This article is about the plagiarism tool in Brightspace; as of May 4th 2026, we have switched from Ouriginal to TurnitIn.
Viewing the Similarity Report
Once you've enabled Turnitin for the assignment, you can view the similarity scores for the submitted assignments, also known as similarity reports or originality check. To do this, first go to: Course Tools and Assignments.
Access Turnitin via Assignments
Turnitin similarity scores can be viewed when you check out the Assignment submissions. The similarity score is displayed as a percentage on the Users tab. A higher percentage indicates that the assignment has more similarities with Internet sources and documents in the Turnitin database. Instructors can click the percentage icon to view a detailed report. If a warning icon appears instead of a similarity percentage, Brightspace was unable to calculate a similarity score.
To access the overview and the Turnitin report:
- Click Assignments in Course Tools.
- Open the assignment you want to view.
- The overview includes a color-coded similarity score, as shown below.
- Click on the displayed score to view the similarity report on the Turnitin site (see image below).
To the left of the score, it displays “Highest.” This indicates priority; for example, a submitted document with a high similarity score has a higher priority for review than a document with a low score. However, there is a good chance that “Highest” appears next to every document. Turnitin is working on the integration with Brightspace to address this.
In the newly opened window, you'll see the document along with its details and the sources of the potentially plagiarized material. You can also download the report in PDF format; you can do this in the top-right corner of the page using the download button.
- Details: Click on Details for more information on the document (course, Turnitin ID, student ID, number of pages and words, etc.)
- Integrity Flags: If there are Integrity Flags to review, this will be indicated here. In other words, Turnitin has found a potential text alteration, such as white-out text or suspicious words/characters.
- Overal Similarity: At the top right of the screen is the “Overall Similarity” score, which is the general similarity score.
- Filters: Click on Filters to review which components Turnitin includes in (the calculation of) the score. Here, for example, you can choose to exclude the bibliography or not to include a search in Turnitin’s database.
- Match Groups: Under Match Groups, you can view the matches in Turnitin’s database.
- Sources: You can also view the sources that were used and the score per source under “Sources.”
- Then click on the source or the match for more details.
Interpreting the similarity report
Please note: The similarity report percentage does not represent an exact percentage of plagiarism in the document. It is an indication of the amount of suspicious text in the document. Always review and assess whether the highlighted text constitutes plagiarism or not.
The Source Tab displays a list of all original sources found in the Turnitin analysis. Next to each source, you’ll see the number of alternative overlapping sources found by Turnitin. In the Source Tab, you can exclude a source or switch to an alternative source.
Entire Document
On the left side of the screen, the submitted document is displayed in its entirety. Colored sections of the document indicate matching text or warnings. Matching sources are highlighted in the same color, so if you see a lot of the same color, it may mean that a single source has been consulted frequently. Click the Finding icon to the left of the text to open a side-by-side comparison.
Similarity reports before and after migration from Ouriginal to TurnItIn
It is possible that students submitted work both before and after the migration from Ouriginal to TurnItIn. The TurnItIn database is larger than that of Ouriginal, so students who submit work via TurnItIn after the migration (on or after 4 May) may receive a higher score than those who submitted via Ouriginal (before 4 May).