The use of Turnitin at Oxford University for Tutors and Administrators Oxford University Computing Services
Revision Information Version Date Author Changes made 1.0 September 2010 OUCS Draft document compiled 2.0 July 2011 OUCS with input from the Proctors Office and Education Policy Support Condensed and simplified 3.0 December 2011 OUCS with input from Education Policy Support Checked existing policy Copyright The copyright of this document lies with Oxford University. ii December 2011
Contents 1 Plagiarism what is it?... 1 2 Introduction to Turnitin... 2 3 The process of using Turnitin... 3 3.1. Using the WebLearn-TurnitinUK integration... 4 3.1.1. Advantages of using the WebLearn-Turnitin integration... 4 3.1.2. Restrictions on using the WebLearn-Turnitin integration... 4 3.1.3. How to set up the WebLearn-TurnitinUK integration... 5 3.2. Using the TurnitinUK quick submit mode... 6 4 Using Turnitin as a teaching tool... 7 5 Using Turnitin as preparation for exams... 10 6 Support and Training... 11 6.1. TurnitinUK website... 11 6.2. Plagiarism Advice website... 11 6.3. Supporting academic practice and students writing... 11 6.4. Face-to-face sessions... 11 6.5. Further reading... 11 6.6. Online tools... 11 6.7. Glossary... 12 7 Links to official documentation... 15 7.1. Education Committee... 15 7.2. Proctors notices: Use of Turnitin for examinations... 15 8 Sources used in this document... 16 December 2011 iii
1 Plagiarism what is it? The International Centre for Academic Integrity (http://www.academicintegrity.org/) provides a definition of plagiarism which clearly outlines the conditions under which the presentation of unacknowledged material may be considered to be an act of plagiarism (either intentional or inadvertent): Plagiarism occurs when someone * uses words, ideas, or work products * attributable to another identifiable person or source * without attributing the work to the source from which it was obtained * in a situation in which there is a legitimate expectation of original authorship * in order to obtain some benefit, credit, or gain, which need not be monetary (Fishman, 2011) At the University of Oxford, the booklet Essential Information for Students specifies unacceptable conduct in examined work and any written work (University of Oxford, section 9.5) as follows: 4. No candidate shall present for an examination as his or her own work any part or the substance of any part of another person s work. 5. In any written work (whether thesis, dissertation, essay, coursework, or written examinations) passages quoted or closely paraphrased from another person s work must be identified as quotations or paraphrases, and the source of the quoted or paraphrased material must be clearly acknowledged. The same booklet refers students to the University s guidance on how to avoid plagiarism (www.admin.ox.ac.uk/edc/goodpractice). See further links to official documentation provided in Section 7 of this document. Policies Procedures Academic writing skills Student work Referencing and citation skills Penalties Study skills Information literacy skills TUTOR INSTITUTION Student work under the guidance of a tutor, within an institutional framework 1
2 Introduction to Turnitin Plagiarism attracts significant media attention and is damaging to public perceptions of higher education. Expectations of students with respect to the originality and referencing of their work must be clear and unequivocal, and guidance about what constitutes plagiarism must be instilled early in students. The higher education sector rightly takes this issue seriously and institutions will need to continue to develop their policies for dealing with plagiarism, building on the significant work already underway. Higher Ambitions, Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), October 2009 Turnitin is an electronic text matching system that can be used to find text matches between students submitted work and existing electronic sources, including extensive databases of electronic articles, other student assignments, and the internet. Since Turnitin is a web-based system, student papers 1 (essays or assignments) need to be made available in electronic format (Turnitin cannot be used for submissions (or comparison) with material in printed format). Oxford University has a subscription to the TurnitinUK service, which is supported and informed by JISC. Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS) manages the service and creates instructor accounts on request. It is not possible for students to use the system independently a tutor or supervisor needs to set up a class and an assignment (see Section 6.7 -Glossary). Once this has been done, papers p can be uploaded by students, the tutor or an administrator. There is a quick submit option, which is useful if a staff member wishes to do a quick check on a small number of papers, without having to set up a class and an assignment. After student papers have been submitted and compared to various repositories and databases, an Originality Report (OR) is produced for each submission. The OR highlights parts of the student s text which match with text already held in the Turnitin and other online databases. An overall score (the similarity index) is assigned recording the percentage of the submitted work which is found elsewhere. Scores