Explanation of the Turnitin.com Pilot Project

Ohio University Turnitin.com Trial
Ohio University has entered into an agreement with iParadigms Software to conduct a trial study of Turnitin.com as an enterprise-level educational tool for teaching students how to effectively and ethically use supporting information from other sources.  The Turnitin.com software allows students and instructors to check papers for originality.  Using the originality reports, students can then determine what sections of a paper or assignment may need revision because of incorrect use of source citations, incorrect use of quotation marks, and other common but correctable mistakes.  

The purpose of the trial study is to determine whether or not Turnitin.com can be used efficiently by teachers and students and whether the software can be used to enhance the educational experience for students.  Although other universities use the software strictly as a tool for detecting plagiarism, Ohio University’s intent is to develop protocols for using the software that will allow Turnitin to serve more of an educational function.  To this end, we ask that faculty and instructors who wish to participate in the trial follow the Policies and Recommended Usage Procedures for Instructors during the pilot project. 

The trial for Turnitin.com is being conducted by the Center for Academic Technology in collaboration with Ohio University’s Academic Honesty Committee (contact co-chair Scott Titsworth, titswort@ohio.edu).