Guidelines for Submitting Assignments:

The Originality (Similarity) Report produced by Turnitin can be used as a tool for students to improve their academic writing and as a tool for faculty to help them decide on plagiarism.

• As a guide, a returned total percentage (similarity index) of below 15% would probably indicate that similarity is acceptable. A high percentage of similarity would probably be anything over 25%.  
• Al Falah University (AFU) is to consider the percentage of 24% as a cut-off range. 

• • In case that the Turnitin similarity overall score exceeds the AFU threshold of 25%, and there is no evidence of plagiarism, the faculty member/instructor is obliged to explain and justify, in writing, the reasons for accepting that particular piece of coursework from a student and/or a group of students. This justification letter written by the faculty member/instructor has to be included in the respective course file. 
  • The default assignment setting should be adjusted to exclude quoted material, references/bibliography, and small matches up to 5 words in order to gain a more accurate overall percentage.
  • For the students to see the report, faculty should make the Originality Report available to students once the student uploads his/her submission.
  • If the student submits the assignment in good time (days) prior to the submission deadline, the instructor may ask the student to resubmit another version pointing out to the student that he/she must ensure that his/her work is authentic. This can be done through submission settings, where the instructor can revert the submission manually to the student after the submission. In that case students may access, edit, and reload their submitted file without any need for faculty intervention as it is still in Draft form.