Skip to McMaster Navigation Skip to Site Navigation Skip to main content
McMaster logo

Graduate Studies

Student Guide to using Ouriginal (Urkund)

This guide is for students using Ouriginal plagiarism checking software for their research documents, including

  • manuscripts
  • thesis
  • book
  • book chapters
  • abstracts
  • conference proceedings
  • case studies, etc.

Ouriginal may NOT be used for course work, including assignments, projects, or case studies that will not be disclosed publicly to peers beyond McMaster’s campus.

When to use Ouriginal vs Turnitin

McMaster University has two subscriptions for plagiarism checking software, both available through Avenue2Learn.

  1. Turnitin is regularly used for courses, both undergraduate and graduate,
  2. Ouriginal (previously known as Urkund) is intended for those who create research documents that will be publicly released.

The main difference between the two systems is how they treat document retention.

  • Turnitin stores any document submitted in perpetuity and is ideal for work that isn’t publicly disclosed, like assignments, so that copies from previous years cannot be submitted as new submissions.
  • Ouriginal will delete submitted documents automatically after evaluated for their originality.

 

How to submit your document

1. Request your supervisor give you access to the Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service course in Avenue2Learn.

2. Once you have access, log in to Avenue to Learn and find the Ouriginal/Urkund course.

  • On Avenue to Learn main course page, you may need to scroll down to the “Urkund” section, depending on your browser and size of your screen.

3. Open the Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service course.

An Assignment window in the Urkund/Ouriginal course. The title of the Assignment window is in the upper left, called Research Papers. A research paper is listed in the completed analysis section of the window.

4. Click on the Assessment menu at the top of the main Urkund course page.

5. Click on Assignments. Your supervisor will have created one or more assignments. Select the most appropriate assignment or ask your supervisor which one is correct for your document.

Note: The Urkund “Assignments” section is configured by each supervisor, so the assignment names will differ. It should look similar to the screenshot below.

6. Click Add a File, then select My Computer in the pop-up window and upload your document.

Submit Assignment window image

7. Click Add once the correct file has been uploaded.

8. Click Submit once the correct file is showing under “Files to submit” on the assignment page.

It may take several hours for Ouriginal/Urkund to analyze the file. Once the analysis is complete and the originality report is ready for review, it will appear under the “Assignment Overview” section on the main course page.

Once the report is generated, a student may delete the submitted file in assignments or ask their supervisor to delete it.

Important

  • Upload only one (1) document per assignment submission.
  • File sizes larger than 100 MB cannot be uploaded, but even those above 50 MB may cause problems. Consider removing images to reduce the size of your file.

How to review the Originality Report

1. Download the Urkund Report Quick Start Guide to help you navigate the published report.

The Analysis Overview page contains a lot of information, including

  • visualization of the pages with matching content,
  • “Findings” section which identifies published documents with text matches to your document,
  • similarity analysis.

Analysis Overview page

Important

The similarity analysis should not be considered evidence of matching content but any score above 5 to 10 per cent indicates that you and your supervisor should review matches in more detail and consider making corrections to the document before it is officially submitted to the School of Graduate Studies (thesis) or a publisher.

Download the report

A permanent copy of the report can be downloaded from the Urkund/Ouriginal site, by clicking on the download arrow in the upper right corner of the Analysis Overview web page.

 

Known issue with Safari browser

If you wish to use Safari (Mac OS) with Ouriginal/Urkund platform, you must configure the browser preferences as outlined below.

  1. Open Safari
  2. Click the Safari menu and select Preferences.
  3. Click the Privacy tab.
  4. Uncheck the Prevent cross-site tracking box AND uncheck the Block all cookies. (Both of these preferences must be disabled if you want to use Safari with Urkund.)
  5. Close the Safari Preferences window and refresh or restart your browser.

Guides and tutorials for students

Information Box Group

Ouriginal (Urkund) Student Guide to Plagiarism Download the PDF

Ouriginal/Urkund Resource

Urkund Report Quick Start Guide Download the PDF

Ouriginal/Urkund Resource