Monday, March 19, 2018

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is a cloud-based program that provides a comprehensive solution for grading assignments, preventing plagiarism, and safeguarding an institution's reputation. For students, Turnitin provides personalized and timely feedback while identifying areas for individual growth and improvement. For faculty, Turnitin streamlines the grading and feedback loop through integration with Moodle. Turnitin keeps an institution's reputation top of mind by reducing unoriginal content and fostering confident writers.

Moodle ISU instructors can now add Turnitin to their course using the Add an Activity or Resource function. The ITRC has made getting started information available for both students and faculty at https://isu.edu/itrc/turnitin. Feel free to also call the ITRC at 282-5880 or stop by the lab for more information and assistance with using this new tool.

The Pluses and Minuses of Turnitin According to One Faculty

In the article, "My Love-Hate Relationship with Turnitin", author Ry Marcattilio-McCracken (2015) candidly admits that he loves Turnitin. He states that it is "Painless, effective, and just as important, already there for me to use" and saves him significant time each term "Google-searching" student papers. Additionally, when he is forced to pursue an incident of academic dishonesty, Turnitin provides a tidy, official-looking report that "tends to convince students of the authority and weight behind the meeting'" he is having with them.

In spite of how much Marcattilio-McCracken (2015) "loves" Turnitin, he has reservations about the company's "fair-use" and profitability from the submission of student work. Marcattilio-McCracken ends his article with the admission that at some point he will have to decide which is more important: his time, or his overriding philosophical concerns about the company.

Turnitin's Privacy Pledge

"Integrity is at the heart of all we do; it defines us." --Chris Caren, CEO of Turnitin

TurnitIn's privacy policy covers the kind of data they collect, what they do with it, and how they protect any personal information that is provided by the student or instructor.


Turnitin Can be Used as a Writing Coach for Students

Turnitin recognized that there was a gap for student writing between what the instructor needed to see and what students needed to do and launched its Revision Assistant in 2017. This tool is designed to be a personal writing coach for each student. Instructors can assign writing prompts from a bank available in Turnitin and using a machine learning model, the system adapts to each new essay written by the student and scores it against a changing rubric (Ravipati, 2017). For more information about Turnitin's Revision Assistant read Ravipati's complete article, "Turnitin 'Revises' the Writing Process" and watch the Revision Assistant Walkthrough video (2:21).

 

References


Marcattilio-McCracken, R. (2015, Sep 08) My Love-Hate Relationship with Turnitin. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Ravipati, S. ( 2017, July 06). Turnitin 'Revises' the Writing Process. Campus Technology.