can be adjusted to take account of properly quoted text and bibliographies. Originality Reports should not be taken as an indication that plagiarism has occurred. They are simply a tool to help an instructor find sources that contain text similar to submitted papers. The decision to deem any work plagiarised must be made carefully, and only after in-depth examination of both the submitted paper and suspect sources in accordance with the standards of the class and institution where the paper was submitted. (Turnitin Instructor Manual, 2010, p. 48). If departments or colleges plan to use Turnitin to detect possible plagiarism in examined (summative) work, then advance permission from the Proctors is required. Instructions to students need to be drafted and the draft instructions submitted to the Proctors for approval. See website links in Section 7 of this document. 1 Words appearing in this font style have descriptions in the Glossary at the end of this document. 2
3 The process of using Turnitin Turnitin can be used in two modes: formative, which focuses on a tutor or supervisor working with a student to encourage and develop acceptable academic writing and citation skills; or summative, which checks a piece of examined work to measure the extent of text matching between the student s work and other sources. The University of Oxford encourages the use of Turnitin as a teaching tool (formative see Section 4). If administrators, examiners or moderators with to use Turnitin to check work submitted for examination purposes (summative see Section 7), then prior permission is required from the Proctors. Turnitin is enabled via the WebLearn Assignments tool, or alternatively can be used directly via the TurnitinUK website (http://submit.ac.uk). If using the WebLearn Assignments tool, the assignment must first be set up by the staff member ( maintainer of the WebLearn site), students should already be enroled as site members, and then they can submit their essays. If using TurnitinUK, staff members may either: o use the quick submit mode (in order to submit a small number of essays) essays are submitted by the staff member o or set up a class (in order to accept essays from a group of students) essays may be submitted by the students or by the staff member, but the class and the assignment must first be created by the staff member. How do I use Turnitin? Seek Proctors permission in advance Decision point 0: Formative? or Summative? Decision point 1: Via the WebLearn Assignments tool? or Via the TurnitinUK website? Decision point 2: Use quick submit to check one essay? or Set up class and assignment for multiple essays? Decision point 3: Work submitted by students? or Work submitted by staff? 3
3.1. Using the WebLearn-TurnitinUK integration When do I use Turnitin via the WebLearn Assignments tool and when do I use TurnitinUK directly? Using the WebLearn-Turnitin integration Add the Assignments tool to your site and tick the box for Turnitin integration Students should already exist in the WebLearn site. If not, it is easy to add participants, by importing course groups from the central database Students use Oxford single sign on, which is familiar to them Staff member must create assignment in the Assignments tool Re-submissions are possible, but at this stage of the integration, only the first one will go through Turnitin Staff member can specify closing date and closing time Other site maintainers, such as administrators and examiners can see the assignment and Originality Report, depending on permissions in the WebLearn site Using TurnitinUK Use either the quick submit option, or the full class option Staff member must create class and add students by registering their email addresses Students need to make use of new, separate login details (tends to result in queries about lost login details) Staff member must create assignment in Turnitin Re-submissions are possible; set it so that re-submissions by the same student before the closing date are not matched against each other Staff member can specify closing date, but not closing time Only the staff member (and students, if so specified) can see the assignment and Originality Report 3.1.1. Advantages of using the WebLearn-Turnitin integration You do not need to request a separate Turnitin account You do not need to create a class in Turnitin You do not need to enrol students directly in a Turnitin class - your students can be easily added as participants in your WebLearn site by importing the course group from a central Oxford University database You do not need to create an assignment in Turnitin you do this in the WebLearn Assignments tool Students make use of their existing Oxford single sign on (SSO) login details Students submit their own assignments using the WebLearn Assignments tool Turnitin Originality Reports are delivered back to the WebLearn Assignments tool, for analysis and discussion with the student The environment is familiar to students and staff who already use WebLearn 3.1.2. Restrictions on using the WebLearn-Turnitin integration Students are identified by their Oxford single sign on (SSO) login details. Anonymity for examined (summative) work is not enabled. Any re-submissions in the WebLearn assignment do NOT currently go through Turnitin on second or subsequent submissions. This restriction will fall away with the next upgrade of WebLearn. 4
