I use Turnitin in my online courses and in the traditional class rooms
I teach economics. To avoid issues of students repeating answers, I provide a short written component and a short application based on numerical information. I can change or assign different numbers to every student... I usually find the student who does not understand the concept.
For papers I use Turnitin as a screening device. I request that students use it also... I expect them to address high similarity scores BEFORE submitting an assignment. A high similarity is not proof; high similarity score is a justification for an investigation.
Albert,
Good idea. We use SafeAssign (competitor to TurnItIn), but I have not used it in this way. Thanks for sharing.
Dr. Tena B. Crews
I believe that it is best practice to inform students about your criteria, methods, and software used to verify academic honesty. Students should have access to the same software.
Students are able to check their similarity score before submitting a document for my evaluation.
Albert,
Academic honesty policies are essential. The students should understand their expectations and you should hold them to high standards. Thanks for your input.
I reemphasize that each student should have access to the software used to monitor their assignments.
A student who is partly responsible for monitoring similarity scores will be an important tool is controlling accidental and unintentional violations of the institution's academic honesty code.
Albert,
Nice that you are thinking about the academic honesty code. Plagiarism is probably one of the most common violations. Thanks for your input.
Albert,
Nice that you are thinking about the academic honesty code. Plagiarism is probably one of the most common violations. Thanks for your input.
I have used TurnItIn for a couple of years and find it works well not only catching plagiarism, but to deter it. I announce at the beginning of the course that all papers will be submitted to TurnItIn and I then find that very few score a high percentage of plagiarism. If they do I will then further investigate. I also keep an electronic copy of the file (student assignment) that was submitted to TurnItIn from every course so I can compare them to prior student's work. On the few occasions that a current student has used a former student's work, I have the evidence on hand. This has come in handy a couple times when the students still insist they turned in original work. An even more important deterrent to plagiarism is an institution that will enforce their policy against it. Few students will take the chance if they know in the beginning they will most likely be caught and face real consequences.
Walt,
I agree. We use SafeAssign (basically the same as TurnItIn) and I use it to teach what plagiarism is. They write their first paper, turn it in under SafeAssign and we discuss why things came back as plagiarized. Many times it is just because they didn't reference it correctly. Then, we discuss proper referencing, etc. I use this first paper only for this teaching purpose and then they get to rewrite and from them on we use SafeAssign to assess the plagiarism and assess the paper. No more rewrites. It works for us. Thanks!
