iThenticate FAQs

What is iThenticate?

iThenticate is used worldwide by publishers and research organizations to ensure the originality of written work before professional publication. The service allows researchers to easily upload and scan documents, manuscripts, research and other professional works into iThenticate which compares the work against 60 billion web pages and 105 million content items from leading academic publications. Each submission returns a "Similarity Report" identifying text in the submission that matches text appearing in published materials in iThenticate.

Each year, iThenticate checks 10 million documents, earning its reputation as the most trusted similarity checker by the world’s top researchers, publishers, and scholars. With such an esteemed reputation comes fair expectation for a version of iThenticate that oozes quality and substance. That’s why we’ve made it a priority to measure up to the high standards of our research community—by building a tool that is not just functional, but delivers on design and user experience.

Who can use iThenticate?

iThenticate is used by academics, researchers, publishers, grantmakers, corporate and government agencies, admissions officers, and students. It is particularly valuable for those involved in high-stakes writing, such as journal submissions or grant proposals.

Does iThenticate detect AI-generated content?

iThenticate customers can access AI writing detection as a paid add-on. Once licensed and enabled, Turnitin’s AI writing indicator, which is integrated within the Similarity Report, shows an overall percentage of the document that AI writing tools such as ChatGPT may have generated. It also includes the detection of AI-generated content that may have been paraphrased* using a text spinner. With intuitive navigation, users can easily switch between different report functionalities, such as the flags panel and integrated AI writing report. View aggregated AI scores across submissions over a period of time to understand the scale of usage. This feature helps address emerging challenges in research integrity.

Does iThenticate store submitted documents?

iThenticate software handles data storage securely. Administrators control whether users can also index these documents in a private repository. This repository is accessible only to the user or their institution. Users can delete their submissions at any time, which moves them to a trash folder and allows for permanent deletion from the iThenticate platform. Additionally, iThenticate stores data on a highly secure AWS platform with data centers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific, adhering to international data protection standards.

What sets iThenticate apart from other academic integrity solutions?

iThenticate stands out due to its extensive partnerships and integrations. Through Crossref, it accesses a vast database of scholarly content from 1,500 publishers. It also indexes open-access metadata from CORE and includes ProQuest theses and dissertations in its database. Additionally, it integrates seamlessly with workflows of top publishers like IEEE, Springer Nature, and Wiley.

How does iThenticate support academic publishing workflows?

iThenticate software integrates with Manuscript Tracking Systems like ScholarOne and Editorial Manager. This streamlines the plagiarism and AI-writing detection process for publishers by automating document uploads and analysis.

What is the Similarity Report in iThenticate?

Found within the iThenticate plagiarism checker, the Similarity Report highlights areas of text that match other sources in iThenticate's content database. It provides links to matching sources and allows users to exclude specific matches for a more focused analysis. iThenticate also features Match Groups, which organize similar matches, and a Flags Panel that detects text manipulations like replaced or hidden characters, helping identify potential academic integrity issues.

How do I interpret the iThenticate similarity report?

The bold, highlighted color-coded text in the report reflects the words that matched other published works in iThenticate's database. The color and number corresponds with a source listed in the "Sources" section of the report. Black, non-bolded text did not match sources in the iThenticate database.

iThenticate calculates an overall similarity index percentage for the report. Naturally, the lower the percentage match, the better; however, acceptable match percentage levels can vary significantly for each document. Authors should pay more attention to the strings of matching text (bold, highlighted color-coded) than to the overall percentage match. The main function of the report is to help catch phrases or passages that may not have been cited and used correctly.

The iThenticate website gives additional information about understanding the similarity percentage.

What about copyright?

You retain all rights to your work. iThenticate does not exploit, resell or share submitted manuscripts. iThenticate does not add your manuscript to any databases.

Why can I only submit my own work?

Ethical use of iThenticate requires that it be used only for an author's own work.

How long does an iThenticate report take to generate?

iThenticate reports can take anywhere from a few minutes to a full day to generate, depending on the total nationwide volume of documents being submitted to iThenticate.