3.1.3. How to set up the WebLearn-TurnitinUK integration Step 1: Request a WebLearn site from your IT support staff if you don t already have one Step 2: Build your site by adding the participant group of students, and the Assignments tool, with instructions and supporting file/s if necessary Step 3: Students submit their assignment by uploading it to WebLearn Step 4: The Originality Report is returned in WebLearn within 15 minutes NOTE: Summative use is not recommended via WebLearn; one issue is that students are identified by name. Step 1 Step 2 Request a WebLearn site from your IT support staff Build your WebLearn site including the Assignments tool Step 3 Students submit Assignment/s Step 4 Originality Report is generated and appears in the WebLearn Assignments tool Formative use Tutor discusses Originality Report with student to provide guidance on academic writing skills Education Committee recommends that the focus should be on developing the skills and practices of the students so that they are able to evaluate their own work without relying on the software system. WebLearn promotes the use of Turnitin in a formative way under the guidance of a tutor, helping students to acquire proper skills in academic writing, referencing, citation, style and structure. See Section 4. 5
3.2. Using the TurnitinUK quick submit mode How do I quickly check one or more papers in TurnitinUK without setting up a class and assignment? Step 1: Request an instructor account by sending an e-mail to turnitin@oucs.ox.ac.uk Step 2: Enable the quick submit option for your TurnitinUK account (this enables you to submit one assignment, or several, or a zip file) Step 3: Submit the assignment by uploading it to TurnitinUK: http://submit.ac.uk/ Step 4: View and interpret the Originality Report Step 1 Request an instructor account from turnitin@oucs.ox.ac.uk Step 2 quick submit: Enable quick submit option Step 3 Staff member uploads assignment/s Step 4 Originality Report is generated in the TurnitinUK site View and interpret the Originality Report 6
4 Using Turnitin as a teaching tool Education Committee supports and encourages the use of Turnitin, not just by the Proctors for work submitted for an exam (to help detect intentional plagiarism), but also as a formative tool in college tutorials for tutors to help students learn good referencing and paraphrasing, and to acquire the necessary skills and judgement to apply to their academic work and publications. On the subject of plagiarism, I pay tribute to the success of last year s Proctors in clamping down on plagiarism. A combination of careful examiners and software ranging from Google to Turnitin is proving successful. However, as important as vigilance is our duty as educators to explain why plagiarism is not acceptable and be aware of cultural differences in expectation. Oration by the demitting Proctors and Assessor, March 2009 In 2009 the Education Committee agreed in principle that students could be provided with access to Turnitin for formative use under the supervision of their tutor/supervisor, for work that would not eventually be submitted for a University Examination. This formative use has benefits in a culture which fosters learning. It can assist in the development of students information literacy skills identifying, finding, evaluating and synthesising resource materials and emphasise good practice, rather than focusing on rules and penalties. For tutorial essays and oral presentations students may not be required to reference sources as fully as for more formal written work. However, these more informal settings can include guidance on referencing, citation, academic writing practices and academic integrity in study skills development activities. The TurnitinUK detection service allows students to submit their own essays and see their own Originality R eports, when and only when, the tutor sets up the system for them to do this. The tutor can decide whether the students have access to the Originality Report at the point of submission, and whether they can make more than one submission of a piece of work. (The same comments apply to the WebLearn submission route for formative purposes.) Using TurnitinUK in this formative way can be very simple technically. The first thing to do is to request an instructor account by sending an e-mail to turnitin@oucs.ox.ac.uk. Various approaches to using Turnitin can be described as Tutor-led, Student view, or Revision style. Each involves only a few steps: Tutor-led If you have just one assignment to submit, or if you would like to upload multiple individual assignments yourself rather than have students do it, you can use the quick submit functionality on TurnitinUK: 1. Enable the quick submit option for your account (See Section 3.2). 2. Submit the assignment by uploading it, specifying the title and student's name (or an anonymous identifier) 3. View the Originality Report and discuss with your student. 7
