TurnitinTurnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism detection service run by the US company Turnitin, LLC, a subsidiary of Advance Publications.
Founded in 1997, it sells its licenses to universities and high schools who then use the software as a service (SaaS) website to check submitted documents against its database and the content of other websites with the aim of identifying plagiarism. Results can identify similarities with existing sources and can also be used in formative assessment to help students learn to avoid plagiarism and improve their writing.
Students may be required to submit work to Turnitin as a requirement of taking a certain course or class. The software has been a source of controversy, with some students refusing to submit, arguing that requiring submission implies a presumption of guilt. Some critics have alleged that use of this proprietary software violates educational privacy as well as international intellectual-property laws, and exploits students' works for commercial purposes by permanently storing them in Turnitin's privately held database.
Turnitin LLC also runs the informational website plagiarism.org and offers a similar plagiarism-detection service for newspaper editors and book and magazine publishers called iThenticate. Other tools included with the Turnitin suite are GradeMark (online grading and corrective feedback) and PeerMark (student peer-review service)
