Review of the Use of Turnitin

Transcription

1 AQA P /2016 Review of the Use of Turnitin The UWI, St Augustine Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning & The Alma Jordan Library

2 1.0 INTRODUCTION The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine subscribes to Turnitin, an online service that allows for evaluation of student learning via its originality check, grading and peer review features. The acquisition and use of Turnitin was intended to support Faculty and students in ensuring academic work is original by allowing them to check written work against an extensive database of online articles, web pages and student essays. The St Augustine Campus advocates for the use of Turnitin as a developmental tool to guide students as they learn about proper citation, referencing and academic honesty. By using the originality report generated by Turnitin s originality check feature, students and lecturers can work together to avoid plagiarism. While the Turnitin Originality Report is not an absolute indicator of plagiarism it can be used to indicate suspected plagiarism. In this regard the St Augustine Campus advocates for proper assessment of the report by Faculty, using proper academic judgement in the context of the subject and the student s overall performance and profile. 2.0 ACCESS TO AND USE OF TURNITIN AT UWI ST AUGUSTINE 2.1 Members of Faculty Turnitin was acquired by UWI, St Augustine in At the time when it was first introduced, Lecturers were provided with independent Turnitin accounts. In 2008, Turnitin was integrated with our Learning Management System, myelearning, allowing lecturers to use the assignment activity in their online course, and this facilitates the checking of students submissions against the Turnitin database of materials. Users who had an independent account did not have access to the integrated Turnitin and were required to trade in their independent accounts and use the access within myelearning. There currently exist some independent accounts which can only be retained once the lecturer does not use access within myelearning. Self-instructional videos and print material on how to use Turnitin are available for lecturers in myelearning. The Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning also provides one-on-one support and schedules workshops each year on the use of Turnitin. Workshops are facilitated on request. Between June 2010 and May 2013 five workshops were conducted on the use of Turnitin, with a total of 100 persons attending these face to face training sessions. This represents approximately 17% of the teaching staff of the St Augustine campus. 2 P a g e A u g u s t

3 2.2 Access and Orientation for Undergraduate Students Undergraduate students access Turnitin via the following means: Assignments created by their lecturers in myelearning ( in which case their written work is automatically checked), Submitting directly to myelearning via myelearning 101 for Students (in which case they must download the originality report generated themselves). Self-Instructional materials on how to submit to Turnitin via myelearning 101 for students is available on the site. Submitting written work to a lecturer who has an individual Turnitin account, who can then provide an originality report 2.3 Access and Orientation for Postgraduate Students In addition to the above methods, post-graduate students can also access Turnitin via a postgraduate account maintained by the School of Graduate Studies and Research in Mona Jamaica. This is in fact the suggested access for postgraduate students. A list of FAQs and links to videos and print materials on use of Turnitin were prepared by CETL. 3.0 USE OF TURNITIN AT ST AUGUSTINE Data compiled by the Campus Information Technology Services ( CITS) indicate that there was a steady increase in the use of Turnitin assignments in myelearning between 2007/8 and 2013/14 ( Table 1). Table 1: Total Number of Turnitin Assignments by Academic year Academic Year Total Number of Turnitin Assignments in myelearning 2007/ / / / / / / There was also a steady increase in usage of Turnitin via Myelearning 101 for students, as indicated in Table 2. 3 P a g e A u g u s t

4 Table 2: Total Number of Turnitin Submissions to Myelearning 101 for Students Academic Year Total Number of Turnitin Assignments in myelearning 101 for students 2007/ / / / / / / Requests were made however no data on postgraduate usage of the account maintained by School for Graduate Studies were provided. Research has not been conducted to ascertain whether lecturers have been using the originality reports generated for developmental purposes or simply to detect suspected plagiarism. 4.0 CHALLENGES TO USE OF TURNITIN AT ST AUGUSTINE While there has been an increase in the use of Turnitin, widespread use has been hampered by the following; 1. Lecturers are not familiar with the software and do not take the time to attend workshops. The workshops attract only a small number of persons attending even though they are widely advertised. 2. There does not seem to be a clear policy on which department has responsibility for managing Turnitin on the campus and this results in students sometimes not finding support in the use of the software to undertake checking of their work before submission 3. Postgraduate supervisors seem unaware of their roles in checking originality reports and using the software for development of the writing skills of the students 4. There is widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of the similarity index which indicates the percentage match with items in the Turnitin database. This leads to lecturers focusing on the percentages as an indication of plagiarism with proper academic assessment. 5. There are several ways of accessing Turnitin and this sometimes causes confusion and results in students submitting work via one means of access and then checking work on another occasion against work already submitted. 4 P a g e A u g u s t