Student view If you want to enable students to submit their own essays and see their own Originality Reports, you can do so via the WebLearn-TurnitinUK integration (see Section 3.1), or via TurnitinUK directly. This section explains how to use TurnitinUK for this purpose: 1. Set up a class and assignment on the TurnitinUK system. 2. Enrol your students in the class either individually or via the student upload tool. If they are new to the system, an account will be automatically created. Each student will receive an e-mail with their password. If they are already registered, they will get an e-mail informing them of the new class in which they have been enrolled Or Provide students with the class l s ID (generated when you created the class), class enrolment password (specified by you) and submission instructions. 3. Ask students to log in and submit their draft assignments. After a short period (approx. 15 minutes) the students (and tutor) will be able to view the Originality Report based on the student submission. In small group or individual tutorials, discuss with each student their Originality r i R eport and its implications for plagiarism, use of referencing, writing style etc. Request an instructor account from turnitin@oucs.ox.ac.uk Create a class Create an assignment Students login with class ID and password Students submit own assignments Originality Report is generated View and interpret the Originality Report 8
Revision style A tutor may wish to set up the assignment so that students may re-submit after a discussion about their initial Originality Report. In this scenario: 1. When creating the assignment, for the option 'Generate Originality r i i Reports t for student submissions?' specify 'immediately (can override submission reports until due date)'. 2. Students rework their draft assignments and submit a revised version to Turnitin. (Note: Originality Reports for re-submissions take up to 24 hours to be generated). The tutor and students can now view the new Originality r Reports t and the content and referencing styles used in the essay can be discussed again. Student uploads assignment via TurnitinUK Originality Report is generated View and interpret the Originality Report Re-submission (if desired, after guiding discussion) [Option must be selected when creating the assignment to overwrite submissions until due date] Education Committee does not recommend that students be allowed to repeatedly upload assignments and view Originality Reports in this manner. Instead the focus should be on developing students academic literacy and writing skills so that they are able to evaluate their own work without relying on the detection system. 9
5 Using Turnitin as preparation for exams Education Committee asked a small working group to consider whether or not it was appropriate to allow students access to Turnitin to check draft work for a University Examination, at the discretion of the supervisory body. The working group took the view that the use of electronic screening should not be permitted for work that is to be submitted for examination, although an exception may be appropriate in circumstances: Options for examination preparation 2 in courses where you require submission very early in Michaelmas term, especially where little or no opportunity has been provided for students to practise extended writing with proper referencing: this would apply, for example, to some taught MSc courses. International students who have come from a different educational culture may not yet have mastered good referencing and paraphrasing by Michaelmas term. in a course where the frequent occurrence of plagiarism indicated that candidates needed more guidance. In such exceptional cases the supervisory body might agree that all students due to submit work for examination should be allowed to use Turnitin, on one occasion only, to screen a draft of the work that they are preparing for submission in a University examination. This would provide an opportunity for you to support your students in skills of referencing and paraphrasing. Turnitin would therefore be used formatively in this instance. Your student should not be permitted to use Turnitin as a last-minute check on a final version. Where a course involves several pieces of submitted work, the exceptional arrangement should at most be made for the first one or two pieces of assessed work. For each paper where screening of a draft is permitted, the supervisory body should decide whether the student has access to the Originality Report. All of the arrangements would have to be made clear in the course handbook. 2 These recommendations are currently under review, particularly in the light of a policy being developed on feedback to students on Postgraduate taught courses. 10
6 Support and Training Various sources of help and support are available in considering using a software text matching system for both the formative improvement of students academic writing skills and for formal detection of possible occurrences of plagiarism. 6.1. TurnitinUK website Use the TurnitinUK website (http://submit.ac.uk) to activate your instructor account, set up classes and assignments, or use the quick submit t option. The TurnitinUK support site (http://submit.ac.uk click on Support) offers detailed support for instructors and students in the form of Quickstart Guides, User Manuals and Narrated Videos 6.2. Plagiarism Advice website The website www.plagiarismadvice.org offers a wealth of support material, videos and free training webinars on a regular basis, on both pedagogical and technical aspects. 