Seems you have to pay the organisation, but I've not seen ads for individuals: they tend to sell a license to organisations for gazillions of dollars, and then the organisation can allow people to use it. For example, the coordinator of the subject that Glitterfairy does has allowed students to submit their stuff.. generally she'd also have to hand it in on paper for marking. I don't know if she sees the turnitin output... I doubt it, actually, at the very least due to processing requirements, but also to make the plagarism issue a bit more scary to prevent people from actively attempting it.
Apparently the output just marks "potential plagarism", but I can just imagine that markers could get lazy and not investigate the four words (At a minimum) that have come up as being 'plagarism', when it's simply something that has been worded similarly. ...somehow it ironically seems 'too efficient' and if it's not taken with a grain of salt could cause quite a few problems.
That siad, it shoudl raise the bar of academia...
Oh.. to keep this on topic... Glitterfairy, if you haven't already, email your course coordinator explaining. Just make sure your hard copy is in on time; if it's a technical problem that's not your fault you shouldn't be in trouble for that.
