That’s why I found this article on the Purposeful Reading Assignment so cool.  It gives a very simple, easily graded assignment template to help students read difficult texts and come prepared for class discussion.  It can be done online or in face to face classes and asks the students to practice skills in reading, critical thinking, argument, and creativity.

I wish I had this assignment in my teaching toolbox a few years ago!

1. Play, Pause, Rewind: A Hands-On Introduction to Lecture Capture
2. Deep, Dark Secrets of Blackboard
3. Social Media 101
4. Ninja Googling
5. The Technology Horizon Roundtable
6. Copyright and Fair Use
7. Assessing Your Accessibility
8. Are You Up for the Challenge?: Challenge Based Learning
9. Google Drive
10. Interactive Classroom: Smartboards
11. ConnectED – A Conversation About Connected Learning

1.  It saves students a few cents in printing costs and reduces paper consumption in general.
2. I was able to give better feedback faster.  Using the Grademark sets, I was able to quickly drag and drop comments about mechanics.  More importantly, I was able to put plenty of detailed comments in the text, saving the ones that I used over and over again (“Is this your thesis?!” was a common one).  I found that typing comments led to better comments on my part, as opposed to writing things in the margins or at the end.  (Turnitin offers options for placing both in text comments and “whole paper” comments at the end).
3. I can see when or if the student actually looks at my comments.  In the instructor view, I can see when or if a student has opened the paper file with the comments.  This was huge when I did writing conferences for second or third papers and students came to me for help (or to complain about their grade) and hadn’t bothered to check out the comments on the first paper!

Finally, consider using the voice comments.  They are a great way to add presence to an online or hybrid course.  Data indicates students like and respond to them.   And they save you some typing!  Voice comments are now built right into Turnitin, so all you need is a microphone!

We’ll be offering Turinitin workshops all summer, so make sure to register if you’d like to learn more.  The first one is June 10^th at 2:00 pm.

Turnitin needs to be integrated into the course.  Students need to be aware of it, know how it works, and how you are using it. 

Beyond that, I’d also add:

Turnitin can be a powerful teaching tool.

In order to better integrate Turnitin, begin thinking about it when you’re thinking about your syllabus for the next semester.

Here are some guidelines (or at least things to think about) for next semester and Turnitin.

1. Set up Turnitin before you class starts.  This is pretty easy (very easy if you’re using it in Blackboard).  If you’re really ambitious, you can put all your assignments in their as well!
2. Put Turnitin on your syllabus.  You’ll have to do this if you’re using Turnitin outside of Blackboard in order to give the Class ID and Password to your students.  But this is also the initial opportunity to let the students know you’re using the service.  This also gets around any potential FERPA issues associated with using student work in a matter they did not consent to.

Here is some sample syllabus language:

In this class, we will be using Turnitin, a web-based program that checks student papers against an extensive database of websites, submitted papers, and other sources for plagiarism.  You’ll be required to submit all of your essays to Turnitin.

 This would also be a good place to insert your general plagaism policy, as well as any particulars about how you might be using the Originality Report.  If you’re using Turnitin outside of Blacbkboard, you can then give them the class ID and password.  If you’re going to use Turnitin to give feedback and/or grades, let the students know that here as well.

3. Discuss Turnitin and plagiarism in your class early in the semester.  A piece of Turnitin’s effectiveness lies in its capability as a deterrent.  If you help your students understand plagiarism (there are ten kinds, apparently), let them know you’re serious about it, and let them know the consequences for it, that (hopefully) would make them think twice about trying it.  Add to that an explanation about how Turnitin works and the fact that it’s checking their papers against hundreds of thousands of other papers, websites, and journals and you’ve got a powerful deterrent against those who would want to intentionally cheat.

4. Have students submit their own work.  This is mainly a work-saver for you; manually uploading a whole class worth of papers takes a lot of time.  You can distribute that load by just asking students to submit their own work.  You can do this even if you also require students to give you hard copies of the papers.  This also sets up. . .
Consider letting the students see their Originality Reports.  Opinion certainly varies on this one.  Plenty of people don’t want to let the students see the report, arguing that this actually helps students plagiarize or, at best, is confusing.  I am of the opinion however, that Turnitin works best when it’s used as a learning tool, not just as a way to catch students who cheat.  Allowing students to see their Report can become a powerful teaching tool.  It can be used to illustrate  proper ways to paraphrase, for example.

5. Consider letting the students see their Originality Reports.  Opinion certainly varies on this one.  Plenty of people don’t want to let the students see the report, arguing that this actually helps students plagiarize or, at best, is confusing.  I am of the opinion however, that Turnitin works best when it’s used as a learning tool, not just as a way to catch students who cheat.  Allowing students to see their Report can become a powerful teaching tool.  It can be used to illustrate  proper ways to paraphrase, for example.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a few more thoughts about “going paperless” and having your students only submit work through Turnitin.

If you’re asking for a Turnitin account at the end of the semester, you’re doing something wrong.

That statement sounds harsh, I know.  But I really think it’s true.  Approaching Turnitin as an add-on “cheater catcher” at the end of a course is problematic, mainly because it fails to take advantage of what the program can do.  Fully utilizing Turnitin can lead to better feedback for students, less chance of plagiarism or cheating, and less work for faculty.

Over a series of posts, I am going to explore how (and why) to better utilize Turnitin in your course, but most of the advice comes down to the following:

Turnitin needs to be integrated into the course.  Students need to be aware of it, know how it works, and how you are using it. 

Beyond that, I’d also add:

Turnitin can be a powerful teaching tool.

I’ll have some specifics tomorrow.

Summer Book Club Sign-Up

Additional CETL Services