As part of a national project involving all universities in Nigeria, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities has licensed Turnitin for use by students and faculty at all 115 universities in Nigeria effective 1st May 2013.

Turnitin will be running four training sessions in March aimed at those in charge of rolling out Turnitin across the institution, as well as training instructors within the institution on how to use it.:

Committee of Vice Chancellors (CVC) Headquarters, Abuja
Dates: 5th & 6th March 2013
Time: 09:00 to 15:00

University of Lagos, Centre for Information Technology Services, Lagos
Dates: 7th & 8th March 2013
Time: 09:00 to 15:00

Reserve your spot today as seating is limited.

Allowing students to submit each draft multiple times before the due date helps them foster the development of their own writing.

Create an incentive to start and submit work early. Students who turn in their work early will have a chance to look at their OriginalityCheck feedback to see if they've adequately integrated their sources and then make changes as appropriate before resubmitting by the due date. There is a 24-hour waiting period before the next report will be processed to prevent devious students from resubmitting their assignments too often to prevent them from trying to iteratively bring down their similarity score.

At this time of year, we hear a lot of chatter from students via Twitter (follow us: @turnitin) saying, "turnitin says my essay was 23% plagiarized," or "just submitted my paper to turnitin... 4% plagiarism is good right?," or "my Turnitin plagiarism percentage is only 18%."

There is a very distinct difference between what Turnitin flags as matching text (aka: similarity index) and plagiarism. Turnitin will highlight ANY matching material in a paper—even if it is properly quoted and cited. Just because it appears as unoriginal does not mean it is plagiarized; it just means that the material matches something in the Turnitin databases.

• "I think it's still good for kids to see other writing."
• "It helps students see if they are communicating well."
• "They are learning to objectively look at writing."
• "It is a rich source of feedback."
• "Enlarges their sense of audience past just thinking only the instructor is reading their papers."
• "The reviewer profits as well as the reviewee."

We've always advocated Turnitin OriginalityCheck to be used as a tool to teach proper citation and source integration, to address academic integrity, and to make investigating potential plagiarism easier.

OriginalityCheck at its core is simple to start exploring and using in your classroom. By providing visual feedback, you and your students can get a good representation of how well they've integrated outside source material into their writing. At a glance, you can take a closer look into papers with higher matches.

Many Turnitin users that have access to GradeMark are not aware of what an essential, powerful and effective tool it can be.

Cath Ellis, an English literature instructor, blogger, and e-learning enthusiast, recently wrote on her blog about how merely checking for potential plagiarism is such a minor part of her use. She expounds on her use of GradeMark and the benefits of being quicker, better, easier, and retrievable. Her students prefer their papers being reviewed in GradeMark because of the confidentiality, accessibility, and convenience that Turnitin provides.

Turnitin's improved Administrator Training Center will guide Administrators, trainers and key personnel through Turnitin's L.E.A.R.N. process for getting you and your faculty prepared and excited to use Turnitin. You'll also find presentations, templates, and tools to support you in this endeavor.

Whether your school is new to Turnitin, or you've been with us for years, L.E.A.R.N.'s five step process should be revisited at least every year.

Not an administrator? Visit Instructor Training for helpful tutorials and videos.

"Curriculum redesign as a faculty-centred approach to plagiarism reduction” is research paper published by Sue Hrasky and David Kronenberg from the University of Tasmania, presented at the 4th International Plagiarism Conference in June 2010.

In it, they first look into two fundamental strategies on approaching plagiarism: proactively educate students on plagiarism, proper citation, and acceptable collaboration; and/or reactively catching and punishing instances of plagiarism. Both of these traditional approaches puts the onus of responsibility on the student. When an accusation of plagiarism occurs, the blame rests with the student rather than with the faculty or the institution.