Automating Plagiarism Checks via Turnitin / iThenticate Integration
Comprehensive setup guide for the OJS iThenticate plagiarism screening plugin. Learn how to configure API tokens, automate manuscript transmission, and interpret similarity reports.
Real Problem
Editorial assistants spend hundreds of hours manually downloading manuscripts and uploading them to plagiarism portals, creating workflow bottlenecks and human error.
Practical Solution
Integrate the official iThenticate/Turnitin plugin into OJS: automatically transmit submitted manuscripts upon intake, retrieve similarity score percentages, and embed full visual reports directly inside the editorial dashboard.
Protecting Journal Reputation Through Automated Screening
Academic misconduct—whether verbatim plagiarism, self-plagiarism (text recycling), or redundant publication—poses an existential threat to an academic journal's credibility. If an indexed journal publishes a plagiarized paper, it faces public retractions, loss of indexing status in Scopus and DOAJ, and legal copyright disputes.
Manual plagiarism screening is labor-intensive: editors must download manuscript files, log into an external portal, upload the file, wait for processing, download the PDF report, and re-upload it to the editorial grid.
Automating the Workflow with the iThenticate Plugin
The PKP iThenticate integration connects OJS directly to Turnitin’s enterprise publishing API. The entire process becomes zero-touch:
1. Author submits a manuscript.
2. OJS automatically transmits the manuscript file over an encrypted API connection to iThenticate.
3. iThenticate screens the text against scholarly databases, pre-print archives, and the public internet.
4. iThenticate returns the overall similarity score percentage (e.g., "12%") directly into the OJS editorial dashboard.
5. The Editor clicks the percentage badge to open the interactive, color-coded similarity viewer inside OJS.
Configuration Walkthrough
1. Navigate to Settings > Website > Plugins > Generic Plugins.
2. Enable the iThenticate Plugin.
3. Enter your configuration settings:
- API URL: https://api.ithenticate.com/rpc
- Username: Your institutional API administrative username.
- Password: API password.
- Target Folder: Specify the destination folder ID in your iThenticate dashboard.
4. Select Automation Rules:
- Check "Automatically submit files on initial submission".
- Check "Exclude Bibliography and Quotes" to ensure common citations do not artificially inflate similarity scores.
Benefits for Editorial Efficiency
Automating this step saves an estimated 15 to 25 minutes per manuscript, allowing Section Editors to immediately triage submissions and decline heavily duplicated papers before wasting valuable peer reviewer time.
Step-by-Step Action Plan
Acquire iThenticate API Subscription
Ensure your institution has an active iThenticate account with API access permissions enabled.
Install PKP Plagiarism Plugin
Activate the iThenticate plugin from the PKP Plugin Gallery in your OJS administration dashboard.
Configure API Endpoints & Credentials
Enter the iThenticate API URL (api.ithenticate.com), username, password, and target folder ID.
Define Automated Screening Trigger
Configure whether manuscripts are automatically submitted to iThenticate upon initial author submission or upon editor assignment.
Review Similarity Scores in Editorial Grid
Inspect real-time similarity percentages and click through to interactive highlighted text reports in the submission dashboard.
Questions People Usually Ask
What is iThenticate and why is it preferred over standard Turnitin?
Turnitin is designed for student classroom assignments and stores submissions in a global student repository. iThenticate is built specifically for academic publishers, screening against 90+ billion web pages and 70+ million scholarly articles without storing drafts in public student databases.
Can reviewers see the iThenticate similarity report in OJS?
By default, similarity reports are restricted to Editors and Section Editors. However, editors can choose to share sanitized reports with peer reviewers if textual duplication requires scrutiny.
What is an acceptable similarity percentage in academic publishing?
Most international journals target an overall similarity index below 15-20%, with no single source exceeding 3-5%, excluding standard methodology phrases and reference lists.
Automate Your Plagiarism Screening Workflow
AcademiaTech integrates turn-key iThenticate and Turnitin API workflows into OJS, protecting your journal from academic misconduct.