checked to exclude bibliographies. Also, if their reference page is formatted on its own page and properly titled, it is not supposed to flag the references at all. However, if it is their own reference page that it is highlighting, you can tell that it is a match from their own paper. I know instructors can see which GCU student's paper it matches. I just tell my students that if their reference list, headers or title page is flagged, to ignore those matches. We are only concerned about the body of the paper. This is the same issue if a student has failed the class and is reusing their papers. It will come back as a 100% match to their own paper, and this is allowed. You just have to comment in the box to provide an explanation. 

I had a note from faculty services noting a high TII score on a student on an assignment that was not TII submittable.  I was surprised to receive such note, and yet the score did concern me.  A copy of the report was not forwarded.  I sent a note back saying that the assignment did not call for TII.  I did not hear back.  

Carma:

I run into this issue mainly when I have a reoccurring template submission. For me, it is a Teacher Work Sample document used in the student teaching classes. 

I leave the following comment in the Comment Section:

TII: The TII Report was read and all is well. The TII% is high due to hits on a commonly used template, marked as GCU in the TII Report. These hits, per GCU instruction, are permissible and do not count in the overall TII %. Thus, the student, once the common hits are dismissed, is under the 20% TII % requirement mark.

Doc. H. 

Does anyone know if I can have students submit DQ answers to turnitin prior to posting?