Hi Rod:

“Personally I’d quite like to be able to turn off the % number and only have the colour coded reports as this would prevent abdicating responsibility to an algorithm for what should be an issue of academic judgement.”

Yes, yes, yes! I could not agree more.

Best,

Sarah

Good Practice Adviser

Learning Enhancement and Academic Development Service (LEADS)

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401

Tel: +44 (0)141 330 3026

@NomadWarMachine

From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rod Cullen
Sent: 21 February 2017 10:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Using Turnitin/Electronic submission

Hi All,

I probably get asked for the “magic Turnitin %” more than anything else about assessment.

As pretty much everyone else who has responded to Helen’s question has pointed out there simply isn’t a magic number. There are lots of reasons why original work might have a high % similarity and why a low % similarity might be reported for work that is not so original. I’ve screenshot a couple of slides from activities that I do in TII staff development sessions that illustrate some of the points that others have made. It often leads to some lively discussion as there is a lot of misunderstanding about TII in this respect.

In relation to allowing formative submissions, the point that I would make is that TII is just a bit of technology. If students are simply provided with opportunities to submit work to TII as drafts before making formal submission of their work, and this is all they get, don’t be surprised if they start to play the numbers game and simply tweak things to reduce the similarity number. An experienced tutor will spot this anyway and if it things are not cited correctly there is still an issues with the originality of the work. However, if originality reports on drafts are used as part of a dialogue between students and their tutors if can be a very powerful formative tool to help students develop effective referencing technique and to craft and improve their writing skills. The quality of dialogue between the tutor and students is so much more important than % similarity in this respect. Personally I’d quite like to be able to turn off the % number and only have the colour coded reports as this would prevent abdicating responsibility to an algorithm for what should be an issue of academic judgement.

Like all learning technologies TII is only as good as the learning, teaching and assessment design that it supports.

Rod

____________________________________________________________________

Dr W. Rod Cullen

Assistant Head of Learning and Research Technologies (Learning Innovation)

Tel: 0161 247 3356

eMail: [log in to unmask]

Skype: wrod.cullen

From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hancock, Jessica
Sent: 21 February 2017 09:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Using Turnitin/Electronic submission

I very much agree that allowing students to 'check their level of plagiarism' before submission often leads to bad academic practices (so the need for students to understand and not be unduly worried about the system needs to be balanced against this), particularly as Turnitin doesn't actually look for plagiarism. It looks for word/ phrase matches which isn't the same thing.

Similarly, it's therefore impossible to put a numerical rating on what is and isn't ok as the score is nowhere near the whole story.

Interestingly, I'm currently doing a PGCert in HE and so recently submitted a project report through Turnitin. I got a 29% score, but when I took a look, this was achieved by a) all of my reference list coming up as matches (which is probably a good thing) b) quotes being matched c) matches on common phrases in different contexts (e.g. 'improve student learning', 'widening participation in HE'). None of these would concern me in any way if I was talking a student through their work, and I'm going to use this as an example of the issues with Turnitin scores in my teaching. My assessment hasn't been graded yet but I am assuming the markers will look at it in the same way. :)

Jessica

Dr Jessica Hancock

Lecturer in Academic Development

GCU London

From: learning development in higher education network <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Stephen Rutherford <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 21 February 2017 00:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Using Turnitin/Electronic submission

Dear Helen,

We do not have a standard cut-off score for Turn-it-in, as we have found that often the % score can be misleading. Instead we approach each individual submission and look at it holistically. For some subjects (anatomy, for example) there are standard ways of using terminologies and these may increase the similarity score. A good review of the submission shows areas where the student has copied and pasted, or copied but then tried to disguise the fact. But we found in our School that other than being able to discard clearly negligible scores of c.5%, pretty much everything else needed a cursory look, which could be done quickly. So we no longer just look at the score with a cut-off in mind.

What we did to ensure consistency was to have all large assessments (ie core written assignments for the whole year coort – anything over about 100 scripts) checked by a central team of a small number of people. This was onerous on them, but did lead to better consistency overall, and you can check a collection of submissions fairly quickly, even for large modules of 300-400.

Also, in our School, we give students the chance to look at turn-it-in scores for formative work, but only after submission. We discussed this extensively, but felt that offering students the chance to submit work and check their Turn-it-in report would only encourage them to take the approach of copy-and-pasting, and then making minor changes to disguise the fact, rather than promoting actual good academic practice (ie reading the source, making notes, then removing the source and writing original prose).

As far as I know there is no standard University policy here at Cardiff.

Hope that helps a bit.

Best wishes,

Steve Rutherford

Dr S.M. Rutherford SFHEA

National Teaching Fellow

Deputy Director of Undergraduate Education,

School of Biosciences,

Cardiff University,

Museum Avenue,

Cardiff.

CF10 3AX

02920 870251

[log in to unmask]

From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Helen Heywood

Sent: 20 February 2017 15:55

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Using Turnitin/Electronic submission

Good afternoon,

We have been using Turnitin for the past 3 years and during that time I have been pushing for the following:-

1. Students to be allowed to submit work to Turnitin prior to the actual submission date so that they can receive an originality report, to check their level of plagiarism. They could then seek guidance on how to address this, thus increasing their understanding of plagiarism.

2. For the University to have a clear policy of what constitutes an 'acceptable level' of originality? Some lecturers are failing students for having a 30% originality score, others a 50%.

Lecturers have been told to use their own academic judgement, but this has left the students somewhat confused by the marking associated with the varying levels.

I was wondering if any of you would be willing to share what happens in your Universities if you are using electronic submission, with regard to student submission, and if you have any policy documentation regarding originality reports.

Kind regards,

Helen Heywood

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