Paper View Requests

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.

Instructions in this article are sourced from Turnitin and are subject to change. See Turnitin’s article for revisions.  

Request a paper | Respond to a request

Overview of request process

Requests are submitted to and processed by Turnitin. ECU is only involved if the requested paper was submitted by an ECU student.

  1. Turnitin sends an email on your behalf to the host institution.
  2. The instructor/designated reviewer at the host institution receives the email request.
  3. The instructor/designated reviewer replies to transfer 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.

Request a paper

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.

  1. From the Assignment Inbox, select the paper that closely matches another paper by clicking the similarity score under the Similarity column.
    Turnitin Assignment Inbox
  2. Select the overall similarity score of the paper from the product toolbar.
    Similarity Score Image
  3. 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.
    Match Overiew Image
  4. 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.
    Submitted to Host Instiution Image
  5. 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.
    Send Request to View Image
  6. 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.

Respond to a request

Requests made or ECU papers are managed by a designated reviewer.

ECU responds if the requests is from an ECU instructor. The student’s name and other identifying information are removed from requested papers before sharing a requested paper.

ECU does not provide papers to instructors from external institutions.

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