Avoiding Plagiarism

Lecturers and examiners will be familiar with key sources and will notice when information has been used from them, as well as differences in style, terminology and accuracy in an essay.

In addition, many courses in Trinity now use software called Turnitin and SafeAssign to check written submissions for plagiarism. These compare submitted work to a database of websites, articles and previously submitted assignments. They then calculates how much of the work is original, and what needs to be examined by your tutor to make sure you have used references to correctly cite others’ words and ideas.

All Trinity staff have access to the Turnitin service and can choose to make this available to their students.

Turnitin is now integrated into the College VLE, Blackboard Learn, which offers a streamlined process for grading online assignments and checking academic integrity.

SafeAssign is plagiarism detection software available to lecturers and students from within Blackboard. The software is accessed only with the VLE, and forms a part of the assessment/assignment tools.

Lecturers upload a file outlining the assignment work with instructions to students. When students have completed the work, they upload their assignment file, which is checked within the SafeAssignment tool for plagiarism. Lecturers can examine the report produced by SafeAssign on individual student work when using the grade book for marking.

Staff can find out more at the link below:

Students can find more on SafeAssign here: