Turnitin Tips and Tools Presenters: Kelley Brumbelow and Lindy Crace

Turnitin – What is it? Turnitin is a program that helps identify papers that have been plagiarized. It not only tells teachers if the papers have been plagiarized, but it gives us the exact sources that were used on the internet.

Turnitin Basics In order to enable Turnitin, go into your Dropbox, and click on Edit Folder. From here, click on the Turnitin tab. Make sure you have the boxes checked next to “Enable Turnitin for this folder” and “Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity.”

Turnitin Basics Cont. When you have Turnitin enabled for a dropbox item, it will display an icon next to the assignment name that looks like a pair of binoculars.

What is an Originality Report? The originality report sorts through many databases of information, including scholarly writings (journals, research, etc), and work that has been previously submitted to educational institutions. The originality report detects matches to items in these databases and gives a percentage match to the items found. This report can be used in the following ways: - to determine where information should be cited - to determine where original words were not used

Sample Originality Report

Student’s View in Dropbox Within BrightSpace, students access the originality report by clicking on the colored box with the percentage.

Providing Quality Feedback In order to provide specific feedback on an assignment, use the GradeMark feature within Turnitin. This tool allows you to insert comments on the actual paper or assignment. You can drag and drop comments, or you can type them in yourself by just clicking on the paper.

Feedback

How do students access their feedback? Students will click on the colored box in the Dropbox when they go to “View Feedback.” Then, they will click on GradeMark to view your feedback.

What about other kinds of assignments? Turnitin accepts .ppt/.pptx, .xls/.xlsx, and PDF files This makes providing specific feedback on projects easier Feedback can be placed on or right next to the item to which it refers

Exporting and Importing Feedback The Management Tool can help you export frequently-used feedback for future semesters This simplifies the task of responding to predictable mistakes students make, freeing up your time to focus on larger misunderstandings and individual needs. Export/ Import Management Tool Export feedback at the end of one semester; import at the start of the next You can create a separate folder for feedback on each assignment

Review Teachers will click on the colored box next to a student’s name to access the Originality Report and GradeMark feature. It is important to tell students in the feedback box how to access your comments within GradeMark. You can also download your GradeMark comments as a pdf and upload the document to the dropbox as well.

How will Turnitin help me as a teacher? It will help you to determine if a student’s work is original. It will let you know if the assignment has been submitted before by another GAVS student or by the same student twice. It will allow you to provide more effective feedback on written assignments. It will teach your students where citations are needed and the importance of effective paraphrasing. It will help keep your students honest and teach them the importance of academic honesty.

Questions?