Guide

Theses

Students are required to submit their bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD theses/dissertations via myWU, where they are then subjected to digital plagiarism testing. All information about uploading to myWU can be found in the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral/PhD Guide.

Link: Prevention of AI in teaching - Unauthorized use of AI-based software by students

How do I upload my thesis?

All information about uploading to myWU can be found in the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral/PhD Guide.

How can I access my student's uploaded theses on MyLEARN?

Your students’ uploaded theses can be found on MyLEARN under “Theses” in the menu on the left-hand side of the page. Click this menu item to see a list of all theses submitted by students who named you as a supervisor. Theses are filtered by semester and type, and on the individual pages, you can also search for theses by name.

If a student has named you as a supervisor for his/her thesis, you will be automatically notified by email when the paper has been uploaded and you will be able to access the work at any time using the link provided. If two or more students have co-authored a thesis, one student initiates submission and all co-authors are required to give their consent. Theses will not be forwarded to supervisors until all co-authors have given their consent.

The “Status” column shows you the following information:

Plagiarism testing in progress:

As soon as plagiarism testing is complete, you will be notified by email.

Plagiarims check successful:

Once the plagiarism testing is complete, you will be able to see the results on your overview page represented as a percentage of textual matches. Click the “View details” button to view results in detail. Select “View results in new tab” to view the interactive Similarity Report.

Plagiarism check failed

Plagiarism testing will fail if the file:

Was uploaded without a file extension (.pdf)
Contains fewer than 1,000 words
Is too large in size (>16 MB)

Please note: The percentage of textual matches in the result is not significant on its own, it is important to review the Similarity Report in detail.

The “Actions” column provides the following information:

	Click "" to remove submitted work that has not yet been subjected to plagiarism testing.
	Click this icon to conclude the plagiarism check and send the thesis data to BACH.

Please be sure to check all work for plagiarism yourself as well. Digital plagiarism testing can never replace a review by the supervisor. No plagiarism detection software can provide 100% assurance that the tested document has not been plagiarized.

How do I interpret the Similarity Report?

After completion of digital plagiarism testing, supervisors need to interpret the results.

In the “Status” column, click the link “View details" to see the Similarity Report on the submitted thesis.

Percentage values alone are not a reliable indicator if work has been plagiarized, and if so, to what extent. This can only be determined after careful review of the sources found and a comparison with the submitted thesis.

For a detailed description and explanation of the Similarity Report, please see the Turnitin website.

Who can I contact if I have any additional questions about plagiarism testing?

If you have additional questions about plagiarism or if you have reasonable grounds to suspect plagiarism or other forms of academic fraud, please contact plagiate@wu.ac.at.

For further information, please see the Directive on Plagiarism and Other Types of Academic Fraud in Academic Theses.

Troubleshooting

What to do if plagiarism testing fails and you are given an error message.

Error message	Action
The file cannot be processed because it is not in PDF format.	Ask the author to submit the file in PDF format.
The file cannot be processed. Please make sure the file is not encrypted or password protected, and that it was converted using the PDF function integrated in your word processing software.	The author has encrypted the file. Please ask the author to submit an unencrypted file.
The PDF cannot be processed because the text seems to be too short and does not contain enough readable characters.	The document contains fewer than 1,000 words, so it cannot be tested for plagiarism. Please ask the author to submit a document that is 1,000 words or more in length.
The text contained in your file does not resemble a natural language. Please check which program was used to convert the file.	The plagiarism software cannot recognize the document language. Please ask the author to use the integrated PDF function of their word processing software (e.g. PDF add-in for Microsoft Office) or an original Adobe conversion program to create the PDF file. PDFs created using freeware often cause problems during the saving and reading process.
The file you provided is too big. File size may not exceed 16MB.	Please ask the author to submit a document that does not exceed 16MB in size.

I would like to delete an uploaded thesis on MyLEARN? How can I proceed?

Uploaded theses can't be deleted from the system. They can only be locked so that they are no longer used for comparison.

If you want to exclude a thesis in the database from the comparison made by the plagiarism software (e.g. if you are reviewing a revised thesis for the second time, or for blocked theses), you must deselect the source in the web viewer of the report. This will also update the match percentage on MyLEARN.

A source is deselected by clicking on the eye symbol next to the source (it appears if you hover with the mouse over the source statement).