X
Home umTech - Information Technology Services Student Success Academic Integrity

Keeping Integrity High

The University of Memphis takes cheating and inappropriate academic conduct very seriously. Our policy on academic integrity is outlined in the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities (PDF). Students should understand what academic misconduct means at the University. In order to do so, you should be familiar with the University's definitions from the Office of Student Conduct.

What is Plagiarism

The adoption or reproduction of ideas, words, statements, images, or works of another person as one’s own without proper attribution, or the reuse of one’s own academic work previously submitted for academic credit at any academic institution (including the University of Memphis) (Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities [PDF], p. 18).

Turnitin

Turnitin is a web-based plagiarism-detection service that allows students to submit papers to check for originality. Turnitin can be used as a deterrent, but also as an educational tool. Turnitin is used in eCourseware or if your instructor has set up your course in Turnitin. TurnItIn helps teach students how to work with sources and to improve paraphrasing and quoting skills. After submission, a Similarity Report is generated and the instructor can choose to share this with the student. The Similarity Report is a flexible document that provides a summary of matching or similar text in submitted work compared against a huge database of Internet sources, journals and previously submitted work, allowing students and instructors to review matches between a submitted work and the database scanned by Turnitin. This does so by using the repository to which papers are compared for originality currently consists of three primary databases.

Next Steps

Turnitin

  • If a class uses eCourseware, the chance is good that assignments will be submitted using the Dropbox feature within eCourseware.
  • If an instructor is not using eCourseware, but has set up the course in Turnitin, the Student Quick Start Guide demonstrates the steps of submitting the first paper.

Resources for more about Plagiarism

The UofM library has a wealth on information available about plagiarism. To learn more, see their page on plagiarism.

FAQs

  • UofM commonly asked questions and answers can be found in AskTOM

Additional Information

  • If you need further assistance, the umTech Service Desk is available available, from 8:00 AM until 12 AM, excluding posted holidays, at 901.678.8888.