6.3. Supporting academic practice and students writing For information regarding supporting students in acquiring academic writing skills, please contact Oxford Learning Institute: email services@learning.ox.ac.uk. 6.4. Face-to-face sessions OUCS offers a lunch time session once per term called Plagiarism: the use of WebLearn and Turnitin. Book a place at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/ttem (bookings open 30 days in advance of the course, but you can express an interest and you will receive an email when bookings open). 6.5. Further reading C arroll, J. & Appleton, J. (2001). Plagiarism. A good practice guide. JISC. Available at: http://www.plagiarismadvice.org/documents/brookes.pdf Carroll, J. (2002). A handbook for deterring plagiarism in higher education, 2 nd ed. Oxford Brookes University: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. Available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/books/plagiarism.html Carroll, J. and Appleton, J. (2007) Support and guidance for international students: what is good practice? In Jones, E. and Brown, S. (Eds.) Internationalising the University. Routledge. Turnitin Instructor Manual (2010). Copyright 1998 2010. iparadigms, LLC. Available at http://submit.ac.uk/static_jisc/documentation/instructor_manual.pdf 6.6. Online tools There are various online tools which can assist you in discussions with students regarding good practice in citations and avoiding plagiarism: 11
Tutorials for Oxford University users: o Avoiding Plagiarism 1: Good practice in citation and the avoidance of plagiarism online skills course (hosted in WebLearn) - https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/skills/generic/avoidplag o Avoiding Plagiarism 2: PLATO: Plagiarism Teaching Online (hosted in WebLearn) https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/skills/generic/derby WebLearn site devoted to Plagiarism and Turnitin support: https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/info/plagiarism University of Leeds Plagiarism Awareness web site: http://www.ldu.leeds.ac.uk/plagiarism/index.php Guidance in supporting students from different educational cultures or nontraditional backgrounds: see video presentations by Jude Carroll on the WebLearn Plagiarism and Turnitin support site listed above Citation and referencing tools EndNote and RefWorks: Courses for staff and students are run regularly at OUCS. Book a place at: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp 6.7. Glossary (Taken and modified from the Turnitin Instructor Manual, 2010) account - a TurnitinUK account allows instructors to use products purchased from TurnitinUK. administrator the OUCS Help Desk who will set up instructor accounts in response to requests sent to turnitin@oucs.ox.a.uk account ID - the numeric identification number for a specific account or sub-account. assignment - Submissions to a class on TurnitinUK are made to an assignment. Each assignment can allow only a single submission per student user who is enrolled in the class. class - to allow students to submit files, an instructor must create a class for their students. A class requires a name, a class ID, and a class enrollment password. class ID - a unique numeric identification number for a specific class created by an instructor on TurnitinUK. class enrollment password - an instructor-created authorization password for a class on TurnitinUK. Both class ID and enrollment password are required for students who will be self-enrolling in a class. digital receipt - the digital receipt is a confirmation of a successful paper submission to a TurnitinUK assignment. The digital receipt contains the unique paper ID number, user name, submission date and time, class name, assignment title, and a copy of the submitted work. The digital receipt is shown on-screen after submission and a copy is sent by e-mail to the user at the e-mail address provided as the user login name. due date - the due date on a TurnitinUK assignment indicates the date and time of day at which an assignment is due. Submissions after the due date and time may no longer be allowed and will be automatically blocked by the TurnitinUK system. Only the instructor can enable late submissions on an assignment on TurnitinUK. The due date must come after the start date and before the post date during assignment creation. The due date and time may be changed by the instructor at their discretion to meet the needs of a class. 12
enrollment - student users on TurnitinUK must be enrolled in an active class. Student users can be enrolled by an instructor who provides the required information to create a user profile and e-mail the student. Student users can also be authorised to log into TurnitinUK and enroll in a class by use of the numeric class ID and the case sensitive class enrollment password selected by the instructor during class creation. exclude bibliography - the exclude bibliography link is an option on the TurnitinUK Originality Report. Use of this feature automatically excludes information in the bibliography section of a paper. Only an instructor can exclude the bibliography permanently. Student exclusion of the bibliography will revert when the Originality Report view window is closed. This function is an approximation and not all bibliography structures will be correctly removed. Proper usage of bibliographic information can be