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I agree with Mary's comment in the THE article that Turnitin is a visually effective way of demonstrating inappropriate source use - particularly with students who are new to our academic writing conventions and/or are users of English as an Additional Language. I’m also a GradeMark fan and use it on all my assignments.
I've not found any published evidence that students use Turnitin to 'beat the system', and several studies suggesting it doesn't - e.g.
· Hunter, A. (2012) ‘Text comparison software for students’: an educational development tool or quick ‘text checker’ – examining student use and perceptions of value. Fifth International Plagiarism Conference [online]. July 16-18, the Sage, Newcastle. Available at: http://www.plagiarismadvice.org (Accessed 23 September 2013).
· Stappenbelt, B. and Rowles, C. (2009) The effectiveness of plagiarism detection software as a learning tool in academic writing education. 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity (4APCEI) [online]. 28–30 September 2009, University of Wollongong, NSW Australia. Available at: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=apce (Accessed 23 June 2013).
· Wright, D., Owens, A. and Donald, N. (2008) Making the case for multiple submissions to Turnitin. Third International Plagiarism Conference [online]. June 23-26, Northumbria University, Newcastle. Available at: http://www.plagiarismadvice.org (Accessed 23 September 2013).
Of course, Turnitin ORs have many limitations. One not mentioned in this thread (so far) is the database – coverage is far less complete in certain subjects (e.g. Visual Arts, English Literature), and doesn’t include nested content (e.g. Yahoo Answers), so the OR may engender a false sense of security in students who have copied from such sources. And as Diane says, while it demonstrates inappropriate practice, it doesn’t teach the skills. Like others, I’m concerned that over-use of Turnitin will encourage a mechanistic approach to writing. So I do wonder why some institutions make students run all their written assignments through Turnitin prior to submission – may that not afford this helpful-but-limited software a status it doesn’t deserve?
Best, Carol
Carol Bailey
Senior Lecturer in English for Academic Purposes
Co-ordinator: Postgraduate Academic English Language Development
University of Wolverhampton
-----Original Message-----
From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wells, Julian
Sent: 25 April 2014 14:47
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Turnitin for teaching
Even though Diane is of course entirely right in everything that she says -- especially that "[w]riting with fewer matched phrases is not necessarily better or more effective writing" -- I think (with every respect) that it is she who is missing the point.
Words are the only way that we or our students have to convey ideas to one another, whether those ideas are our own or someone else's.
The great merit of computers is that by automating character recognition and pattern matching they facilitate paying attention to "the mechanics of quotation marks, parentheses, etc." (and the words which these marks set off), which are how one signals whether one is quoting, paraphrasing, and so on.
Best wishes,
Julian
-----Original Message-----
From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Schmitt, Diane
Sent: 25 April 2014 13:06
Subject: Re: Turnitin for teaching
Hi
I still think all of this misses the point. Writing with fewer matched phrases is not necessarily better or more effective writing. Students need to understand not only how to paraphrase, but firstly when and why using the ideas of another is appropriate. Then they need to make a decision about whether at that point in their writing it is more appropriate to quote, summarise or paraphrase. Then they need to think about fitting that into their current text and finally, the mechanics of quotation marks, parentheses, etc.
Even at the formative level, Turnitin puts all the focus on the words. It's the ideas that really matter.
Regards
Diane
Diane Schmitt
Chair of BALEAP
Senior Lecturer
Nottingham Language Centre
Nottingham Trent University
Burton Street
Nottingham NG1 4BU
UK
0115 848 6156 (NLC reception)
0115 848 8986 (direct line)
-----Original Message-----
From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Quinlan, Nathan
Sent: 25 April 2014 09:42
Subject: Re: Turnitin for teaching
Hello all,
I'm a long-time doubter of formative access to Turnitin. Studies like Davis and Carroll (2009) are thorough and very interesting, but what they show is that access to Turnitin helps students to achieve a lower Turnitin score. Furthermore, students do so with the support of one-to-one tutorials. It's not clear whether Tii or the tutorial is the key ingredient (several in this thread have suggested that the tutorial is necessary). Is there any hard evidence that formative access helps to improve the quality of work, or even understanding of plagiarism, measured in some way independent of Tii?
Anecdotes like Emma's student asking ""What's an OK %" are familiar and consistent with my gut feeling that the Tii becomes a substitute for some real understanding.
Regards
Nathan
________________________________
Dr. Nathan Quinlan
Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering
National University of Ireland Galway
phone +353 91 492726
fax +353 91 563991
________________________________________
From: Plagiarism [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Emma Duke-Williams [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 April 2014 09:18
Subject: Re: Turnitin for teaching
On 25 Apr 2014, at 08:54, Mary Davis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I agree with you on this point, Mike. I've also found that the formative use of Turnitin works best in a 1-1 tutorial where the originality reports are discussed and students get some guidance on their decisions about what to revise or not to revise using the reports. Without some guidance, sometimes students think they've just got to reduce or make the colour go away by taking out source material. - at least in my international pg student context.
>
> Do other list members have experiences of students using the originality reports successfully on their own?
>
> Mary
We also use it formatively, and, like Mary, students need help [lots, often] to know what to do. The most common question I get is "What's an OK %" - many students find it difficult to grasp that 20% from a single source is probably "worse" than 25% comprised of multiple short phrases; equally that 0% is fairly unlikely, as (unless the short phrases are off), as in many industries there are common phrases.
I also tend to point out to students that it's useful to have it enabled (at least at the start) for both the bibliography and for cited sections - as having them similar often indicates they've cited things correctly. Most need 1:1 or small group to help them understand what's going on.
I'd hoped to use it formatively in the peer review mode earlier in the year, but unfortunately our integration with Moodle is such that we don't have access to the peer review mode.
Emma
--
Emma Duke-Williams
School of Computing, Buckingham Building, (BK1:28) University of Portsmouth,
PO1 3HE.
Tel: 023 9284 6441
Twitter: Emmadw
Blog: http://dukee.myweb.port.ac.uk
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