Checking student work for plagiarism with Turnitin and PlagiarismCheck.org

Here's how you can use Populi's integration with Turnitin and PlagiarismCheck.org to run plagiarism checks on student assignment submissions for these assignment types: file, essay, test essay questions, and discussion posts/replies. The setup sections of this article must be performed by your school's Populi Account Administrator; after they've done that, you'll have the plagiarism-check options available for your use.

Turnitin Setup

Populi works with Turnitin's Similarity product. To set up the integration, you'll first need to create a Scope and a Key in Turnitin, which you'll then enter in Populi.

1. "Step Two" on this Turnitin help page contains the instructions for creating an API Scope and Key. Copy the API Secret—you'll be entering this in Populi.
2. In Populi, go to Account > Account Settings > Integrations and click Add Integration.
3. Select Turnitin from the list of built-in integrations.
4. Enter your school's Turnitin API URL—it'll be something like https://yourschool.turnitin.com.
5. Enter the API secret you copied from Turnitin in Step 1, above.
6. Make selections for the Indexing Options, Source Text Visibility, and Match Detail Visibility settings.
7. Finally, click Save.

PlagiarismCheck.org Setup

Populi works with PlagiarismCheck.org's plagiarism detector, a tool which essentially works the same way no matter what kind of account your school has (that said, their organization pricing is likely the best move for your school). You set up the integration by entering an API key in Populi. According to their API documentation, to get your API key from PlagiarismCheck.org, "you MUST have a registered account with PlagiarismCheck.org and a special API token from our support team."

1. After setting up your account, there are two ways to get the API key. You can contact their support team and request the key or log in to their site, go to this page, and click the Get API Token for ___ button under the "Authorization" heading.
2. In Populi, go to Account > Account Settings > Integrations.
3. Click Add Integration.
4. In the dialog, select Built-in Integrations and then select PlagiarismCheck.org from the next drop-down.
5. Enter the API key and click Save.

Setting up your assignments to check for plagiarism

You have a few options for how you can check for plagiarism in student assignment submissions.

1. Follow the steps for setting up a new assignment. When you choose Test or one of the File or Essay types (including the Peer Review types), you'll see new options appear in the dialog:
   • Automatically check student submissions: If you check this, all student submissions will be checked for plagiarism as soon as they are submitted.
     • If your school has active integrations with both Turnitin and PlagiarismCheck.org, you can choose which service to use for this assignment.
   • Three visibility options: You can let students see the plagiarism reports as soon as they're available, you can hide them, or you can decide on a case-by-case basis.
2. After you Save the assignment, student submissions will be subject to the plagiarism-check settings you've established.

Checking for plagiarism

After students have submitted work, here's how you'll check it for plagiarism.

Assignments

1. Go to the assignment page.
2. Click a student's name to go to his assignment detail page.
3. Above the document viewer, click . Select your options (Exclude quotes, etc.) and click Start.
   • The first time you run a check with Turnitin, you'll be asked to agree to the Turnitin EULA (End User License Agreement). Indicate your acceptance to proceed with the check; you'll not need to do this again.
   • If you've set up the assignment to automatically check for plagiarism, the View... link will already be there.
4. You may need to wait a few minutes for the plagiarism check to complete. When it's done, the symbol will update based on results of the check. Click the symbol to view the report.
   • If you've set up the assignment to automatically check for plagiarism, the check will already have run. Go ahead and click the symbol to see the results.
5. You'll be taken to the plagiarism report. When you're done, click the X in the upper left of the viewer panel to return to the student's assignment detail.

You can see the student's plagiarism score at a glance on the main assignment page. The percentage is based on the plagiarism software's Similarity score. Click the score to see the plagiarism report.

Test essay questions

1. Go to the test's page and click the History view.
2. Click the Start Time for the student's test.
3. Essay questions will have a symbol; click it to start the check. (If you've set the test assignment to automatically check for plagiarism, it will start running the check as soon as you open the student's test attempt.)
4. After the check is completed, you'll see a link to view the report...

Discussion posts and replies

1. Go to the discussion's page.
2. Click above the comment or reply you wish to check.
3. Select Check for plagiarism.
4. After the check is completed, you'll see a link to view the report...