Benefits: Electronic marking using rubrics has been transformative, cutting down my marking time by over 50%, meaning I can now give detailed, equitable, and accessible feedforward and feedback, at maximum marking efficiency. This has greatly improved my students’ writing skills. Although I now use Brightspace for this, Turnitin set me on this path and taught me all the fundamentals. Turnitin’s originality checking has given my students a fuller understanding of plagiarism avoidance and has improved their citing and referencing capabilities. Full integration with Brightspace, and Turnitin’s traffic light coding, gives students quick visual indication for self-evaluation of their writing, and highlights to me which reports I need to investigate further. Turnitin Feedback Studio is easily and reliably accessed from Brightspace; the originality checker is simple to use with menu driven selections, and visually attractive colour coding in addition to clear percentage similarity scores. Drilling down, I can easily see which data has been copied, and where from – inevitably, the majority is from other students in the same class. I rarely use advanced features such as hidden text detection, customised match selection, and filters, but they are useful to have when needed. Since we started using Turnitin, electronic marking, and rubrics, external examiners have commented on the consistency and depth of feedback.

Disadvantages: There aren’t many disadvantages, but one is the limitation on file format which Turnitin can accept. I would like to be able to check the originality of circuit diagrams, block diagrams, pictures, and mathematical models. It would also be really advantageous if Brightspace could import Turnitin rubrics, as Turnitin’s rubric editor has more advanced features than Brightspace’s, and Turnitin’s rubric library contains many useful templates. Of course, this is more a failing of Brightspace than Turnitin. Another disadvantage is that some comparison reports are blocked for data protection purposes. Whilst this is understandable, I feel that the formal process of obtaining permission, from the original writer, to view these reports, is not always appropriate for the amount or level of plagiarism being investigated. Finally, I do find some of Turnitin’s guidance notes hard to find and follow, and the use of some of the advanced features is not intuitive.

Future Work: I am happy to promote the use of Turnitin across the UHI partnership, and to advertise its benefits at all opportunities, as it has made my lecturing role so much easier.

Case Study: Use of Turnitin on BEng Electrical Programmes by Lois Gray This page is part of the collection 'Turnitin'.

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