Paper view requests

How can I manage a high similarity match?If a student submits a paper to one of your classes, and it indicates a high similarity percentage to another paper, either within your institution or at another, you can request to view the matching paper.

All intellectual property rights remain with the student when they submit their paper, making Turnitin unable to offer immediate access to papers or handle the paper exchange directly.

An overview of the paper view request process

We send an email on your behalf to the host institution.

An instructor at the host institution receives the email request The instructor's reply transfers the originally requested paper to you.

At this point, your communication with the instructor is external to Turnitin.

Turnitin acts as the initial facilitator between yourself and the matching paper's host institution.

If you do not receive a reply, Turnitin cannot follow a paper view request any further. Making a paper request.

Upon identifying a paper that shows a strong match to another paper, you can request to view the original paper by selecting it from Match Overview. From the Assignment Inbox, select the paper that closely matches another paper by clicking the similarity score under the Similarity column.

Select the overall similarity score of the paper from the product toolbar.

The Match Overview side-panel will open, it lists all matches to the paper. Select the match that you would like to request to view.

A summary of the match is shown, attached to the body of the text.

Select the Submitted to [Host Institution] link from the top of the match.

The page that opens recaps the paper view process and summarizes the intellectual property rights of the paper's author. To proceed, select the send a request to view this paper button.

Turnitin now sends an email to the instructor of the course that matching file was submitted to. It may be sent to a generic email address that the administrator for the account has configured to handle these requests.

While we encourage Instructors to engage with one another, Turnitin is unable to facilitate requests beyond this point.

Although Turnitin tries to make the paper transfer process as easy as possible, there can be some issues with transferring. For example, the receiving instructor may use an email client that strips the content, or they might overwrite or delete the content accidentally. Turnitin doesn't play any role in a paper view request after the initial email.

I've received a paper view request. What should I do?

Turnitin allows an instructor from another university or institution to make a paper view request. During this process, an email is sent including a brief recap of the assignment in question (title, submission date, and class title) as it was originally submitted. Also included in the email is basic information about the matching paper, such as the instructor's name who has made the request and the similarity percentage it has matched.

A full plain-text version of the original paper, as it was submitted to your class, is included in the received email. To share the original paper with the instructor who has made the request, reply to the email and it will be sent directly to them.

While Turnitin encourages instructors to collaborate and work together with paper view requests, you are under no obligation to respond.You may receive a paper view request years after the initial date of your class. As such, we recommend you check your institution's privacy policy before responding to the email.

Submission Release

As an optional feature, the administrator for your account may have activated Submission Release. This feature allows other Instructors on your account, or instructors under your institution's parent account, to view papers submitted to your classes without having to go through the paper view request process.

After selecting the match within the document viewer, a new window will open. You won't have to contact the instructor of the original assignment to view the paper. Rather, you will be provided with a link to download the assignment in question. This file will be provided to you as both a PDF and in the same format that the file was originally submitted.