Because of increased concern over plagiarism in the digital age, the University has been offering instructors a Web-based plagiarism detection tool called Turnitin. After an extensive review of several Web-based detection services and an analysis of our current usage, the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) have chosen to not renew the University's license with Turnitin and will instead offer the plagiarism detection service SafeAssign.
SafeAssign will continue as a resource that instructors can use to either detect incidents of plagiarism or to confirm suspected plagiarism and identify the improperly used or cited source material. It is a convenient alternative built into the University's existing WebVista course management structure, allowing for a significant cost savings to the University.
SafeAssign is expected to become available mid May, and Turnitin will remain available for use until its Aug. 1 contract expiration date. Training is planned to help ease the transition to SafeAssign.
OIT will send more information to the campus community in the coming weeks via e-mail. Information also will be available on the WebVista site at http://webvista.umn.edu/ as it becomes available.