5 5.0 THE ROLE OF THE CAMPUS LIBRARIES AND THE CETL The role of the libraries has been to facilitate the development of an information-literate UWI graduate. The Campus Libraries seek not only to impart the required research skills, but to also ensure the ethical use of information. To this end the Campus Libraries conduct some 100 discipline-specific workshops annually. These sessions are aimed at teaching students the conventions for citing documents and acknowledging sources in their field. The Libraries also provide support by teaching the use of the bibliographic software package Endnote. This software allows the student/researcher to create a personal database of references and research documents online as well as on a personal computing device. Taught sessions can be embedded in programme modules, but small group or one-to-one tutorials are available on request from the faculty liaison librarians. Additional support is provided in the form of online Research Guides which provide a reference point for students. Success in this area depends on support from members of faculty. The CETL has been facilitating the development of the skills of faculty in the areas of academic advising in general and the use of Turnitin for detecting suspected plagiarism. In this regard we continue to facilitate workshops and make presentations on the use of plagiarism and academic advising. We also provide small group and one-to-one tutorials for persons who wish to create Turnitin assignments. Additional support is provided via the CETLs website and the Turnitin website. It is clear from the increase in incidences of plagiarism and the challenges faced in the use of Turnitin that all stakeholders need to intensify efforts to embed good practice in academic writing and student supervision. 6.0 RECOMMENDATIONS The following strategies are recommended to enhance the use of Turnitin on the campus: 1. Consider the development of a campus policy on Turnitin use (Faculties/Departments/Instructors may decide to use Turnitin only occasionally, on an as-needed basis, or they may opt to submit all student papers to Turnitin) a policy would provide clearer guidance for Turnitin use (see sample in Appendix I). 2. Clear guidelines should be developed by CETL, CITS and Library on campus use of Turnitin and roles and responsibilities. This would support a Campus policy on the use of Turnitin 3. Creation of separate support/help desks for students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and preparation/selection of appropriate orientation materials 4. Development of a short-term strategy to promote the use of Turnitin for developmental purposes 5. Evaluation of the short-term strategy to inform further development of the use of Turnitin. 5 P a g e A u g u s t

6 7.0 CONCLUSION It should be recognised that Turnitin is not the panacea for the problem of plagiarism. It is software that can aid in the detection of possible plagiarism but more importantly, it can be used to indicate gaps in student s ability to prepare academic papers meeting the required standards. In this regard it can be used proactively for development of academic writing. This use needs to be promoted in the interest of developing the distinctive UWI graduate. September 7, P a g e A u g u s t

7 Appendix I Draft Policy on the use of Turnitin INTRODUCTION The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine subscribes to Turnitin, an online service that allows for evaluation of student learning via its originality check, grading and peer review features. The acquisition and use of Turnitin was intended to support Faculty and students in ensuring academic work is original by allowing them to check written work against an extensive database of online articles, web pages and student essays. The St Augustine Campus advocates for the use of Turnitin as a developmental tool to guide students as they learn about proper citation, referencing and academic honesty. By using the originality report generated by Turnitin s originality check feature, students and lecturers can work together to avoid plagiarism. Guidance for staff and students on the use of Turnitin and Electronic Submission is available to view and download at XXXX POLICY The UWI St Augustine: 1. Recognises the utility of Turnitin as a developmental tool which can assist students and lecturers in ensuring that their academic work is original and in this regard all of our students and lecturers should have access to Turnitin to self-submit their work for independent checking. 2. Acknowledges that Turnitin Originality Reports will sometimes assist in the identification of plagiarised work submitted for assessment however there is no UWI policy on an acceptable percentage for originality reports. Each Originality report must be assessed on its own by the lecturer or supervisor. 3. Will provide student support for the appropriate use of Turnitin: 1. Helpdesk support for postgraduate students via The Office of Graduate Studies and Research. 2. Helpdesk support for undergraduate students via Student Advisory Services 4. Will make Turnitin available to lecturers via the Turnitin Assignment tool in their courses in myelearning and the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning will provide support as needed for the use of this tool 5. Requires all lecturers using Turnitin assignments in their courses to include in course outlines, course websites and assessment information sheets information on the use of Turnitin (see sample statement) 7 P a g e A u g u s t

8 6. Will encourage postgraduate students to access Turnitin via a postgraduate account maintained by the School of Graduate Studies and Research in Mona Jamaica and will provide helpdesk support for this via The Office of Graduate Studies and Research. 7. Will use Turnitin to help students to improve their referencing skills via the Campus Libraries 8. Will mandate all postgraduate research students to submit their dissertations to Turnitin. 9. Will not use the Originality Report as the only evidence to support a case of suspected plagiarism. A decision on plagiarised must be based on rational, academic judgement. Sample Statement on use of Turnitin It is now a requirement for all students to pass their written assignments, be it coursework, theses, research papers, or project reports through the plagiarism detection tool Turnitin. Turnitin is an online plagiarism prevention tool used to assist academic staff in detecting improper referencing, misquotation, and the inclusion of unattributed material, which may be forms of cheating or plagiarism. Turnitin will retain a copy of submitted materials on behalf of the University for detection of future plagiarism, but access to the full text of submissions will not be made available to any other party. Students are asked to familiarize themselves with the following UWI Regulations on Plagiarism; UWI Guidelines for Staff and Students on Plagiarism and the UWI Policy on Graduate Student Plagiarism 8 P a g e A u g u s t