Turnitin is available for all Granite State College faculty and student use through Moodle. Turnitin assignments can be used in fully online courses, in hybrid courses, and even in face-to-face courses, as every course at Granite State College is provided with a Moodle course shell and instructors are able to submit work to Turnitin on behalf of students.
If you plan on using Turnitin in your course, please be sure to add this notification to your syllabus. |
Turnitin is well known for providing originality checking, matching portions of submitted documents against a repository of previous student work from multiple institutions as well as against publications and the internet.
But Turnitin also provides grading support, implementing ETS “e-Rater” automatic checking for errors in spelling, grammar, and style, as well as instructor-designed rubrics and “QuickMarks,” quick notations that inform students about areas in which their writing can be improved.
Turnitin provides an online interface for grading student work that incorporates these QuickMarks and typed comments directly into the students’ work without requiring the instructor to download the document, insert comments using a word processor, and upload the new, modified document. An iPad app makes these features especially convenient during the grading process.
In addition, instructors can allow students to use Turnitin to check their own work for citation errors and e-Rater feedback before the assignment is graded.
To create a Turnitin Assignment, begin as usual by turning on editing in the course and clicking “Add an activity or resource” in the section of the course where you wish the assignment to appear:
Next, select “Turnitin Assignment 2” from the list.
Note: Turnitin functionality cannot be added to standard Moodle Assignments. You must specifically create a Turnitin Assignment.
Several settings are required in the Turnitin assignment to permit student access to originality and e-Rater reports. To facilitate use of this tool by students, these settings are enabled by default.
- Post Date: The Post Date setting determines when the grade will be displayed within the Moodle Gradebook. By default, the Post Date is set to the same value as the Due Date. The similarity score will show right away (if allowed) but the Turnitin page will not show the grade to students, and Moodle Gradebook will not show grade to student OR instructor until the Post Date passes. To avoid confusion, set the Post Date to one minute after the Start Date. This will automatically display grades within Moodle as soon as the instructor assigns them.
- Report Generation Speed: If you want to allow students to submit their work early and review their own originality reports, set this to “Generate reports immediately, reports can be overwritten until due date.” (This has been configured as the default setting.)
Note: If the student resubmits a draft paper, the Originality Report may note a similarity between the first draft and a previous draft written by the same student. The instructor needs to review the Originality Report to see whether the material matches the student’s own work or another source.
Important: If you intend to have students submit the draft as a separate assignment, do not save the draft to the Standard Repository. You will need to change the Store Student Papers setting to No Repository.
Grademark Options allow you to select a rubric and “e-rater” checking. A rubric is not required, but can help to establish consistent expectations for student work. A general-purpose “Term Paper” rubric is available, or you can create your own using the Rubric Manager.
The e-rater functions are enabled by default, with the “Advanced” (college-level) writing level pre-selected. You can change settings to suit the needs of your assignment. The e-rater feedback is not automatically incorporated into a grade; it is provided as a convenience to students and instructors.
When students submit their work, they will be reminded of the academic honesty policy.
After a short delay for processing, students will be able to view their Originality Score and e-rater feedback (by clicking the document title).
Instructors see a list of submitted documents, and can click each to view the work and complete the grading process.
The grading interface launches into a new tab or window. Initially, the GradeMark pane is shown. If the e-rater features are enabled, there may be a short delay while e-rater input is gathered from ETS, then the e-rater annotations will be displayed in purple. The instructor can add “Quickmark” annotations in blue, or can add individual written comments by selecting text and clicking on the document. All annotations will be visible to the student.
Rubrics can be accessed via the Grademark Sub-Pane selections. Rubrics can be defined to highlight specific expectations for the assignment. Here, a more general “Term Paper” rubric is used.
A grade is calculated based on the rubric, but the instructor chooses whether to apply the rubric as the final grade, or enter a grade manually, in the upper right corner.
The Originality Report can be accessed by clicking the Originality pane selector. Sections of the submitted document are matched against sources. Additional detail can be obtained by clicking each source or by selecting additional detail in the top of the Originality sidebar. Not all matches are necessarily cause for concern; here, a quote is cited and a URL will, by necessity, match its source.
Closing the Turnitin browser window or tab returns the user to Moodle, where the Turnitin results are displayed. The student can then click on the submission to view the results.
Syllabus Notification
If you are using Turnitin in your course, it is required that you include the following statement in your syllabus:
The Use of Turnitin at Granite State College
Granite State College makes use of Turnitin.com, an online service that checks students’ work for improper citation or potential plagiarism by comparing it against the works of others in the Turnitin database as well as online sources. Students taking this course agree that all required work may be submitted to Turnitin and also agree to their terms of use. Works submitted to Turnitin will become source documents in their reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of other students’ work. Students retain copyright of their own work. Turnitin takes extreme measures to protect users’ privacy which can be reviewed in their Privacy Center.