At least 4 months prior to submission, you are required to initiate the exam entry process through the PGR Milestones section of MyImperial.  Once your thesis is ready for submission, you should upload it through the PGR Milestones section of MyImperial.  Your submission date is then officially recorded.

You should then submit your Thesis through Turnitin, following guidance provided to you by you department.

The e-learning team have developed a step-by-step guide on how to submit your Thesis to Turnitin, via Blackboard. 

How to submit an ESA or Thesis to Turnitin 

Once again, it is strongly recommended that you do not try to interpret your Turnitin Similarity report without guidance from your Supervisor.

The Turnitin Similarity Report does NOT detect plagiarism, it is a tool which identifies text matching for which there may be a very good reason. 

Ahead of your viva, your Thesis examiners will use the similarity report to inform their academic judgement about the integrity of your work.  Your examiners may also seek clarification from your supervisor.

• How to interpret online similarity reports
• How to interpret the static Turnitin similarity report

After reviewing your Turnitin similarity report, the examiners together decide which outcome applies:

• Option A: No issues
  • Your viva will be arranged

• Option B: Minor concerns to be explored during the viva. 
  • If you address the minor concerns at your viva, to the satisfaction of your examiners, then no further investigation will be carried out.    
  • However, your examiners may require you to address the minor points/concerns as part of your thesis corrections
  • Additionally, the College Secretary who is Secretary of the College’s Research Misconduct Response Group will be informed of the outcome of the examiners exploration of minor concerns. 
  • Should the examiners determine that their concerns have not been addressed during the viva,  then the Research Misconduct procedures may be initiated.

• Option C: Serious concerns.  Serious concern raised means that your viva will postponed  and an investigation under the Research Misconduct procedures  will be initiated.
  
  • The outcome of the investigation will determine whether your viva can proceed.  Where the investigation determines that the viva can proceed, the examiners will be provided with a copy of the investigation report.

You are gently reminded that the College requires all doctoral students to complete the mandatory online training course on Plagiarism Awareness, prior to the ESA. 

Download further details about the online plagiarism awareness course and how students can self-enrol.

This course remains a source of support and you can return to it at any point by logging into your Blackboard account. 

There is also further support and information provided by the Library

Where Theses contain material of national security classification, these will be exempt from submission to Turnitin.   This applies to research projects funded by one of the national intelligence agency funding bodies.  In such cases, your main supervisor will need to submit an email declaration confirming that the Thesis has not been submitted to Turnitin because it contains material of national security classification and that to the best of your supervisor’s knowledge, your Thesis is free from plagiarism.    In such cases, your PhD examiners will also be required to confirm that to the best of their knowledge, the Thesis is free from plagiarism, having not had access to a Turnitin similarity report.