Plagiarism faced as one of the most frequent academic issues. The Internet revolution and the ease access on enormous electronic sources of information and digital content has triggered a current response from the academic community. The Internet may have contributed to the outbreak of the phenomenon of plagiarism, but it also brought the tools to detect it. The Turnitin plagiarism detection software is the most well-known and extensively used tool. After several years of use (2017-today) in many Greek Universities, the time has come for a comprehensive quantitative survey of its use using questionnaires. The questionnaire was mostly structured with closed-ended questions divided into three sections: plagiarism perceptions, Turnitin plagiarism detection tool, and demographics. The questionnaires were circulated in three Universities, The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), the Hellenic Open University (HOU) and the University of West Attica (UNIWA). Questionnaires were distributed by various and suitable means (email, social media, official e-mail lists, etc.). The first two Universities were chosen based on the quantity of users and their extensive experience with plagiarism detection technologies (AUTH and HOU have been using the Ephorus plagiarism detection program since 2011). UNIWA was chosen as a typical institution of recent use, as well as because the research was conducted as part of the fulfillment of the Postgraduate Master’s Course at the Department of Archival, Library and Information Studies. The major goal of the research was to determine whether or not the Universities have a plagiarism policy, as well as to explore faculty' attitudes and perceptions regarding the issue of plagiarism and their opinions on the use of Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool.

A total of 315 questionnaires were gathered, demonstrating the need for the Universities to adopt a written policy as well as the establishment of a relevant Committee for Academic Ethics. The questionnaires revealed two key findings: Turnitin's instructional role and the importance of acquiring the academic writing style or techniques by the students. Finally, the overall evaluation of the use of the Turnitin as a tool seemed to be positive and most Faculty members use it without difficulty. It is remarkable that the correct interpretation of the similarity report is one of the difficulties that professors have to deal with.