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The purpose of the Ohio University Turnitin 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 of 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. Toward this end, we ask that faculty and instructors who wish to participate in the trial follow these Policies and Recommended Usage Procedures for Instructors during the pilot project:
- If you use Turnitin.com for an assignment, you should provide students with the opportunity or require students to analyze drafts of their papers using the software. To meet our objective of using Turnitin.com in a pedagogically sound way, students should be allowed to obtain originality reports on their work prior to final submission.
- You should encourage students to meet with you, or someone from the Center for Writing Excellence, to review at least one originality report from a draft. Such meetings will provide you with an opportunity to talk with students about your expectations for originality. Our intent is that Turnitin.com should spark dialogue about effective writing habits rather than just serving as a tool for “detecting plagiarism.”
- Originality reports on final drafts should not be the sole determinant of whether a student committed academic misconduct. The originality report metric that tells you how much of the paper is “similar” to other sources should be carefully evaluated. We recommend that you carefully evaluate how the student used the sources in the assignment to determine if the similarity was caused by a lack of proper citation or actual copying of another source. Final grading decisions should be appropriate to the offense.
- During this trial, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of the software. For this purpose, we would like to know the average “similarity rating” that you observed for each assignment. We would also like to have you present any cases that you observed where academic misconduct and/or gross citation errors occurred.
- We will create a survey about the use of Turnitin.com that should be completed by you and your students. We ask that you administer this survey so that we can integrate the data into our final report on the software as an option for the university.
Informing Your Students about Turnitin on the Course Syllabus
Only students should submit assignments and papers to Turnitin.com – not instructors. Instructors should always notify their students that the Turnitin.com software tool may be used. In addition, faculty should take care to inform students about steps they should take to protect their privacy and also give students the opportunity to “opt out” of using the software. As such, faculty should include the following statement on their syllabus if they plan to use the Turnitin software:
Ohio University has purchased a license to use Turnitin.com, a web-based software tool, to help students and teachers analyze, evaluate, and provide feedback on written papers and assignments. The software will be used in this class to analyze both drafts and final versions of papers. Turnitin.com checks student assignments against billions of pages of Internet resources, databases, and other student assignments from the United States and Canada that have been submitted previously. When an assignment is checked by the software, Turnitin.com provides an “originality report” to both the faculty member and student; thus, the Turnitin.com software allows students and instructors to check papers for originality. Using the originality reports that are generated by the Turnitin software, students can then determine what sections of a paper or assignment may need revision because of a failure to properly cite sources and/or because of a failure to properly place quotes in quotation marks,among other common mistakes.
The Turnitin software will be used in this class to analyze both drafts and final versions of papers. Drafts of student work are considered “harmless” in the sense that students will have the opportunity to revise their papers to correct mistakes before final submission. Final versions of papers should be the original work of the student; the software may be used to evaluate the originality of the work. Please visit http://www.citl.ohiou.edu/turnitin/reports.htm/ for additional information on how this tool is used and for an explanation of the originality reports that are generated by Turnitin.com.
Documents submitted to Turnitin.com will become part of a database used for comparison with other papers submitted for analysis. Thus, having your paper in the database will protect you from having others inappropriately use your scholarly work. To protect your privacy you should delete your name, e-mail, identification number, or any other personally identifying information from the assignment before submitting it to Turnitin.com.
If you wish to opt out of using this software tool, you must inform the teacher, in writing, before the end of week 2 – or two days before the first written draft or assignment is due – whichever comes first. If you opt out of using the software, you must turn in a comprehensive portfolio for each draft/final paper that includes brainstorming notes, iterations of the paper as you revise it, copies of all sources cited in the paper, and annotations explaining what material out of the sources were used. If you opt out of using the program, other electronic tools may be used to analyze your work.
Informing Your Students about Turnitin on Assignments
In addition to inserting the above instructions on the syllabus, the following language should be placed on each assignment sheet:
To evaluate this assignment, I will use Turnitin.com to help check for proper use of sources. You may submit a draft to Turnitin.com for analysis prior to submitting a final version of the assignment. I am available to go over your Turnitin originality report with you to help identify ways to improve your draft before final submission. The final submission of your work must be submitted to Turnitin.com prior to the due date. Be sure to remove any personally-identifiable information (name, e-mail, identification number, etc.) from the document that you submit. Also, if you opted out of using this tool, you must submit a hard copy, electronic copy, and portfolio (see the syllabus for details) by the due date.
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