determined by the class instructor. exclude quoted - the exclude quoted link is an option on the TurnitinUK Originality Report. Use of this feature automatically excludes information from directly quoted areas of the paper. Only the class instructor can exclude the quoted sections permanently. Student use of this feature will revert to normal when the Originality Report view window is closed. This function is an approximation and not all quoted material can be correctly disregarded, particularly if single quotation marks have been used instead of double quotation marks. instructor - the term used for teachers, tutors, or other student-assisting users added or authorised to join as instructors on a specific TurnitinUK account. A single person may be joined to multiple TurnitinUK accounts or sub-accounts using one user profile or separate user profiles. Users may fill more than one user type role on TurnitinUK. Originality Report - the Originality Report is a flexible document that allows students and instructors to review matches between a submitted work and the repositories scanned by TurnitinUK. Citations, quotations, and bibliographic material are all scanned against TurnitinUK s repositories to determine an overall similarity percentage as well as specific matches to similar text. overall similarity index - the overall similarity index is a percentage indicating the similarity of the text submitted to information contained in the TurnitinUK repositories used for comparison on the assignment the submission was made in. This percentage indicates a percentage based on the length of the paper compared to the length of the areas flagged as similar during the comparison. paper - a paper refers to the document or file submitted by a user to an assignment in a class on the TurnitinUK website. paper ID - the paper ID number is a unique identifier that can be used to refer to a specific paper. The paper ID number can be viewed by accessing the paper in the assignment inbox for instructors. The paper ID number is also available on the paper view page and Originality Report. quick submit - The quick submit feature allows instructors to submit papers and receive Originality Reports without creating a class or an assignment. This is ideal for instructors who would like to spot check small numbers of submissions and already have the papers in electronic format. repository - a set of information of a specific type or types. In the specific context of the Originality Report provided by TurnitinUK, repository is used to refer to the type of information the submission was evaluated against for direct matching or high levels of similarity. Available repositories include internet, archived internet, periodical/journal/publication information, and previous submissions. resubmit - the act of submitting a new paper in place of an existing submitted paper. Resubmission can only be done if the instructor has set an assignment to allow students to overwrite until the due date and time of the paper, or if the instructor has manually 13
deleted the student s existing submission in the assignment inbox. This option can only be enabled by the class instructor. similarity index (see also overall similarity index) the score included in the Originality Report, which indicates the percentage of matching text that has been uncovered. The colour of the report icon indicates the overall similarity index of the paper, based on the amount of matching or similar text that was identified. The colour codes range from green (up to 24% matching text) to red (over 74% matching text). submission - a file or files uploaded by a student or instructor user into an assignment within a TurnitinUK class. Only a single file per student user can be submitted to an assignment by a student user. user type - TurnitinUK has three available user types. A single user profile may have access to all three user types to fulfill different functions. The user types are administrator, instructor, and student. 14
7 Links to official documentation If departments or colleges plan to use Turnitin to detect possible plagiarism in examined (summative) work, then advance permission from the Proctors is required. Instructions to students need to be drafted and the draft instructions submitted to the Proctors for approval. Please refer to the following websites for the latest official information and guidelines: 7.1. Education Committee Academic good practice: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/edc/goodpractice/ 7.2. Proctors notices: Use of Turnitin for examinations Essential information for students: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/info/ Examinations: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/examinations/ 15
8 Sources used in this document Fishman, T. (2011). Integrity and incongruity in an increasingly integrated world. Presentation at the fifth one-day event on Institutional Policies and Procedures for Managing Student Plagiarism, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford 9 June 2011. Turnitin Instructor Manual (2010). Copyright 1998 2010. iparadigms, LLC. Available at http://submit.ac.uk/static_jisc/documentation/instructor_manual.pdf University of Oxford. Essential information for students. Available at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/info/ 16