The University uses a service called Turnitin, which is a text matching software tool that can help to identify plagiarism. This tool can assist both students and tutors to ensure that documents and assignments are correctly referenced.
Turnitin is used through Blackboard by some (but not all) faculties at the university as a method of e-Submission.
To understand what plagiarism means you should visit our What is academic integrity page? The page includes links to university guidance and definitions of academic breaches including plagiarism and how you can avoid it.
See the guides on the Turnitin page for students for practical guidance on using Turnitin to submit your assignments.
When using Turnitin within Blackboard it is important to use Turnitin only in one web browser tab or window. Using Turnitin within multiple web browser tabs/windows is not supported and can cause unpredictable behaviour when doing so. If multiple Turnitin web browser tabs are open there is a risk that Turnitin activities carried out in one tab may impact Turnitin assignments in another open tab. For example, it could result in the loss of data which Turnitin are not able to recover.
A Panopto video recording has been created by academic staff on behalf of the University's Academic Integrity Officers Network to give an Overview for students on using Turnitin and understanding similarity reports
The video includes closed captions but a text only version of the slides shown in the presentation is available [Word]
The learning activity below was created for students studying within the Southampton Business School, but if your own School or discipline allows you to upload drafts to Turnitin and see the similarity report for some assignments, then it may also be helpful to you (although dated 2019-20 this guide was checked by SBS staff in March 2023 and is still current).
A Word document highlighting all of the key information from the learning activity is available [Word]. If you find an accessibility issue please contact libenqs@soton.ac.uk
[Click on the image to go to the activity which will open in an new browser tab]
Turnitin for Staff by University of Southampton. A online guide produced by iSolutions.
Overview for students on using Turnitin and understanding similarity reports by University of Southampton [Panopto]